Got my butt handed to me....

[red5angel]

This last weekend we went to our first grappling class today. They wanted us to get in and sort of mess around so they could see where we were at. My buddy, captain of his high school and college wrestling teams did pretty good. For myself it was pretty pathetic, I had size going for me and so was able to muscle my way to a neutral position most of the time, but it does me no good really. The couple of guys my size and near my strength pretty much had their way with me!!!! It was rough but fun none the less and I walked away not too sore!
I have along long way to go, I was told my use of leverage was ok but my application of too much strength would have to be changed. I also have to work on my endurance, I got winded too often after the first few minutes.

All in all I would have to say its the most fun training I have had in a long time!

[SevenStar]

Stick with it! try to stay relaxed while you are rolling. The more relaxed you are, the easier time you will have preventing yourself from getting winded. Also, if someone has you in a position that you can't escape from, but they aren't submitting you (i.e. either north-south or sidemount) don't waste your energy trying to escape. They HAVE to eventually try something, and when they do, they will create space. that's when you try to counter. If you can rmemeber to do those things, you may be able to control your wind and energy a little more. how often will you be training?

P.S. Get used to getting your butt handed to you - it will happen for a while! :)

[red5angel]

I dont mind, we learn by doing!

Thats a good idea waiting until they make a move. Like I said I got into the mode of compensating with strength and obviously thats where a good amount of my wind came from but these guys have been training pretty hard for a minimum of a couple of years so I have a lot of catching up to do! I can't wait to do it again though!

[SevenStar]

check some of these out. They're pretty good reads.

http://bjj.org/articles/

[red5angel]

thanks for the articles sevenstar! I am reading them as we speak!

[FatherDog]

Like SevenStar said, try to be as relaxed as possible, and pay attention to the positions of your and the other guy's hips.

And you'll find that grappling is way more demanding of endurance and cardio than raw strength. Try adding wind-sprints to your workouts; they helped me a lot with how long I can go without being gassed. MP's circuit workout on the Train for Fighting thread is also a good one for that.

What kind of grappling are you being taught? BJJ, shootwrestling, something else, a mixture?

[red5angel]

BJJ, I am also going to be training in Kali as well, this is all for sport fighting competitions I want to get into when I am ready.