Three days. Three trips to the academy. It's been a wild and atypical pace for me this week and I'm hoping to make it even wilder by training Thursday and Friday.
(video apropos of nothing more than the word "three" and my love for King Crimson, greatest closed guard sweep/submission series ever)
I won't pretend that anything amazing is coming from it. I haven't uncovered any great secrets that separate my jiu jitsu from, oh say, Mario Feitosa's. But some of the things that I've always been pretty good at, like the crossbody, the americana, and the half-guard, are starting to feel very, very comfortable.
I like the way I'm switching from side control to Watch Dog, and the Watch Dog half guard pass is becoming more and more my go-to move from the half. I've also really started to nail my counter to the Watch Dog half guard pass when people try it on me. I've had some very good, consistent success with it.
I still haven't really figured out how to set up the americana from the bottom consistently (though the sticky paw grip plays a nice role). And I've got to make a serious reassessment of my guard game and decide if my guard really should be more sweep-based with a focus on open guards.
In this, I really need to pay strict attention to how Rodrigo rolls. We are very similar in physical attributes: about the same size and strength, probably similar conditioning, neither of us have incredible flexibility or manic speed ...
Rodrigo very rarely plays a Roger Gracie type of closed guard. Instead, he works with a lot of sleeve and collar, sleeve and knee grips. With the legs, there's a lot of de la Riva and butterfly hooks. Even his half guard is open and "upright"(compared to mine, where I end up fighting from a flattened-out position even when I get the reversal). He keeps the knee of the non-hooking leg up, much the way Saulo recommends in his instructional on the half-guard.
An interesting aside: Rodrigo was sparring with Shawn, the "new" brown belt I've seen coming during the days for the past few weeks that I've been coming during the day. Rodrigo was talking about his use of the DLR. He pointed out that he didn't just want to hold, or control the ankle. His goal was to make that leg light, and force the guy to put all of his weight on one leg--making him easier to sweep. Rodrigo did this by lifting up at the pant cuff, instead of just cupping the ankle. This also makes it harder for the guy to kick his leg free.
One great thing about all this mat time is that I feel like I'm trying things all the time. Old things are starting to click and new things are starting to make sense. I'm not sure how long I'll be able to keep at this pace, or when a new project from work will intrude. But so far so good.
