Friday, April 17, 2009

tapping

I worked late tonight, and didn't make it to competition class. This sucks as it's my favorite class of the week!

So instead of my training recap, I will leave you with the Sherdog post of the month IMO. The subject is tapping during training.

Originally Posted by NSLightsOut
Here's the revelatory part: Every single case of permanent stagnation I have ever seen has involved one common factor: Fear of losing in training.

This, in my experience, has manifested itself in a number of different ways, including but not necessarily limited to:

- Fear of losing to people lower in an imagined 'hierarchy' of skill
- Fear of losing to a lower belt
- Fear of trying something new if it involves risk
- The belief that 'not tapping' is always equivalent to a good performance/increase in skill

The irony is that all of these fears actually are the root cause of permanent skill plateau. This vicious cycle, after a while, seems to almost paralyze development.

[...]

After this, I came to a conclusion. Tapping others by itself does not a satisfying training experience make.

Honestly, I'd consider it a better use of my time if I had a long, tough roll against someone I believe to be of better or equal skill to myself and getting submitted than going through some random n00bs like a chainsaw, unless I'm trying to introduce something to my game, or develop what Roy Harris termed 'at will' grappling, i.e. going for a certain submission that I'm not very good at to begin developing my skills in that area.

[...]

In conclusion, tapping, especially in training, means fuck-all. I now have come to believe that "who can I tap in training" is a fucking lousy way of measuring one's performance. I try to measure my performance not by who can I tap, but what I can do to people in competition, and the amount I learn and accomplish within the 6-month intervals laid out on my personal training plan. The latter seems to translate much better into actual results than asking myself 'where am I in the pecking order?'

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