The Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda Review and Preview

My biggest mistake in my Revolution match was strategic. Since he was a wrestler, his strengths were likely speed, power and agility. The best way to negate that is with a very "gi-oriented" game. Not necessarily spider guard, but at least an attack that leveraged the gi against his best attributes. From standing, that meant getting a collar tie quickly, before he had a chance to get his shoot-rhythm in place, and maybe even a sleeve as well.

That's partially what's got me thinking a little about the cross guard, a guard that Rodrigo has shown us more than a few sweeps and variations from.

But one of my critical weaknesses was the fact that I never drilled the slingshot armdrag or sweep, both of which would have come in handy when my opponent was cutting across for the knee slicer pass. I've been trying to ease the slingshot moves into my game during sparring. But that hasn't worked and never made much sense to begin with. What I need to do is cajole someone into letting me drill 10 of those slingshots before class and another 10 after for a few weeks and THEN starting trying to deploy the move in sparring. I knew that. But I didn't do it. And that slingshot position has continued to be a major hole in my half guard game.

A few other things: I want to revive the shin guard that Saulo showed us at the seminar as another move out of the half guard as I transition to sitting guard. Again, this is another potential weapon against the knee slicer or Royler pass.

My guard replacement could be better, of course. And I've restarted my evening stretching routine to give myself a little help in that regard. Truth told, there were flashes when I probably had half a chance to get back to neutral during my match. I forgot to use the skirt rope technique as a failsafe against the knee slicer that would have at least gotten us both back up to standing. And I think what finally did me in was turning in the wrong direction when he attacked with that strange gi choke. I usually can hold out against most chokes for at least a little while. But this time I wasn't even sure which direction the pressure was coming from, so defending it was a guessing game at best. And I did not guess correctly on Saturday.

I'd hoped to break the mold on Saturday and maybe in a very unanticipated way, I did. This was probably the first tournament where I really didn't feel the same sort of oversized "nerves" beforehand. A bit of the regular "about to compete" jitters. But that was about it. And coupling that calm with a determination to start winning matches bodes well for not just what might happen on December 13th, but what might happen at the Revolution in March, July and November of 2010, as well.