hello,

hey bigginz! long time! glad you will be training full time (or something close to it)!

advice? tap often. dont be a hero. also, don't use much muscle. in a lot of cases, you might be able to use sheer power to stall but a couple things happen then.

1- you get tired fast and this limits the effectiveness of your training.
2- you get accustomed to forcing bad positions. you learn habits that will hinder you.
3- you get tired fast and this sucks royally.

as far as questions, try to ask your instructor for situational examples of techniques. in other words, you may understand (mechanically) how to perform a technique in isolation, but it helps if you can see what happens right before and right after.

"master yoda, the arm-choke-calf-hook-sweep you showed us looks good, but noone seems to know when this will come up when we roll"

"of course young padawan (geek check). you see this most often when your opponent is playing the xyz game and trying to attack the blah blah blah. typically the defender will try to counter with the way-out-back-side-boneless-slicer. so the whole situation looks something like this......"

granted, not a real conversation likely to take place, but you get the idea. this will help you to think of the techniques as a connected whole instead of "just a bunch of moves". also, a principle, or force that might have escaped your notice will be explained or exposed in this manner.

good luck to you and let us know how things go!

thanks