XII

Last weekend's session at the Academy was productive because I got opportunity to work on some skills that I haven't had a lot of opportunity to practice since I've been training i.e. keeping someone in my guard and attacking with triangles and armbars, which I've not been able to do either, in order to work on my movement whilst rolling. I didn't try to cinch them in because I was drilling with what seemed to be a beginner White Belt female.

The Instructor had us work on escaping armlocks and triangle attacks in No Gi and Gi Jiu-Jitsu. I was able to roll with a more experienced White Belt and was able to secure two armlocks from near enough the same position, which seems to be how I am catching them more often than not these days.

This Saturday just gone I woke up later than I'd liked and wandered down for the Gi class. An athletic warm up session was given followed by a fun exercise. A visiting Black Belt decided to join the class and mostly trained with the Instructor and the Purple Belts present. I got to drill the technique the Instructor was showing with another White Belt.

My brother had mentioned this White Belt before as being someone who was a bit rough with him and preferred to use strength more than any other attribute. Through the technique drilling he was fine but during the part of the session where we get assigned a position to work from and objective to achieve. I was on bottom for 5 minutes. I think I frustrated him because I was not giving him my arm for the armbar and made it difficult for him to do it - basically, I was escaping before I gave him chance to control me and lock the technique in - and whilst he was ontop of me, mounted, he put his clenched fist into my throat and basically put (as BJ Penn says) all his might into making it uncomfortable so that I couldn't breathe.

I've done that once to my brother when we first started BJJ in 2006 which my Instructor said was okay but I got the feeling you don't do it to training partners because it's beyond acceptable so I haven't done it since and it took me aback when he was doing it.

I got to roll with a Purple Belt after the class was finished, and he was kind enough to show some moves that I could do to try to ensure it doesn't happen again.

I asked two of the guys who train at the Academy and they basically said "He's like that".

I was later explaining to one of them that one of the chief Instructors had been telling me that technique and strength go hand in hand - if you focus on doing a technique and you can't land it because you're not putting in enough strength, then you need to fit it to your body and your capabilities - instead of assuming that pure technique will land it 100% every time.

When the White Belt came into the changing rooms, he caught the end of the conversation about technique and strength, he was saying that one shouldn't use strength because it's not as good as technique, and how using all strength set him back in his development.

I had to stop myself from saying something because I didn't think putting your fist into someone's throat to make them uncomfortable by not being able to breathe easily was very technical nor something you do to someone who you train with.