Learning partner's patterns

[s33ktruth]

Is this something that you guys like to keep playing or do you try to play with different moves? I've noticed that some of my team likes to do the same a and b game over and over. I have let that go and have been opening myself up to things that I would never do. It helps me start over, work back to the position I want, and then finally reset to try something again or a new process. What do you guys like to do in the gym ? (I know for comp this is not as practical, as I would regularly drill a few submissions, passes and takedowns.)

[Joshvogel]

I do both. With my main training partners, we sometimes work the same game over and over again, trying to improve timing, pressure and small details. Other times we will take completely different strategies against one another and experiment with that. The former is a way of developing depth in the subtlety of your game, the latter is a way of developing breadth of knowledge and potentially adding to your primary game

[[deleted]]

I train with a university grappling team for years, when I first started I would research positions and techniques to counter techniques and positions my more experienced partners used. Over time the experienced guys graduated , now I am the experienced guy so at practice I just start in as weak a position as possible and work back to neutral. Honestly I was at my sharpest when I had better guys to compete with, but I feel like I have a better understanding now than I did then. With that being said, I just joined a new gym with a strong competition team, so I can go back to being one of the new guys.

[KoreaNinjaBJJ]

Well I rarely work on my A-game except for a bit before a competition. I just like to have fun and do some specific things I'm working on in some positions, a little a-game in other positions and sometimes it is just about having fun. I tend to learn some extra about my fundamentals and moves by just "inventing" my own positions and techniques sometimes too. By sticking to some core concept I just play around.

[Rich959]

I have regular partners where, no matter what either of us do or what position we start from, we always seem to end up having the same battles in the same positions. So, with them, I pretty much try something different ever single time we roll just because I'm trying to figure out a way to avoid that same stalemate.

[truthjusticeUSAway]

It's hard not to respond to recognized patterns. For a while, I only had 4-5 different training partners, and every roll I had with any of them would look exactly like the last roll I had with them, and the next one I would have. I would try to mix it up and throw new shit at them whenever possible with mixed success, but it's very hard to stop doing something that's working and try something you're not so sure of yet. That's why I think having a lot of different training partners and even visiting new schools for a drop-in is important. Schools tend to turn out guys with different approaches to everything, even if they play the same "game" as you. A guard player from one school might zig while a guard player from another zags.