Hybrid Success Challenge, Day 4

Reality vs. Expectation

The concept of trial and error is a process that many jiu-jitsu practitioners are quite familiar with.  You can drill moves as much as you'd like, but taking concepts or moves from theory to reality can be an arduous process (and even more complicated if you are looking to utilize said move or concept in competition).  

Of course, that trial and error process is one of the most grueling tests of endurance out there.  For some, technique implementation comes natural, easy.  For others, like myself, it's a process that can take years.  I'm more than 5 years into my journey and I still couldn't berimbolo if you put a gun to my head.

Though, to be honest, if you put a gun to my head and asked me to berimbolo, I think we'd have more issues to talk about than just the weirdly-specific jiu-jitsu request.  But that's not the point.

In the video below, I confront one example of trying to replicate Justin Rader's snap down double leg take down.  When I saw him do it on the video, I thought it might be a nice option for my style of wrestling.  I thought (and I don't say this often), "oh, I might actually be able to do that one." 

The results below, however, proved otherwise.

Not quite what I had hoped.  My initial disappointment was that I couldn't quite get Eddie's head to snap down.  I knew it would be difficult to really hit the move without having a spring action to initiate the shot, but I figured I'd give it a college try nonetheless.

When I later went back to review the footage, I found there was more problems than just getting the neck to snap down.

I used the wrong arm to start the snap down.  Having recently discovered that my lead leg is my left leg (for whatever reason I thought it was my right leg), I was able to accurately get a decent enough posture to start to work on the technique.  The problem: I reached for Eddie's neck with my leading arm, instead of my arm from the back.  

The next discovery, however, was much more significant.  I often tend to find greater success hitting single legs, so while my terrible shot saw me grab behind both of the legs, my angle almost seemed to indicate I was almost closer to angling for an instinctual single leg takedown.  And as a result of that, my head hit this confusing middle-ground of not quite being on the outside of Eddie's torso for the double leg (my head tucked to the inside, again, more indicative of that single leg form).  And, if we're just looking at the still shot below, you can see that my legs aren't quite in the position they need to be for the double (it was doomed from the start), as no part of my front, lead leg is breaking in between my opponents legs and giving me the force I need to connect my shoulder to his hip.  

Or we can just chalk it up to a really sloppy execution.

Either way, with some time and distance from that day's training session I can laugh about it now.  Sure, it's disappointing to watch (nobody wants to screw up, let alone put their screw ups on video for future LOL reference), but it is a very revealing trait that can hopefully provide some important intel for the next time I approach the move.

And hopefully, an important step in helping me take a move from theory into execution.  

Until next time, folks.