Slow Down

So, after we finished rolling last night, Darrin (our black belt) and a few of us were sitting around the mat. He tends to get philosophical at points like this, and it is always good to hear his outlook on this sort of stuff. After a few minutes, he looked at me and said "Hey, you need to slow down when you roll." I looked and him and said "what do you mean?" He told me that I didn't need to slow down in the sense that I was spazzing or being unsafe, but that I needed more deliberation in my movement. He told me I'm excellent at transitioning, but I don't create anything. According to him, I'm an excellent white belt, but to transition to blue belt I have to look past behaving in a soley reactionary manner. I have to be able move logically. He told me I'm close, but I don't have that yet. And it is absolutely true. I react. I don't really think about what I'm doing. I don't know how to get around that. I kind of get tunnel vision when I roll. Darren wasn't telling me to slow my body down. He was telling me to slow my mind down, and think before I act. He also talked to all of us about resilience. He used one of our blue belts, who comes maybe once ever two weeks, as an example. The dude is strong, but he's also tough as a bootheel. Darrin has talked about absolutely not behing able to get him to submit, because of his resilient mindset. Jiu Jitsu is about survival, and part of that is not giving up position in you're getting crossfaced for knee of belly'd. I like these talks with Darrin, because of how evaluative he is on everybody. Its just a good overall experience.