Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Worth a Thousand Words

Staring at jiu jitsu pictures for me is a lot like the chess "problems" that appear in the comics sections of newspapers. I just like to look and try and tell myself everything I should be able to do from a given position: escape, sweep, submit, pass ...
This photograph of John Simon, an Australian black belt, is my current jiu jitsu "thought problem" for that amalgam of butterfly, Marcelinho, sitting guards that I've collectively referred to as my "Lotus guard."

From here, on offense, I like the Stuff Sweep, Poosh the Guy and the basic collar choke for which no clever name has yet been assigned ... Simon's "lazy passes", on the other side, are also worth working on--especially insofar as they resemble some of the stuff Rodrigo showed us awhile back about passing the butterfly guard.