BEING TOLD WHAT TO DO

of course knowing that i work for myself i hate being told what to do and i learned something beautiful in my gracie jujitsu class that opened up a another level on being told what to do and really made my grappling skills excell. i had been training for 6 years at the time and gracie jujitsu is just a repetition of basics and starting at the bottom you are always dominated by the higher ranks and you never win unless they let you win. once you put your dues in "lots of time" you start to get an understanding and you want to dominate everyone under your rank and beat them because you have come up fighting to win. you get to the point to where you are trying to basically force your opponent into submission or basically telling them where to go and submitting them. then one day my teacher told me that if i want to get a better understanding why dont i let them tell me what to do. that was a strange concept especially when i hate being told what to do and how do i do that when all i have been doing is telling my self what to do when im grappling. so i started closing my eyes when i was grappling and i had to feel my opponent and you cant just use any move you want you have to use timing balance space leverage and depending on what they are giving you the movement that is best at that moment. i got so good at feeling my opponents it was like i could tell what they were thinking and i could move according to what they were telling me i was always 2 or 3 steps ahead of them because by letting them tell me what to do they were showing me their hand basically and they could never figure out what is was going to do. then it would get deeper because you can start telling the people what to do by leading them down a path that they think they are telling you what to do which they are but by being 2 to 3 steps ahead of what they are telling me what they are doing i am actually guiding them to where i want them to go. that art is truly beautiful and i now understand how my teacher always felt like a puppet master letting you think you were in control of the fight when it turned out you were doing exactly what he was letting you do and wanted you to do