I am yet to enter my first Gi comp. I should, I know – but a combination of things have stopped me to date.
– I hadn’t been training much in Gi, working more No Gi instead for upcoming comps.
– I haven’t felt as ‘in control’ in Gi – all these grips that render me useless and find me tapping from chokes I never saw or felt coming!
– I don’t have a game plan.
The last one I’m only just getting my head around. At the last Gi round robin (where I spectated and thought later, ‘I should have entered’) I overheard a girl talking to her teammates about how their game plans were coming together nicely and really working for them, great implementation of their game plans etc.
What on earth is this game plan and how do I get one?!
I really didn’t know where to start.
I’m thinking about entering the Synergy Pro or a local comp coming up at Melbourne Uni – they’re not far away, and I haven’t been training super consistently, but I want to do one .. just to throw myself into another comp asap.
So I mentioned it on Twitter, and got tweeting @JiuJitsuJournal who has written this great post – exactly what I need to begin.
gypsy girl in gi 
I will say that training in the gi has helped my nogi game IMMENSELY, however, it doesn’t work the other way around I’m afriad :(.
Those grips will slow you WAY down, and you are right, those sneaky collar chokes come out of no where, and don’t even get me started on when someone is passing your guard and pinning your legs down by your pants :).
I guess what I’m saying is that if you train more with the gi, your nogi game will improve leaps and bounds.
Think of it like running the 100 meter dash…with boots on. Those boots are your gi…it’s slower, you might have to think a bit more and prevent yourself from tripping.
Now take those boots off, heck run in your bare feet…see how much faster you are? See that speed? That’s your nogi…you’re lighter, faster, harder to control.
On to gameplan…I’ve struggled with this for a bit, but I think I FINALLY got it.
Find out what sweeps, passes, subs, guard you are good at…now find out what you are best at when ALL of those fail.
So you are good at a hip bump sweep? Great, oh they stuffed it hard? Transition to the other side? Perhaps transisiton to a choke threat etc…repeat. Always have a backup for the things you are good at, cause sure enough, you will hit them until you are blue in the face at your club, but in a tournament, if one thing fails, you might panic and it’s all over.
Good luck!
Thankyou!
Yes definitely need backup plans, I absolutely have gone into ‘survival mode’ in my couple of comps to date and technique has gone out the window. I guess the more pressure testing the better!
I found that just thinking up a game plan for the competition, regardless of whether or not it would work for my style of rolling, really helped focus myself in training. Rather than just moving around pointlessly getting positions and then only thinking about subs when I get a position, I was actually starting to look for submissions and directing how I move to get those submissions. And then, because I was actively trying to get those certain submissions, I discovered what did or didn’t work for me and got me more acquainted with my own style of jiujitsu.
That said now that the comp is over, I wanna make sure I keep that balance of not focusing too much on my game plan and neglecting to learn other things. I’m still a newbie so I wanna learn everything overall first before ‘specialising’ in anything. 🙂
Good luck on your game plan! 🙂