In more ways than one...tonight we practiced bow and arrow chokes, and I also received my blue belt! It's a moment I've looked forward to with some anticipation, but much like graduating from college, it was over in a flash and after the fact I realize that it's not the moment itself, but all of the moments leading up to it that matter. Mostly, I'm just amped I can go to the advanced classes since they fit my schedule much better :)
Sparring went so so. I've been on a short break, so I didn't have tremendous expectations, but I felt ok about the whole ordeal. My first roll was with Jonathan, who had only sparred once before but is super athletic. Since I recently picked up some important details to do with closed guard, I held him there and worked on implementing them without focusing too much on sweeping or submitting. Eventually, I did sweep to mount using a steering-wheel sweep. From mount I worked to set up the cross choke as Roger Gracie tends to do it, but since this is a completely new technique, I had limited success. I need to work on incrementally establishing the grips. When I would focus on controlling and maintaining position, I couldn't work on grips as intently, and when I worked on grips he would start making good his escape. One big problem was that he was stiff arming my hips, which is something I need to kill if I want to work the cross choke into my arsenal.
Second roll was with Hong, another blue. I was mostly working to pass his guard, focusing on the three step process: pin a knee, push knees together, hug legs and pass. Although I was met with less success than usual, I already feel that this will bring me far greater gain in the long term. He cross choked me once, but that was because I was not posturing properly, so my bad on that one. He did go for the same choke again later in the roll, but I was better about posturing and he did not succeed. At one point I had passed the guard and was working my sidemount game, but I was really passive, and rather than working hard for the mount I kind of sat there. bleh. I know that I have a well documented tendency to be somewhat passive, and my biggest fear is that the feeling of added pressure because of having been promoted will make my game super conservative and stifle progress. Can't let that happen.
Finally, I rolled with Charles, the French brown belt who had his way with me in a way that was that was wholly unprecedented. In previous rolls with Charles, he has usually kept a decently slow pace, but tonight he switched it on. I should have known I was in trouble when he said to me "Congratulations! You 'ave improved now, yes?" at the start of the roll :p To detail the roll would be very challenging at this point, but I will point out a few things that I noticed.
-I did not establish three points of contact at all times when I had open guard.
-I started countering guard passes too late, especially the single under pass. I need to be more proactive about hipping out as soon as they go for the under.
-I need to make a long term goal of improving my knee on belly escapes. Major weakness. Might have something to do with Charles being a brown too, but still.
All in all, not a bad first night back :)
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Sunday, September 26, 2010
The Return 2: The Revenge
As it turns out, my "back in action" declaration was a little hasty. On the metro ride home it became very apparent that I had not recovered from my sinus infection as fully as I wanted to believe, and I have subsequently taken an additional week off. Frustrating, yes, but it was also good to have 2 weeks or so to reflect on some things. At this point I'm back on the wagon and have thought up some things that I want to write down so I can more easily keep track of them for future reference.
One of the most important thoughts I've had is how to effectively train and learn a chain of techniques. Upon some reflection, I saw why I've had so much success with the arm drag to flower sweep/back/armbar series this summer. It's because the first step of this series is very concrete and definitive: push their elbow across your centerline. It's not that I have some natural talent for pushing elbows across centerlines or anything like that, but rather it's the fact that the entire series requires a very definitive first step that is easy to identify and practice. Similarly, the second step (trap the arm using the sleeve and your chest) is also very clear and easy to identify. All of this is to say that my success has largely been in part to having a series that is broken down into a number of steps that can individually be broken down and practiced on their own, such that when the whole shebang is strung together, it's that much easier to perform.
Seeing this has really turned me on to the way Eddie Bravo teaches his system. If you read Mastering the Rubber Guard, you see that his guard techniques are broken down into a string of very simple and relatively small steps. First you break them down. Then you hit mission control etc. The genius of this is that it gives you a series of layovers, so to speak, that give you something more to work towards than "do an armbar." What I especially like about this mindset is that it makes it much easier to be proactive in any given situation. Whereas I used to sit and wait for my opponent to make a mistake, having a concrete first step (cross the elbow) has made it easier since everything leads to that default action. For example: Break Grips --> Cross arm. That's obviously a gross simplification, but having that progression in mind is very useful.
What's more, thinking of techniques this way makes it much easier to troubleshoot your game. Rather than saying "my armbar from guard doesn't work. I need to practice that" you can say "Step B of my armbar doesn't work. I need to practice that." I realize that this little discovery of mine is probably fairly low on the totem pole, but holy shit :)
One of the most important thoughts I've had is how to effectively train and learn a chain of techniques. Upon some reflection, I saw why I've had so much success with the arm drag to flower sweep/back/armbar series this summer. It's because the first step of this series is very concrete and definitive: push their elbow across your centerline. It's not that I have some natural talent for pushing elbows across centerlines or anything like that, but rather it's the fact that the entire series requires a very definitive first step that is easy to identify and practice. Similarly, the second step (trap the arm using the sleeve and your chest) is also very clear and easy to identify. All of this is to say that my success has largely been in part to having a series that is broken down into a number of steps that can individually be broken down and practiced on their own, such that when the whole shebang is strung together, it's that much easier to perform.
Seeing this has really turned me on to the way Eddie Bravo teaches his system. If you read Mastering the Rubber Guard, you see that his guard techniques are broken down into a string of very simple and relatively small steps. First you break them down. Then you hit mission control etc. The genius of this is that it gives you a series of layovers, so to speak, that give you something more to work towards than "do an armbar." What I especially like about this mindset is that it makes it much easier to be proactive in any given situation. Whereas I used to sit and wait for my opponent to make a mistake, having a concrete first step (cross the elbow) has made it easier since everything leads to that default action. For example: Break Grips --> Cross arm. That's obviously a gross simplification, but having that progression in mind is very useful.
What's more, thinking of techniques this way makes it much easier to troubleshoot your game. Rather than saying "my armbar from guard doesn't work. I need to practice that" you can say "Step B of my armbar doesn't work. I need to practice that." I realize that this little discovery of mine is probably fairly low on the totem pole, but holy shit :)
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Back in Action (9/8/2010)
Back to class after a week long hiatus because of a sinus infection. I still felt somewhat wobbly tonight, but I took it super easy during my sparring rounds. During the technique portion, Jeremy showed how to...sucker punch someone. Then we also covered the basics of the RNC as well as a neck crank from having one hook on the back, and finally the twister.
First round of sparring was with a one stripe white belt who had a good number of pounds on me. We started grip fighting, but his arms were waaay extended, so I armdragged to the back, but since I only got one hook in I was in a good position to try the neck crank we learned out. He didn't give up the crank, but that caused him to leave his collar wide open and turn away so that I could slide to triple attack. I was setting up the choke, but he was tapping much earlier than I expected, so I eased off because I didn't feel as though a more obstinate person would have tapped. I secured the Roy Dean clock choke grip and walked my legs around and finished there. We reset and I swept him from butterfly guard as he overextended himself and leaned left to avoid my armdrag. From mount I slid to s-mount and worked to set up an armbar when I lost my balance and he rolled. I finished the armbar from there, this time focusing very intently on really working with the leg on his head and raising my hips as high as possible.
My second and final roll was with a three stripe white belt. I toppled him and worked to pass my guard. He played this really quite bizarre guard that I had a hard time wrapping my mind around, not because it was difficult to counter, but rather because it was easy to counter and I didn't see how it afforded him any offensive options. Essentially, he put both feet on my hips, grabbed both my collars rather low and then pulled with all of his might. I guess he was trying to stretch me out and break my posture, but since my arms were tight there wasn't really anything to prevent me from popping one of his feet off and running a knee straight up the middle. He did work well to scoot his hips away, which made pressure passing somewhat challenging. Eventually I did secure an underhook, pop my knee across his leg and hip switch out of his guard. From there, it became apparent that he follows the "abuse the face" school of side mount escape thought. It always amuses me when people are more concerned with making their partner uncomfortable than with building a solid frame. As such, he spent the next few minutes trying to either rub my neck raw with his elbow or attempting to roll me over the top by trapping my arm with his neck and torquing with both of his arms. He did unbalance me somewhat at first, but since my arm wasn't straight and my hips were low, it was a simple matter of switching my hips toward his legs and dropping my shoulder onto his face. Eventually, he tried to turn away from me, so I stepped over to mount and went for grapevine/crossface control. He continued to try and abuse my face, so I started working for armtriangles every time his elbow came up. Eventually he extended one of his arms and I went straight for triple attack. There, I found the penn state grip and took his back. I clock choked him from there, although I suspect he tapped because he was tired, as the choke felt very loose. We reset and I pulled closed guard. I only worked on controlling his posture and scooting my hips to the side. I did an ok job.
First round of sparring was with a one stripe white belt who had a good number of pounds on me. We started grip fighting, but his arms were waaay extended, so I armdragged to the back, but since I only got one hook in I was in a good position to try the neck crank we learned out. He didn't give up the crank, but that caused him to leave his collar wide open and turn away so that I could slide to triple attack. I was setting up the choke, but he was tapping much earlier than I expected, so I eased off because I didn't feel as though a more obstinate person would have tapped. I secured the Roy Dean clock choke grip and walked my legs around and finished there. We reset and I swept him from butterfly guard as he overextended himself and leaned left to avoid my armdrag. From mount I slid to s-mount and worked to set up an armbar when I lost my balance and he rolled. I finished the armbar from there, this time focusing very intently on really working with the leg on his head and raising my hips as high as possible.
My second and final roll was with a three stripe white belt. I toppled him and worked to pass my guard. He played this really quite bizarre guard that I had a hard time wrapping my mind around, not because it was difficult to counter, but rather because it was easy to counter and I didn't see how it afforded him any offensive options. Essentially, he put both feet on my hips, grabbed both my collars rather low and then pulled with all of his might. I guess he was trying to stretch me out and break my posture, but since my arms were tight there wasn't really anything to prevent me from popping one of his feet off and running a knee straight up the middle. He did work well to scoot his hips away, which made pressure passing somewhat challenging. Eventually I did secure an underhook, pop my knee across his leg and hip switch out of his guard. From there, it became apparent that he follows the "abuse the face" school of side mount escape thought. It always amuses me when people are more concerned with making their partner uncomfortable than with building a solid frame. As such, he spent the next few minutes trying to either rub my neck raw with his elbow or attempting to roll me over the top by trapping my arm with his neck and torquing with both of his arms. He did unbalance me somewhat at first, but since my arm wasn't straight and my hips were low, it was a simple matter of switching my hips toward his legs and dropping my shoulder onto his face. Eventually, he tried to turn away from me, so I stepped over to mount and went for grapevine/crossface control. He continued to try and abuse my face, so I started working for armtriangles every time his elbow came up. Eventually he extended one of his arms and I went straight for triple attack. There, I found the penn state grip and took his back. I clock choked him from there, although I suspect he tapped because he was tired, as the choke felt very loose. We reset and I pulled closed guard. I only worked on controlling his posture and scooting my hips to the side. I did an ok job.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Mediocrity
Tonight was not a great night for me. Jeremy covered some kimuras and whatnot, and I'll go into that later.
My first roll was with Rob, another white belt. This roll was frustrating because my guard passing blew. I didn't have base, my posture sucked, and I got reversed all over the place. I was going for my usual passing strategy, but somehow he was always killing it by overhooking my arm and sweeping to that side. It was frustrating as hell because I know what I was doing wrong in retrospect. In recent times I've become to kind with the knee slide pass. I'm afraid to put my weight down and put them on their side. Because I was languishing with my knee in the middle and not controlling the sleeve, I let him use the overhook to pull me over.
My guard retention was solid, although I had a really hard time breaking his frame. I need to remember to switch to grip breaks if my usual strategy of pushing from the outside and hipping doesn't work. While on that note, I didn't do a very good job of hipping away from the arm I was pushing either. The roll basically went such that I would hold closed guard and he would break and try to pass, usually with some degree of success before I retained it and we started over. At one point he was passing and setting up a knee crusher (despite me telling him about my knee injuries. Fucker.) and I felt some tension so I tapped to be on the safe side. At one point, I set up my spider overhook sweep, but he started to push my other knee out from under him, and I could not leverage the sweep. In retrospect, this was a golden opportunity to switch to the omoplata or to spin 360 into a triangle, however, since I was too committed to the sweep and had underhooked his leg completely, I was caught beneath him and unable to spin through the gap. I also didn't think to do it, which will put a preemptive stop to just about anything. Once again, I suffered from being too attached to my initial technique. I really need to get it into my head, the first move never works.
Next I rolled no gi with a big dude, and this round was nothing short of obnoxious. I began by working for an armdrag to the back since I really didn't want this dude on top of me, but once again I floundered and failed to move my hips, and instead just tugged on his arm for a bit before pulling closed guard. Once there, I was successful in crossing the arm, however, he worked very hard to control my other wrist, which made it impossible to work anything else. In retrospect, I realize that I should have used my body to pull my shoulder and arm away, as this would force him either to let go or lose his posture completely, which would have given me the space needed to take his back. I didn't do this, however, and instead fought fruitlessly for the leg, which I did eventually get, but I was still unable to sweep him. Then we went back to me playing butterfly, him trying to plant my feet, me kicking his hand off, rinse, repeat. Eventually he was frustrated by my guard and sat back for a footlock. It's nice to notice that my footlock counters, at least, are intact. I scooted through to halfguard, where I spent a few minutes laying on his face until I could pop my knee free and push through to quarter guard and lay on his face some more. End of round.
Finally, I rolled with Kenny who destroyed me. My takeaways from this roll were that my hip movement was off (again), I had completely abandoned my attempts to get better at pressure passing and instead regressed to "four lane highway" passing, and I need to stop looking down. Needless to say, I was not met with great success. I did have one good moment wherein I balanceball passed his x-guard. That felt good.
All in all, my takeaways from tonights class are as follows:
1) Move my hips more. A lot more. I caught myself being flat on my back a lot, and that is why my guard strategy failed. In order to bump the arm off, I need to be on my side. Move the hips. Move the hips. Move the hips.
2) When passing, lead with my hips, not my head. If I am going to pressure pass, I need to be much lower and straighter, and I need to focus super intently on creating angles and cutting the corner. If I am going to get good at pressure passing, I need to learn to keep my effing head up. I think part of the reason I'm struggling with this style of passing might be because I have atrocious hip/groin flexibility. The solution to that is simple, but will take a while.
3) If I notice that someone is starting to knee-in-ass pass, my focus ought to be on a) establishing de la riva or b) fighting the hand that is gripping the pant. I caught myself failing miserably in this regard tonight, and my guard was opened as a result.
4) Keep my head up. Up, not down. Up. Straighten my shoulders and stop hunching. There are times for wet blanket and beachballing, but top position is not one of them. Lead with the hips, not the head. Chest forward, back straight. It's counterintuitive that straightening out creates pressure since there's a strong instinct to want to be close to whatever it is your pushing on. A good way to look at it is to pretend there's a ceiling that I can push on to create downward pressure.
A big reason that I managed to phail tonight was because everyone was all about overhooks, and for whatever reason, that really intimidated me and shut my game down. Now, that I was getting overhooked and the fact that said overhooks were effective in stifling my game are both indicative of one very important mistake:
I was not compact with my elbows. If someone gets a tight underhook, you are leaning into them too much and also allowing yourself to get pulled to the wrong side. An overhook or a wizzer is pretty tricky to get unless your opponent reaches for you. This means that I must focus more on t-rexing.
An example is my roll with Rob. When I was passing by running my knee up the middle and underhooking, his overhook should not have done shit. With the cross knee pass, I want to be turning his body in the direction of my pass, which effectively nullifies his wizzer if he has it. Because he was able to turn away from the pass, he could use the overhook to kill my post and sweep me. Ergo, I was not pressuring effectively and killing his hip mobility.
As far as the meta is concerned, I think my big problem tonight was that I regressed to attaching some aspect of my identity to how I do on the mats. I've been doing a good job of focusing on right action this summer and as a result a lot of my rolling has been fantastic. Tonight, I got wrapped up in the pecking order and who should pass whose guard and all kinds of similar nonsense. I am not my jiu jitsu, and in order to focus on doing the right sequence of techniques at the right time, I need to leave everything except my jiu jitsu at the door.
At the end of the day, though, I have to keep in mind that this all isn't that big a deal in the grand scheme of things. If the worst thing that happens to me is having a shitty night at jiu jitsu, I'm doing pretty well for myself :)
My first roll was with Rob, another white belt. This roll was frustrating because my guard passing blew. I didn't have base, my posture sucked, and I got reversed all over the place. I was going for my usual passing strategy, but somehow he was always killing it by overhooking my arm and sweeping to that side. It was frustrating as hell because I know what I was doing wrong in retrospect. In recent times I've become to kind with the knee slide pass. I'm afraid to put my weight down and put them on their side. Because I was languishing with my knee in the middle and not controlling the sleeve, I let him use the overhook to pull me over.
My guard retention was solid, although I had a really hard time breaking his frame. I need to remember to switch to grip breaks if my usual strategy of pushing from the outside and hipping doesn't work. While on that note, I didn't do a very good job of hipping away from the arm I was pushing either. The roll basically went such that I would hold closed guard and he would break and try to pass, usually with some degree of success before I retained it and we started over. At one point he was passing and setting up a knee crusher (despite me telling him about my knee injuries. Fucker.) and I felt some tension so I tapped to be on the safe side. At one point, I set up my spider overhook sweep, but he started to push my other knee out from under him, and I could not leverage the sweep. In retrospect, this was a golden opportunity to switch to the omoplata or to spin 360 into a triangle, however, since I was too committed to the sweep and had underhooked his leg completely, I was caught beneath him and unable to spin through the gap. I also didn't think to do it, which will put a preemptive stop to just about anything. Once again, I suffered from being too attached to my initial technique. I really need to get it into my head, the first move never works.
Next I rolled no gi with a big dude, and this round was nothing short of obnoxious. I began by working for an armdrag to the back since I really didn't want this dude on top of me, but once again I floundered and failed to move my hips, and instead just tugged on his arm for a bit before pulling closed guard. Once there, I was successful in crossing the arm, however, he worked very hard to control my other wrist, which made it impossible to work anything else. In retrospect, I realize that I should have used my body to pull my shoulder and arm away, as this would force him either to let go or lose his posture completely, which would have given me the space needed to take his back. I didn't do this, however, and instead fought fruitlessly for the leg, which I did eventually get, but I was still unable to sweep him. Then we went back to me playing butterfly, him trying to plant my feet, me kicking his hand off, rinse, repeat. Eventually he was frustrated by my guard and sat back for a footlock. It's nice to notice that my footlock counters, at least, are intact. I scooted through to halfguard, where I spent a few minutes laying on his face until I could pop my knee free and push through to quarter guard and lay on his face some more. End of round.
Finally, I rolled with Kenny who destroyed me. My takeaways from this roll were that my hip movement was off (again), I had completely abandoned my attempts to get better at pressure passing and instead regressed to "four lane highway" passing, and I need to stop looking down. Needless to say, I was not met with great success. I did have one good moment wherein I balanceball passed his x-guard. That felt good.
All in all, my takeaways from tonights class are as follows:
1) Move my hips more. A lot more. I caught myself being flat on my back a lot, and that is why my guard strategy failed. In order to bump the arm off, I need to be on my side. Move the hips. Move the hips. Move the hips.
2) When passing, lead with my hips, not my head. If I am going to pressure pass, I need to be much lower and straighter, and I need to focus super intently on creating angles and cutting the corner. If I am going to get good at pressure passing, I need to learn to keep my effing head up. I think part of the reason I'm struggling with this style of passing might be because I have atrocious hip/groin flexibility. The solution to that is simple, but will take a while.
3) If I notice that someone is starting to knee-in-ass pass, my focus ought to be on a) establishing de la riva or b) fighting the hand that is gripping the pant. I caught myself failing miserably in this regard tonight, and my guard was opened as a result.
4) Keep my head up. Up, not down. Up. Straighten my shoulders and stop hunching. There are times for wet blanket and beachballing, but top position is not one of them. Lead with the hips, not the head. Chest forward, back straight. It's counterintuitive that straightening out creates pressure since there's a strong instinct to want to be close to whatever it is your pushing on. A good way to look at it is to pretend there's a ceiling that I can push on to create downward pressure.
A big reason that I managed to phail tonight was because everyone was all about overhooks, and for whatever reason, that really intimidated me and shut my game down. Now, that I was getting overhooked and the fact that said overhooks were effective in stifling my game are both indicative of one very important mistake:
I was not compact with my elbows. If someone gets a tight underhook, you are leaning into them too much and also allowing yourself to get pulled to the wrong side. An overhook or a wizzer is pretty tricky to get unless your opponent reaches for you. This means that I must focus more on t-rexing.
An example is my roll with Rob. When I was passing by running my knee up the middle and underhooking, his overhook should not have done shit. With the cross knee pass, I want to be turning his body in the direction of my pass, which effectively nullifies his wizzer if he has it. Because he was able to turn away from the pass, he could use the overhook to kill my post and sweep me. Ergo, I was not pressuring effectively and killing his hip mobility.
As far as the meta is concerned, I think my big problem tonight was that I regressed to attaching some aspect of my identity to how I do on the mats. I've been doing a good job of focusing on right action this summer and as a result a lot of my rolling has been fantastic. Tonight, I got wrapped up in the pecking order and who should pass whose guard and all kinds of similar nonsense. I am not my jiu jitsu, and in order to focus on doing the right sequence of techniques at the right time, I need to leave everything except my jiu jitsu at the door.
At the end of the day, though, I have to keep in mind that this all isn't that big a deal in the grand scheme of things. If the worst thing that happens to me is having a shitty night at jiu jitsu, I'm doing pretty well for myself :)
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