Sunday, November 17, 2019

Finishers Open Recap/Expertise vs Skill

Competed Saturday at the Finishers Open in PA. Zach and JM put on a great tournament, proof of that is that midway through the day they made an announcement that guys who had only gotten a match or two, and wanted another one, could approach the table workers and effort would be made to throw together some matches to get more mat time.

I started out in JiuJitsu and in Judo with single elimination or competing up a division and/or weight class to get more matches, so to see tournaments not just taking your money but rather making the effort to get guys more mat time is always refreshing.

A year ago in August I lost in triple overtime of the finals of the Finishers Open Advanced -145 division. The goal since then was to win it. Rather than ask for a superfight on the Pro card, I wanted to do the Open and win the bracket. I missed out on the one they did early this year because I had ACL reconstruction. So, this past weekend was finally time after a year plus of waiting for another opportunity.
I won my first match via RNC in Overtime. Won my 2nd match via RNC in regulation. Lost by armbar with 3 seconds left in regulation after a lengthy leg hunting/entanglement game plan over nearly 8 minutes of regulation.

If you want to try new things, and test the drilling and theories and concepts, you have to give them their due time in the training room then put them under duress with folks watching. I hear a lot about legends of the training room and so and so being a beast, but expertise and mastery are defined as the ability to perform on command, and only being a beast where you're comfortable at times which you have set on a regular basis does not meet that criteria. Sorry. Show up and do it under the lights, otherwise, the truth is that the jury remains out on the certainty of your ability to execute under duress. Brass tacks, but it's the truth.

I implemented virtually all of the new things I've been working on since coming back from surgery earlier this year. It felt good to fight 3 hard matches with a lot of transitions and faith in my game and my process and implementation of new skills into my game against unfamiliar opponents. I had a fairly rudimentary game the first 2 years of focusing on NoGi with the beginnings of skills other than attacking the legs. It's taken the past year plus of a lot of drilling, watching footage, and trial and error & returning to competition to begin seeing success and seeing the 'Matrix" whilst competing. The real test of preparation is whether or not you can manifest/impose your game & simultaneously trust your ability to adjust on the fly under duress. Being good is fine, and a noble goal. Expertise, however, is actually a very different thing.


No comments:

Post a Comment