Tonight was the first opportunity I've gotten to start teaching the Gracie Barra program. Rodrigo's been spending a lot of time explaining the transition, but it really isn't as complicated as it might seem. Once it's in place, it will actually make things a lot easier to see and anticipate and even prepare for mentally, which I think is a big advantage that's not being emphasized enough.
If I know that I'm going to be working on half guard sweeps all week, then it becomes very easy to start thinking and visualizing the half guard sweep. Everything is integrated: what you've done, what you're doing, what you will do. If you focus, it can really help build the right circuitry in a relatively short period of time.
It's the complete opposite of that ridiculous "keep your muscles/body guessing" approach to physical activity sometimes promoted by exercise gurus. Joel Jamieson makes the point in his great book, Ultimate MMA Conditioning that one of the biggest mistakes that fighters make is not coordinating all of their training. He's talking specifically about coordinating conditioning and skills training. But his points are clearly applicable to coordinating the development of skills training itself, as well.
I helped a new guy with the lift (technical standing) and the keylock from the mount. He caught on very quickly, which was a huge relief. I was terrified that Rodrigo would look over and see the guy struggling and think, "wow, what the hell is Dave teaching that guy." But that was just the paranoia of feeling a little responsibility on my shoulders. I think I did okay and the new guy seemed to do just fine.
Before that we worked on a new takedown that I had a bit of a difficult time getting. The idea is that you use a collar drag to get the guy to step forward, then you drop down and with your other hand get a sort of low single as you put that near knee to the ground. Your other leg is posted out and you sort of walk your away around the guy, pulling on the collar drag and powering into him with your shoulder, and taking him to the mat.
Part of the problem I had was that when you drag with your right hand on the collar, the guy is more likely to take his step with his left foot, not his right. I was having a hard time getting behind the guy because of this, and an almost impossible time getting behind the right leg with the drop down, penetration knee-step.
I think part of the issue is that you want to attack with this from a very low starting position, as opposed to a more standing up, judo stance. I'll have to try it some more, and ask Rodrigo about it. But it seems like there is some basic piece that I'm missing.
Nothing fancy in the tatame worth mentioning. We are doing a lot more specific work, which is fine with me. I'm sticking with the standing guard passes and getting more and more comfortable on my feet every day. One thing I do need to do is that now that I'm comfortable standing up, I need to make sure I squat back down for my attack. Especially I want to work on the over/under pass game that should flow right from this new standing guard pass approach combined with the passes we are learning as part of the new curriculum.
Still heavy post-train at 161.4. I'd like to start seeing this number in the high 150s by the end of next week, which will be halfway through my training for the Revolution tournament in March.
