Wednesday was my first class with Stephan in awhile. He worked us in takedowns and in the same opening-the-guard drills that have been the main course all week.
Warm-ups included Stephan's specialty, the granby roll, as well as some major partner-required ab work. The takedown was an inside leg trip. It's really the first part of the trilogy that Marcio was talking about in the seminar: attacking with the inside leg trip, then switching to the uchi mata if that failed, and then finishing with the ankle pick if the uchi mata didn't do the job. I think the formal judo names for the takedown attack series I'm calling "Feitosa" is: ouchi gari (the inside trip), uchi mata (the inside thigh throw), and kibisu gaeshi (the ankle pick).
Stephan had us working the uchi gari. It's a four-step move. A penetration step. Bring the rear foot up. Hook the front foot around the guy's lead leg. Twist your hips to the outside to complete the sweep.
All the emphasis on takedowns these days is great. I love the stand-up part of jiu jitsu as much as the ground work and feel pretty comfortable fighting for grips and going for takedowns. But the emphasis on opening the closed guard has been heaven-sent.
Next week, Rodrigo and Stephan will start introducing specific techniques to open the closed guard. This week we've been largely on our own--which I've enjoyed. I wouldn't mind another week of that. But it's good to know that we'll be on similar ground next week. I'm convinced that if I developed a decent, consistent guard passing game, I would be a pretty decent blue belt--at least in competition, where the stand-up part comes into play more. Every match I've lost in competition has been because of poor guard opening and passing. Next to escaping from bad positions, nothing is more important for me right now than that.
I've got a few "unplugged" version of guard openers: the Gracie Barra standing opener and Saulo's ground opener. I think what is holding me back is that I'm rushing it, that I haven't quite figured out how to get from being in the guard, to being in base but ready to open the guard, to finally opening the guard. In just about every move there's a point where you've got a beat, a moment or two, to check yourself and prepare for the finishing move--leaning back in the armbar and raising the hips, squeezing the knees in the triangle choke ... Because I haven't thought out the steps precisely, I have a tendency to rush it, trying to get to the end move as quickly as possible.
What seems to be sacrificed is my base. I go through the movements. But do so too quickly. So I undermine my ability to really attack the closed guard, for example, because my base is not set.
Hopefully, I'll get to work on that next week. It makes me think that the guard openers "don't work" because I feel like I'm doing all the steps and not getting the result I want. Rushing is a big issue in general for me. I'm reminded that the point isn't to be "quick". The point is to be in the right place at the right time. Timing is more important, much more important, than speed.
Sparring was short, but sweet. Rolled with Stephan and at one point tried to transition to half guard when my closed guard didn't seem to be accomplishing much. Stephan flew immediately into the move that Kyra Graice showed us at the seminar. I didn't even have a chance to put on the lockdown. That probably saved me from the kneebar, though Stephan transitioned into a straight footlock. It was a good reminder that against the better guys, I'm not going to be able to ease on into half-guard in an attempt to slow things down and get set. If I'm not ready to go on offense with the half-guard, then it is not necessarily the sanctuary it once was.
