I know exactly what you mean ghost, went though a stage like that myself until I got caught with a ringing shot off a mate and so I booted him in the head and bashed him for the rest of the round, It was this that made me realise that I have to spar/fight my game and not lower (for want of a better word) my game to theirs and to learn from/raise my game against those better than me.
What I was trying to put across, was, that with DK he could and all the others could pretty much make me tap at will and though I never made him tap, I started to take longer to get tapped by DK and the others were not getting me to tap and over time I started to make them tap. And considering they were training BJJ, sub wrestling for 6-10 hours a week, mine was about an hour a week (I like hitting people
) I got a lot from that hour.
When I started I came from a stand up and olympic wrestling background, pretty much no subs at all and found that they only came into play when doing no strike grappling/sub wrestling, when I could hit/kick/elbow/knee on the floor it took the subs outta the game to a good extent. I still got caught in them but no-where near as much as when I couldn't strike on the floor.
Back to the motivation mode, I am putting together, at the moment, all my favourite fights from K1, MMA, Boxing, Muay Thai, training clips, sparring sessions etc, and then fav endings to fights that weren't quite barnstormers but were top finishes whether by sub or knockout, even some film clips all to a banging sound track, stick on dvd and play it while I'm on the Bike at home or the Bag and just go hell for leather......Every time a round ends you got guy's going at it on the tv and it just gets me up for the next round....bloody marvelous.