A round without techniques

[skribs]

Had a very interesting roll the other day with one of the brown belts at my gym. It was a round with basically no techniques. We start, he pulls guard. From there, it's a grip-fighting chess match in open guard. I'm fighting to get my knees past his, he's fighting to get an underhook. That's it. From the outside looking in, it probably would've been a boring round to watch. There was virtually no movement, virtually no technique. But to me, it was a chess match. A game of inches. Can I get my knees past his, so my knees are more engaged in the fight? Can I establish dominant grips to keep him from setting a triangle choke or taking my back?

In the end, I passed his guard, not through any specific guard pass, but because I'd won the game of inches and I had enough pressure on his legs I simply had to take the position that I had rightfully earned. Although I left my arm open so he immediately caught me in a kimura and submitted me from bottom side control.

 

[Cynik75]

This is always a problem for the referee at competitions: are the players passive? On the one hand, nothing is happening, on the other, there is a fierce struggle to move the elbow two centimeters.

 

[Buka]

I like drills like this. Plus, they’re kind of fun and break things up.

We used to do striking drills with this method, too. They helped polish the small details.

 

[drop bear]

 

[skribs]

To be clear: this wasn't a drill or a game. This was a normal roll that turned into this.

 

[Simfers]

It's always sorta weird when those happen. On the one hand, I'm happy I hand fought correctly for an extended time, on the other, it feels like nothing really happened, y'know? Almost like a wasted round somehow.

 

[HighKick]

Had a very interesting roll the other day with one of the brown belts at my gym. It was a round with basically no techniques. We start, he pulls guard. From there, it's a grip-fighting chess match in open guard. I'm fighting to get my knees past his, he's fighting to get an underhook. That's it. From the outside looking in, it probably would've been a boring round to watch. There was virtually no movement, virtually no technique. But to me, it was a chess match. A game of inches. Can I get my knees past his, so my knees are more engaged in the fight? Can I establish dominant grips to keep him from setting a triangle choke or taking my back?

In the end, I passed his guard, not through any specific guard pass, but because I'd won the game of inches and I had enough pressure on his legs I simply had to take the position that I had rightfully earned. Although I left my arm open so he immediately caught me in a kimura and submitted me from bottom side control.

Sooo, Roman Greco wrestling?

 

[Tony Dismukes]

As you progress in skill, you'll encounter more and more rounds like this.

The moves we normally think of as "techniques" in grappling - throws, sweeps, submissions, passes, etc - primarily work because you've won some sort of advantage in grips, posture, structure, space, angles, etc. Once both parties realize that, most of the work goes into fighting for those advantages. If neither are immediately able to win some sort of advantage in grips, posture, structure, space or angles, then they'll keep on with that battle rather than trying to jump directly into a full blown "technique".

Of course, all the grip fighting, small shifts in angle and posture, etc are legitimate techniques in their own right. We don't typically give them names and they're not so visible to the untrained eye. But they're just as important as the big "named" techniques.

You can have rounds like the one you describe which just naturally end up entirely (or mostly) occupied by these early micro-battles. But you can also set them up as deliberate exercises. For example, in the class I taught a couple of days ago I had my students doing wrestling takedown rounds with no takedowns allowed. The goal was to win and maintain some sort of advantageous control position (inside body lock, rear body lock, two-on-one, collar ties, wrist control, superior head position, front head lock, etc, etc) where you would have a clear path to enter for some sort of throw or takedown. If you achieved such a advantage, your partner would try to fight out of the disadvantaged position and get their own superior grips and you would try to flow into a new advantageous position.

I think there's a lot of value to sometimes doing this deliberately.

 

[skribs]

As you progress in skill, you'll encounter more and more rounds like this.

The moves we normally think of as "techniques" in grappling - throws, sweeps, submissions, passes, etc - primarily work because you've won some sort of advantage in grips, posture, structure, space, angles, etc. Once both parties realize that, most of the work goes into fighting for those advantages. If neither are immediately able to win some sort of advantage in grips, posture, structure, space or angles, then they'll keep on with that battle rather than trying to jump directly into a full blown "technique".

Of course, all the grip fighting, small shifts in angle and posture, etc are legitimate techniques in their own right. We don't typically give them names and they're not so visible to the untrained eye. But they're just as important as the big "named" techniques.

You can have rounds like the one you describe which just naturally end up entirely (or mostly) occupied by these early micro-battles. But you can also set them up as deliberate exercises. For example, in the class I taught a couple of days ago I had my students doing wrestling takedown rounds with no takedowns allowed. The goal was to win and maintain some sort of advantageous control position (inside body lock, rear body lock, two-on-one, collar ties, wrist control, superior head position, front head lock, etc, etc) where you would have a clear path to enter for some sort of throw or takedown. If you achieved such a advantage, your partner would try to fight out of the disadvantaged position and get their own superior grips and you would try to flow into a new advantageous position.

I think there's a lot of value to sometimes doing this deliberately.

Are there ways to reset this, i.e. through explosive effort?

One thing that I think is lacking from my game in general is strength, but also the willingness to explode. I know that one strategy in a dominant position is to cook the person in the bottom position, so when I get stuck I tend to simmer instead of trying to explode. I'm not confident in my ability to escape, so I reserve my energy for when I think I can (and then I just don't and end up cooked anyway).