Wednesday, July 9, 2014

July 9th 2014 - Gi

Theme & Techniques: Smash Pass

It was an unusually small class with myself, Henry, and Matt (a potential blue belt transfer from New Jersey).  Matt was a little bigger than me and he mentioned that he's been training for about a year and a half.

Now that we've completed the first cycle of the beginner curriculum and techniques are repeating.  It is awesome to be able to attend this advanced class and get some new input.  I'm familiar with the smash pass as I've had it done to me on many occasions usually by Greg, but I've never drilled it.  A couple things that I need to improve on for this pass are: 1. Figuring out the timing of when to do this pass.  2. Make sure I take big steps.  3. Keep my hips down and my pressure to on their knee instead of on their thigh. 

Rolling: 8 Min Guard Drill, Free Rolling (3 x 7 min)

Instead of the dominant position drill that we usually do we did 4 different guard positions for 2 minutes each instead.  Closed Guard, Spider Guard, Butterfly, and Half guard.  I soon found out that Matt was a lot to deal with.  He controls his weight well and I felt like I had to work really hard to prevent getting passed.  He ended up not being able to pass me but it got pretty close a couple of times and I didn't feel like I was ever in a position to sweep.  I might need to work my cross guard game with some bigger people and figure out how to prevent my leg getting smashed.  I did a little better from the top but not much.  The over/under pass served me well but it wasn't easy.  Thinking about this I think I did much better from the top because I can control the distance and move a lot more.  In the guard I always felt pinned down or that I had to be tight.  I felt like I should have moved more from the bottom.  The ego probably got in the way and I felt safer hunkering down and preventing passes rather than loosening up and trying some sweeps.

I rolled with Henry first and already felt a little warn out.  I feel like I should have tried harder but I also felt like I had to conserve some energy.  He spent most of the time in my half guard, we fought for underhooks and guillotines.  He eventually passed to side control and setup his infamous baseball bat choke.  I was able to prevent it for a little while and then saw a avenue to mount, big mistake.  I was better off defending from the side using a knee shield to keep distance.

I didn't have much energy with Greg.  I spent a lot of time in his side control as he attempted to use the baseball bat to armbar trick, which I escaped once.  He did put me into a triangle, which turned into an omoplata, which finally turned into an armbar.  Smooth moves! 

Finished off the class with Matt.  I think we were both pretty tired, he ended up sitting guard.  I slowly worked my way to passing his guard which took a few attempts.  I tried setting up the kimura but couldn't seem to turn him on his side, but I was able to slide into a north/south choke attempt.  I kept getting tighter and tighter and just when I thought it was almost sunk he did a big explosive bridge attempting to roll me over, I was able to stay on top and keep side control but the submission was thwarted.  I'm predicting that this would have gone differently if I had sat to guard and he took the top position.

I think I may be hitting a bit of a plateau.  I'm not really sure what I'm focusing on or improving right now.  I have a lot of things that I'm decent at, but don't feel like I'm excelling at any position currently.  I think the answer may be to follow the competition class route by picking a guard technique, a guard pass, and a third thing.  Off the top of my head Pendulum Sweep, Smash Pass, Deep Half Homer Simpson sweep.

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