The Theory of Evolution

After a great training session at Rio Fighters.

It's a breezy lazy Sunday here in Rio. Right now I am lazily rocking in a hammock in the CR garden listening to music and and reflecting on this past week. Besides writing up this blog todays only major task is to go to one of the local restaurant/bar and listen to some reggae. Relaxing days like this are what recharges me for the upcoming grind of training.

As I have been thinking about my training this week a saying that is on the wall of where I trained boxing in Michigan (Trigger Boxing) keeps coming to mind--It's not the strongest that survives, but the most adaptable. In order to succeed the world of bjj/mma a person needs to constantly evolve into the best possible version of themselves. This evolution and adaptation is what will carry you through an unforeseen situation and to new heights.

Just like there is in the biological sense, I believe there are two types of evolution in marital art-- Macro (large scale) and Micro (small scale). When I am thinking of the macro level I think along the lines of how your overall game evolves over time. It's the adding in of new techniques and theories that will transform and bring you to another level. A prime example is the work I have been putting on on refining my BJJ. I have been working on adding new passes into my top game and fine tuning the details of some of the passes I have been familiar with. The new techniques are making me approach positions with a different mentality that opens my game. Where I may have before been content to solely secure a dominate position or stopped thinking offensively, I now approach with the intent of constantly moving to a more dominate position and getting the finish. Speaking of evolution on a large scale, I am now even sometimes committing to playing guard. I even went so far as to choose working from guard with a 100 kilo 4th degree black belt while at the CR academy visit to De La Riva's. My thought was if I can get used to defending passes and working escapes, sweeps, or submissions against a large stronger and more technical opponent when I go against someone my own size and strength I'll feel even more comfortable. Well, in short I spent most of the round getting pummeled, passed, and submitted by this black belt. I never said macroevolution was a quick process.

With Professor De La Riva, at the CR academy visit.

Microevolution of your game involves how you make changes in you game in a given situation. It's how you adapt to a given situation in the moment. Say during a roll your partner keeps burning you with a certain pass, what changes are you going to make in your positioning to stop or counter the pass. A great example would be from my MMA sparring this week. During the spar I noticed that after throwing an inside leg kick he would back out at the same angle and keep his hands a little low. Knowing he would do this, I took the center of the cage and walked him back. After he threw his kick, he had nowhere to back up and I was able to cut him off, land a counter, and then work a takedown off the cage. After a couple of times countering him, he adapted his game and made adjustments, now instead of backing up, he stepped in with punches, catching me good and I had to adapt to his new strategy. Sometimes in competition you can take control from the start, but other times (especially at high levels) this won't work. In these cases you can't keep trying to fit a square beg in a round hole, you have to try something new; you have to adapt.  

Closing out this weeks blog (I have to get going to listen to those irie beats), I am happy to say I am getting back into competition in the coming weeks. Next weekend I will be competing in the kimono at the SJJSAF Sul Americano Championships, and plan on competing in the Rio International Submission Cup. I am also hoping on closing out 2015 with another MMA fight. I really have the competitive drive that I had with wrestling, and I am looking forward to representing Rio Fighters, Connection Rio, Senki Kimonos, and most importantly myself in competition.