Friday, January 24, 2014

January 23rd 2014 - No Gi (Sense of Urgency)

Theme & Techniques: Personal Drilling (2 x 10 min)

While we were warming up, the subject of the Karate Kid movie came up and Bauer started playing the tournament montage song as we were shrimping up and down the floor.  I know it should have probably felt silly but it was actually a little motivating.  So now I'm watching Karate Kid as I write this. Damn you Bauer!

Greg had us go right into drilling what we personally wanted to work on.  I worked with Adam and chose the straight arm side control escape and butterfly hook sweep to farside armbar.  I'm feel like the stiff arm escape is coming along pretty well.  I still have some problems transitioning to the roll if they attempt to step over the head.  The focus for improvement on the hook sweep to armbar was keeping low while stepping over transitioning to the armbar.

Rolling: Free Rolling (3 x 5 min rnds)

I rolled with Adam first and it probably felt the best out of any of our previous rolls.  The biggest improvement was that I insisted on sitting up and not giving up guard easily.  He maintained top position and had me in side control a few times but I was able to recapture guard and even pull him into full guard a couple times. 

Mike destroyed me with ankle locks.  I think I tapped 4 or 5 times with heel hooks. Later on he mentioned that combat base was the cause for my trouble and made it easy for him to get to the leg lock position.  I may search youtube for some no gi matches to get a feel for guard passing styles.

Greg made a comment after we rolled that my rolling is a lot better since I've added more aggression.  Everything felt faster but not I didn't feel like I was completely on the defensive like usual.  My claim to fame for the night was going to deep half guard and then hitting the waiter sweep.  He bounced back after that, but I think this would be the first time I've completed a technique that would have scored points.  For most of the roll he had me in mount and he ended up tapping me with an armbar.

It didn't seem appropriate to say that I was going to start rolling harder.  While that is somewhat true, officially I'm thinking of it more of rolling with a sense of urgency.  I'm always working toward some type of goal instead of previously I was more focused on being reactive to my opponent. With someone better than me, I'm almost guaranteed to be behind from the start.  This is the great thing about competing in the tournament.  I feel my focus on training has been rejuvenated.


No comments:

Post a Comment