Finding balance: When you look at world championships competitions it's often quite a shock to see how incredibly resistant the top athletes are to any type of sweep attempts. They just seem to be able to hang suspended in air, cartwheel, handstand and flip like cats back on to their base and prevent a score. Then the next time you're in the gym and someone gets a sweep on you, you try to resist and fall like a one legged drunk. How does one develop that level of balance? Remember when you first learned to ride a bicycle? Did you have perfect balance when you started? No – you felt many times. Friend and family offered advice but what ultimately gave you the ability to ride in balance was persistence. The same is true of any balance based activity – skateboarding, skiing, surfing, ice skating etc. Theoretical advice can help to a degree but at the end of the day there are some ineffable elements where you simply have to go out and do the task long enough to be able to perform. As always, start small and build over time. Put yourself in a sweep applied with low to moderate force and learn to ride it. At first you'll fall plenty of times – just like you did on your front lawn when you were a kid. Hang in there and soon enough you'll be able to resist a sweep long enough to go into an effective counter!
