Blind Improvement

Lately I can feel my Jiu Jitsu skills improving and have been told as such by several of the higher level belts, though I'm not exactly sure in which ways I've improved. I've called this "Blind Improvement" for that reason. I feel like everything has improved overall; rolling and learning techniques just seem to make more sense to me and feel completely natural. I've been doing things that I haven't specifically been taught, such as framing in certain ways to defend attacks, or escaping them completely.

I was rolling with one of the purple belts a few weeks ago, Carl, who said it always surprises him how much I've improved every time we roll. He had me in a position to apply an omoplate techniques, and was transitioning it into a knee bar. Somehow I immediately felt it coming on and escaped it. He asked me afterward if I was familiar with the technique, or learned the escape before, and I said "no", I just did what came natural.

Another club member with a purple belt also made the comment that I was improving really well and said that if I closed a few gaps in my game, I'd go from being a slightly dangerous competitor, to a very dangerous one. I also had my second in house competition match that day against the other Mike who outweighs me by at least 90lbs. Stefan said I had done really well against him and I was making him really work for his submission attempts. Even one of the brown belt students/instructors made the comment "you're getting good", which was an awesome compliment to receive!

It took me by a bit of surprise that they were complimenting in this manner; I'm just me and try to train as well as I can. I've been taking videos of my competition matches lately and have reviewed them a few times. I've found it helpful in seeing what I'm doing well and where I can make improvements.

Praise is awesome and always welcome but it's important I don't let it go to my head and maintain my humble attitude and keep focused. As mentioned in my friend Robert Barker's blog post 'Inside The Jiu Jitsu Mind: Ego', "Remember what it is to be the nail. It's good for you." Sometimes you dominate, and sometimes you get your ass handed to you. His full blog post can be read here:

http://pandasodyssey.blogspot.ca/2015/07/inside-jiu-jitsu-mind-ego.html

On the Japanese side of things, I've been working hard to obtain my Yellow belt and passed the test last night:

Otherwise my conditioning has been going really well and I've kept my nutrition in check, for the most part (minus a few junk food binges here and there). I've been maintaining a comfortable weight of around 160lbs., and am eager to compete again in the fall.

Stay tuned!