My wife and I were recapping the last few classes one evening. Every now and then, we’ll get into pretty hearty conversations about Jiu-Jitsu, specifically what we’re feeling or thinking in regard to our own journeys. Recently, my wife had been complaining about feeling foggy headed. Her focus was off and she just wasn’t able to retain things. Even conversations we’d been having recently, she seems to have no recollection of.
She brought this up by asking if we could review the moves from this last week because she complained just about nothing stuck with her. But then she said something I found to be quite insightful. In the midst of her not being able to concentrate in class, she said she had been having some really good rolls lately. She talked about how she was instinctively doing things to defend, and just overall felt more fluid and flowy. She said she had been so foggy headed lately, that she couldn’t overthink her Jiu-Jitsu.
I thought that was interesting. That for someone who typically overthinks, it took being foggy headed in order to break out of that. I mean, I hope it breaks her out of it. I too fall victim of overthinking. I find myself stalling rather often, trying to think my way out of a situation. Sometimes it works. I can visualize the problem and solution, and then execute. Sometimes it doesn’t, the hesitation allows my opponent to get two steps ahead of me, rather than just the one. Now I have to play catch up, which typically leads to more thinking.
I began to think, how can we roll like we’re foggy headed, but with a clear and open state of mind?
How can we roll with less thinking? How to you develop the skill to roll instinctively?
I started considering some of the drills we were doing for a while at our academy. They were these flow drills. They were these situational drills, where instead of drilling one move, it would be a chain of them, with specific reactions from your partner. They would start in a position, go through various sweeps, escapes and transitions, including defended submission attempts, and would ultimately end the driller in a dominant position and submission.
So why do I bring these up? I thought they were great for beginners, including myself at the time, and even now, to learn how all these things we are learning go together. I think they also started to get you thinking instinctively, for a beginner. It created a “if… then…” reaction to certain things. For example, “if they stand up in my guard, then I will do the waiter sweep.”
Now, as we progress, this obviously cannot be the solution. You are not going to get very far if you only have one answer to a few problems, but it is something to build off of. It lays the foundation. So, as you advance and you can see how it all flows together better, your “if… then…” becomes “if… then my options are…” Again, for example, “if they stand up in my guard, then I can do the waiter sweep, enter into De la Riva, or transition to single leg X,” and we continue to build on that foundation.
What these drills also did was give you a progression. It gave you a route. I think what can happen to a lot of people is that they think and work so hard to do something, let’s say, pass someone’s guard, that once they finish the pass into side control, they now have a new problem to address. Working these flow drills, you have that same reaction as before. You already have a game plan going into side control. Again, it’s a foundation to build upon, but it’s already there.
Something I find myself doing is getting into a position, and then trying to dust off the rolodex of options I’ve been taught or seen over the years. I get caught up trying to recall something we did a year and a half ago and I haven’t touched since, especially if I end up I the position we are currently working on. There’s a good feeling in hitting the move of the day, but the problem is everyone is watching out for it.
Because of this, I started limiting my options. I set mini-goals or things I want to focus on. For the most part, I keep these pretty well. They may be things like only submitting from mount or back, do not play close guard, no other submissions until I get x-y-z, or find a Kimura for control or submission at least once per roll.
What I’ve noticed is that doing these small goals or focus points helps me to hone in my game. It helps me work on and figure out what works for me, what techniques I struggle with, and what my go-to moves are or should be. It also helps with my vision. Not the eyesight vision, but Jiu-Jitsu vision- being able to visualize what’s happening to progress through the roll. It helps me to see things that I couldn’t before (i.e. searching for a particular submission, sweep, or control point). I think it helps develop that see/feel and respond reaction rather than see/feel, process/think then act.
Hopefully thinking through this will help me… help us, to stop overthinking while rolling.
Thanks for reading.