Light rolling, anyone?

One valuable lesson learned in tonight's mixed class - the true definition of light rolling.

Myself and Keith, regularly drill and train together over at the BJJ School for several months now. On some occasions, when we feel a bit knackered or are nursing a bit of injury, we'd say, "Let's do some light rolling, bro." And then, we'd proceed to do just that - or what we think what light rolling meant.

The first time I rolled with Bong, on our first ever open mat, Bong said, "Let's do some light rolling as we wait for the others to turn up." I nearly took his eye out by accident (as I would always tell the judge if I was ever hauled in court).

Tonight, as myself and Keith were doing some "light rolling", one of the higher belts spoke to us the danger of rolling hard - as we were doing apparently! He also said that higher belts would not be too keen to roll with us if we go hard every rolling session - as injuries arise especially when noobs (like us) goes balls-to-the-wall. This means that we potentially lose valuable input from them if we just continue to roll like we do.

I think was what happening is that we were reacting to the bio feedback we get with each other during rolling and if we perceive a certain force against us, we naturally respond with an equal or slightly bigger amount of force to "counter" the force exerted against us. So that's why what starts of as a light roll transforms itself into a more intensive one.

Point well taken and as I have had the experience rolling with higher belts (a blue and a brown) during the class tonight, I saw what light rolling truly is. It is an amazing learning experience.