- Joined
- Jan 29, 2018
- Messages
- 586
- Reaction score
- 31
You can still make progress but you have to put deliberate about your practice.
With guys better than you, you can get better on an almost subconscious level; you are clearly getting beat in some way (passed, submitted, escaped) so it's easy to pinpoint what your bad at. Even if you're not aware of it, your body is slowly making microadjustments to counter your opponent.
With people worse than you, if you're not careful, you can actually get worse. Generally speaking, don't use your A game on them. If you're a purple belt, don't use your purple belt level armbar on a white belt; use a technique you are a white belt at, like that pass you suck at.
More important than this, however, is that you treat the roll basically like active drilling and do the technique as many times as possible. If you're working a sub, do the sub, but only that sub. I'm going to contradict myself a little but use your A game to get yourself in a position to practice your "white belt game" as quickly as possible. Get that pass your working on, then let them reset. Sometimes people don't want to feel like they are being "given" things so just submit them quickly. And do the pass again. And again. And again.
The best part is this is actually the optimal use of sparring time for both of you. White Belt Jimmy learns nothing from getting tooled up a thousand different ways. You gain nothing from stuntin on WBJ either.
You essentially drilling the move over and over not only gets you better at the move, it lets WBJ see the move multiple times too. His defense will improve organically which will force your offense to improve organically - it's a positive feedback loop of mutual benefit. Even if WBJ's defense doesn't improve, you teaching him the defense will stick better with him now that he's seen it a bunch of times.
You'll both walk away having learned something.
With guys better than you, you can get better on an almost subconscious level; you are clearly getting beat in some way (passed, submitted, escaped) so it's easy to pinpoint what your bad at. Even if you're not aware of it, your body is slowly making microadjustments to counter your opponent.
With people worse than you, if you're not careful, you can actually get worse. Generally speaking, don't use your A game on them. If you're a purple belt, don't use your purple belt level armbar on a white belt; use a technique you are a white belt at, like that pass you suck at.
More important than this, however, is that you treat the roll basically like active drilling and do the technique as many times as possible. If you're working a sub, do the sub, but only that sub. I'm going to contradict myself a little but use your A game to get yourself in a position to practice your "white belt game" as quickly as possible. Get that pass your working on, then let them reset. Sometimes people don't want to feel like they are being "given" things so just submit them quickly. And do the pass again. And again. And again.
The best part is this is actually the optimal use of sparring time for both of you. White Belt Jimmy learns nothing from getting tooled up a thousand different ways. You gain nothing from stuntin on WBJ either.
You essentially drilling the move over and over not only gets you better at the move, it lets WBJ see the move multiple times too. His defense will improve organically which will force your offense to improve organically - it's a positive feedback loop of mutual benefit. Even if WBJ's defense doesn't improve, you teaching him the defense will stick better with him now that he's seen it a bunch of times.
You'll both walk away having learned something.
