December 18th 2015 - Gi All Levels

Theme & Techniques: Standing Guillotine Defense, Half Guard with Underhook: Back Take, Guard Recovery
Partner: Craig

Small class with the usual Conan and Craig, and then Bhuvana and Byrav making a rare Friday morning appearance.  Interestingly, I've been through the same material with 3 different instructors in the last 3 days.  They each had their differences with how they taught each technique and details that they would emphasize as important.  This shows that there is more than one way to do a technique and can also spark interesting discussions about why something is done a particular way. 

This can be difficult for me to deal with as I feel like I pay pretty close attention to the details and want to make things as perfect as possible.  But I also don't want to be the guy that says, "But, Greg taught it this way yesterday!" Sure there is a time and place to do that but it has the potential to interrupt the flow of the class; after class is probably the best time for this discussion.  In fact, I've seen Greg teach a technique one way a couple months ago and then add in a detail or say something different the next time he teaches it.  This could also be my perception as memories are flawed.  It could also be that the teacher has discovered something new about the technique. 

One thing that I like about the BJJ instructors that I've learned from is that they usually have a practical answer for everything that they do.  You'll never hear a phrase like, "that's just the ways it's done, we've always done it this way." The instructor will usually speak from experience about what works for them during rolling or will have a troubleshooting session to try to figure out the answer.  

Rolling: Half Gaurd
Rolled With: Craig

I was doing a good job of shutting down Craig's game from both top and bottom half guard when we did a couple of 4 minute rounds.  He was doing a lot of straight arm pushing and trying to hold me in place.  We stopped for a bit and Conan gave him some pointers on relaxing a bit more and moving in a way to make me move then finding the open space to move into.

Then we did some half speed rolls where Conan or I would give him certain resistance to set him up for certain defenses.  Occasionally I would say, "okay now underhook" or "use your legs"  It seemed to help as he was piecing things together.  He stopped using so much energy and was having better results.  One of the main things that I've noticed with people learning half guard is that they mostly just fight with their arms and completely forget about their legs.  Using my legs is a huge part of my half guard.  You're wrong if you don't do it.