Rodrigo had us working more on passing the guard today. There were three variations:
Version One:
1. Open the guard from the wedge position, with one hand on the chest and one on the hip.
2. Slide your left arm under the guy's right leg and grab on to his belt. BE SURE TO KEEP THE ELBOW ON YOUR RIGHT ARM TIGHT AND LOW. The main threat to this pass is the triangle. If you keep your off-side elbow tight and low, you'll be fine.
3. Take a BIG STEP with the leg on the pass side (left). As you do this, pull up on the belt. Driving forward with your lunge, you should be able to put your hip solidly against his back. Remember, you don't want to throw the guy. You want to lock his body and put him on his side.
Version Two:
1. This time, when you go to put your arm under and grab the belt, he blocks it.
2. Bring your off side (right) knee up and knee pin the guy's leg on that side (his left leg). I needed to stand up a little bit to make sure I got on top of the leg for the pin. So there may need to be adjustments depending on how the guy moves.
3. Hook the head with your right arm. Keeping the leg pinned with your knee, backstep with your other (left) leg and move into side control.
Version Three:
1. This time, when you go to put the knee in, he blocks it with both hands.
2. Here, you have two options. The first option is a version of version one: reach high and grab the opposite collar with the version one pass side hand. Use your other hand to keep the guy's knee pin leg in place. Spin around backward (in to out) as you shrug the guy's leg off your shoulder and move to the side.
I can't remember exactly what the second option was. I think there was a banana split type of move with a can opener that allowed you to move to the side as you would in version two. But I'm not sure.
Not a bad night on the tatame, not a good night. One thing that did work very well during the takedown training at the beginning was my kouchi gari, which I hit almost perfectly 2 or 3 times. That is definitely something to continue working on.
I also am feeling my ankle pick sweep. There's really only one of my main six takedowns that I don't have any live success with, the ushiro ashi barai. I'll have to work on that tomorrow or Friday.
My guard passing tonight was horrible. The effort wasn't half bad: I did repeatedly try to work the Squat Pass and the Flat Pass. I think I passed once with the Flat Pass, but the Squat Pass got a little incoherent after I got beyond Step 3. I was probably trying to rush things, having done three sets of 12 Squat Passes as part of my am conditioning. We'll see if things can look better by the end of the week. I really want to go into the tournament a week from this Saturday with some confidence about my guard passing attack. That's really the key goal: pass the damn guard. Everything after that is extra.
Tommy is back! He's around 185, be-goggled and not in the jiu jitsu shape he'd like to be. But it was almost scary to see him rolling after two years off that mat. It was almost like he never left.
When I think of all the guys in that welterweight/lightweight/featherweight range (and Tommy is looking to drop back to 155), we really have one hell of a crew. Even if you just focus on the brown and purple belts, imagine if we had one of those 2-week, every day, training sessions like the Mothership (i.e., Gracia Barra USA) did leading up to the Mundials ...
Finished June with 13 training sessions, two off my goal of 15, but I would have likely picked up those two classes if I hadn't been on le business trip at the beginning of the month. Still, my weekly average for the second quarter rose to 3.33 from 3.17 (38 classes in Q1, 40 in Q2). My goal for the third quarter (July, August, September) is to get that grade up over 3.5, which means averaging 14 classes a month.
On the scale: 156.8. I'll admit to being very pleasantly surprised. I've been wearing my heaviest gi jacket and a rashguard to help pump the water out. And my very modest diet seems to be paying dividends even after two days. To drop more than 10 pounds in a little over 24 hours isn't something I should get in the habit of doing. But it's nice to know that the weekend calories might be costly, but haven't bankrupted me yet.
