Last night’s training was a hoot and a half. Four of us were there: Stephan, Michelle/Wags, Chris and myself. Monday and Wednesday classes, I’ve discovered, are really at 6:30 p.m. not 6 p.m., which gives people a little more time to arrive from work or wherever. It also means that I don’t need to try and leave early from the office on those afternoons, which means I’ll still be able to rack up the comp time to split for home on Fridays an hour early.
Anyway, only Stephan, Chris and myself did the class, which was really just an intensive training session. We worked on specifics: mount, side control, half guard, rear mount and passing the guard. Everybody went with everybody for two minutes (except for passing the guard, which was three). After that, everybody sparred with everybody twice for five minutes each.
I’d take a class like that every week. I got manhandled most of the night, but it was fun trying to work my escapes and techniques on guys like Stephan and Chris (both brown belts, by the way). There’s a certain freedom I feel sometimes when rolling with higher belts. Maybe it’s the freedom to screw up and not feel bad or embarrassed about it. I know that there are times rolling with white belts—pretty much only those that outweigh me by double digits—that I slip into the “I Must Not Be Tapped” mode. I know it’s wrong and counterproductive, largely because it prevents me from taking chances and trying techniques that should be staples given my preferences and style (paging “far side armbar” … white courtesy telephone for “far side armbar” …). And as the kids say, I’m working on it. But last night was a relief in that regard, at least: the sense that I couldn’t fail whatever I did.
Focusing on what I did that I liked, I was impressed with my rear mount, mostly the harness. No, I wasn’t able to convert it into an effective choke. But it was clear that the details I’d been studying about the harness, the idea of getting over overarm deep over the shoulder AND tight against the neck, the idea of getting the handclasp no higher than the guy’s heart-level, both worked very well in terms of getting me in the right position to execute the choke. Much like my attempt to stand to pass the guard Monday, I wasn’t exactly “successful”, but I liked the fact that I’m cobbling this technique together, piece by piece.
My closed guard is still a mess. I need to go back to some old notes I used to keep on what I want to be doing from here. Part of the problem is that much (though not all) of the closed guard is about breaking posture, and I’m terrible at that. One alternative is the crossover sweep, which I have done successfully a few times in the past. The Werdum series is also something I should consider if breaking the posture is a problem—and it is.
Another major point of improvement—but one I feel pretty good about being able to work on—is my Marcelinho guard. Or, as Aesopian calls it, butt scooting. Over the course of the evening, I got better at some of the fundamentals like leaning my weight forward over my feet and fighting off the grips. But there are still some significant holes that I hope to fill over the next week.
What are those holes? Some are important but minor like Aesopian’s admonition “arms out, palms up” which I suspect helps both in breaking grips and in setting up armdrags and collar grips (for snapdowns). But the main hole is that I really don’t have an attack from Marcelinho guard. As such, I end up sitting there in great position, fighting off the other guy’s hands all day. Since I’m not really attacking, sooner or later he gets a grip of some sort and puts me on the defensive.
I’m linking to Aesopian’s “Becoming a Better Butt Scooter” post. But I also want to just note right here what some of the major attacks are. He lists armdrags to take-the-back as one of the chief ones, obviously, insofar as that is part of Marcelinho’s arsenal. But he also includes snapdowns against guys with posture or on their knees, as well as single legs in the event that they stand to pass your guard.
The other main attack is to move into a proper butterfly guard or cross guard (i.e., x-guard). I was thinking about it last night after class and realized that I rarely use butterfly hooks to lift my opponent. That’s probably because a lot of the time guys are in good posture against me, so lifting them up doesn’t seem like a great strategy. But lifting one side and kicking out the support on the other is a key way to break a guy’s base down, so I need to start really working my butterfly guard so I can get a feel for what I’m supposed to be doing.
On that score, I should probably look at Kesting’s great stuff on the butterfly guard over at GrappleArts.
All in all, one of the most intense and fun classes I’ve had all year. I get a little freaked out when classes are small and I start to fear that people will stop coming (it WAS Valentine’s Day, though). But I can’t help but enjoy the attention and appreciate the experience you get when there are just a few of you on the mat and you’re the least experienced of the bunch.
