A hard training day - especially for a Wednesday. Coursework consisted mostly of mount escapes - elbow escape with hipblock to guard recovery ("flatleg hipscape" in Burien Top Team-ese) and the bump and roll counter to the collar choke.
Ground Fundamental 4: Mount Control and Escape: Week 7b for those of you playing the home version.
Prof. Carlos made a big point about recovering full guard rather than half guard when escaping the mount. His warning was that if you recovered half guard and guy still had a good crossface pressure, it might be easy for him to to the half guard wedge pass back to mount and get another set of points.
Food for thought to be sure. At the end of the day, though, half guard is my bread and butter, and the idea of abandoning it for another position that I am less comfortable with - all to avoid a known danger - is hard to accept. At this point, I'm more likely to walk into the fire forewarned than strike out on a different less familiar course where the challenges may be no less formidable and harder to anticipate.
Got to do some live training with both Lindsey and Elliott. I need to spend some time working on my half guard recovery from turtle. It's a switch that I feel pretty comfortable with physically. I just need to get my circuits wired properly so that I can make the transition seamlessly.
The Flat Pass continues to work for me at high levels. I should do a better job of moving all the way through instead of settling for a half guard battle. But a large part of my game is turning everything into a half guard battle - where I think I have an edge since I'm the biggest half guard cheerleader this side of Jeff Glover - so I'm finding it a little hard to break the habit.
Rolled with Carlos for about 20 very intense minutes. Wristlocks, anklelocks, a choke or two: you name it, he got it. What was most rewarding about the experience (beyond a tip on the arm cross choke) was a reminder of what black belt pace is like. Not just a matter of "speed" or "rate of techniques", but a deliberateness, a "shoot to kill" sensation that every grip, every switch of the hips, every pause, is the prelude to something significant.
When I first began to roll with Rodrigo, I used to think of this as "the acceleration" - like something you'd see in a Formula One racer or a Blue Angels jet slipping out of formation to take the lead. After some movement here or there, it was as if a button had been pushed and into hyperspace we went.
Between my off-mat conditioning and commitment to an aerobic pace until an edge appears, I'm doing a better and better job of training at a faster and faster clip. I'm not necessarily moving as fast as my opponents - most of the time, I'm not. But I'm able to make my adjustments at a clip that is faster and faster. At the end of the day, jiu jitsu is an infinite set of tiny movements that make the difference. And both deception and "being first" are excellent alternatives to being fast.
157.6 on the scale post train. I'd thought about doing another explo-repo workout tomorrow, but the way my quads, hams and calves are feeling that would not be a great idea. That might provide a nice little opportunity to do some core work (hip flexors!) instead.
