Idea

Revelation: Jiu Jitsu is a battle for control of the inside space. This is true from virtually every position there is. Opening and occupying the inside space will win you most fights.

Unwanted time off

I haven't been going to class much more than once a week since I came back from Sweden. I'm not sure why, but I find myself dragging my feet at the prospect of going to my new school. I'm not sure what it is, but the environment there doesn't really whet my appetite for training.

I can't help but feel guilty about this because I'm paying for it and because I'm starting to wonder if switching was the right decision. I know the training there is good, but the people just don't feel as enjoyable and going to class feels like much more of a chore than it has in the past. I also feel bad because I can feel my body deteriorate. I hate being idle because it's like looking at a time lapse of myself and seeing my body and skill waste away.

I guess the root of all of this is why I convince myself that I don't like it there. I always have fun when I go, it's just getting over the hurdle and doing it that gives me trouble.

Class 1/25/2011

Noon Class at Capital today.

5 Attempts; 2 finishes. 65 pushups.

1. Push hand in setup from closed guard against Tony
2. Falling off the front from the back against Tony.
3. Overhook and wrist setup from closed guard against George.
4. Hip bump setup against George (finish).
5. Extended setup from spider against Andrew (finish).

Notes:
As I'm continuing to work for nothing but triangles I'm becoming more and more familiar with what initial conditions I need in order to make them work. First and foremost, posture control has been driven home again and again. Rolling with George, I found myself isolating the head and arm only to have him posture up and out, effectively making my attempt null.

Second, I've been using the hip-check to great effect, and while combined with pulling the head down it's been working wonders. Once having a hand on the head becomes automatic, I need to start working on also turning the head and misaligning the spine.

Third, I need to be more proactive about walking my shoulders back. I struggled today since I was caught against a wall a lot, but it took a few seconds for me to think about it and I had a really hard time securing the lock as a result.

Finally, creating the angle and not burning myself out is crucial.

Class 1/20/2011

3 attempts and 85 pushups.

First attempt was a triangle from under north-south.
Second attempt was a flying from standing.
Third attempt was a transition from an omoplata where my opponent postured and stood up. Got slammed. heh.

Class 1/13/2011

Noon class at Capital.

Triangle attempts: 8 over two sparring rounds of 7 minutes.
Pushups: 60

More to come later. For now: inverted triangle from the back? Yes please.

Spring Training!

Ok, so here's the deal: I recently have read a lot of things suggesting that something that will greatly help training goals is to choose a variable and keep track of it. Even if the variable itself isn't tremendously relevant, it's the record keeping that matters, not the variable itself. As such, I have decided to try this for the next six months. I am calling this The Great Triangle Project, and as the name suggests, I am going to keep track of how many triangles I attempt in sparring.

I have also decided to implement an incentive system. I am going to start each day I go to class with a surplus of 100 pushups. Every triangle attempt will subtract 5 pushups from this amount, meaning that in order to do 0 pushups, I must attempt 20 triangles in one class.

In order to prepare for this task, I have stockpiled a number of resources on setting up and finishing leg triangles, which I hope will be put to good use. Here goes nothing!

Awesome

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USNuyH8XihU&feature=player_embedded

Yep.

Keiko Raca Limited Series Gi Second Impression

After a wash in hot water and a few rounds in the dryer, I am warming up to this gi a great deal. It now feels much more solid and fits me like a glove. I think it's going to be spectacular when I've broken it in about a month from now.

Keiko Raca Limited Series Gi First Impression

My first impression was only so so. The fabric of the jacket feels oddly flimsy as does the rope of the pants. The collar feels great, however. Really solid and firm. Maybe my idea of what double weave feels like was off, but I was expecting it to feel thicker.

Everything else about the gi is great so far. It fits me very well, and after a wash I think it's going to fit like a glove.

Class 12/15/2010

Went to the beginner's class tonight. The technique we covered was regular old straight footlocks. Not too much new information except the instructor talked about feeling their toes in your armpit and starting to straighten the foot before you hit the ground.

Positional sparring was from open guard. First round in I passed using my standard method and was on bottom for some time. I made good use of my new de la riva sweep, making sure to control the distance very actively. I was finally knocked out because I was complacent about getting sleeve grips and got passed. I need to really start focusing on not settling for whatever grips happen and take more of a judo mentality: the right grips are essential to playing my game.

Sparring started with another blue. He asked if I would start inside his closed guard, which I'm fairly certain was because it's his strongest position. I worked on just maintaining my posture and keeping his hips on the ground. I mostly was able to neutralize his hips and offense. He made a few half hearted attempts at collar choking me, but since he didn't have his hips with him I was able to posture out of it. He was very proactive about working for an overhook, though, which is not a game I'm very familiar with countering and it definitely pushed me out of my comfort zone. Especially since I always feel way off balance when I try to free the overhooked arm. I'm also very uncomfortable pushing them down when they sit up and hug outside my arms, which is also something I must figure out how to deal with.

Second roll was with another blue who was very short and squat. I pulled him onto his ass and worked my usual passing strategy. He was all about the running man escape, but left some holes which allowed me to get my penn state and take his back. On the back I was constantly working for the clock choke. Using my legs and penn state grip to clear his hands so I could snag the collar. At one point he stripped one of my hooks and I thought about trying to go for the twister. In the end it was too much effort and an opportunity to get my hook back presented itself instead. Eventually I was able to get a desirable grip on the collar, so I underhooked the leg and went for the choke. He tucked his chin and defended, but I kept my choking elbow tight enough that he couldn't slip his head out. Eventually I went back to the back and time ran out.

My last roll was very similar to the second. I passed guard, he tried to reverse by going to the knees, but I was johnny on the spot and got a deep leg in a la wrasslin. From there I mostly worked to control and try to snag a collar, but to no avail. What I need is better control with my feet so I'm not so dependent on the penn state and can work with both hands to get the grip I want.

Advanced Class 12/2/2010

Last night I attended the advanced class. Unbeknown to me, all advanced classes are tournament prep until January 8th. I thought I was going to do some drilling followed by light sparring where I could work on my de la riva guard. Boy was I mistaken.

We started off with conditioning drills, which were pretty tiring, but I've done a lot worse in my day. The most fun one for me was monkey men. Because I absolutely loved this drill, I will describe it: you start by jumping guard on your partner who stands with their legs apart and their arms held straight out to their sides (picture the vitruvian man). Your goal is to climb up and over their shoulders, down their back (upside down), out through their legs and then back up their front, returning to guard with them standing. All of this without touching the ground. As an added motivator, for every rep that someone completed without touching the ground, everyone did 10 burpees. We did a total of 30 burpees because three monkey men were completed.

Next we did a relay with some monkey walks etc.

Finally, we divided into groups of three by weight and went 5 minute matches. We went in the order
Best vs. Worst
Best vs. Middle
Middle Vs. Worst

I declared myself the worst in my group as the other two were a purple and a blue who was promoted about a year before me.

My first match was exciting because I wasn't that tired, I'm not competing, and generally will try the most preposterous things I can think of when rolling with people who I know are much better than me. I pulled guard immediately, which he passed as I went to my knees for a single leg. I sat through and we scrambled for a bit with him coming up in sidemount top. He collar choked me and we reset.

I pulled guard again and he worked to pass, but I was much more on the ball with my passing defense and I used the single under counter sweep to start a scramble and end up on top in turtle. I fought for the clock choke for some time but he rolled and reversed me into side mount. He moved to north-south where I stiffarmed his hips and tried to take his back. I had to settle for inverted guard which allowed me to set up a real, live omoplata and sweep for another scramble. Then time ran out.

Next I rolled with the blue for a much less exciting match. I pulled guard again and he went to knee slide pass. One thing I noticed was that because he controlled my left arm expertly, I wasn't able to underhook and shuck him off my head to take the back, as I am want to do. Must protect that arm in the future. One exciting bit was that I swept him from quarter guard, but I have no idea how. Let's just call it a fluke. I tried playing de la riva to absolutely no avail whatsoever.

The best part of this class, though, was that it reminded me of how much I actually like hard work. That feeling you get when you've worked out super hard and your mouth tastes like iron? I tell myself that it's a bad feeling, but I really do love it, and it's good to be reminded of that.

Motivation

I've been struggling seriously with motivation of late. Since I switched schools I've found my desire to go to class to be lacking. More than that, I've had trouble getting excited about jiu jitsu period. Normally I'm nearly always watching videos, reading articles, writing stuff down as I think of it throughout the day. Not so for the last few weeks. The times I've gone to practice I've felt bored (yes, even while rolling) and the thought of watching or reading anything jiu jitsu related hasn't whet my appetite as it usually does.

I'm inclined to think that this is in large part because I've come a looong way toward meeting a lot of my short term training goals. For instance, guard passing was my project this summer and I've been met with huge success in that department. Whereas guard passing used to be a scramble, I'm now at a place where I'm pressure passing most blue belts and one or two purples with relative ease and composure.

Although this has been extremely rewarding, it's left me in a place where I find myself asking "now what?" I realize that I have tons more to learn about the subject, but I'm at a place where I think I need to move on to something else. This is difficult because it means I need to find something else I'm bad at and take it on, which is a daunting prospect since it means "losing," and as much as I like to pretend that I have no ego attachment to how I do in sparring, I'm just not there yet. I get cranky when my game doesn't work.

Fortunately, two things have recently come along that have resparked my love of the game. First, I've been drilling on Thursdays with one of my training partners at my old school. Mostly, I've been working a lot on de la riva and last night something clicked. I haven't had a moment like that in a few months and it made me very hungry for more. I'm going to make de la riva my project for the next few months (I'll add a longer list at the end).

I also saw a video by Graugart (my hero) in his Flighthours series. It's incredible to see how good he's gotten since he posted his first one, and it inspired me a great deal.

So, here's what I'm working on for the next few months:
-Classic de la riva sweep & taking the back
-Bow & Arrow choke from the back
-Basic closed guard posture (bottom)
-KOB top game fluidity

New School Day 2

First things first:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mo1VlnIg2o&feature=player_embedded

Epic.

Second, more training at my new school. I'm liking it so far. The sparring is significantly harder than it was at my old place, which is both good and bad. On the one hand, I'll get better. On the other hand, I'm not trying to get hurt.

Today we covered throws and then sparred. A lot. My first round was with a pretty solid whitebelt. He was super proactive at breaking my posture in his guard, however, it was an encouraging moment because it showed me that my posture and position is good, as he never came close to sweeping or submitting. Eventually I passed to sidemount with relative ease. He reversed me off knee on belly and I worked my flower sweep series. I crossed his arm just fine and was starting to set up my sweep/backtake when time was called. It's a slow burn, that move.

Next, I rolled with a purple belt who wrecked my shit. He blew past my guard with a super solid knee slide pass, which I must learn to counter (duh). Not much else to say there. He destroyed me and it was all a little over my head. As far as I could tell my posture was alright and my limbs weren't in the wrong place. He was simply better.

Next, I rolled with a female white belt who, I swear to god, was stronger than me. I mean she was solid muscle. It was like grabbing a wooden dummy. I worked my de la riva against her combat base and pulled the Basic Sweep. She got a knee up but I smooshed it and passed to side. I went for twister side control and she underhooked me (muahaha) which gave me the opportunity to snag the kimura, transition to the other side, get my penn state and take the back. From there I alternated between mount and her back, switching between collar chokes, armbars and moving back and forth between the positions.

My final roll was with another whitebelt. More or less the same as the first roll. She tried to pass my guard with a kneeslide, but I had the underhook so as soon as her hips were on the ground I shucked her off my head and took the back.

Back in Action

So now my move is complete, my fridge has food in it, and I've switched to a school that's much closer to my new place. Let's see what kinds of magic I can make now.

Earlier I hit an open mat with Tony to work my passing. I've been continuing to practice pinning a knee and smashing the legs with the leg rope to pass, which has generally been met with a decent amount of success. The next step is going to be integrating some options if they prevent me from a) putting my knee down and b) flare their top leg so I can't leg rope.

At this point, I've been playing with three options:
1) if they stiff arm my knee, switch and knee slide out
2) OR Capoeira pass
3) Stand up and X-pass

I drilled this scenario with Tony, and I'm starting to get more comfortable with it. I'm getting better at seeing the best option, so now I think I just need to practice and drill to bring the amount of time I have to spend thinking about it down as well as ingraining the details in my muscle memory. Good times.

I also think I'm going to start looking at Eddie Bravo's stuff on twister side control. My passing game often lands me in that position anyway, so I feel at home with a lot of the things he brings up anyway.

Sigh

I always feel useless when I don't go to class, but I think I need to take a break and get my life in order. I can't help but notice that my fridge has been devoid of groceries for 5 days now...

Projections...

I went to the advanced class on tuesday, and while I'm having trouble remembering a ton of specific details, I did feel as though I had a pretty good night. One of my main goals right now is to really work on having good posture, especially in guard e.g. getting my hips off the ground in closed guard, not being flat on my back in open guard, not looking down when passing etc.

I have also been working especially hard on grip breaking and denying my opponent the grips they want. During several of the rolls I focused almost entirely on stripping grips in closed guard, and I was pleased to see that I was met with great success.

My other main focus is on developing my pressure from the top, especially in terms of guard passing. Since I want to get better at the leg rope pass, I've been working especially on pinning one knee and then smashing the legs together. It just occurred to me that I need to control the hips better. I'm going to experiment with one grip on the knee and using the other hand to grab the back of the pants to control the hips.

I also picked up an important detail on the leg rope pass. I've been stepping out with the wrong leg. Rather than extending my left leg (assuming I'm passing to the left) I should extend my right leg and use the hand that is threaded through the legs to extend them and sprawl away from their hooks. I also figured out how exactly to pivot on that knee in order to free my leg from their hooks. Good stuff.

He's turning blue...

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 :)

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 :)

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.

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 :)