Jay and John BJJ Rolling in Glastonbury, CT

John finally came back to class, which simply delighted me. I’ve been waiting for him, along with his unique sparring style.

I’ve been thinking about how John rolls. As I watch video after video, I have come to the conclusion that instead of using my typical loose tendencies, I need to use pressure. John and I have very similar builds and when I roll with him (and as he gets better and better), I get myself into some jams. He apparently has adopted some of my own characteristics which I find difficult to deal with. This is good because it forces me to move away from what I know and move into new areas.

John is good at Jiu-Jitsu. He is more and more moving into the predictive type of roll. He’s picking up on my combos and next moves. He’s starting to counter them before they happen. He’s also pretty good at taking the back, so I’m trying to roll out of that before he gets his legs set up. If he does that, I have a battle on my hands.

My strategy against John came about after I watched a video I wrote about on Friday, entitled, “Some Good Realistic Jitsu Rolling.” In that video, I noticed the old, tried and true sparring style of strength, pressure and space minimization. That, I thought, would work against John.

In the following videos, I tried a different game. When I remembered (because I usually fall back into my laissez-faire attitude of rolling), I tried to counter quickly and use additional pressure. As John gets more and more experience with Jiu-Jitsu, I think I’ll use this style more frequently. Actually, I don’t think I’ll have a choice in the matter.