A simple Jiu jitsu test for you: Here is a simple test you can perform during or after your sparring training every day – a test that will tell you a lot about yourself and your game. At the conclusion of training take memorable part of the session, day for example, a submission that you successfully applied, or a good escape from a bad position, or some other slice of action that had a discernible finishing point and ask yourself – WHAT EXACTLY HAPPENED AND WHAT DID I DO TO GET THAT MOVE TO WORK? When asked this question, Most people can give only a very general answer. Some cannot give any answer at all – the whole round was just a blur in their memory until a move happened. If you cannot give a reasonably accurate breakdown of what transpired from start to finish for a given move soon after it happened, this tells you something very important – that you are acting without thinking. In some cases this can be very good. If you are winning most of your matches against tough opponents without thought then this would imply that you have programmed your subconscious to read the match second by second and react correctly before conscious thought was necessary. In these cases most athletes can, if pressed, go back and recall what they did and why, even if initially they couldn't. In the great majority of cases however, it means that you are simply acting from blind instinct. Your recollection is just a blur of action and the only thing you can recall, even when asked, is the result. This tells you very clearly that you had no control over the events. You just reacted instinctively as things happened – no identification of problems and thinking towards a solution. Every time class ends, USE IT AS AN opportunity TO TEST YOUR MINDS RECOLLECTION OF WHAT HAPPENED SO THAT NEXT TIME YOU ARE STARTING TO ENGAGE THE POWERS OF YOUR MIND INTO YOUR SPARRING. You will soon find that you are much more mentally in control of the situation than previously and that you see and identify opportunities, dangers, and patterns that you are previously blind to. Here, Garry Tonon applies another brutally tight heel hook for victory – he knew the how and why of every step to get there
