These last 2 years has been pretty crazy for me. Here's a quick recap for those who haven't been following September 2010, I go into hospital for a surgery that has been routine for the past 11 years, a baclofen pump replacement. It happens every 5 to 7(depending on your pump's battery). I had the 7-year battery. I woke up from the surgery with insane back pain. Now you must understand, I suffer from neuromuscular scoliosis, so if there is anyone who knows about back pain its me, because I deal with it every single day. Needless to say, when I woke up and couldn't stand the pain from simply lying on my back I knew something was wrong. They sent me home the next day and two days following that my incision opened. After countless ER visits and re-admissions to the hospital for infection we finally decided to abandon the idea of a new pump installation altogether.
Fast forward Feb 2011 I finally start training again and in December of 2011 I received my black belt. They say when you get your black belt you learn more than you ever learned coming up through the ranks. I've been a black belt for a year, so what have I learned?
Well, I'll be the first to admit I've been exposed to a few new positions, but they've all been variations on classic positions like spider guard. What I discovered was more about myself than BJJ. After I finally was finished with the revolving trap door that was the hospital, I learned that BJJ is easiest part of my life. There's nothing those mats can throw at me that I can't handle.
In short perseverance is just as important as preparation.
This is post that has been in my head since Georgette blogged her time at the Pan back in April over at her blog georgette's world . I don't quite remember the name of the post(just search her April posts) but in it she stated that sweep+submissions is better than takedown+pass therefore she implied unintentionally or not that playing the bottom is better than playing the top. Her reasoning being there are more options on the bottom which is completely true but thats only because you can transition to a different guard should the one you're using currently not be working not because the top player doesn't have submissions. Therefore, I must disagree with her statement. Firstly, if you pull guard and I knee-cut/step over into your half and flatten I get an advantage meaning all I have to do is stay there until time is up and I win. All leglocks can come from the top and in fact do especially the ankle lock. The toe hold and Heel Hook are the most common leg attacks from
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