A great day of jiu jitsu at the GB Seattle/Washington Invitational today. However ambivalent I feel about jiu jitsu competition from time to time when I'm the one doing the competing, I can't say how much I love watching the matches.
I was a little surprised that there were four purple belts competing. I didn't see any purple belts signed up and thought that the idea might be to steer the event more toward white and blue belts (no brown or black belts competed at all). I'll have to keep that in mind the next time around (probably in June) when the next Invitational happens.
In the same way that watching footage of the Mundials has really started to provide insights into the game, watching all those guys compete this morning was really educational. I could see instances where recent lessons could have been applied to help guys deal with the blocked hip when passing half guard, for example, or my own personal favorites like getting the underhook when in half guard as a basic safety measure and great launching point for offense.
I didn't watch the kids. You pretty much have to decide if you're going to watch the kids or the grown-ups. There were a few yellow belt kids, two I think, who competed with the adults - including one kid who fought two adults and idn't seem to have anybody coaching him. I gave it my best shot, yelling tactics from the sidelines as I am want to do, for better or worse. And I wanted to keep an eye on him and say something positive to him afterwards - maybe show him the tip about the underhook from half. But as the morning went on, I lost track of him and his folks.
Saw a couple of folks I hadn't seen in a long time, including Clint, Griff and Angela. It seemed like the Ballard crew was fewer than I would have thought. But I wasn't exactly counting.
I had a pair of really great rolls, one with a brown belt Doug who trains mostly in Bellevue and one with Sauleh. Both felt pretty good. In some ways I still feel heavy and sluggish - I was about 160 when I woke up this morning. But I was doing a good job with my half guard and my standing to pass.
It was the first time I ever really rolled with Sauleh without someone keeping score. The weird thing is that over the years I've competed against him three times in Intramural contests or academy matches. The first time I rolled with him was when Rodrigo put me up against him as a white belt years ago for a competition scored match. I think I lost 2-4. He got an uchi mata takedown. I got a reverse. Then he got a reverse.
Without getting into it, that first match was the closest match of our three engagements. If you know Sauleh, then you can imagine how the subsequent contests went.
Sauleh was working today with an interesting variation on the DLR guard. He had the same grip on the heel. But instead of DLRing the leg, he put his shin against your lower leg with the knee pointing outwards.
What is most fascinating about this variation - other than the fact that it negates the one DLR pass that I feel semi-competent with - is that it is basically an inversion of the shin guard that Saulo showed us during his seminar in Fife, the shin guard that allows you to set up the X-guard in particular.
I'll have to ask Rodrigo, and guys like Lance and Stephen who use a lot of DLR guard what they think. It was very, very interesting to see because it touches on so many things about this position - both from the perspective of the passer and the perspective of the guard player.
One of the things Sauleh caught me with repeatedly was his foot on bicep triangle. It's one of his best moves and it is every bit the beartrap, even with my triangle defense, which isn't half bad. I need to remember to rotate my palms facing outward (turn your thumbs down) before doing the scoop to attack the spider legs - though I did once try the inversion pass that I had been thinking about for especially leggy guard players.
A really fun day - a reminder of what training on a Saturday can be like when there is almost zero sense of time constraint. In terms of helping prepare me for the Revolution in two weeks, even though I didn't compete, I think I got what I needed.
By the way, I spent Friday night watching a Kiss live concert from 1989, then an AC/DC live show and then, this from show in 2002.
Add to that Glengarry Glenn Ross tonight at Seattle Rep after a dinner with some friends of the family and I think I'm having the best 24 hours in some time.
