Back Attack!
After a week off, I indulged myself in vacation and treated myself to epicurean delights while I was in Vancouver. But that was a vacation and this break helped me heal a few sore spots on my body like my knee and ankle.
But of course no training means going through what my friend termed as “food depression”, haha. It’s true, constantly eating over your daily caloric intake makes you feel sluggish, which is your body’s way of communicating “enough! Time for jiu-jitsu!”.
So the point of this post is my thoughts on a proper way of weaning back into training, at least from my personal experience. A simple method is to take it lightly and have a week of light weight training, light sparring, or simply attending techniques class. But after having seen the recent Gracie Breakdown on Ryron vs. Galvao and after having revisited my Jiu-jitsu university book (by Saulo Ribeiro), I figured that coming back from a long lay-off or one where I ate half of the ocean is to train like a white belt.
Well I should clarify this. I should train like a white belt who’s trained past the pain stages and found their learning stride. This usually happens a few months after newbies sign up, burned themselves out on the mats, and have been tapped out several times, until they realize this fundamental progression in Jiu-Jitsu:
Survive-Defend-Escape-Position-Control-Submission.
My learning mindset as a white belt accelerated when I eliminated the expectations of winning on the mat. I accepted that I was going to get tapped out, dominated, and have my guard passed given that nearly everyone in the school was at a higher level than I was. This gave me the simple and fun task of trying to survive. The first chapter in Saulo’s book taught me a lot in survival positions.
Personally, I found that it’s a great way of easing back into training especially during sparring. Of course someone can oblige you with a light roll, but when all you have are guys eager to give a good smashing, why not let them have at it? Seems crazy, but if your game is built on the concept of being efficient (as the Ryron and Rener pointed out) the process of defending isn’t as taxing as the process of defending and attacking. In offense the importance of dominance is maintaining control and creating opportunities while in defense the importance of survival is keeping a lot of doors closed (not giving any opportunities) and keeping a calm state.
So for the next week I’m going to have some fun being a thorn on everyone’s side by simply working on my survival positions. I might even throw a few escapes here and there.
