January 11th 2015 - Weekly Review

Focus of the Week: Back Takes


Theme & Techniques
Beginner/All Levels: Seoi-Nage, Cross Choke from Back Mount, Guillotine from Guard
Partnered and Rolled With: Brian (Backdraft), Gina, Will, Anthony, Dave, Bhuvana, Harvey, Greg


It was nice to work with Brian on the throw and watch his footwork.  It's hard to describe but he steps very lightly when getting into position.  He was also getting very low.  I never really have any problems drilling the throws but I would like to get a better feel for setups. 

During the cross choke I practiced the grip break that Mike showed me last Friday in conjunction and got Brian to do it a few times too.  For the guillotine I did my best to make space efficiently.  That part feels a little sluggish so I will continue to experiment with that.

Greg helped me a bit with a key detail to his seat belt from back mount after class on Friday.  When he did it to me he was saying that he wanted to keep my body more canted and not bring me all the way to the side.  When I practiced it I asked if I should pull down more on the opposite shoulder and he realized that was a big part of it.  Keeping them off the ground but turned is huge.  I also noticed his seat belt was high on my neck at that point and that is another thing that I will change.  

Advanced: Standing Guard Break to Knee Over Pass, Over/Under Pass, Smash Pass
Partnered and Rolled With: Jerad, Fuji, Greg, Brian (AF)

The standing break was a little different than the norm in that we didn't switch the hand grab like we normally do and went push down the opposite leg.  This fed right into the knee over pass position.  I need to keep my elbow in close as I was having trouble remembering to do that.  The follow up knee slide from here was brilliant when they got some type of half guard.  I am starting to see the knee slide being available more often that it was before.

Greg had us chose a kneeling and a standing pass to drill with our partner.  So I chose Over/Under which I'm already quite good at and the x-pass/smash pass as I'm still working on them.  Jerad chose to do the over/under as well and I gave him a few pointers on keeping his head tight and keeping his butt down both things I had a problem with when I first started them.

The x-pass is always fatiguing on the legs as I have to squat quite a bit to get it done.  Jerad gave me some good pointers on going for the mount if I don't get a good underhook off of the smash pass.  He showed me from there you either get the mount or they raise their arm to block and you get the underhook, seemed to work like a charm.  
Open Mat
Rolled With: Conan, Brian (AF), Andrew, Darijo, Jerad

Had a decent day in open mat with some challenging rolls.  It seems like Brian has jumped in skill recently and he's defending some of the things I would catch him with a lot better.  Jerad really has my number lately and it's really making me want to train more to catch and keep up with him.  Conan was nice to me the first part of our roll but turned it up towards the end. 

I was able to get to back mount a few times and tried to work.  I've been reviewing Ryan Hall's back take instructional as well as some of the deep half guard back take stuff.  I think I'm going to cool it on deep half guard for a while and let it happen when it happens.  I'll pick it up again in a few months fresh.

Mike gave me a quick instructional on baratoplata and I worked on it a bit today.  I'm liking it but need some more time to commit it to muscle memory.