June 2nd 2015 - Gi Beginner

Theme & Techniques: Double Leg Takedown, Mount Upa Escape, Cross Collar Choke from Mount
Partner: Grant

Worked with a really young new guy today.  I believe he said he was just getting out of 9th grade.  Good on him for starting so young, hopefully he sticks with it.  Too bad he had to be paired with big old me.  I was pretty nice to him.

For my double leg I felt like I wasn't doing my penetration step well and kind of just going straight down to my knee.  Could be because of our size difference.

For the mount Greg mentioned to prevent the grapevine it's a good idea to at least have one leg straight.  I'm pretty mindful of grapevines and will often step on their heel if someone tries to do it.  The worst grapevine I was in recently was with Ty and I've been pretty watchful for them since then.

The recent additional details to the guard cross collar choke apply here as well to get good grips.  It was much easier to get my second grip if I lined up my arm with my shoulder and do the princes wave to get it in.  A couple problems that Grant had were common.  He wasn't rowing or pulling his elbows back like he should which put more pressure on my collar bone rather than my neck.  Once he started crunching up and getting the deepest grip he did fine.  I also emphasized choking with percentages.  Once you get your grips, start off with 30%, then go up 10% steadily.  This should mess with your opponents head because it should steadily get worse and they shouldn't get the feeling that they weathered the storm but instead that it will never get better.

Rolling: Mount Position (4 x 2 min), Free Rolling (4 min)
Rolled With: Grant, Ben, Zack

With Grant I worked in the techniques that we worked on in class as much as I could.  During the last seconds of our rolls I talked him through completing the techniques himself.  Hopefully I wasn't being too heavy for him.

Ben is back and seemed to be in good spirits and completely healed without having to go through surgery.  It was in my head a little bit that I didn't want to hurt him again but once we started rolling it was business as usual.  He was a little rusty which is to be expected.  I went over how I view mount and gave him some pointers on what I try to do and how I prevent being rolled over.  From the top I keep my shoulders back.  I'm looking to get their elbow away from their body.  If I separate their elbow from their body then I'm going for americana or armbar.  If they turn I'm trying to get behind their elbow and work for an gift wrap or collar grip.  If they completely shut down all my attacks and have their arms well hidden, it usually opens up the ezekiel or mounted triangle.  My new addition will hopefully be the spiral armbar when I get their hand on my hip, but I've had some trouble getting to the position when I insist on it. 

Office Hours Partner: Zack

I rolled with Zack at the end and after class.  Had some success with him today but like usual he's difficult to deal with.  He's gotten a lot better at butterfly guard but I realized that when I've been trying to pass it I'm usually kneeling so I've decided to start standing passing with him.  Still had to work hard but I eventually get by.  Once I got passed I still had trouble because he did a good of controlling my sleeves to keep me from sinking into position.  We spent some time in half guard and I was trying to setup the shaolin sweep but he was telling me to keep going in the setup direction, where I was hoping he was going to push back into the sweep.  It gave me the idea that one of the reasons that I fail at this sweep is because I'm not making the other person want to push back because they're not worried about being swept.  I had a pretty good transition from turtle to back mount, the getting the bottom hook as a priority has been helping a lot lately.  I also played some mount and attacked an ezekiel and a kimura that changed into an armbar.

All in all I felt like I controlled the roll mostly today which is not always the case.  We talked a lot about each others games and how we're going about learning this Jiu-Jitsu stuff.  He commented that he likes how I move a lot and don't really stall.  I kind of boil that down to my motto of no regrets in BJJ.  I remember times of seeing a move that I could do, but being afraid to try it because I didn't want to give up position and lose.  Now I pretty much try anything that comes to mind during a roll in class.  I learn a lot more by trying things and failing rather than just holding a position until time runs out.  Of course I'll probably more conservative in a tournament or self defense situation and go for my tried and true A-game.