Theme & Techniques
Beginner/All Levels: Double Leg Takedown, Upa Escape from Mount, Cross Collar from Mount
I enjoyed the double leg practice and really tried to smooth out the steps. The penetration step is probably the piece that gives me the most trouble. The cross collar choke works well during drilling but I feel so clumsy trying to get my grips deep enough. I tried it during rolling a few times but pretty much abandoned it.
I've been trying to setup triangles as much as I can lately and I think it's bearing some decent fruit. My biggest problem was controlling their posture when I grab my shin and I feel like I'm tightening that up a little more.
Robert stayed after class Tuesday for some great rolls. We had the battle of the north/south chokes and expressed admiration for each others skill. I went for deep half a few times and he threatened a guillotine which stopped all of my momentum. I discussed it with Greg later and he said that I should just continue through it to deep half, so I will try that next time.
I rolled with Ben and Ross Friday morning during office hours. I showed Ben some of the finer points of the arm triangle which he seemed to appreciate, so look out everyone. Ross' guard passing is getting a lot better. I'm starting to play more of an aggressive guard with him rather than the more flowy lazy guard that I'll play when I'm trying to be cool. We talked about darce a little bit and how to defend it.
Advanced: Half Guard Leg Torque Sweep and Variations
This is a sweep that Greg has been drilling quite a bit lately and I'm starting to like it too. We had a blue belt visitor (Tony) from Houston come in and I got to work with him on the drilling portion of class. I'm always stoked to work with someone from another school and get a feel for how they do things differently and the same. We did king of the mat from half guard. Here are some highlights as I don't remember everything.
- Greg was amazing at getting the underhook from the bottom. There were a few times that he made me feel like I knew nothing about the half guard. I hung on a couple times but every time he swept me very smoothly using the torque sweep.
- Mike and I had a few battles. I was trying my best not to use strength on him but it felt really limiting. I hit a waiter sweep on him but wasn't able to get up from it. A different time I had him in a guillotine and as he was getting out of it I recovered full guard. He was able to sweep me with a tornado sweep that was pretty slick.
- I screwed up a deep half guard sweep with Jordan and he was able to free his leg and go right into north/south.
- I think I only fought Henry from the bottom and I did a good job both times, but he eventually passed. Still working on my Henry game plan.
Mike showed me a good deep half guard transition if someone steps over my head. Usually I would struggle pretty hard to take the back but this was so simple that I just needed to come up and shoot for the underhook. It takes a little timing, but it is so much more efficient than what I was doing. Mind blown!
Open Mat
I did some drilling with Greg and he was doing some more half guard sweeps. Looking back I think I need to focus on some of these. Deep half is good, but if I can't get there I need something to fall back and I need to work on how to get there too. I drilled the sweep from deep half that Mike helped me with on Wednesday and Greg approved. Then I drilled the sweep to double unders and got it pretty well figured out on both sides. I think I'm going to look into the back takes as well as review the entries next as the sweeps seem to be coming together.
Our friends Andrew and Adam visit from North Platte. I only rolled with Adam and he ended up challenging my ego a bit. We've rolled before and I think we're pretty even for the most part but if he gets on top he's very difficult to roll back over. We had 2 good rolls where he ended up grinding me out into half guard and then side mount and mount and then submitted me. I did some good things during the rolls with an omoplata setup and I was in side mount for a while and attempted a baseball bat choke.
I was a little disappointed in my rolls with him, but I thought about it on the drive home and I really have no reason to be. I was thinking I should beat him because I just assume that he doesn't train as much as me or with as good of people as I do. I really had no evidence to base that on; also, who the hell am I. I'm not so awesome to have the expectation of submitting every visitor. This does make me want to train harder and diversify the techniques that I focus on. In the end this is just a game and learning from losing is the best type of learning. He won the game yesterday and hopefully I will play it better next time. From now on I need to limit the expectations I put on myself and just roll. As I write this, I may be blowing my feelings out of proportion a little bit. I hold no ill will toward Adam or anyone else that submits me but pride can mess with me from time to time.
I rolled with Kat, who was visiting from Lincoln MMA. She had some good technique and was competent. I did my best to keep from smashing her though as I don't want to be that guy. She moved well and had me in side control a few times. The thing I probably tried the most during our rolling was putting her in x-guard because she kept leaving her combat base leg out pretty far. We had a good couple of rolls and I hope she returns.
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