Tap Out by Rob Wynne So you came to class and you were all geared up, ready to learn and practice something new. You are doing the drills, practicing the days technique and you're thinking to yourself; "This is great! I'm having a lot of fun." Then it's the end of the technical section of class and open mat time has begun. You step on the mat with a club-mate and square off. The first match you shoot for a powerful single leg takedown. You grab his leg, (he tries to sprawl) take him down, achieve mount and tap him with a shoulder lock. You get up, and go again with the same guy. Suddenly you slam into him and try to power through a single leg takedown. He sprawls and takes your back. You can feel him trying to get the rear choke on so you grab his arm and try to counter. You can feel him shift his weight and suddenly he takes your arm for an armbar, you climb through his legs to counter when he sweeps you on your back and takes your other arm with another armbar and you're forced to tap. You get up, you're ****ed off and you think; "Why do I always get caught in this crap? He must be using "cheap" moves to win." Herein lies your problem.......EGO! Don't worry so much about who's tapping who and how many times you tapped that person, it really doesn't matter. Instead learn something from the experience. What did he do to defeat you? I don't mean technique wise; you can learn all the technique in the world and still lose.Using the above scenario, let's see what may have been going on. You shot in for a single and he tried to counter, but you were able to power through on the first match. The second match he was able to sprawl and using momentum, take your back. He then used combinations to set up a finish. Now maybe what you haven't noticed about this guy, is that he never worries about who he taps or who he's tapped to. He tries new things out in class, furthering his understanding and technique. During the drills, he's not talking about the latest UFC, he's practicing.....hard. He doesn't walk around asking everyone to teach him new techniques, he's too busy trying to get a handle on the ones he knows and figuring out how to implement them. So, basically what I'm trying to tell you with this article is this; stop worrying about tapping people so much and start worrying about learning something. The whole point of class is to learn. Quite frankly, with about 7 to 8 months of training at our club you can beat most people on the street, so why do you keep coming back? The answer is to learn, and the only way to learn is to swallow your pride and put yourself in danger of losing. You can't get omoplata to work with a resisting opponent? Well then practice ways to get into it while your grappling and if you get caught and have to tap while you're trying it, so what you've started on the road to knowledge and the road is paved with losses.
Nice article again mmafiter. Next time you want to write an article why don't you e-mail it to us on mainfo@iycstaff.com and we will print it in the dedicated articles section This section is ment to be were people can reply to articles they have read in the dedicated section not that I am complaining its great to have members post there articles and all are greatly appreciated. Look forward to your next article Cooler
LOL! I can tap like a conga player I reckon if I'm sparring with my students and I'm NOT taping out on a regular basis then I'm in my comfort zone - a dangerous placfe to be for a martial artist who's expecting to make progress! I have ways to make sure I'm taping out... 1. Roll with people better, bigger and stronger than me. 2. Limit myself to a particular part of the game when rolling with someone NOT better than me e.g. I may just go for the keylock on his left arm while hje can do anything. 3. Leave an opening for him to go for a submission - and se if I can le thim get it nearly on before I try to escape. We don't allow inflated EGO's - well actually sometimes we do, we like popping them
I agree with you Yoda, I'd rather train with people better than me, people that will make me tap out. I feel like I learn more loosing than winning.
