I almost feel as if some of the gains I’ve made in the past few weeks were undone last night. It was Wednesday, so we were back in the gi I love so much. And maybe it was because we’d just done no gi the night before, maybe it was because I’m not taking in enough carbs to keep me fueled until 7 or 8 at night, but I felt like I gassed way too hard and way too quickly last night.
Mamazinho showed us a couple of variations out dealing with the turtle position. First, he showed us how to move from facing the turtle to taking the back. This is a standard move where you reach across the turtle’s back with your opposite hand while doing a backstep with the leg on the other side. For example, you would reach over his back with your right hand and do the backstep with your left leg. You want to control the inside elbow as you backstep and then slide your inside knee between his arm and his body for superior control. With that far hand, reach under and control the wrist.
From this position, Mamazinho showed us the infamous clock choke. You reach under the neck and get a good choking grip. Then walk forward around and toward the head with your outside leg. From here, you want to step through with your inside leg while putting all your weight on the turtle’s inside shoulder. Pull up to get the choke—though most of the work will come from your weight bearing down on the shoulder.
Last there was a counter to the clock choke. Mamazinho reminded us to NEVER, NEVER, NEVER turn away from a choke—ALWAYS look to turn into it somehow. In this counter, the turtle grabs the choking arm/hand with his outside hand. Then you (as the turtle) want to sit in with your inside leg while snaking your inside arm preferably around the waist—though I was only able to get my arm around the top guy’s inside leg. Then, turning into the top guy, roll him over your hips, turning your inside shoulder up first.
I was able to do it fairly well in drills. But when Mamazinho had us do it as a specific sparring drill, I was more of a mixed bag. I was able to hit it against the tall Asian white belt I’ve been sparring with a lot lately, but not once against Tommy.
From there we went into some more specific sparring: side control, mount and take the back. Like I said, maybe there were a hundred reasons why I just didn’t have the juice last night, but by the time we got to the take the back work, I was spent.
As for sparring, I still managed to get three rolls in. That’s pretty much my standard—I don’t want to go too many sessions where I don’t get at least that many “free rolls”. I rolled with that new guy that Rebecca met, then with Tommy and then with Stephan. As you can see the night didn’t get any easier. I managed to get a forearm choke on the new guy, a white belt who’s probably a little heavier than I am but not much. But by the time I got to Tommy I was starting to fade.
What’s worse about fading like that is that while my body is tired, it is my ability to think clearly that is really what gets hit. I feel like I have to stop and crank up my brain like an old Model T just to get it in gear and plotting what my next move should be. One example was that Tommy was working his spider guard at one point. I know that it is easiest to deal with the spider guard when you stand up and extend the guy’s guard. But I didn’t do it. On the other hand, there are still things that I am godawful at, like escaping from the mount with anything other than an upa. I see so many guys being able to elbow escape out of the mount—even white belts like Adam were pretty good at that. But I feel completely hapless trying to elbow escape out of the mount. This is a major area of weakness, because once guys figure out that the upa is my only escape from the mount, it will be that much easier for them to defend themselves against it. Maybe I’ll see if I can get somebody to work on that before class—just the basic movement. There’s also always the Abaya stuff on Google Video.
A couple of points from last night’s rolling in general.
If you get a triangle on a guy and he stands up stacking you, then don’t allow him to back you up on your neck. Go for either the double heel push sweep, the elbow overhead sweep or even release the triangle and go for a seated double leg takedown. Whatever you do, don’t just be there upside down trying to secure the triangle at all costs. Ideally, you should give up the triangle BEFORE the guy realizes that he doesn’t have to keep fighting it because it is gone.
If you don’t want to take the back, then you’ve got to secure the clock choke position. A guy giving you his back is either giving you four points or the submission. If you don’t want the points, at least take the submission.
Having a good triangle choke escape is good, very good. But not getting caught in the triangle is even better.
Don’t leave your arms dangling around when you are on top. A lot of guys might miss it, but both Rodrigo and Stephan have managed to tap me with keylocks from the bottom in half guard. Neither of those submissions “had” to happen.
When guys are standing against your Marcelo guard, consider shooting between their legs into X-guard or all the way into taking the back. They should be put on the defensive, instead of being able to stand there and plot their next move.
