I sent this directly to V and Fritz but I’m gonna post it in here to support this medium. Alright question I was thinking about yesterday while watching a Gordon instructional: How do I approach learning the rules for positions? I’m just gonna kind of ramble and hopefully you all get what I’m saying but I know general concepts (attacking the upper can expose the lower and vice versa, turn your face away from a rear naked, you want your leg side leg over the head side leg in 3/4 juji) but like how do I learn the overarching principles/concepts to know these things without being explicitly told? For example, Gordon was talking about Darces and being on bottom you wanna turn your face slightly into the choke to avoid them gaining access to your jaw line to basically can opener you for the choke. I was surprised because I was thinking well that’s the opposite of the RNC, is this because you’re facing the opposite direction and the choke’s going in backwards? Then you get into ecological stuff with topics of centerline, and how there’s certain things for yourself you want in your centerline and things you don’t want, but you also want your opponents limbs to be in your centerline for armbars and such. Do you all see where I’m at, and have any suggestions?

Something I’ve been thinking about lately is the role of mindset during training, especially when it comes to getting stuck in certain positions. I’ve noticed that when I repeatedly struggle with the same problem, such as failing to pass a certain guard, it’s easy to fall into the habit of avoiding that position altogether during rolling and perhaps just falling back on a leg. Recently, I’ve been trying to do the opposite: intentionally putting myself in the positions where I struggle the most so I’m forced to solve the problem. It’s uncomfortable in the short term, but it seems like it leads to much faster improvement. Question: How do you approach mental blocks in training, especially when there’s a position you consistently struggle with?