Probably the hardest thing is getting the etiquette right, i.e. not being a douche bag. Especially, submerging the ego. In a gym it is easy enough to lift your smaller weights with good form and in time, surpass the other lifters. It’s a more primal thing to overcome when you are grappling, but essential. It is even harder when you have to roll alternatively with different partners, and even harder when the instructor (probably unintentionally) introduces a competition stimulus such as making the tapped people stand up and walk (until someone else taps).

I still find myself getting too competitive on occasion. Maybe what is needed is to monitor the number of times I get tapped. If I am not getting tapped, lower the intensity.

One thing I might say is that I don’t think it can hurt to take a structured break from the sport. Grappling is tough on joints and connective tissue. When I lifted weights, I would take a week off every six weeks. I would come back refreshed, looking forward to it and almost always better than I left. I think this would be beneficial for grappling as well – for both overall body health and preventing burnout.

I’d like to be sharing technical tutorials but I’ve been out of commission with a string of injuries and illness. So far this month I’ve had a torn ab muscle, an injury that reversed the curvature of my neck, and the seasonal flu. And just last week I pulled my groin (just got back from the doctor and started on an anti-inflammatory).

So you can understand if I haven’t been able to train much lately.

Which is a shame, since I’ve got a lot of material I want to show you guys. I was planning a piece on arm triangles, side chokes in particular, but also the brabo and anaconda. After that I wanted to do a video on mount escapes, then standing guard passes of the matador family. And some tips on breaking posture in closed guard, maintaining posture in closed guard, and “shake the baby”.

Even though I haven’t updated my journal much lately, I have been busy. I receive a lot of emails and PMs on forums and myspace and IMs over MSN with people asking me questions, and I’ve tried to answer all of them in depth. I really do love talking about techniques and training so it’s not a chore.

In fact, feel free to drop your nagging questions here and I’ll see what I can do with them.

You can also make requests for tutorials you’d like to see, and I’ll see about getting to them once I’m recovered.

Looking at your old notes later will both refresh your memory and make you feel good about how far you’ve come since you wrote the notes – especially in the beginning. The learning curve in the beginning is so steep that just looking at the basics you took down in your notes 2 or 3 months ago will provide that much needed boost when you’re at a low point in your training cycle.