If you are 30 or more pounds heavier than an upper rank and than lay in a top position holding on for dear life with making no attempt to submit or pass is NOT you being able to hang with them.

Seriously, how do you teach someone whose ego is so large they refuse to "try something" because they might lose their top position and instead just hold on tight and muscle an arm down to the floor. Then because it took them 6 minutes rather than the 5 minutes this week before the upper rank swept and submit DOES NOT MEAN YOU ARE GETTING BETTER! You'll be getting better if you try new techniques and add it to your game.

Same goes for bigger people who just go for underhooks in clinch training and hug the entire round away. It's ok to do in a fight but you are hampering both our training with your bullshit tactics.

Don't let him get that top position.

Um, I may have been guilty of that in the past. I've changed the way I roll now, I'd rather get swept and submitted trying to advance the game rather than stall out.

Don't let him get that top position.

I agree with this...I too have been guilty of this. All it took for me though was rolling with more skilled guys who wouldn't let me get top and I had no choice but to work sweeps and subs from the bottom.

I do perfer to grapple for superior position though but still force myself to pull gaurd at least once per training session. :new_Llol:

If you are 30 or more pounds heavier than an upper rank and than lay in a top position holding on for dear life with making no attempt to submit or pass is NOT you being able to hang with them.

Seriously, how do you teach someone whose ego is so large they refuse to "try something" because they might lose their top position and instead just hold on tight and muscle an arm down to the floor. Then because it took them 6 minutes rather than the 5 minutes this week before the upper rank swept and submit DOES NOT MEAN YOU ARE GETTING BETTER! You'll be getting better if you try new techniques and add it to your game.



I am sure I am guilty of this too.

Here's what I hate, and what you shoudl do.

Don't tap him out.

Smother him. I hate being smothered more than having an arm cranked.

Being stuck underneath someone barely able to breath is the worst feeling.

Trying to muscle out will just gas him even further, either he will start looking for technique to get out of that position or quit.

If your not spending at least half your training time in an inferior position you're seriously hurting your game.

I have never been able to keep people who really have something to teach me on their backs. My last bjj instructor was 130 maybe and I couldn't "just hold on for dear life" with him, nor could I with the two judo instructors I've had or any of the guys I train with now. Did you give him the position so he could work on attacks and he didn't understand that?

If you are 30 or more pounds heavier than an upper rank and than lay in a top position holding on for dear life with making no attempt to submit or pass is NOT you being able to hang with them.

Seriously, how do you teach someone whose ego is so large they refuse to "try something" because they might lose their top position and instead just hold on tight and muscle an arm down to the floor. Then because it took them 6 minutes rather than the 5 minutes this week before the upper rank swept and submit DOES NOT MEAN YOU ARE GETTING BETTER! You'll be getting better if you try new techniques and add it to your game.



I'm the smallest guy in the gym and new folks do this to me all the time. The trick is to make it uncomfortable for them. If they get you in a cross-body and just lock it down, wiggle an arm in under their neck and frame your forearm into their neck - they'll move.

I have never been able to keep people who really have something to teach me on their backs. My last bjj instructor was 130 maybe and I couldn't "just hold on for dear life" with him, nor could I with the two judo instructors I've had or any of the guys I train with now. Did you give him the position so he could work on attacks and he didn't understand that?

I'm with Jonny on this one, I have never been able to consistently hold down a person who had something to teach me. And I hope when you are ranting you are differentiating between the guy that spazzes the second he is on top and just tries to he man you down and the guy that is methodical and is waiting for you to make a mistake from the bottom. Also, I do judo so hold-downs are a good thing. Or are you talking about a guy that just manages to get into your gaurd?

Beom, I think he means heavy/strong newbs.

Plasma,
Everyone learns at a different pace. I hate stallers, but I'll tell someone they are wasting our time if they just stall out trying to hold me down. But if they can hold you down for 6 or 5 or even 2 minutes, then they can hang with you. I know it's frustrating and it is something i complain about, but oh well.

Also, honestly, I gotta admit, my goal is often to "just hold people down" - not because I'm even trying to be competitive, ie stall for a "win" by top control, but because it's a higher level of control then I had before I pinned the guy. The "passivity" might be the only form of offense the guy in question feels he has as a tool.

Also, as a big guy in bar-room condition, I'm here to tell you, sometimes when we finally get one of you wiggly little bastards flat on the ground, we need to rest.

Stuff like this is rooted in the mentality that you can "win" when rolling, instead of attempting to impose an actual strategy and learning what does and doesn't work.

If you really want to avoid that kind of nonsense, just inform your training partner that you want to work on something specific, and ask him what he's trying to work on. It might get his head in the right place.

Also, as a big guy in bar-room condition, I'm here to tell you, sometimes when we finally get one of you wiggly little bastards flat on the ground, we need to rest.


This is true. Goddammit the smaller guys never get tired.

Stuff like this is rooted in the mentality that you can "win" when rolling, instead of attempting to impose an actual strategy and learning what does and doesn't work.

If you really want to avoid that kind of nonsense, just inform your training partner that you want to work on something specific, and ask him what he's trying to work on. It might get his head in the right place.

It can also be a symptom of too much rolling not enough drilling, imo.

Being one of those 140lbers I learned early on not to let bigger guys get on top of me unless I was prepared to either give up a sub, or camp there until an opening appeared.
Now I'm more likely to give up my back in order to facilitate an escape than to let them settle into side control.
Though it's exceedingly rare for anyone who isn't a blue belt or very close to it to manage to get any kind of dominant position on me for more than a second or two.
So really... Plasma, why don't you suck less and escape faster? You aren't some 100lb crippled 9 year old girl are you?

I find your rant lacking in substance and invalid.