Lessons Learned - Always Finish the Technique

The other night I rolled with a four stripe white belt that is new to our school. We had done some drills together before but this was the first time we rolled. At the start he shot in for a low single - good technique and fast (so he was beating my sprawl), BUT just as he should have powered on through and taken me to the mat he eased up. I was able to quickly finish sprawling out and turn him into side control. I normally don't like to stop a roll to talk about something until one or the other of us taps (or I'm working with my partner on a "teaching/learning" roll), but I could have easily finished from where I was and this was too much of a "teachable moment" - the dude shoulda had me.

So I tapped from top and told him, "dude you shoulda had me on that single leg, do you know why you didn't?"

He half answered/half questioned, "because I didn't control your sprawl?"

"No," I said, "because you didn't 'finish' the technique. You're kind of driving into me but then you're letting up, like you're being "nice" during drilling. You don't have to hurt me, but you do have to go all the way through and finish the technique. Let's try it again"

I had him shoot on me again and the same thing happened, just as he should have been able to drive me to the mat he loosened up. "Freeze," I told him. "You are exactly where you need to be, nothing wrong with your execution SO FAR, but the technique isn't finished. Push on through and don't let up on your drive until you come out on top."

One more shot and he almost had it. My balance was broken and I went down, but he didn't follow me all the way for control. "Almost, let's try one more time." The next shot was textbook and he came up in side control with a big grin on his face.

"Beautiful," I told him. "Now for the rest of the roll, think about always finishing." And he did, and I should have kept my mouth shut because I had to work way harder for the rest of the roll :-).

Now for the humble pie. Looking back on all my rolls that night, I must have had at least 6 sweeps that I didn't "finish".

Question: When is a sweep not a sweep?
Answer: When you don't finish on top and get your points. He may be sitting on his butt and not trying to pass your guard any more, but you're sitting on your butt too. Fine if you want to run away, but bad if you want to finish a fight.

I noticed this was especially true with my tripod and other open guard sweeps. You often land with a lot of distance or some strange angle out of these sweeps and so you have to really pay attention to maintaining grips and following your opponent up or hustling through the transition before your opponent has an opportunity to turn it into a scramble.

I didn't seem to have this problem with butterfly or closed guard sweeps (where the sweep puts me directly into mount or side control without much thought). So I think it is a combination of being mentally lazy and not paying attention to the "finish" AND being physically lazy and not wanting to hustle through the transition.

So that first slice of "practice what you preach" pie was pretty tasty, but it was nothing compared to the second slice of "lazy" pie with extra whip cream.