Tonight will be the first time in a month that I’ve trained more than once in a given week. Weather (and health) willing, I’ll be able to get back on track this week with training on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday (no gi).
Word has it that the 3rd Pacific Northwest Jiu Jitsu Championships were underwhelming. I’ll try and get a better review tonight, and I’ve asked around the message boards. But nothing is coming back. The location (Edgewood?) couldn’t have helped. And the weather wasn’t a plus. Mike (Two Stripe) told me that there weren’t any white belts. One of our white belts had to wait for hours before he finally learned there was no fight for him. Eventually he got his money back.
Tonight in training, my goals are the same as before: from the top, side control to knee on belly, and from knee on belly work Mamzinho’s “Three from the Knee.” From the bottom I want to work both the half-guard and Marcelinho/butterfly guard. From the half, let’s work on coming up on the inside knee for the tackles and getting the correct foot/leg position for the twists. Old School and Twist Back are the two sweeps I need to get down.
Also from the bottom I want to work on trying to break posture from the closed guard using Bravo’s Hug ‘n’ Drop. Eventually, there will be some rubber guard in there. But for now, let’s just try to consistently break posture.
I was trapped in Mike Two Stripe’s guard for far too long Monday night. It’s like rolling with an octopus with him; his guard replacement is really, really good. Though dealing with closed guards will become less and less an issue as I work with higher belts, I still need to get better at unlocking the hooks and pinning a leg to the mat. A few ideas: when I pin a leg down, if I can’t get my knee over instantly, then I need to stiff-arm that leg to the mat. If my arm is straight, then it will be that much more difficult for the guy to lift is leg than if I keep my arm bent—even bent a little.
Another idea: stand up. Never, never, never try to beat a guy’s guard on the ground. It can be done. But it is much easier to avoid traps if you stand up and THEN come back down.
Mike is too big to pick up, so no PTMU for him. What I need to do instead is get Cesar hand position, then stand up and put my feet perpendicular to each other for balance. Then back the back leg back while pushing (or, better, stiff arming) the leg on that side downward.
Drop the inside knee and pass around, OR drop the outside knee, wrap the head and backstep into side control.
