This issue's quote; "Small things make big things happen." John Wooden
IT'S IMPORTANT TO "SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF SO YOU WON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THE BIG STUFF." ANOTHER WAY OF PUTTING IT IS TO WORK ON THE MORTAR THAT HOLDS THE BRICKS TOGETHER.
If you're serious about winning at any form of sport combat (and real combat as well), you better take the time and effort to work on the small things...the details...that make the big things happen. Any of you who have trained with me, or have read what I've written in the past, know that I firmly believe it's vital to "sweat the small stuff" and often refer to John Wooden's quote that "Small things make big things happen."
When I was coming up as an athlete in my early career as a kid and young teen-ager, almost all of my instructors told us to work on our "major techniques." Little, if any, time or effort was given to working on made those "major techniques" work. When I was 16, I started training with Ken Regennitter, and he pounded it in my thick head that I had better start paying attention to working on how to control my opponent's movement (Ken didn't use the word "position" but that's what he meant). Ken also convinced me of the importance of effective, hardcore, rough and tumble and "blue collar" groundfighting.I had about 4 years of good, classical Kodokan Judo training and my throwing skills were pretty good, but my newaza stunk, to be quite honest. Although my preference was for groundfighting, I had only a basic idea of how to do it effectively. Ken spent a lot of time on the mat coaching me and handing my butt to me to insure that I knew what he meant. Often, we spent a lot of time working on details...things that weren't apparent or obvious, but necessary for success. Later, I was able to train briefly with Maurice Allan, the World Sambo Champion, and it was Maurice who told me to "Make your judo work for you." In that, Maurice specifically meant to work on the details and mold the technique to fit my body and my needs.
This meant that it was (and continues to be) necessary to spend a lot of time working on things like position, gip fighting, defense, rides, escapes, hip shifts, sit-outs, transitions from throws (or takedowns) to groundfighting, transitions from one groundfighting move to another (pin to pin or pin-switching), pin to armlock, pin to strangle, pin to leglock, armlock to armlock, armlock to strangle...you get the idea. The 'small" stuff that really isn't so "small."
One major thing, in fact the most important thing, that makes all this happen is showing up in shape. Your fitness level must be, as John Saylor puts it "in over abundance" and you must be in superb physical shape to make it all happen the way you want it to and to happen when you want it to (sorry for ending the sentence in a preposition). In other words, you have more strength, more cardio vascular capacity and more fire in the bell than is really needed, but having it makes it so that you can perform it as needed and make up for any technical flaws that you might have. So, the fuel that makes it possible for the small things making big things happen is being in shape, and being in shape so that your skills can be performed under the stress of a real situation, whether it's in a combat sport or in real combat.
Here's an example of what I mean by the "small" stuff or the "mortar that holds the bricks together." Every practice, and I mean every practice, make it a point to grip fight or grip randori with several partners. We often go several 1-minute rounds doing grip randori at every workout I run. We do it for a reason. It's a good warm-up, as we do it early in the workout, but it puts every athlete in a position so that he or she has to fight to gain a better position or advantage over his training partners. This isn't randori, as we try to out-grip each other, and it's very much "grip randori" where each athlete wants to dominate the grip and control his opponent. Each athlete works on his grip so that he can use it to actually attack with in a real match. Often, the grip fighting (grip randori) gets aggressive and this is good. This is working on the "small" stuff (but then gripping really isn't a "small" thing), meaning that it's the grip that sets up the actual throwing attack. If we simply jumped into working on throwing and letting each other do some throws without working on how to actually get the opponent into position to make them work, then we would only work on the "big" stuff and not the important (and necessary) detail of using the grip to set him up to throw him...or break his grip and counter with our own grip...or shut him down so he can't get his grip and we impose our own grip...you get the idea.
Another obvious thing that is the "mortar holding the bricks together" is to always when working in groundfighting, work on breakdowns from a variety of positions, controlling the position with an effective ride, then working for the breakdown, and work for the scoring move (pin or submission). There isn't an opponent on earth who will let you pin him or get him in a submission technique, so you had better work on the details so that you can effectively set him up so that it happens on a consistent basis. These are the "small" things as well. I'm amazed at how many people don't ever train on how to break an opponent down on a regular basis, and hope to merely fall into the move or rely on luck. If you want to armlock someone who is skilled, fit and resisting, then you better work on how to make it happen. No one will ever lay down for you and let you stretch his arm. You have to make it happen, and the only way to make it happen is to work on it on a consistent basis with drills.
Sure, working on lots of uchikomi helps your technique...but it only goes so far. You have to analyze why and how the technique works best and the only way to do it is to "sweat the small stuff." Simply banging out hundreds of uchikomi or butsukari won't get the job done. Work on the grip, movement, tempo, location on the mat, distance between you and your opponent...all that stuff. Do you work regularly on defense? Do you work on how to react if your opponent offers a good defense to your throwing attack? Do you work on countering your opponent's posting a leg or arm when trying to break him down or turn him over onto his back?
Showing up and doing only randori or rolling every workout won't enable (or force) you to work on the things necessary to make you improve. You can show up and beat the hell out of training partners and feel pretty good about yourself...but only for so long. Eventually, you'll run into someone who's better. Not only that, but you'll soon run out of training partners or people who are willing to have the hell beat out of them. As AnnMaria Demars said; "There are no winners in randori." I know this if off the main subject, but really it isn't. Only doing randori does not allow you to work on the "small" stuff. You simply reinforce what you are already doing well if you're mindset is to fight at practice all the time. You'll never improve because you'll only concentrate on beating your randori partner and not being placed in situations that are necessary for you to learn. I'll discuss effective randori training at a later time.
Some of your best workout can be getting together with some training partners and working on moves. Work on things that actually come up in a match or real fight. Place yourself in a bad position and figure out ways to get out of trouble and then reverse the situation. I had many hours on the mat with my buddies as a young man simply working on moves and how to get out of them...working on position and rides. "Brainstorming" workouts where we worked on things that were not common to us, but may be common to someone else. In other words, we worked on the "small things that make big things happen" and the "mortar that hold the bricks together" and often found that these workouts were some of our best.
Train hard, but train smart as well. Working on the "small things" will certainly make you train both hard and train smart.
