Sore knee but valuable lesson
Tonight we studied the knee-ride, which is a nasty move whereby you place your knee on your opponent's sternum and drive your weight through it. From here we learnt a clock choke and two armbars (a near and far, depending on which arm they use to defend the knee).
We rounded out the session with some wrestling, which is usual. I tackled Shane who weighs over 110kg and is taller than me. He's a beginner, and I think he's less technically skilled but unfortunately his strength and weight are overpowering. I gained side control (with me being on top of him) and he attempted a sweep. The sweep damaged the rear of my left knee, and I had difficulty walking after the session.
I remember hearing Adam shouting to Shane to not use his strength, and instead use technique, but he didn't pay attention. It's disappointing and I feel that him powering through the moves did lead to my damaged knee. We'll see tomorrow how bad it is, but the warm water of the shower has helped. Adam said to give him a call if it gets worse tomorrow - I'm sure he's dealt with numerous injuries like this before.
The lesson I learnt though is that using your strength to power through a move is, in my mind, like cheating. If it was a serious competition, or we were on the street then I'd expect my opponent to pull out all the stops, but in training it just causes injuries and doesn't teach you anything. I'll be careful when wrestling smaller people that I don't run them down with my strength advantage.
This sort of injury takes the fun out of martial arts for a few days.
I’ve had a sore right index finger for about 6 weeks. Mark damaged his rock climbing and was told to stay off it for 6 weeks… so if I had done that too I’d be fine now.
Its hard to balance something like that… unfortunately with greater skill you don’t need to use your size/bulk as much to win… but until you have that skill its also very hard to not use it.
I know this is gonna sound lame but its just like in the mixed netball we were playing here in London (bare with me here people). You sometimes end up playing against girls who are damn good at netball, but are like 5 foot. I know one girl was playing the “correct” defence on me and trying to stop me running in the circle to get the ball by moving in front of me and blocking me out. But she was so damn fast and I’m so damn not that I couldn’t move around her (or stop) quick enough and I’d end up almost taking her out and giving her a really bad bump as i passed. She was getting well stroppy but there was nothing I could do. I never intended to use my size to push past but I just didn’t have the skill not to use it. I wanted in the circle, she was in my way, I couldn’t go round due to lack of skill, so my size won. Tough luck little lady :)
That being said - I bet the guy who injured you was a dick - send the boys round to teach him a lesson. Bulk might beat skill, but crowbar always beats bone :)
It’s not so much that he’s a dickhead - I don’t think that at all. It’s disappointing that his use of his bulk, intentionally, ended up hurting me, unintentionally.
If you ran into the chick on purpose, but didn’t mean to hurt her, then that’d be similar.
Those guys rarely progress their skill level enough and eventually wither in the martial arts world (at least one guy like that got kicked out of Progressive Mixed Martial Arts back home) because:
a) they don’t listen. no listen = no learn
b) they will not be able to use their bulk against opponents who are equally weighted or significantly more skilled than them
c) no one will want to train with them or if they are the aforementioned people from point b) it will only be to rough them up and get some amusement back.
Good points Dea. I’ve already seen b) in action.