Felt great to be back on the mat on Friday. I joined the class right after warmups, and managed to do the stand-up drills with Jared. A lot of us were coming in on the 5-10 miinute late side: Jesse, Lindsey, Jared, and two or three other folks.
The instructional was scarf hold escapes. Rodrigo showed us three variations from the same basic defensive position. The immediate defense against the scarf hold is to hipscape out a bit and dig your inside elbow deep into your side. Rodrigo talked about even bridging a little to get the elbow actually under you to avoid giving the guy control (of your elbow and your ability to hipscape away).
With your outside arm you want to stiff arm the guy at his far bicep. This is mostly to avoid being crossfaced, and you want to make sure you stiff arm at the bicep instead of at the shoulder because the guy can still reach you if you stiff arm at the shoulder.
Once you have control of your own inside elbow, you want to grab the pants of the guy's leg that is nearest you - and as close to the knee as possible. A lot of this will depend on how well you hipscape away initially and the size of your opponent. But this is a critical grip through all the variations.
#1. Knee block. From the grips, continuing hipscaping until you create enough space to bring your bottom knee up between the two of you. There is a sweep from here that Reuben pointed out, controlling the outside sleeve and continuing to rotate your body into the guy with the pants grip. It has a little of the Twist Back feel to it.
#2. Underhook 2 Knees. This was probably my favorite. This is the option especially if you can't get your knee in between you and the other guy. From the grips, you want to continue to escape your hips back until you have enough room to swim out of the stiff arm and go for the underhook. Keep the pants grip, which will help you in the sweep and to avoid being put in the guard if you start to move to the top.
#3. Flat Out. This one is situational and requires timing and a sense of the momentum. If the guy in the scarf hold position sits back too far, there is an option to take him backwards. Here, the trick is to scissor your inside leg under you and go flat. It's very much a momentum thing - that and the leverage. Rodrigo pointed out that it will often show up as an opportunity when the first two options are countered.
Got in some good guard specific work with Reuben and Glenn - who was awarded his blue belt today. I'm trying very much to be in the Right Mind, part of my set of jiu jitus resolutions for Twenty-Ten, and today's rolls got passing grades in terms of focusing on what I want to focus on in the coming year: standing to pass the guard, working my weak side half guard, and incorporating the "Move of the Day" during the specific and/or sparring.
159.6 on the scale after training. I felt very good cardio wise during the training, my HR was around 130 after the standup drills and around 160 after the specific training, which is pretty much where it was a week ago. I've got my conditioning split up with one day a week of aerobic power, two days of static dynamics, and one day of threshold training making the week.
Both my knee and my leg were acting up a bit by the time training was done. I think my timing is good, especially with the hip/groin/pectineus thing. I figure two days off over the weekend will allow me to train on Monday. And if everything is okay on Monday, I'll be able to get in another training on Tuesday or Wednesday before leaving for Arizona for Christmas.
As much as I'll be looking forward to getting back to training, I suspect the spotty schedule over the next few weeks will probably do some good in keeping the hunger stoked. I'm really looking forward to 2010 in terms of what I think can happen in terms of growth and improvement and, holidays notwithstanding. In many ways, I feel as if 2010 has already started.
