Today we worked on specific guard work, focusing on strategies for attacking with and passing the open guard.
Lindsey focused on sleeve control from the bottom, coupled with foot in the biceps and hip. From the top, he talked about the importance of either driving the legs together and going around them, or splitting the legs and using your knee to press one of them to the mat. Described this way, passing the open guard becomes a manageable game of either/or. He also talked about stacking by bringing the legs together and driving them upwards.
It was a really nice class. Sometimes you get too much instruction, too much to keep in your head every class. Every now and then, it's nice to get a few basic concepts and then the time to play with them a little bit and get a feel for their application. A good way to start the training week.
Tatame wasn't bad. I was a little lazy with the low half game, but I did manage to avoid being crossfaced. I'm starting to redevelop a nice feel in the relationship between the tackle and twist sweeps from the low half, and am doing a fairly decent job bowing out against the knee cross pass.
One thing I need to add to that "bow" maneuver is the moth guard sweep when I rotate back after inserting my knee and stopping the pass. I'm not sure, but it seems like a natural 1-2 and if that's the case, I'll get a lot of opportunities to use it because the knee cross pass is the number one attack against my half guard right now.
Very fat on the scale after class as I feared: 163. I did Week 5A part of the MEP pushup program earlier today and was completely blasted, with 50% of the sets being broken. I do Week 5B tomorrow and Week 5C on Thursday. 6A the following Sunday and 6B that Wednesday and I'll be done. I also did a 20 rep solo jiu jitsu series (the 3T) to start working my way back to a full 3T by the time my "Road to Revolution" begins next Sunday.
I'm also bringing the LSD back into my off-the-mat conditioning. It was crazy to stop. Tuesdays and Saturdays are slated to be my roadwork days
