Working on control and dominance

In the past few months, my game has been completely revolutionized, in terms of flow, ability to apply a high level of resistance while maintaining flow and focus without becoming too rigid and jerky, getting top position and passing, and also just being able to be calm and focused while working escapes. My submissions still suck though, unless I'm rolling with white belts; then my finish percentages go up quite a bit.

This progress, and stagnation, has made me start thinking about my game and how to get better. So while thinking about where and how to improve, the main thing that came to mind was improving my submissions. But after focusing on those too much, and eating some really shitty tasting humble pie because of it, the answer seems to not be focusing on "getting the kill" so much; although that is the ultimate goal I suppose.

It seems that much of the time, if I'm able to pass or gain a dominant position (rubber guard, prison guard, etc), instead of controlling and dominating my way into a submission, I rush it. Against the higher belts, I get thrown off easily. Against the blues and good white belts, many times I'll get to a really great dead zone control, but end up giving up my dominant position, which exhausts me, and if I'm not careful, grinds down on my mental focus and toughness for that session.

Perhaps this is just me vocalizing (textualizing) my thoughts as to where I'm at in my journey, but I do genuinely want to get better. So please drop some knowledge on me!

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Originally Posted by Ross Davidson

In the past few months, my game has been completely revolutionized, in terms of flow, ability to apply a high level of resistance while maintaining flow and focus without becoming too rigid and jerky, getting top position and passing, and also just being able to be calm and focused while working escapes. My submissions still suck though, unless I'm rolling with white belts; then my finish percentages go up quite a bit.

This progress, and stagnation, has made me start thinking about my game and how to get better. So while thinking about where and how to improve, the main thing that came to mind was improving my submissions. But after focusing on those too much, and eating some really shitty tasting humble pie because of it, the answer seems to not be focusing on "getting the kill" so much; although that is the ultimate goal I suppose.

It seems that much of the time, if I'm able to pass or gain a dominant position (rubber guard, prison guard, etc), instead of controlling and dominating my way into a submission, I rush it. Against the higher belts, I get thrown off easily. Against the blues and good white belts, many times I'll get to a really great dead zone control, but end up giving up my dominant position, which exhausts me, and if I'm not careful, grinds down on my mental focus and toughness for that session.

Perhaps this is just me vocalizing (textualizing) my thoughts as to where I'm at in my journey, but I do genuinely want to get better. So please drop some knowledge on me!

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Keep training. Keep learning. Keep evolving.

I definitely hope I continue down this path, Brent!

I'd say don't worry about it too much! Learn to relax in training and get comfortable defending yourself and learning to change the positions. The kills will come naturally. That's what I try to do at least.

I'm of the opinion (only white belt mind!) that with NoGi you need to keep all your positions super extra tight and controlled, ESPECIALLY when on top because of how less tight it is than say Gi grappling and how people can much more readily escape with the extra sweat and less friction going on there so my opinion is keep EXTRA right with control and setting up submissions, far too many people I've seen seem to rush submissions and control and end up fucking up everything, don't need to go full speed and start scrambling against people, start slowing the game down and implement your own game

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Originally Posted by Brandon Mccaghren

I'd say don't worry about it too much! Learn to relax in training and get comfortable defending yourself and learning to change the positions. The kills will come naturally. That's what I try to do at least.

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Aye, Cap'n

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Originally Posted by Paul McKeown

I'm of the opinion (only white belt mind!) that with NoGi you need to keep all your positions super extra tight and controlled, ESPECIALLY when on top because of how less tight it is than say Gi grappling and how people can much more readily escape with the extra sweat and less friction going on there so my opinion is keep EXTRA right with control and setting up submissions, far too many people I've seen seem to rush submissions and control and end up fucking up everything, don't need to go full speed and start scrambling against people, start slowing the game down and implement your own game

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I'm leaning towards this train of thought. My mantra for the past few hours has been "Control and dominate. Don't even worry about the tap. Control and dominate."

Step one is to roll without fear or judgement of yourself. As the others said, just keep training and having fun!

Have fun! Stay safe and don't hurt yourself or your partners. And it's all good from there :)

Would love to see some of your competition vids. Post some for us??

I've only competed thrice and only have footage of my second comp. I've been pretty limited financially so I've been missing out on competitions, which sucks because I've noticed significant improvements in my game after each comp, even the ones that I've done shitty in (1 & 3; right Bmac?!)

Naga Feb 2014 NoGi Loss: http://youtu.be/XFyR_DMi5js -- lost but was still a pretty decent match for only my second time competing. My lockdown game has gotten way tighter since this. I've also learned not to give any space if I'm going to transition to an arm bar from back control -_-

Naga 2014 Gi Semi Finals Win: http://youtu.be/JZlOCX9NZO4 -- basically just a guard passing performance with a couple kimura set ups that could've been a lot tighter. Got me silver.

Naga Feb 2014 Finals - Damn Gi Grips: http://youtu.be/2y963_b7PzE -- and this was me getting frustrated and controlled by the gi grips. Literally like less than 10 times using a gi