Last night was the last gi training I'll get before the Copa Northwest 8 this Saturday. Nothing special ... Jesse the Purple (whom I haven't seen in many weeks) led a high-speed, non-stop warm-up that was typically good ... Mamazinho had about six white belts who apparently weren't planning to compete this weekend work on some stuff on their own, while the rest of us did specific training and then some general sparring.
I was matched up with Angela the Blue for the specifics and for the first 10-minute sparring session (Mamazinho had us do three ten-minute rounds last night). She's gotten even better since the last time I rolled with her: still almost impossible (for me) to choke, and she does a good job of keeping her arms out of harm's way. I did well position-wise, but never came close to having her in danger of getting submitted. She said something about "trying to break her leg" when she was on top during half-guard and I was tightening the lockdown that I've been working on for the past few days. I'll admit that I was a little put out by that; no one has complained yet that there is anything untoward about my lockdown. But mileage varies, as they say, and one person's tight lock is another person's Mir-on-Sylvia bone breaking moment.
So I'll keep an eye on it. I know part of what I was trying to do was keep her smash game at bay, which is something I don't remember her using as effectively in the past as she was last night. Not a lot of people play the smash game either consistently or efficiently, forgetting that driving the shoulder into the face is a great way to control the guy on the bottom. I picked up on it because it is definitely one of the things I like to do from the top. So I tried to stretch her out with the lockdown to take some of that pressure off of my face. I'd probably do better to get small and work a sweep ...
What's funny is that when I was on top trying to pass her guard, I spent more than a few minutes trapped in her vise-like half-guard, worried that if I tried to pull my leg out any harder I might break my foot.
The biggest criticism of my half-guard game is still what I wrote a little while back: not coming up on the inside elbow and leg. I'll probably get a chance to work on that a little tonight with no gi. That, and escapes from side control. I had a hard time hitting the "bridge" that Marcelo talked about in the previous post. I'm not sure if it is a matter of leg strength or back flexibility. But I'll keep working on it.
Unfortunately, passing the guard with the gi remains a weak spot that likely won't be worked on until after the tournament. I picked up Mike the White last night during one of the ten-minute sparring sessions. It didn't lead to a pass, but at least I did it. I like how I'm fighting for hand position, and paying more attention to being in the guard in the position and posture that I want (right side cheated forward, legs sidesaddled knees left). But I've got to follow-through with the rest of the move.
I can't emphasize enough how crucial this is. PTMU: Pick The Motherfucker Up. I swear: if I lose Saturday because of lousy guard passing I'm headed for the nearest bridge.
That's it for now. I managed to work in a few keylocks from the bottom--it was good to see them continuing to work. I rolled with Rodrigo for about ten minutes and did about as well as you would expect. He caught me with a few armbars and triangles. I think I did a pretty decent job of avoiding a few attacks by getting back to a solid in-the-guard base, as well as putting a knee between his legs as Tommy showed me last Thursday (i.e., the combat base position). One thing I didn't do that I need to do when guys go to their side, with both knees up (and usually on the same side), is to stand up and go for a toreano pass. I did that once with someone else I sparred with last night and it let directly to a successful pass and side control.
Even though I couldn't really apply them, it was nice to try and position myself for a few different things with Rodrigo, like practicing the hand positioning for the brabo choke and working the clock choke. Of course, Rodrigo was never in trouble with any of those attacks (though I think the clock choke attack might have at least looked good). Mostly I'm glad that I kept thinking and moving (for the most part), trying to use as many of the different techniques I've learned.
Weight cutting is going slowly, probably because I'm pretty close to my base weight of 150-155 already. I weighed 169 with the gi on last night before training, which freaked me out a little bit. This morning I weighed 163 dressed no shoes. Today is completely carb free: salad and protein drink for breakfast, pork and bean cassolet for lunch ... not sure what I'll eat at 3 p.m. And I start cutting back on the water today also. I'd really love to drop down to about 150 after the tournament and then try to keep my weight below 155 so I don't have to worry about diet so much. At the last tournament I weighed in at 157, which was about 1.9 pounds under the limit. For a certain perspective, that's perfect. I'm always amazed at how these UFC fighters, for example, can weigh in at 170 or 185 right on the dot. But that's what you want to do if you can do it. That said, I'd like to feel as if I've got more "wiggle room" in case a scale goes the wrong way.
That's the update for now. It was fun to go right into specifics and sparring last night. I wouldn't mind doing that more often.
