On Monday, while rolling with one of my training partners, he told me I had a submission available from the position I was in. He even stopped mid-roll to point out the opening for me. Keep in mind, I’m just a white belt with limited experience, so there are many things I don’t “see” yet.
Speaking of white belts, this reminded me of a rookie mistake I made my first couple of weeks back. I totally forgot my white belt after class and it vanished into thin air.
When I first gave up BJJ, I got rid of all my gis and my very first white belt. I regret that now. This time, I plan to keep and collect all my belts as I move up the ranks. My school could have given me a used one, but I wanted my own new belt to collect all my blood, sweat, and tears. I ended up getting one from amazon, because, honestly, where else do we buy stuff these days? LOL.
Anyway, my training partners are awesome! They always try to help us newbies grow. The fact is, I didn’t see the submission during our Monday roll. I’m not even thinking about submissions when I’m on the bottom. (More on that coming up.) I will say I saw it today and even went for it. He was ready and didn’t fall for it, but at least I saw it.
After our roll today, the same guy and I had a longer talk about fighting from the back. He noticed I went for the attack he pointed out and said it was a good development.
Lately, I’ve been working on improving my back game. I started rolling where I give up top position on purpose and start from my back. The thing to note is, I’ve only been doing this with the goal of getting back on top if I find myself on my back.
I’ve always been a top player, a smasher of sorts. That’s kind of how I learned. But today I had a realization while working with my buddy. He told me I should be attacking more from my back instead of just defending and trying to sweep. If you keep me worried and busy defending, then I can’t attack you.
That’s when it clicked. All this time, I’ve tried to get to top positions like guard, half guard, and side mount. Almost every time I’m on top, I’m defending chokes, kimuras, sweeps, and more as I try to improve position. My training partners try to submit me from the back. However, whenever I’m on my back, I focus on getting back on top, which usually ends up with me in guard, just trying to survive submissions while trying to improve position.
I’d never thought about working submissions from the back. I’m not very agile in my hips. I’m short and stocky, so it never occurred to me to attack from the back like my teammates do. If someone made a big mistake and left an arm out, I’d go for it, but I wasn’t initiating attacks.
Why have I been limiting myself by thinking I need to sweep or get top position before looking for submissions? Just because I’m short and stocky doesn’t mean I can’t find a few submissions from the back! Recently, I’ve been practicing armbars and triangles from the back. I’m going to practice those even more and add the kimura and straight armbar to my back attacks.
I’m grateful to my training partner Bobby for helping me realize this gap in my approach. It came from organic discussion and training. It might not sound like a big deal, but for me, it was a real “wow” moment. I never thought submissions from the back were an option, but why not? I end up on my back quite a bit these days, especially when rolling with higher level guys. I look forward to being more active and challenging from the back. I think me and half guard need to become BFFs!
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