A little Hilo Guard, nothing special, but it was good to see me working to put pressure on the hips. Managed a nice manuver to get the arm wrap, but got a little confused about where to go to initiate Rap Star. I felt the kimura opportunity come and go, and then thought I had a chance at the off-armlock. A little scrambled, but it was nice to see the images flashing before my eyes ...
No spider guard, which was a little negative. And I bailed to half-guard twice, which was another negative even though I managed a keylock submission from the bottom the second time.
Got caught in a basic choke from rear mount. I just gave up on the position and didn't really work my main Saulo positional escape, at all. I remember the choke escape that Mamazinho showed us--and that Rodrigo reminded me of afterwards. I just didn't fight.
This is something I need to make a focus of training in 2008. My cardio is perfectly fine and my conditioning is probably as good as it has been in months if not years. So while I'll cop to being scatterbrained in mid-roll, I cannot allow myself to blame fatigue. Moving and failing is different from deciding not to move and failing.
Did some good work in maintaining the mount. I also hit my first armlock in many, many months. It was a little sharp, I was catching a guy who had abandoned his arm as he was trying to roll out of mount. I went belly down--Fedor-style--with the armlock and my partner cried out immediately. I released the hold, but it was a little late and he needed to ice his elbow afterward. Hopefully, I'll see him again next Wednesday and he'll be okay. He seemed alright afterwards.
Overall: Not a bad first day back. If I'm going to make the armlock my attack then I need to learn how to gauge it. Quick to position. Slow to finish. Again, the armlock is my submission for the year, so I shouldn't have to feel like I've got to turn into Minotauro or Paulo Filho in a month. Study the entries and set-ups, see how quickly I do and do not need to move ... Patience.
I've been surprisingly vulnerable to chokes over the past several weeks. I always think that you are most vulnerable to whatever techniques you yourself are weak at. Generally speaking, I feel very comfortable standing and increasingly comfortable defending my arms. No surprise that my takedowns and arm/shoulder attacks are my most effective jiu jitsu.
All this and no talk of guard passing?! I decided to stick to the Saulo ground pass. I know: I should have worked the Margarida or the Cesar/PTMU. But I really, really would love to master the Saulo ground pass and figured as long as I stuck with it for the entire training session, then it would actually be perfectly fine.
As it turned out, the times I really committed to the Saulo, it worked. I bailed on it a few times. But it worked enough times for me to realize that it is just a matter of imposing my (meager) guard passing will. My base didn't feel perfect, and I was trying to remember to sit to open the legs.
Again, if I'm going to do the Saulo, then I need to stick with it every time I'm opening the guard for the whole session. No weak Saulos as an excuse to avoid the Cesar or Margarida passes!
