We worked the armbar from S-mount, then a winding choke from S-mount, then practiced switching from an armbar attack on one side to an armbar attack on the other.One thing I like about Mamazinho's teaching method that I'm just starting to appreciate is how he works three different moves from a basic position. A lot of times, it is one attack from on top and one escape, or two sweeps and a counter to the sweeps. But it is a nice "packet of knowledge" that you can remember (or you can remember ... some days I'm remembering better than others ...). For instance, I've taken to thinking of Mamazinho's knee on belly attacks (the armbar, the choke and the baseball north/south choke) as the "Three from the Knee" ...
One detail I want to note was that when you pushed the arm across the body before scooting around toward the head, you wanted to use your body to help keep that arm out of the way. Otherwise, when you go to post your outside arm to help the scoot, there won't be anything to keep the guy turned over on his side--that same arm was busy trying to poosh the guy's arm, instead of letting your body do the work.
I've also got to avoid rushing. Drilling the techniques Monday night I jammed my big toe harder than I would have liked to. I actually think the tape had slipped, which might have accounted for everything uncomfortable. But it had me hobbling a little bit. It was the switching armbar, going from Bravo's spider web on one side to another web on the other, that seemed to be the only move that was affected, which makes me believe that the problem is going too fast.
I ballooned up to 165 over the weekend which made a typical Monday practice a little poorer than usual on my part. There was blessedly minimal running in the warm up. And I managed to get a couple of rolls in with good guys like Tommy, Jeff, Clint and Chris (now the Brown), as well as some good specific stuff ...
I've been thinking about some different ways to be more aggressive from the Marcelo guard, especially when dealing with guys whose posture I have to work extra hard to break. Right now my goal is to tighten up the half-guard and start to have a more coherent guard attack (submissions and sweeps) game between now and the next tournament: my first as a blue belt.
