Mamazinho had us working on a few related techniques last night in training. The first was taking the back against a guy’s turtle, a position I’ve been calling “bulldog” from even before I started giving names to everything. It’s a basic move: he attacks your right leg from the turtle, you reach over with your right arm and hook the opposite waist/oblique, turn counter-clockwise, backstepping toward his side. Use your outside hand to check guy’s inside elbow, then move your outside knee in its place.
There were two breakdowns. Both involve reaching around and under to attack the far arm that is likely being used as a post in the turtle position. In the first variation, you reach across the face with the outside arm and hook the guy’s far arm, then reach under the chest with the inside arm and claps hands around that far arm. Pull the arm towards you as you lean your weight into the shoulder. As the guy topples over, pull the arms up and out of the way as you slip into judo side control.
The variation is in case the guy posts out with his far leg, making it hard to roll him over. What you want to do in this case is to move a little further behind him and twist him over his shoulder, rather than directly on his side. It actually looks a little like a midget shoulder throw.
What is especially interesting is that I’d been looking at escapes from the bulldog position (i.e., being turtled and looking to reverse or put the guy in your guard). The Essential Guard has two different moves that I like. One is a backroll over and the other is a sort of inside drop step. With the roll, you want the guy to your side and you want to hook his outside leg from the inside out. Roll on your inside shoulder and throw your outside leg up, around and over the guy’s body. You should wind up in guard.
The other inside drop step is similar to a move Mamazinho showed me last night when I was rolling with George the purple belt from Oklahoma. Here, instead of hooking the leg, you want both of your legs to be outside his. Create a little space with your inside leg and then bring your outside leg up inside.
Another key: make sure you keep your elbows in. I made the mistake of reaching out with an arm and George managed to trap that arm, making it impossible for me to work either of those two escapes.
A very good night of training for me. I’m starting to feel like I’m getting “it” back. I hit a very nice “Poosh the Guy” to “Rodeo” for the first time, and will definitely make sure to keep working on it from the cobra guard (formerly the lotus guard). I also like the fact that when I went to closed guard, I immediately transitioned to the hilo guard, which is something else I want to work on diligently this year.
At the same time, I got a little lazy and a little sloppy in the guard—so I want to make sure I don’t start slipping on this and falling back into old habits. Pass the guard! Stand, STAND, STAND!
I also like the way I was controlling the sleeve when I was working effectively for the pass. It was a point that Rodrigo had brought up frequently. I was impressed at how effective controlling that sleeve can be so, again, something to make a staple of future practices.
I’ve got some ideas about finishing the d’arce and brabo chokes. I was trying to work them in one sparring round, going back and forth between the two, but couldn’t get either of them sunk. I know one mistake with the brabo was in not going under the arm at the armpit. Instead I attacked further down on the arm where the guy had more control of the arm and could nullify the choke.
I’m actually starting to find some extra inspiration in some of the things that were on my mind when I wrote parts of my “Born Under a Bad Sign” post. It’s actually very similar to the situation I was feeling (and also wrote about) with Bartinho, the leader of BJJ Spokane, and what tended to happen when I was matched up against his guys. While it is a stretch to say that this kind of jabber is a “compliment”, there is a perspective from which I can treat it as one--and that’s exactly the perspective that I’m going to take. Whether I like it or not, the jabber is a barometer of my performance that I can use to get better, faster. And that's just what I plan to do.
