[DanC]

Originally Posted by MIZJUDOZOU

I have had to really work on my bottom game. Judo is a top game first sport, b/c you can pin your opponent and win. That said I like working from the bottom. I would think you would want to really work on the basics, while taking in the higher level stuff. So for you the basics would probably be triangle, straight arm bars, and scissor sweeps if you have strong legs. In judo we always say that you have to practice a throw a 100 times before you might even get the chance to throw it live. Find someone better then you and have them show you. Thats what I do. Those people not only have the technique, but also little tricks to help complete the technique.

At my club we have opens and practice. At practice we learn a technique from our instructor and then roll live. At the open we come in and either work on technique or roll, whatever we want. I really like the opens b/c then you can work with people your level and higher on whatever you want. Always important to go against better people. Do you guys have opens?

Great advice, thanks so much mate. I'm aware I'll need to rely on being technically sound because I'm not strong, so I've been drilling the basics at home just to make sure my foundation is really strong when it comes to the more technical techniques.

The difference I've found between BJJ and the kickboxing (which I trained before) is that in BJJ there is little to no ego whatsoever, so guys are more than willing to show me how to do techniques, and I'm not made to feel like a whitebelt at training if that makes sense. I only need to attend the novice-only classes for about another 6 weeks before joining the standard training classes with the experienced white belts, blues, purples etc, so hopefully training with some experienced guys in those classes will really help push my game forward.

It's funny you ask that about opens, because it was only at training this week that my instructor asked me to come along to an open mat session. Before that, I thought those sessions weren't actually open to new white belts, so I'll definitely be going along to that this week.

A couple of the other guys have warned me that I'll get tapped out again and again and again in the opens, but I'm not bothered at all as it's all part of it, so I can't wait!