July 2nd 2014 - Gi

Theme & Techniques: Breaking Collar Grips

A familiar face joined us for class, Ken!  I was just thinking about him recently while rereading my old posts.  He was a huge part in my early Jiu-Jitsu development.  Unfortunately we didn't get to work together today.

After floor exercises, Brian (Sweeney) and I partnered up for some extra work.  3 Sets of 20 Leg Lifts, Push-Up Pyramid to 6, and lunges up and down the floor.  Good stuff, but I could do without the lunges.

Greg had us do 3 different variations on the collar break from the closed guard.  While I have come a long way with grip fighting, there are still some key things that I'm overlooking and Greg was quick to point them out.  The main thing was using my palm to weaken their grip on the thumb.  After the basic 2 on 1, then we brought a knee up to help push, and finally we based a hand against their forearm keeping the elbow tight inside and rolling our head under their arm making it much easier to break their grip. 

Rolling: Free Rolling (5 x 7 min)

Greg: I felt relatively good about my performance with him, apparently he didn't feel the need to turn it up like last time we rolled.  I started up and was sucked into his 2 on 1 guard.  He's been working a sweep from standing lately that I'm a little interested in too.  After he swept me I was able to prevent a few pass attempts, I even pulled out the cross side stiff arm that Conan showed me to recover at one point as well as putting up a good fight from inverted half guard.  It wasn't enough.  He spent rest of the time setting up the brabo grip and completing the choke and he also completed an armbar from side control. 

Gina: Fun couple of rolls with Gina.  She made it very clear that she would rather start in guard than trying to pass, so much so that she tried to pull me off my butt into her guard.  Our size difference is very difficult for her to overcome, I did my best to keep my full weight off of her.  At one point I took her back and had to work pretty hard to finish the choke by switching top arms and take up all of the space because her neck is so small.  I did end up stuck in her guard at one point and had to work fairly hard to get out of it, good posture control.

Jerad: I felt like I pulled out all of the stops to pass his guard.  It was very fast paced grip fighting and pulling and pushing and I eventually found myself in position for the over/under pass and I was completing it until he started to control my elbow.  From there he was able to stiff arm me and get to top position.  I was spent and felt like I could only do the bare minimum to defend while I recovered.  He eventually caught me in a mounted triangle and I did my darnest to use that escape that he taught me but he was able to turn it into an armbar.  I think I need to review what I do with my arm when I go for the cross face, I should be focusing on keeping it tight so my elbow can't be snatched up and controlled.

Mike (Lawyer): Had some great rolls with him, although he is dealing with a shoulder injury.  He does a pretty good job of keeping his hips away while pressure passing so it was a little difficult at times to keep my guard.  I really feel like my side control attacks are coming together nicely.  With Mike I was able to coax him into dropping his arms to defend knee on belly which helps setup my north/south choke. 

Adam: I came into this roll with a higher level of confidence.  It has been a long time since we rolled and I found this to be somewhat of a benchmark to see if I've improved.  The good thing is that I kept my guard for a lot longer than I used to.  There was a lot going on mostly with open guard but there was a point that I felt I was losing it and I was able to pull him into closed guard.  From there I probably should have went for broke and attacked more but I was more concerned with trying to control his posture.  Eventually he was able to pass my guard and I was not able to escape again.  He attacked some brabo, some farside armbar, and lots of cross facing.  In the end he caught me with an americana pretty close to the end of the round.

I watched a video today of Andre Galvao vs Rodolfo Viera from earlier this year.  I really enjoyed this match mostly for the guard retention that Galvao has through most of the beginning of the match.  I think the next thing to focus on is throwing my leg over to prevent a pass.  There are times I try it now but my timing may be off and I try it too late.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXLRszgsAVk