Whenever you are in a situation where the thought crosses your mind, “this guy is too strong,” you’ve got to remind yourself that the problem is not his strength, the problem is your technique. Wrong spot. Wrong angle. No leverage.
One thing I like about the way Saulo teaches jiu jitsu in his instructional is his emphasis on leverage, on being in the right spot so that you are not wasting your energy fighting strength against strength. I think that’s what makes people like Rickson and Rodrigo seem to roll so effortlessly, save for short bursts of exertion during an escape or securing dominant position. They feel what is possible, and then they move to exploit it.
But to exploit it, you’ve got to be in the right position, have the right angle, and have more than just your strength going for you ...
We’re continuing to work on guard opening. We’ve really been breaking it down bit by bit, which is great. But I feel like I’m in danger of missing the opportunity to finally fix what has been my most critical weakness. If I can’t significantly improve my guard opening while we are focusing on it so much, then it is hard to believe that I’ll be able to improve it as rapidly as I’d like once we’ve moved on to other areas of emphasis.
Casey once told me that I’d be alright if I could just keep my posture. More and more I think that is the crux of it. I remember after losing a bid to medal in a tournament how Mamazinho got on me about not returning to base after a failed guard opening attempt. That’s something I read about in Path to the Black Belt this morning, the idea that you need to return to your base anytime your guard opener/guard pass fails. Get set, and try again. But get set. Don’t abort mid-pass and try something else when you are off-balance or not set.
For the most part, set = posture. Tuesday we worked specifically on ways to regain posture when it has been broken, as well as using either the inside or outside knee to keep the guard open once you’ve opened it.
The technique had you put your hands in the guy’s armpits (overhand or underhand). Move one knee in to the middle. Put the other knee out perpendicular as you turn your shoulders, opening up in that direction. With your palms down and pressing on the guy’s chest, then abdomen, walk your hands down.
As you do this, you’ve got two options: you can press down on the knee, and put your perpendicular knee over. Or you can pop the inside knee up.
What was killing me, again, was posture. Sometimes during the drill, I’d go to put the knee out to the side and literally tip over, falling on my face. Part of the problem is that I still haven’t overcome the instinctual impulse to look down. I’d like to believe it’s that simple because I know it is a major mistake that I continue to do. I need to keep my weight back and my head up—just look down with the eyes.
Wednesday I want to watch Stephan do this move. I want to watch how his weight shifts—or does not shift—when he goes to put the leg to the side. That’s one of the things that I hate about learning new stuff: you never know which detail is most important for your jiu jitsu until you try the move and fail. In this case, the detail that I really needed to watch when Rodrigo showed us the technique tonight was that weight shift. Does he push off against the torso as he is putting the knee to the side? That would make it harder to “tip over” as I did a few times.
I also thought I noticed Rodrigo leaning to the side, with his knee-out shoulder turned away. Cesar Gracie talks about sometimes going to the side when you are in someone’s guard because it can help you maintain posture better than when you are sitting there with your shoulders square. Another nice thing about opening up to the knee-out side is that it makes it easier to attack that knee as part of the guard opener.
All things to work on for Wednesday.
