This weeks homework assignment is more mental than physical. People have many different "styles" of jiujitsu which are mostly tied to their body type and their attitude. Many people pickup nicknames based on those styles, and a lot of them are animal related. Which leads me to this weeks assignment.
What kind of animal is your jiujitsu? Is it otterjitsu where you are laughing and playing on the mats all the time, just looking to roll playfully with everyone all the time? Is it wolfjitsu where you play the long hunt and never let your opponent rest until they are so tired they just give you an arm? Is it bearjitsu where you crush your opponent down and then maul them? What kind of attitude do you approach your jiujitsu with?
I'm a spider monkey. I use my feet as a second pair of hands, I like to play clever tricks on my opponent, and I climb all over them attacking. That trickster mentality is what really affects the way I roll though. I want to deceive my opponent. I want them to think one thing is happening, and then BAM! Something else happens. I live for that surprised look when suddenly they are being choked.
So, figure out what kind of animal your jiujitsu is and then look at how that affects your rolling habits and patterns. Now CHANGE ANIMALS. You're normally a wolf? Be a tiger for a day. The quick spring and savage finish instead of the long steady chase. When you play differently and change gears you'll find that different techniques and strategies start to open up to you. Different ways to play the same game will appear as you adjust your attitude towards the roll.
Also, I'll be in Suwanee, Ga tonight weighing in for US Grappling (At 135.5 lbs for the first time in two years) and I'll be competing tomorrow, so if anyone wants to meet me just look for the guy blue Megalodon Gi tomorrow. I probably won't have time to talk to anyone tonight since I'm on a tight schedule for feeding myself back up after this weight cut, but I'll be absolutely willing to hang out and chat tomorrow if anyone is around.
I think my normal animal is a rhino - charging in. Occasionally it is otterjitsu - especially when I was rolling with DirtyRancher. Oy vey I couldn't stop laughing.
ReplyDeleteWhen I play against the heavy MMA dudes I tend to play turtle or hermit crab - pulling in my body and playing dead. heh
Wish I could do this assignment, but I'm off the mats for a month :(
Can you make a handy homework corner? Like either a tag or a main page that gets updated with the links? that would be sweeet.
I'll get something like that setup today. Maybe another page that has links to all of them. I need to grab the ones I made for Leslie and make posts out of them too.... At somepoint today, I will do that.
ReplyDeleteAlso, multiple animals is a copout. You might adjust your style, but your attitude will remain pretty steady even when you are being turtlish or otterish. If you are really a rhino then your attitude will be rhinoish even when you are having to act like a turtle.
What that means is that you will look for Rhino solutions to things going on during the roll, when you need to be looking for Turtle solutions.
Hmm. Maybe a guinea pig? They're timid, small and like sleeping. I've thought maybe a squirrel in the past, in the terrified-clinging-onto-a-tree sense, but then they are fairly active. ;)
ReplyDeleteI guess a tortoise would be another option: slow, passive, curls up into a tight ball. Or a hedgehog? But that would imply some kind of offence through nasty spikes. I'd have to be a naked hedgehog.
Wow, I do love this homework assignment. My animal is an alligator - mostly slow moving but capable of short, powerful bursts. I'm going to approach my training with a different animal in mind next week...something opposite of an alligator...hmmmm...I will have to mull that one over for minute before I decide. Great idea! :D
ReplyDeleteI liked this so much I'm going to link back to it in my blog if that's okay.
ReplyDeleteFeel free to link back to anything on my site. The point is to help enrich the BJJ community, so everything is fair game as long as you point people back here in some way.
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