I spent Wednesday night over at Demon Jiu Jitsu in Tukwila, helping Cindy get ready for Abu Dhabi in May. Demon Jiu Jitsu is run by Eric Dahlberg, who is one of Mamazinho’s more recent black belts.
The academy is located in an industrial park, and from the outside reminds me of many of the karate schools you see dotted around cities. Inside, it is a pretty nice little facility with a changing room, a huge blue mat, some heavy bags, speed bags and other fight stuff scattered around. The mat was a lot more firm than the wrestling mats I’m used to over at Tully’s. But after an hour or two of rolling I don’t remember feeling much of a difference.
I also rolled with one of the young wrestlers there. I forget his name, but he was a strong athletic guy who had only been training for a little while. Cindy said he had a great takedown game, but I didn’t get to see much of it since we all started from the knees when we sparred.
Rolling with Cindy was fun. She’s always fast and aggressive and, like Tommy, damn good with a triangle choke. She has a particular set up where she sets the triangle up from mount and then either goes with the roll as you try to escape or finishes the triangle from on top. I was a little hesitant to try and use CC Grinder to escape because of my knee, so I tried the Midget Slam, which seems to be more effective when going against somebody in a gi. I didn’t manage to escape consistently with it, but it does seem like a better option than CC Grinder when rolling no gi.
But what did I learn? I learned that Crimson works, and is quickly becoming my “go-to” sweep from the closed guard, gi or no gi. I also learned that the elbow shove and leg kick portion of Dig Dug also work to get rid of one of the hooks when rear mounted. I spent a lot of time fighting off Cindy’s RNC last night, so I got plenty of time to try and work a variety of different escape attempts (emphasis on “attempts”). I liked what I was able to do with Dig Dug, even if it didn’t result in a complete escape.
Lastly, I learned the importance of getting small when on the bottom in half-guard. Eric had been watching us and coaching Cindy, interrupting once or twice to show exactly what he meant in a given situation. One time he came over and gave me a tip on the half-guard—namely, on the importance of getting as small as possible, and to go from a simple underhook to hooking your arm around their hips to help you get behind them. I’d been telling myself that I needed to focus on getting smaller when on the bottom in half-guard; it was nice to get confirmation that this was exactly what I should be doing.
