Rodrigo showed us a way to pass the shin-block half guard that I have been waiting years for. The pass has you leg lace the top leg at the ankle - under the ankle and then clamp on top of the thigh. With your outside hand, you want to control the knee. After you work some momentum back and forth, use his push as the moment to stuff the half guard hooking leg and back step to pass the guard.
If you end up shallow, as I did a few times drilling with Lance, then make sure you crawl higher up the guy's body quickly to avoid the Braulio triangle (the reverse triangle Gracie Barra black belt Braulio Estima used to defeat Andre Galvao). I've been caught in that a time or two and it's no fun to escape.
Rodrigo also showed us another half guard pass, particularly effective against the deep half. Here, as the guy shoots in for the deep half, you want to switch your hips into a watchdog position facing the legs. Here, in a variation on the watchdog half guard pass, Rodrigo had us control behind the back at the gi or belt and, with the other hand, control the far side (probably vertical) knee.
An important detail here was to clamp the elbow down dynamically to keep the guy's underhooking arm from helping him get control of your body.
The rest of the pass is that backing out, circling out motion that I've been working on. It's really a nice way variation, using the watchdog position instead of the crossface. What the two passes have in common is that backing out, with or without using the other leg to pry the half guard open.
We did some specific half-guard training, and then some regular sparring. I was crunched badly for time and had to leave after rolling with Lance. I felt a little frantic, still that overriding sense of chaos instead of a deliberate flow. There were instances of perception - pivoting my knee outward to pop the DLR guard, for example. But the incoherence is still there, like white noise drowning out familiar music.
I learned tonight that Dr. Ari Kiev died last month. I interviewed the famous psychiatrist and performance coach of Olympians and Wall Street traders several months ago for The Daily Planet. I remember a moment during the interview, as he was talking somewhat matter-of-factly about the process of self-analysis and reflection, when he stopped short and provided the perfect conclusion to our conversation.
... it's not as pollyannish as I'm trying to suggest. A lot of the conversations that I have with people tend to be brutally honest, because I think the task of a trading coach or a guide is to confront people, to wake them up, to throw cold water in their face to really get them to see how much they have decided to produce the results that they are producing. That the results aren't by chance, but they are because the individual has made a decision, conscious or unconscious, to produce certain results.
I've talked to a few people today who were not doing very well this year and challenged them in terms of are they willing to dig in and really change some of their underlying approaches - which haven't been working - in order to increase the likelihood that they'll be successful. I talked to one guy who is a deep value guy. And, deep value, holding stocks and buying more as they go down and buying still more as it goes further down, doesn't seem to be working in this market. To hold onto that philosophy when it's really not proving to be successful - which a number of people have done - may not really make sense.
But, you have to challenge the individual to say, "You're making a decision to hold onto this approach which worked a few years ago, but it's not working now. Are you motivated to really try to succeed? And, to succeed, you may have to rethink your philosophy."
That's not an easy conversation, because you're really getting in somebody's face and saying it’s not the market, they're responsible for how they're performing.
It’s a tough conversation and not everybody is willing to have it.
155.2 on the scale, post-train. InterSchool 9 days away.
