Tonight's Practice - 9.17.2008

Tonight was a good practice. I like it when we get to work at least one takedown. Tonight we worked on a takedown I've seen before, but wasn't disappointed in seeing again as I really like it. I checked my previous posts, and it seems the last time we went over this specific takedown was before I started this blog. So here's a description of the takedown.

So you and your opponent have an equal/equal grip: right hand gripping your opponents left lapel, then your left hand gripping the fabric behind their right elbow with your right foot forward. You'll step forward with your left foot while pushing your opponent backwards, which will cause them to step backwards with their right foot. Their instinct will then be to push back at you, stepping back forward with their right foot. As they're stepping forward, you're going to pull up on their lapel and sleeve fabric throwing off their center of gravity and do a sort of shuffle, placing your left foot where your right foot used to be, then hooking their right ankle with your right foot. When you hook that foot, you're going to put your right foot deep in between their stance, lower your center of gravity, and scoop up that right foot you just hooked. Then you can proceed to sweep that left leg to take them down to the ground.

Then we worked on a choke using the main coat portion of the opponents gi (one of the "flaps" that overlaps" - I'll call it a flap from now on haha). This one will be a little harder to explain, but I'll try my best...

So you're in belly down side control on their right side, and you have a overhook with your left arm that goes under their head, and an underhook with your right arm. As you reach down with your right hand to pull out the left "flap" of their coat from their belt (or say, your 2-3mins into a match and the "flap" is already untucked from the belt), you're going to grab fabric on their left shoulder with your left hand, as to keep their shoulders flat on the mat. Once you get the left "flap" all the way out, you're going to pass it up to your left hand (between their left arm and the mat) getting it up as high as you can past their head. Then sit up and put your right knee into their belly, and pull the caot flap under their head towards you; it should pull all the way across so you can see/grab it on the right side of their head. Then switch your hand grip: right hand switches with the left to grab onto it on the right side of their head. Then reach across your opponents chest with your left hand to grab fabric on their left shoulder. Lean forward into your opponent putting your opponents head into your chest, and "crack a walnut between your shoulder blades" to tighten the choke.

And then there's a variation to this. Say that when your each across your opponents chest with your left hand, they block your hand with their left hand. If this happens, grab onto the fabric on their left sleeve and pull it across their body toward you. Then lean down toward their head, securing that left arm across their throat. Then hook your left arm around the back of their head and squeeze, giving you another choke.

Rolling at the end of class was a lot of fun. I can feel myself starting to relax way more compared to what I used to. I had the chance to roll with blue belt Dave again. He's great to roll with. He has the tall and thin build like I do, so I tend to study his game more than others. Dave's the only person I've rolled with who uses wrist locks. He's gotten me in them the last two times we've rolled, and did it again this time. This time it went down like this: we started on our knees. I reach in and grab his left lapel with my right hand. He reaches out with his left hand and cups my right elbow, then reaches in with his right hand and grabs my right tricep. Then pulls it in while leaning over, bending my wrist against his chest. He observed that I'm not keeping my wrists straight when I secure the lapel, keeping them too limp. I've always had bad wrists though, really weak. He told me that doing push-ups on your fists helps strengthen them. So I'm going to try and fit some push-ups into my daily life to help strengthen them up. He also showed me over and over again that I'm thinking too much and/or not thinking enough while rolling. I tend to get really narrow minded while rolling. Example, when in side mount, submissions I know are arm bar...hah that's all I can think of right now. But aside from that, I'm looking to mount. Quite a few times he'd put his arm up on my back. He stopped me one time and asked if I had noticed; I did not. He showed me how to power down the arm with my head and secure an Americana. One more to my side control submission bank :-)

Anyways, that's all I can remember for now. Until next time... :-)

Practice - 9.8.2008

Didn't get a chance to blog about last night's practice last night, but I'm hoping I can remember everything *crossing fingers*

After finishing a light warm-up, we sat down on the mats with Mel. Mel said that he'd take requests before moving into the curriculum, and proceeded to go around the circle to see if there was anything that anybody wanted to work on or had questions about. One guy asked if we could review or be shown another takedown/sweep. While that was supported a few times, I then asked to be shown a triangle from the mount. We were shown this before, but not in so much detail. We were being shown another technique from the mount (which one I can't think of right now) and the triangle was another option. So I wanted more detail, a better explanation. Another suggestion was what to do after you've taken somebody's back.

So the first takedown was one I haven't seen before, and I don't remember the name. So you start off in the normal "equal/equal" hold - Right foot forward stance, right hand gripping your opponents left lapel, leg hand gripping fabric at about your opponents right elbow. Your opponents grip is the same on you, hence the "equal/equal" name. Step forward with your left foot, placing it even with the opponents right foot, or even slightly past, and not right next to it either. As you do this you're going to pull down on your left hand (the hand that's gripping the elbow fabric) causing them to be a little off balance. As you do this your right shoulder should end up in their right shoulder, and your head should be looking down their back. Then bring your right leg between your left leg and your opponents right leg (that gap you left when you stepped forward with your left foot earlier), and hook your opponents right leg. Then you'll lean foward sweeping that right leg back, think of it as trying to kick up to the ceiling and you'll get a good sweep with good follow through. As you lean forward, you're right shoulder will be pressing against their right shoulder, and at the same time your left hand will be pulling down their right elbow and your right hand will be pushing on the left side of their chest. This is a really cool sweep if you get it down. If done properly, 1) if in a match, this could knock the breath out of your opponent, giving you the upper hand. Or 2) if on the street, could do the same but worse since you'd more than likely be on pavement or something harder than a mat, give you the opportunity to run away from the attack.

Then he reviewed the leg hook takedown he showed us on Saturday. I learned another detail for this one too. When you hook their left ankle with your right ankle and push, make sure you're not pulling/pushing your opponent sideways as if you're trying to lay them down across in front of you. You're actually pushing them backwards, and that ankle hook you have will keep your opponent from being able to step back and regain balance.

One day, I'll remember the actual Japanese names for these haha All the takedowns he's shown that I've seen so far have all been from his Judo training. Mel actually has a poster with the 5 groups of Judo takedowns at the gym, Gokyo No Waza (techniques seen here).

Then we moved onto my choice, the triangle from mount. Triangles work great for me because I have really long legs. So I thought it'd work best for me to find different ways of getting 'em in :-) The rest of the class on the other hand, is made up of shorter people. So really I was the only one who was able to get my legs locked in the triangle while still on top haha Anyways, to the technique. To get this triangle in you'll be basically walking your opponent right into it. This is setup I was taught for it.

So you have the full mount. One thing you'll want for this is an arm under your opponents head. One technique that uses this: an ezekeil choke. So once you have your left arm under your opponents head, you start to bring your right arm in to put in the choke. Instictively your opponent will bring in their left hand to try and block it (they're unable to get their right hand in because it's blocked by the position you have them in). When they bring in that left hand, grab the wrist with your right hand, pin it to the ground, and put their left wrist into your left hand (the one that's underneath their head). Then you'll start to weave your right arm under your opponents left bicep to make them think you're going to put in an Americana (which to do right, you wouldn't want your left arm under your opponents head, but in the heat of the moment your opponent might not realize this detail). To defend against the Americana, they'll try and straight out their arm, and this is the momentum that you'll use. When their left arm starts to straighten, it'll move from a 90-degree angle facing up, to a 180-degree flat line from their shoulder to their fingers. Grab their left wrist with your right hand and keep that momentum going. At the same time you'll weave your right leg under your right arm and over their left arm, picking up their head with your left arm that's already underneath their head, and swing your right leg underneath. Then you'll grab their right arm (fabric, wrist) with your right hand and bring it across their chest, making your right foot available to hook that left leg around.

Now, as I said, I was pretty much the only person who could get a good triangle lock while still in the top position because of my long legs. But if you aren't "blessed" with this, or if you weren't able to get your right leg in as far as you would have liked, then you have another option. This technique can also be used of your opponent decides to oopa and roll you onto your back. If this happens, then you can reach your left hand down to grab your right ankle. Then you'll roll to your right shoulder, rolling onto your back. While doing that roll, you'll take your right foot and place it on the right hip of your opponent. Once you make it onto your back and take the angle (in this case, shifting your upper body right so you're looking into their left ear...this'll make that triangle even smaller), then you can lock up the triangle.

After all this, it was either work stuff after taking the back, or a little time to roll so that we could put into practice what we'd gone over already. We opted to roll. I rolled with a guy smaller than I, but has been at jiu-jitsu for awhile longer (3 stripes). I feel I did really well. Neither one of us got a submission, but we both did well technique wise I think. Sweeps and overall control were good. I watched a Gracie Insider video the other day on taking the back from the guard. I end up in guard a lot while rolling, and my guard is pretty strong. Haven't had a white belt pass my closed guard yet. Most often, the person will then resort to cutting their forearm into my throat. At first I'd try and push their arm back to the side it came from, but found that they'd usually grab my collar and it'd just stop there. Then I found that I could push on their elbow and force their arm to follow their hand. And then I could hug them and catch my breath. But I'd stop there. After watching that video though, I've taken advantage of this technique quite a few times, especially last night. Now I just need to work on rear naked chokes and various collar chokes from the back. I've been shown some in the past, but they've slipped my mind. Next time we get a night to have Mel show us whatever technique we want though, I'm definitely asking about working after taking the back.

Today's Practice - 9.6.2008

Today was my first Saturday practice. I usually go on Monday's and Wednesday's, but since Monday was a holiday, I had to shift my 2nd class of the week to today. Which was great because Saturday's are 2 hour classes instead of the 1.5hr classes during the week. Since Saturday's classes are longer, the warm-up was a little longer than I'm used to, which I thought was nice though. I like making sure my muscles are warmed up beforehand and can get a better stretch in (which is another thing I'm trying to improve aside from my jiu-jitsu skills haha).

So on to techniques. Today we went over a takedown (leg hook, leg sweep, can't remember the proper terminology), escape from side control (same escape we went over on Wendesday, so was a great review), triangle escape (2 variations), and a scissor sweep from the guard.

• Leg hook takedown - I'm really starting to like this one... So both you and your opponent are in a right-foot forward stance. You have a hold on his left lapel with your right hand, and your left hand is holding material at their right elbow. As you step forward diagonally with your left to the outside of their right foot, you're pulling back towards you and up with your right hand. This 1) brings their center line along your right side, and 2) makes them step foward with their left causing them to straddle your right leg. Then you'll bring your left foot next to your right and quickly hook your right ankle behind their left ankle. And as you're hooking it back, you're pushing forward. And remember to keep that left ankle hooked as to keep them from stepping backwards to regain balance. This will usually bring you into their half guard, but if you work it right, you can get side control (baseball slide onto their right side).
• Side control escape - This one is going to be a little harder to explain, hence why there was no explanation for it in Wednesday's blog post haha I tried to find a video on youtube, but no luck there. I'll try my best with words... So they have side mount, coming over your right side; they're left arm is over your head with their left elbow backed into your left ear; they're right arm is on your right side with the hand posted at your right hip. So what you'll do is take your left arm and it'll lay between their hand and right shoulder onto their back (you can grab fabric if you want to, but not too much at first or you'll telegraph the move). Then you'll take right hand off of their hip (because this is where it was in the first place, right? ;-) and shove it underneath them, moving it along your right side until it is between your right hip and their right hand that is posted beside it. And all at once you'll oopa up and spin counter clockwise. If you do this correctly, you'll have a hold of their right arm with your right hand and can swing right into a triangle. If you don't get right into the triangle though, at least you'll have them in your full guard. Do that make any sense at all? haha
• Triangle escape (1st variation) -So your opponent has you in an ol' classic triangle - your head and right arm. Put your right hand up into their left armpit and put your right elbow to the floor. Then reach up with your left hand and grab fabric on top of their right pant leg. While pulling back with your left hand, pulling back on your right elbow, push your chest out as if you're trying to push it through the triangle. This'll relieve pressure off your throat from the triangle. More than likely the person will try and reach with your right hand across their chest to grab that right hand out of their armpit to bring it across their chest to tighten it back up. Just as they reach (timing this just right) you'll move your left hand across their chest and up over their left shoulder grabbing fabric or the shoulder muscle there as leverage. While you'll pulling using that left arm you'll sort of "stack" them and pass around their right leg.
• Triangle escape (2nd variation) - So you're back in the same triangle hold - your head and right arm. This time you'll take your right hand and put it on the right side of your face (careful when doing this though as they don't reach up and grab that hand spinning it clockwise (as you're looking at it) putting you into an armbar). Then you'll post your left hand on their right bicep, keeping it posted to the floor. Stand up on your left foot, then you're right, then replace your left hand on their right bicep with your left foot while rolling back and straighening your body. **the part where you posted your left hand on their right bicep was a pretentative measure to keep them from hooking your left leg when you stood up on your left foot there.
• Scissor sweep from the guard - I found a video pretty easily with this one, so I'll just embed a video here, and then add some notes...
  
  
  
  My only thing to add is that when you complete the sweep and you have the mount position, do not come up nose to nose when them. Then trap your right arm that's still grabbing the collar and simply oopa up and use your momentum to roll you right back over. One thing Mel showed today was flowing two things together. He mentioned how from the bottom, always go for the neck first. This is where you reach up for the cross collar, then attempt the cross collar choke. But what if they jam up that left arm trying to get in the other lapel? This is what you just grab fabric on the right arm or cup the right elbow, then proceed with the scissor sweep. One thing my game lacks is flowing things together. And I'm sure this is something everybody who's just starting lacks. But I'm finally starting to move from the "just learning various techniques" to "blending one technique into another into another."
  

Working on the techniques went quite a while, so I only had a chance to roll once. I worked with Russ all day today, the techniques and rolling. He's a pretty aggressive guy, all the time. One of those guys who can be told to slow down, but just can't do it haha But overall it was a good, fun roll. And I'm happy to say that I was tapped 5 times! Yeah, I know, that may sound weird to some, but others will understand. Up until recently I've been one of those guys who tries to fight through everything, even when doing light rolls. I've recently come to the realization that I can be tapped multiple times, while not even tapping my opponent, and still learn things. And that's exactly what happened, I didn't even tap him. But I'm definitely learning to slow down and breath, and have patience. Wait for the opportunity instead of trying to force it. Or make them make a move, opening up something for me to take advantage of.

All in all, I'd definitely have to say that this was probably my best practice yet. I realized a lot of things today :-)