Finding Pool Leaks and Jiujitsu

This week I want to tell you about a friend of mine's problem and how it relates to BJJ and all martial arts for that matter.
My friend was having a problem with his pool since the end of last summer. He figured he would wait until this year to fix it.
His inground pool had a leak in it and he couldn't find it.
He brought over some other friends to check it out and no one could find a crack, but as soon as he put some water in the pool it would slowly empty out.
Finally he did some digging and found a pool cleaning company who said they guaranteed they could find and seal all cracks and leaks.
So my friend called them up, a guy came over and sure enough within 10 minutes he found the leak and sealed it.
My friend couldn't believe it when he saw the crack.
He never would have noticed it in a million years if someone hadn't told him and he was shocked that such a small little inconspicuous crack could leak out so much water.

Ok.
So what does this have to do with BJJ???

Everything.

You see many times what we aren't trained to see will get right past us without us realizing it. It can seem like it's invisible.
My friend had surely looked over the crack many times but never really "noticed" it.
That is his eye wasn't trained to look for it and so it passed him by.
The exact same thing is true of BJJ.
The difference between many skilled players and unskilled ones is often down to what they "notice".
So if you want to be better you must learn to notice more subtleties during your rolling as well as when watching others roll.
The best way to do this is to study grappling matches and pay close attention to what's happening.
This is why I'm going to be featuring analysis of several classic grappling matches in the upcoming weeks.
Another thing you can do if you're a beginner is to pick up The Brazilian Jiujitsu Formula DVD.

You can get it by clicking the link or visiting the products page at www.jiujitsuuniverse.com

Until next week.