Does it bother anyone else?

[Apperz]

Today in the gym I was rolling with someone I've never rolled with before. While he wasn't too experienced it was obvious he had training. Now he out weighed me by probably 40-60 pounds, but who doesnt?

My issue is that he was putting his 100% in to this roll like it was the fucking world championship. I go into the gym typically rolling at about 60% even less with white belts, there are only a few guys I'll turn it up with. I like to work on my defense and I really don't want to hurt my teammates. This guy forced me into a position that I don't like to be in having to go a lot harder than I'm comfortable with outside of competition.

Does it bother anyone else when people roll like that?

I don't roll with anyone 15kg heavier than my heaviest weight, typically. I'm about 72/73kg (heaviest 75kg), so to spar someone over 90kg doesn't do either of us any good unless there is a stipulation. Both roll at 70%? And person can be trusted to do that? Yeah - cool. But I won't have a 100% competitive roll with someone I don't know who is that much bigger.

The reason for this is that I almost got my back broken once when I rolled a guy 115kg (that I didn't know). He stood up with me holding guard, span around and began to bend my spine backwards (like the walls of Jericho from WWF!). At that point I realised that if someone that big doesn't have control of themselves they could potentially paralyse me without me being able to do anything about it.

[Isaac Atley]

Whenever we slap hands and fist bump before we roll, this signals to me that I should now begin attempting to submit you with all of the skill and willpower at my disposal. To give you less than 100% is to disrespect you, as if you are undeserving of my full effort. Or, worse, I am making preemptive excuses for myself, legitimizing my future loss to you because it is something that I have accepted as inevitable. If I hold back, the cowardly recesses of my mind will always be able to whisper to me, "pssst, that guy didn't *really* submit you. You could've bested him with that last 20%." The insidious voice of my ego will then pervade my actions, skewing my view of myself and my abilities. Far better to suffer only honesty, and deal with the indignity of loss with the only possible conclusion: that I must improve myself to avoid it. This endless cycle, the confrontation with and honest assessment of my own failure, is what drives me to become the most my potential allows. Every training match IS the world championship; the championship is not won on the day, but in the months, years, and decades beforehand.

With that said, I believe that my mindset was not actually what you are complaining about; I don't think you are annoyed when black belts tool you, for example. You are complaining about the far-too-common spastic white belt who is dangerously flailing his limbs with all his might as if you are threatening the lives of his loved ones. Little skill enters into his combat style. You are likely to get poked in the eye or smashed in the gonads or worse even as you submit him a dozen times in a single match. Now, I am fairly large so I am often able to subdue such an opponent forcibly and in the process gain valuable insight into dealing with the no-technique style of a neophyte. However, I have been faced with larger opponents (300lbs +) who attack with this mindset, so I understand completely. In my opinion, the thing to do is to discreetly speak with the instructor and let him know that Big Jimmy needs to be calmed down. As an instructor, I have spoken with countless novices whom I felt were shortchanging their own learning process by spazzing during every roll. I tell them to calm down, to think about each and every action before doing it, and to only do something if it is a technique they've learned in class. I remind them that tapping out is good, a part of learning, and not to be feared. I tell them that I myself approach every match with 3 to 5 specific techniques that I am attempting to use, and that I will place myself in positions to use them almost exclusively.

You can also send them to roll with an Enforcer (e.g., Adam Sachnov) who can thrash them and then calmly explain all of the above.

I'm not sure I agree with you but just to find out what you mean. from what you said in the first paragraph, do you grab every submission you can, even when rolling with a total beginner? that doesnt sound right sorry and i dont think it is what you mean, but its the way it sounds to me.

and more importantly do you not think that there is a time when rolling without strength can benefit people rather than hinder them? i think marcelo garcia said he often lets people get something on him so he can work on getting out of it. im sure that he wont going 100%

im not having a go at you at all, becuase everything I hear about you on the forum points to you being a god/stand up guy. im just trying to understand what you said better.

[Royce Kim]

[Chris Garry]

Personally it took me a few years to learn to love the intensity. It goes along with what Jean Jacques preaches about being confident in your defence and escape. Once you are comfortable in the most uncomfortable spots you are on the right tracks. Its no overnight thing though, just lots of practice with more experienced training partners.

[Ross Davidson]

Before starting with the Woolsey boys, I was a complete spaz. Sure I knew some techniques, but it was all black and white, and my technical abilities were pretty non existent. I was afraid of tapping and afraid of not getting the tap. Tyler and Brandon then began teaching me to learn to flow, to not concentrate on the submissions too much, and to embrace the tapping out. Once I started to understand what they were selling to me, my jiu jitsu immediately began to take off.

Now, I'm not saying that I'm "good" at jiu jitsu. Still just a white belt. But my understanding of the game is a lot deeper now. I can see what I'm doing wrong (more than I used to), and am even starting to feel what others are doing right. I lost that incessant fear of being tapped, and even taught myself to relish the symbolic death that tapping represents. -- This is huge for me in the long, slow, painful process of taming my ego; which is what we all need, right?

I say all this to mention this next part: I believe there is a difference between hard rolling and rough rolling. I train at two gyms. One is my usual gym run by Marcelo guys, and the other is the MMA gym that we've been having our hot box at. Training at the former, I have no issues rolling hard with guys, and they're all purple belts pretty much (2 brown belts and like 3 blue belts); I get destroyed pretty regularly too. But at the latter, I find it difficult to get proper training in. I can roll hard all I want, but most of those guys there are like I used to be: rough. And I'm a small guy. So in order for me to even handle another white belt properly, I have to be very rough back to them. That's just not how I like to train. I can turn it up in competition, but we're in the gym, bro. No what I mean?

So, in the closing of this ramble, I completely agree, and I'm still just a white belt. I'd rather train hard with a bunch of really good, technical guys, than train with rough guys. It just seems quite unnecessary and counter productive to what The Gentle Art is supposed to be about.

[BJ Searle]

Ross and Amir killing you with words!! Lol, nice boys. Btw I woke up this morning paralyzed from the neck up if you know what I mean.

This is the shit that upsets me, now I'm out of training for a week because some dick couldn't control himself

[Amir Allam]

I'm not sure I agree with you but just to find out what you mean. from what you said in the first paragraph, do you grab every submission you can, even when rolling with a total beginner? that doesnt sound right sorry and i dont think it is what you mean, but its the way it sounds to me.

and more importantly do you not think that there is a time when rolling without strength can benefit people rather than hinder them? i think marcelo garcia said he often lets people get something on him so he can work on getting out of it. im sure that he wont going 100%

im not having a go at you at all, becuase everything I hear about you on the forum points to you being a god/stand up guy. im just trying to understand what you said better.

Let me attempt to respond to you with a story. (Everyone likes stories!)

Not so very long ago, I stepped onto Eddie Bravo's mats at Legends MMA as a wee white belt, happy as a clam to be engaged in an activity both physically and mentally stimulating. I had wrestled, and Eddie didn't have any policies about new people live rolling back then, so I started sparring immediately from my very first class (generally inadvisable, btw). Combining the techniques we'd covered with my wrestling skills into some hideous bastard pidgin grappling language, I attempted some moves on my training partners; mostly they failed, but occasionally succeeded. After a few rolls, I had tapped less than a handful of times and this tiny idiot voice in my head told me, "Hey, you must be a natural at this jiujitsu stuff! Experienced people were barely able to do much to you! And you were able to do things!" For about 6 weeks or so, that was how it went. I'd try a slow, sloppy flyover pass or use a rubber guard looser than Jenna Jameson, and I might sweep a blue or purple belt! Awesome!

Then one day Matt Horwich came in and asked me to roll; he was a blue belt and had been knocking people out in the IFL. We slapped hands and fist bumped and then I grabbed a single leg; he grabbed a guillotine and I tapped out. This sequence of events took about 1 second, literally less time than it takes to read the sentence describing them. "Nice!" I thought, "I'll have to watch out for that tricky guillotine." I pulled guard and he immediately passed and guillotined me again. And then again. And then again. And then he armbarred me. And then he kimura'ed me. And on and on. It was effortless, fluid, graceful as ballet, spiritual even. I felt like a 3-year-old getting his clothes put on by his parents. I felt like a cod fillet being flopped around in breading and then deep fried. My own pitiful floundering served solely to provide some colour and flavour to the methods of my destruction. We rolled for probably 5 minutes, and he tapped me at least 15 times; 8 of these were guillotines (I specifically remember this number). Awestruck, I profusely thanked this grappling demigod for deigning to descend from the clouds and allowing me the honor of tapping his arm as he choked me.

I then sat out the rest of the night and watched him intently in his next rolls against my usual training partners; I hoped to gain some understanding of the game. He did alright. He got a few subs, but was subbed more. Against the purple belts, he was bested convincingly. This thoroughly confused me. How could he destroy me effortlessly and then be beaten by people I was competitive with?

So that's when I realized that everyone had been taking it easy on me. It was like waking up from the Matrix; everything I had known about jiujitsu had been a lie. I sat there, stunned, on a disused punching bag in a sweaty gym, mentally replaying my matches of the past 6 weeks. Virtually every pass and sweep had been an allowance by my training partners. Looking at the details, I realized that it was obvious that the poor mechanics of my "known" techniques simply couldn't be effective. Up until that point, I had been complacently learning a silly pretend grappling.

Having my ass kicked by Matt Horwich (thanks) marked the beginning of my first leap forward in the sport, and I can mark many other such notable times. Ricco Rodriguez used to show up and tap me (thanks) with just a claustrophobia-inducing control. Brent Littell would literally chuckle out loud (thanks) as he shrugged off my pitiful D'arce and rear-naked choke attempts. Einstein, 100 lbs smaller than me, would dance past my "guard" and freedom rock on my neck so bad that my Adam's apple would hurt for a week. And I still have nightmares about the first time Josh Barnett suplexed me (thanks?). By now probably hundreds of people have whipped my ass, providing me mental footage to review and improve upon.

Alright, I'm done spewing that severely long story, but hopefully it sheds some light on the genesis of my mentality. To respond to you directly, I will say that a 'total beginner' shouldn't spar at all; Einstein generally makes newbs watch on the sidelines for a month before allowing them real sparring. Do I grab every submission that I can? No, I mentioned that I approach every match with 3-5 moves that I will use; I place myself in position to use them. If I'm working on the Heisman, I pull side control. If I'm working on turtle guard, I'll give up my back. Since I don't care about points, this is something I could do in an actual tournament as well. If I'm rolling against a white belt I will change moves after I use the same one a few times, but I will still have specific targets. Whether I'm rolling against a 250lb brown belt or a 150lb white belt, I will focus on perfect execution of the technique and I will apply enough force to accomplish this. In general, I believe that injury does not come from strength and size; injury comes from incorrect form.

Rolling without strength is extremely valuable, but I call this drilling and see it as quite a separate beast from sparring. The S training described in the above video (nice post, Royce) is awesome and can certainly help your game, but of course not as a whole-hog substitute for actual sparring. There are many components required to construct your technique. You need to learn from a good instructor, watch footage on youtube, read books, warm up properly, drill, flow with your friends, think about and dissect matches you've had in the past. And you need to roll for real.

[VJ Bella]

We have a rule at our gym... If you start the match standing up then your looking for a competition style match. If you start the match on your knees it's normal training (so not 100 but closer to 60-70). This way at the start of every match if your partner stands up you know what's coming.

[Paul.Hannan]

People can spar as hard as they want with me and it's all good, but what really pisses me off is the win at any cost guy, even if that means exploding into the more dangerous subs, such as heel hooks and neck cranks. Every gym should have a jazz cigarette behind a class screen that you smash in case of serious ego: "Man, you just rape choked that new white belt girl to sleep, do everyone a favour and go smoke the emergency heefer!"

[Apperz]

We have a rule at our gym... If you start the match standing up then your looking for a competition style match. If you start the match on your knees it's normal training (so not 100 but closer to 60-70). This way at the start of every match if your partner stands up you know what's coming.

I like this rule.