I’m annoyed.
I’ve been teaching some classes a lot lately at an affiliate school.
I had to have a talk with this one guy. We did about 35-40 minutes of scissor sweep and escape drills in the no-gi class, and I told everybody who was staying for gi to grab their gear, and get back on the mat cause we were going to be working on the same thing.
As the class dissolved to go get their stuff, he goes “We’re going to do EXACTLY the same thing?” I said yes, and he rolled his eyes and said “aw man,” shaking his head.
FWIW - he’s the only one that seemed to have a problem with this, in fact, two were begging me to do more repetitions. I also never teach more than one move per beginner class. Too hard to absorb for beginners.
At that point, as people in the gi class were warming up, I saw him in the adjoining room, so I walked up to him and gave him a small lecture, more or less, telling him look - I can show you a new move every five minutes if you want, but it’s not going to do you any good. The scissor sweep and the escape I’m showing are the foundation for every sweep and escape you will ever learn. Now, if you want to just show up, that’s fine, but if you want to get good, you do it by doing the same thing over and over again. Now, you can do what you want - if I were you I’d put on your gi - but understand that what I’m saying is not a reflection on you as a person - I’m just letting you know what choice you have in front of you - whichever you choose is fine.
He looked like a wounded puppy, wouldn’t look me in the eye.
So later, as I’ve got people running through positional sparring work at the end of class, he asks “what were you saying again about that, like before?” So I got down and showed him how all the sweeps incorporate elements of the scissor sweep. I showed him how the escape I was teaching is fundamental. I also told him that I think he’s got some potential, and grasps things quickly, but that it will never matter if he doesn’t get the basics.
He seemed to get it.
Wrong.
A few days ago, we were going over a particular guard pass, and as I’m correcting it, he tells me “Well, I’d rather do a lock here, because I feel off-balance…” I cut him off and said “Yeah, well, that’s because you won’t put your foot where I’m telling you to put it. If you do that, you won’t be off-balance.”
(He did do it right, eventually, he’s not ungifted, just obstinate).
So, last night, I’ve got guard passing positional sparring drills going on, and an old wrestler keeps doing inversions on him (getting back to his feet/knees and driving him over) to sweep him, and he’s getting frustrated, especially since my wife is lasting longer than he is out there. And he mutters “**** wrestlers!” So I tell him “Hey, keep your weight on him, hold his leg, something to keep his back flat. That’s how you handle a guy like that. You make space and try to pass the way you are, quick and slick, and you’ll let him up every time. Tight is the way you need to pass this guy.”
So he gives me the evil eye.
Compounding this was the fact that my wife kept passing HIS guard. He was REALLY ****ed by that, and starting trying to muscle her around because of it after about the 5th time. He got frustrated and says “well, I try to rely on submissions from there,” and I’m thinking “while somebody passes your guard you’re trying to submit them? WTF?!” Maybe later, as you get better you can catch somebody in transition, but not when you can’t even defend the pass!
Now, I’ve already given him a ten-dollar beatdown to demonstrate the point…without using my arms…only bodyweight and legs. Sweeping, submission, pinning, the whole works.
And boy howdy was he ****ed about that!
He’s the king of excuses and that’s what really makes me mad. I empathize because it was only recently that I was able to excise that from MY training mentality, but I don’t sympathize.
“**** wrestlers,”
“I was tired,”
“Couldn’t use submissions,”
“Well, you’ve been doing it longer.”
It’s just starting to be a problem for me because his attitude is sucking the life out of class. I have to work really hard to keep the intensity and focus level up when he’s there because he acts like “It don’t matter, none.” Every movement is lazy, from walking over to the center when I’m demonstrating something, to the actual repetitions, unless he decides he’s interested.
Ok. I feel better now. Just needed to get this off my chest.
