January 4th 2015 - Weekly Review

Focus of the Week: Back Takes, Deep Half, Keeping It Playful

I've started studying some back takes as my next focus and this was the perfect week for it.  With the RNC this week and I've been reviewing the deep half back takes from Ryan Halls DVD.  I also have his back take material so I'll be perusing that soon as well.      

Theme & Techniques
Beginner/All Levels: Standing RNC Defense - O-Soto Gari, Back Mount Escape, RNC from Back Mount

Tuesday noon was a very small class with only Bhuvana and I.  Friday there were only four of us and I was told that two of them were there because of the Facebook post that I made the night before.

Maintaining back control has become more and more of an elusive problem for me.  I can feel that when Greg has my back how different it is, but I'm not sure what specific things he's doing.  We discussed it a little bit Friday morning and he said that while the position is pretty dominating it is different than side control and mount because your weight is not on top of the opponent.  That made me feel a little better about it and I've been contemplating what I'm missing in my control. 

I had a couple of takeaways from these classes.  The first was a grip break that Mike used on me during rolling to free my wrist grab.  You take your underhook hand and reach through grabbing the choking hand.  Then twisting in a way that makes them remove their baseball bat type grip.

The other was we talked about them pushing back or being on one side or the other.  Generally they want to move to the underhook side to escape but Greg said that he felt that this side was easier to do the arm trap from and get the choke.  The final part was having to roll up a bit to get the underhook arm free to complete the choke.  From the other side he would trap the underhook arm with his legs instead.

Open Mat
Rolled With: Fuji, Mike (Tumbleweed), Ross, Henry, Conan, James

I rolled with Fuji quite a bit and felt pretty good about how I did.  I did some attacking for once but there seems to always come a time where I'm stuck and unable to move until he submits me.  I did do one pretty cool move when we were next to each other in turtle and I rolled for an omoplata with the sleeve grip that onlookers seemed to appreciate.

Henry and I had an awesome no gi match.  I feel good about my gas tank as in the past I've been submitted by him due to giving up from exhaustion.  I went to deep half a lot in this roll but had a little trouble controlling him from any position.  I escaped many submission attempts by him mostly because I could slip out of them without the gi.  Eventually he caught me with a guillotine during a scramble. 

Mike and Conan were both tough to keep it playful with.  Conan took me apart piece by piece and asked if I was tired after rolling because I didn't seem like my usual self.  Mike caught me with some good things and danced around me quite a bit from side control.  I was a little nervous with grabbing his legs at a few points because I didn't want to get put into a crucifix.  He caught me with a couple things.

I attempted quite a few back takes with Ross but he did a good job of escaping whenever I got close, but I'll count it as good practice.  He asked me for help with his single leg and I tried my best to assist.  Mostly I commented on his head placement and posture.

James is a new guy that I don't know much about.  Greg and Fuji were going through some basics with him and eventually I was put as his partner to work on the side control escape.  We worked on the side control escape as well and he did fine with that with a few pointers but used quite a bit of strength at first.  Then we rolled and he turned it up to 11 right away.  I was still in lazy mode and recovering from my other hard rolls and tried to take it in stride but he did worry me a little bit.  I eventually got to full guard but he was trying to cross collar choke me.  It was rough and strong and I wasn't able to swing for an armbar or anything.  I kept my cool but thought I was maybe going to have to tap.  I used my legs on his hips to keep him down and then he let go and said he was tired and asked what he should have done.  To which I said he should try to pass the guard but I didn't feel like explaining how at that time.  At the time I wished he hadn't have quit so I could have swept him to top position.