Great, great night in jiu jitsu.
No warm-up, just straight into drills--which was a nice change of pace. We worked armbars from the mount, one step instead of three. Then three different techniques from the guard: an armbar attack, a scissors sweep, and then a transition to armbar attack after a failed scissor sweep attempt.
I was surprised at how well I did with the armbar attack from the guard. As I've said time and time again, I'm not too impressed with my guard game, so tonight's effort was nice to see.
All of the attacks from the guard are prompted by the guy in your guard taking a step up. In the armbar attack, you body pivot toward the up leg and underhook that leg at the knee. You want to swing the leg that is on that side up high under the guy's armpit, and then swing your other leg up and bring it down over the neck--axe like.
Also important is the hand position. We worked the drill holding the cuff and collar and having the guy step up with the leg on the opposite side. In a real sparring situation, the guy could stand up with either leg--regardless of whether or not you've got cuff and collar on the opposite side. One work around I've been thinking about is to focus on cuff control or tricep control on both arms. As long as you've got a hold of the right arm when you go into the body pivot, you should be in good shape with the armbar attack.
The scissors sweep was standard-issue. As far as pointers go, you want to make sure you get your knee up and in front of the guy's chest, with your shin crossing his chest. That's how you get your hip leverage in place. The other important thing is the hip escape hard to create the necessary space before you begin the technique. Get your butt out of there!
The scissors sweep transition to armbar was a little tricky. But, again, it was a matter of the body pivot. The same leg that is bringing the knee/shin across the chest in the scissors sweep will also be the leg that axe chops the neck.
I sparred back-to-back four times, which is probably a record for me. I rolled with Robert the Blue, Arnell, Kevin and Tom. Robert caught me in a choke in the last few seconds of our round, but overall I was pretty impressed with how I did. I did a much better job of standing out of the guard--though still not up to where I want to be. I also pressed the Saulo Ribeiro ground guard pass better than I've worked it in the past.
I didn't do as much work from the guard as I would have liked. That is still a focus for the next several sparring sessions. I was able to do some nice transition to north/south from side control against Arnell, and some nice transition from side control to mount on both Kevin and Tom. I'd like to finish off these nice positions moves with submissions. But "position first". The submissions will come.
After class, Tom showed me a pair of escapes from the turtle when someone is holding you in that front bodylock position. The first has you overhooking the guy at the elbow and sitting out by bringing the leg on that side up and through. That one sometimes requires a bit of strength. The second one has you post your leg and forward roll. I need to try that one a few more times--I can't remember if you post the leg on the same side that you trap the elbow or the other side. But it uses leverage more than strength. All in all, a pair of nice moves to remember.
Another note. I got my guard passed a few times. One thing I need to do when the guy is coming over to my side is to grab the cuff or sleeve of the near arm (i.e., if he is passing my left, then his left side is the near arm). From here, I want to roll back and flip my legs up, over and in between myself and the guy. At the same time, I want to pull that arm toward me as I roll. I should be able to armbar the guy if I can get my outside leg (i.e., my right leg in the example above) over in front of his face and across his neck. I half-remember Kevin catching me in an inverted armbar like that a few sessions back.
One other thing: I need to protect my neck. Guys have been zeroing in on gi chokes with me, probably because I'm doing a better job of defending armbars and triangle chokes. Still, let's stop this choke fest stuff before it gets out of hand. If the guy is trying to choke you while you are still in his guard, then you need to explode in your guard pass and make him pay for preoccupying his hands/arms in a choke.
Saturday classes have started in 2006. We'll see about the "special guest judo/jiu jitsu guy". It should be a blast--and I'm looking forward to seeing what the extra day will do to my improvement. Rodrigo announced that "belts and stripes" are going to be awarded at a session in Ballard on February 11th. I'm not expecting anything--though I wouldn't be surprised if I got a stripe. As I tell myself, if I am better in January than I was in December, and better in February than I was in January, then everything will take care of itself.
