Getting through that grappling slump

I've gone through this several times....once for a few months. I took 3 weeks off and literally didn't do any exercise and came back and it was gone....i was back to normal. One thing i noticed is when im working on too many techniques at once my body and mind simply cant keep up. When i go into a slump now I just throw out all the new shit and go back to my A game for a week or so just to clear my mind and Im usually ok. Its just part of the game but it can be extremely frustrating.

When that happened to me last time, I started to work on one particular position and some subs from that position. (Knee on Belly) I worked on it for a couple weeks, never mastered it, but that was all I tried to get for a couple weeks. After a while the rest of my game just started to flow into that KoB game naturally, but using that position as a main one was totally fresh for me, and my training partners as well.
It helped me break through my stale game. Unfortunately I have kind of returned to my old game since then, so thanks for the reminder!

I usually find myself doing that when i'm hunting for submissions instead of working on positioning

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Originally Posted by John Mejia

Vary your game. If you've been playing the same thing over and over again, it'll start to get stale. Let that be your go to in Comp. Start building the framework for other chains of submissions/paths off your favorite subs. I get asked all the time how many darce's I hit in the gym, The truth is it's probably the lowest % sub in my repertoire.
But now, I've spent the last couple months really getting put in deep submissions, and trying to get out. Some days I don't get tapped others I get tapped more than Gene Kelly's shoes. If you go into the room with an attitude that your goal is to work XYZ Path, then work that path. It's gonna get shutdown the first 9 times but may work the 10th. Always come with a game plan, people keep journals and stuff for subs, flows, etc, if that helps you do it. Personally, I just jot down the things I want to work on in Live sparring on my phone and do it for a week, if I didn't have any success, back at it the next week, and so on and so forth. Obviously you don't want to get hung up on a position for months, but you'd be surprised how quickly you can add something to game like that. (IMO)

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This

So much good advice. Keep showing up and try changing things up a bit are both good pieces of advice that have worked well for me in the past.
The other thing is: consider that maybe it's not so much (or just) you but the other guy(s) that are peaking when you're in a bit of a valley. There's one or two guys at the gym that are my regular go-to training partners when I want to see where I'm at - sometimes I'm the hammer but sometimes I'm the nail. And sometimes we just stalemate each other. That's just how it goes sometimes.