Does it bother anyone else?

[BJ Searle]

Don't waste my time. I will smash your face if you do. I will get in mount and make you hate your life.

I go 100% all the time. I actually warn my teammates on days when I'm not feeling it. "hey, I'm not feeling it today, but I'm still gonna give it everything I got." Otherwise they know what's up. Yes, there is a difference in rough and hard...I like to be in the "miserable" category. I'm one of the smallest on the team and a woman so I feel like I can pretty much go how I want. I generally don't roll with new guys for two weeks. I don't want to scare them or make them leave. But first roll, bet I'm gonna smash them. I'm not gonna waste their time. I don't want them to waste mine, so let's go. If I'm not feeling like rolling with so n so one day bc he's 270lbs and my feet get stuck in his shirt and I'm tired...ok. Also, never go inverted on new people. Bad idea. They just try to jump on you..and they have no base. Don't do it. Y'all need to be putting the smash on people. Show them tips after you roll with them. Amaze them with your smash power...while rolling I compete all the time though. Average weight I compete against is 160..I'm 119...yea so....the more aggressive the better. It only makes me better and stronger, even if it pisses me off during the roll. But seriously, don't always let these spazzy white belts work, they're spazzy...SMASH THEM...PRESSUREEEEE. They will think you're not good sometimes too..esp the ego crazy ones.

This is all in my honest opinion. Bluntly..

Tori hit it right on the head. The first time I roll with you I'm going to smash you, after that it's your decision how the roll is going to go. Eddie covered this in the last EBR he said even as a black belt he won't roll with people that have a huge weight advantage on him because the risk of injury is just too high. I think I'm gonna take the masters advice on this one especially since I just found out that I have 2 degenerating discs in my neck. Super awesome right?

[Chris Ludington]

When rolling with white belts I give what I get. If they are genuinely trying to work on something they learned in class (guard passing mostly) I will put myself in a position to allow them to work. I feel as a sparring partner it is as much my job to help my teammates learn as it is to learn. If I get a spaz, I step it up and go ahead and take their soul. But I don't feel white belts need to be "broken" in order to become better grapplers.
I reserve the right to "go hard" with teammates that are evenly matched or better than me.

For the record, I never go light enough with a white belt that I put myself in a compromising position. In direct reference to Amir's story, I don't want them to get the false sense that

1. I'm not as good as my rank says I am.
2. They are better than their rank says they are.

[Mike Nall]

Being new to 10P but an old school shoot style wrestler, I have seen a fair amount of posturing in many gyms/dojos. At this point in my life at 40, I have no interest in competing but more learning the techniques that are unique to 10P. Getting crushed by someone far more advanced teaches me nothing other than whoever I am rolling with doesn't want to get tapped by a "new" guy. The more videos I watch of vastly far more experienced people, the more of a fan I become of the "slow" roll. Again, I think it is different for every individual in what they are wanting to accomplish by either competing or just training to learn technique. If you want to compete, then you need to roll at 100% or close.

Today's game is a lot more gentlemanly than 10+ years ago. "Tap or snap" was something I have seen personally a number of times in gyms usually given by a far more advanced trainer because the new tough guy didn't tap to a veteran. Met a guy from the New Japan Dojo in 2000 who used to come to the US every year just to train around the country. He got his ankle snapped by Sakuraba the first time he rolled with him because he didn't tap from an ankle lock. He returned the favor to a student at Dean Malenko's school who refused to tap to a choke & Dean had to revive him. That's just the way it was then especially to the veterans. I saw and heard enough stories like this early on to know there is no call for being a tough guy in the gym or you might end up paying for it. Even Hulk Hogan got his ankle snapped the first day he walked into Hiro Matsuda's school by Hiro himself.

If you want to compete roll as such with like minded folks, no need for that if you just want to learn technique in my opinion.

Dean Malenko trains for real, like Catch/Shooto?

Doesn't surprise me, but cool to know. I cosign on things being more gentleman-like now. I didn't seriously start training until 06/07 but in the early 00's I trained a few times with Rutten, Paulson, and the rolling was fairly violent honestly.

[Craig Rice]

Dean took over his father Boris' school when he couldn't run it physically anymore before he passed. Dean is/was a real deal shooter & trained students for work & shoot style back in the day.

[Adam1987]

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?

You can't expect people to train the same way as you do just because it suits how you like to train.
He could be complaining to his friends about how he hates when he goes to training and he gets stuck with light dudes who only put in 50%.

You should, IMO, be looking to adapt your game to everyone that you spar with. Otherwise you only become comfortable with sparing against people who go light.

[John Wilcken]

Beautiful writing! Read again!

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.