Another good practice as I ease myself back into a training routine. After the basic warmup of squats, pushups, chokes and obliques, Rodrigo added a conditioning component based on first two moves of the First Five: elbow escapes (in place) and The Lift (10 reps to tripod, 10 reps to full standing).
This is what my Matwork is all about: using those old school jiu jitsu exercises - many of which Rodrigo used to do all the time back at the old Tully's location - to develop the circuitry necessary for improving your jiu jitsu as effectively and efficiently as possible. It's nice to see this work its way into our regular training routine again.
Since today was a Wednesday, we worked on a few more moves from the First Five: the guard open from knees and the mount escape - for the beginner class. I worked with Michael, who I haven't seen in awhile. One detail I picked up from the mount escape was to really lock the guy's leg after the footdrag. I may change my CBDP to better reflect this. But it was the second time that Rodrigo really went over this point, the idea of almost making a half guard on top with the leg triangle, so it may be worth giving a CBDP step to that part of the move alone.
Did a pretty decent job of focusing on standing to pass the guard - though my resolve wore down a bit in the second class where we split the time between specific sparring (guard, pass guard) and regular sparring. I ended up working a little Flat Pass - more than I would have liked. But I'm not yet at the level where I can try to pass the guard standing all night long (though that's definitely a 2010 training goal).
I'm still at a "stand without being swept" mode, the survival mode of passing the guard from standing, you might say. I'm surviving against some pretty tough guards right now, and that's the first step in the process toward being able - eventually - to pass them.
