It’s all about the small victories
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Last weekend at The Academy we had a jiu jitsu seminar with internationally-renowned Robert Drysdale. We spent three hours with him, going over some of his favourite techniques, and linking together movements and transitions. I found him really approachable and familiar, in contrast to some of the senior black-belt Brazilians I’ve trained with. He was just a guy that was good at jiu-jitsu, or that’s how he came across.
One of the activities we performed at the end of the seminar was an “in the hole” exercise. For this, we have five people starting “in the hole” on their backs with an opponent in their guard. The guard player has to sweep or submit their opponent, whilst the defender has to pass the guard or back out to win. The winner stays in, either keeping or taking the role as attacker and the loser joins the end of a line, from which new defenders cycle in.
I volunteered to be one of the initial hole dwellers, starting on my back with an opponent in my guard. I tend to like fighting from my back so this is an activity that I quite like. I worked my way through three or four defenders until my instructor, Adam, was in my guard. I figured my run would be up, and didn’t have any expectations of beating him. Similarly, he was aware that Robert was doing the exercise with us too, and everyone was anticipating the match up between the two black belts. I think Adam was a little distracted, and wasn’t as focussed on me as he might ususally be.
This was great for me, because as Adam started to pass my guard, I caught him in half-guard, which is a position I’m not very comfortable in. I find people pass through my guard into half, and then straight through to side control. However this time I locked him down and went for a basic half-guard sweep (reverse the positioning and place Adam on his back with me on top). He regained some balance (he has great balance, as you might expect) but I felt he was committed in one direction, so I swept him the other way.
It was only a minor victory, but in terms of my jiu jitsu journey, it’s a milestone. Sure Adam wasn’t at his peak, and if he was concentrating 100% on me then it might not have worked out. But that wasn’t the case, and I won this encounter, this time.
I think it’s what I really needed to kick-start my 2010 training. I have a goal for this year, and if I can string enough small victories together, then I’ll achieve it.
What are some small victories you’ve had in your life that had significance to you?
Congrats on your jewjits victory – I’d be happy about “winning” any sort of physical encounter with Adam. I guess I had a small victory last night that was actually significant in the bigger picture, for me. I was playing with the puppies in their playpen after we got home when Baroness jumped up on the doggy loo to make use of it, with Snake-Eyes quickly following to do the same thing. Seeing them both doing the right thing at the same time, after all those weeks of training and frustration, definitely felt like a victory to me.
Spending all of last year feeling like nothing I did was right or good enough (in a work sense) and then having another teacher who has 14 years of experience my senior come to me and ask me to sit down during DOTT time to talk to me about what I’m doing in my classroom because when I was talking the other day she thought I sounded like I really had it all together and that she thought she could learn a lot from what I was doing/had planned. I don’t know whether that counts as a legitimate small victory, but to me it was. It was a flattering but a surprise nonetheless.