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 :)