Learning by imitating

I am back from a few weeks of vacation. It was really nice to get some sun and warm weather, we haven't had much of that here in Denmark this year.

I have not been sleeping much those two weeks. I have been lying awake for hours every night just thinking about moves that I needed to train and try out, I guess I have a big overload of training in my head everyday that I need to get out in the gym so my brain can realax afterwards :D


I have a LOT of material that I am planning on shooting on video within the next few days to post here. During my sleepless nights, I have thought of so much stuff I want to put up here on the blog, so finally some new material is gonna be here :)

One thing I have thought about a lot lately is how my process of learning has evolved over the last few years. I rarely have someone show me a new technique or detail that I then apply to my game. Mostly, I learn by watching other people roll and try to see the small details that makes their techniques work. It can be watching video of matches online or just watch someone in the gym roll. Anyone really, even the whitebelts teach me something now and then, probably without they know it though :)

I can highly recommend to just sit down and watch someone roll with the purpose of analysing their moves and find out WHY they work. Not just WHAT they do. A good example is my study of Marcello Garcias armdrags from videos, now it is a bread and butter move of my clinch attacks. I just took the time to watch that clip in slow motion about 50 times before I could see and understand the details of how he set it up and executed it. I am sure he could teach me tons about armdrags, but he is not really around here so that is not an option :D

And that is another thing. I don't have and never have had an "instructor" to teach me Jiu Jitsu on a daily basis. Maybe that is why this imitation/analysis of others game has come so handy in my own development of my game.


Look out for the video updates to come here soon!