No gi night tonight. We started with some extended pummelling after a warmup, then spent the rest of the instructional period working on knee cross guard passing from standing against the sitting guard, especially when the guy has wrapped his arms around your leg.
It was very good work, focusing on fighting for the underhook from on top, sprawling your outside leg wide for balance and to give your hip room to twist and your knee room to turn outward. And on the bottom, it gave me further excuse to work deep half guard, though to much less effect than during Wednesday's training.
A couple of things leapt out about Thursday's training that are worth noting. For one, the sloppiness in my half guard has mostly to do with the fact that I've become so preoccupied with the underhook game on the trap side, that I'm not paying enough consistent attention to the sticky paw and double paw grip defenses on the open side.
A part of this had to do with the fact that so many are using knee cross passes against me, or moving lower on my legs, so I'm focusing on trap-side ways to deal with this. But the consequence has been a very bad neglect of my paw game. Thursday night I kept getting crossfaced and pinned down in side control. I know better than this. Even my move to focus on the deep half guard taking the back game will draw attention away to the paw game, and I can't let that happen.
The guys on the European half guard instructional almost go so far as to say that you can work your half guard with out the underhook, but if you get hit with the crossface, there are going to be problems. So I've got to tighten this up.
That said, if I lose the underhook, then I need to create some space and go to double paw and the hook guard. When I lose the underhook, guys are able to put their weight on me much more effectively. As soon as I lose the underhook, I need to hipscape out and counterhook, lift him to create some space and turn over more to my side (face down side) and go for the double paw.
Certainly some good things out of Thursday's training. My katagatame was working very, very well. And I missed a spinning armlock that I think I might have actually caught had we been in the gi. Side control escape - even from the really tight grip - was subpar and uncoordinated, a lot like my mount defense against Stephen on Wednesday.
Not sure if I'll train on Friday. I like the idea of keeping energy expenditures low the day before a tournament - even an intramural one like Saturday's. If I'm feeling like I've got the juice, then I'll do it. Otherwise, I'll look forward to treating Friday like Friday.
