Absolutely nothing impressive about my performance in the GB Seattle "Friendly" today. I had one match against Sauleh and spent most of the five minutes completely on the defensive, escaping two armlocks and a triangle, scrambling out of mount and against side control. As far as I'm concerned, it was pretty terrible.
But apparently exciting to watch. Or at least that was the attitude of a couple of folks who came up to me afterward. Sauleh is the Ali to my Foreman: too fast and too technical for my plodding, position-based pressure game to keep up with. As such, he is probably the best blue belt on the planet for me to train with, a modern day Tommy: all guard, all movement, all technique, all the time.
I didn't get a chance to roll with him after the tournament - which had more than a few interesting and fun to watch matches including one with Jesse and another with Angela. But I did get to roll with Miriam, a black belt out of the new GB Yakima school, and felt better being able to work my half guard.
One of the things that I will say about my match with Sauleh was that I found myself in half guard two or three times. But every time I was on my left hip instead of my right hip, and my half guard game on my left hip is very underdeveloped. I pulled half guard on my left hip because the opportunities were there, but until I improve my half guard from that side, I have to make sure that I'm pulling on my right hip. It's a world of difference.
I also rolled with Steve for a long time, which also was just what the doctor ordered. It was like taking a nice long 5K run: I got to try a lot of different things, including the heel and hook guard that Rodrigo had us working on earlier in the week. It was a good "stretch-out" roll, the kind of thing everybody should do at least once a week.
After a while, if you get past the ten or fifteen minute mark, you start to try the techniques that are buried under the surface of your jiu jitsu consciousness, things you were taught but never really tried. It's like you break through to this open space where what was once avoided seems now attractive, and what you once wrote off as impossible suddenly becomes a great idea to try.
My top game, in some ways, has stalled as my guard game - mostly half and open - has started to catch up. It probably had to happen. The last leap in my top game came a few months ago, when I started to be more successful taking and holding mount. So maybe I'm just not due for any major improvements from the top.
Those improvements, when they do come, will hopefully involving passing the guard. But that's another story for another day.
Any time you return from a competition with a renewed sense of wanting to get back on the mat, it's been a successful competition. I really would have liked to have performed better. But hopefully that regret will prove a renewable resource to get me where I need to be in time for the Revolution event in early November (as well as the next "Friendly" at the end of October.
