Rather than sit about at work killing time for an hour, I decided to get to class for 6 and join in the beginners class. I'm a little wary of doing this as we often have very busy classes and I don't want to take up space on the mat that could be used by someone who should actually be there. To that end I'm always ready to step off if there are too many people but today wasn't too bad.
After the standard warm up of jogging, forward and back rolls and other such exercises, the Blue belts were asked to pair up with and assist the newer guys. I grabbed the biggest guy I could find who went by the rather unusual name of Silvan.
The first exercise to practice was a follow up to a counter to a standard collar choke. The attacker would start by putting one hand in the collar to begin the choke but the defender put his hands on the attacker's chest and posture up, making the choke difficult to apply if at all. The attacker, leaving his hand in the collar, pushes their arm across their body with the other arm, moves his hips out and brings his legs up in the same way that you would for an armbar. But instead of the armbar, the attacker pushes down on the head with his leg while pulling up with his arm in the collar to apply a choke. If this doesn't work out, the arm is there for the armbar. I saw this move in Ed Beneville's Passing the Guard book a couple of years back and have been trying it sporadically in training with very little success. Indeed, Silvan only tapped two or three times while we were drilling it and at least one of those was a crank rather than a choke. Silvan pointed out that if they tap then it worked but I don't agree. I am a big advocate of not hurting your partners during training. More than that, I believe it's my responsibility to look after my training partner and cranking someone's neck to get a submission in a classroom that means absolutely nothing is ego stroking at best.
The second exercise was an open guard sweep. It started from closed guard, you get a good grip on their sleeves - Cesar demonstrated some kind of grip where you get hold and then kind of half circle your wrists to tighten it up. You then put a foot on the hip, push off and bring the other foot to the other hip. Now Cesar mentioned a detail that he either missed out or I somehow didn't hear when we did this last time but when you put a foot on the bicep, you need to get your hips out and be kind of laying on your side rather than flat on your back. This made the rest of the move SO MUCH easier. With the foot on the bicep and your leg straight, you then bring the person towards you and over your opposite shoulder while scissoring their base leg. With the new found detail of getting on your side, I found this sweep a lot less cumbersome and will definitely be attempting to add it to my rather small repertoire of moves that I would feel embarrassed calling 'my game'.
We then moved on to the basic Side Control Escape
And a flow drill that went from Side Control > Knee on Belly > Mount > Half Guad > Pass back to Side Control. I found my partner to be rather unwilling to allow me to drill this. He was putting up a decent amount of resistance and correcting my positions before I'd even settled into them. He seems like a nice guy though and wasn't doing anything any other new guy does so I didn't say anything.
Advanced Class was, as is normal for a Friday evening, an open mat session. The first person I sparred with was my good friend Andy who, after several months off was a lot better in certain aspects than I would have expected. We were taking it fairly easy, letting him work and I was giving pointers here and there as we rolled. He seems to process advice quickly and only needs to be shown things once so I think he could really progress were he able to regularly make class without gaps of weeks or even months in his training. The only advice I really felt qualified to give him is to not spazz out when he sees an opportunity and to try to relax more.
My second roll was with Cornell, or 'The Beast' as he's been so affectionately named. He is one of the strongest people I've ever met and sparring with him tends to be more of an exercise in survival for me. Starting from the knees he will always try to get on top so I frequently try to pull guard to try and land in a position that suits me. I seem to have major problems with this though, as one of my legs always gets trapped in what I can only describe as half Butterfly. It's very rare for me to be able to regain guard or sweep from here before he starts to pass. Fighting against Cornell's strength seems absolutely futile and Cesar told me that I have to be faster than him so I was trying to be constantly moving and I seemed to hold guard for longer than normal, even attempting a mediocre collar choke on the way. Eventually, he underhooked both my legs and began to stack pass. I tried to roll back out of it but his strength and ability to use his weight and make himself heavy meant that I was totally squashed as he passed. In Side Control and then Mount I didn't fair an awful lot better. Recently I've been rolling when he moves up for an armbar and either ending up with him on my back or turning him over and ending up in his guard. It seems like a pretty bad habit to start forming so I must stop doing this. I also tend to bait the armbar when caught under Mount because my escape of sitting up with them has worked pretty well so far. Cornell however, has cottoned on to this and now puts pressure on my face when applying the armbar so I can't move. Overall, I got bulldozed but I seem to be surviving longer and I was before.
The last roll was with Lukas. He'd had a few weeks off over Christmas too so he wasn't at 100% but he sure is tough. I can't remember the ins and outs of our rolling but one thing he did keep doing that I've never seen before is opening his guard and using his feet to hook my shins. This made my base feel extremely wobbly and it was extremely hard to free my legs. This of course meant that it was a lot easier for him to over balance me and set up sweeps and submissions at will. He caught me in several armbars which I managed to use the stack escape on to get my arm free. I also got caught in a Triangle but in escaping, left myself open for the Omoplata. I tried to roll out of it but he had a firm grip and my arm was tangled so he put it on slowly and I tapped. One thing that I do remember trying for the first time was pulling my foot up his body while he was trying to pass close to me, like Rubber Guard position and pulled my foot over his head for the Omoplata. He rolled out of it easy enough but I was amazed and quite pleased that my legs would actually do that. I also tried to sit up out of an armbar and felt my neck click against the granite legs in front of me (Obvious note to self: Don't attempt to use neck strength against leg strength).
Almost every aspect of my game needs work, but I'm particularly concerned about the fundamentals that I'm missing. Sometimes, when someones passes my legs, I'll wait there for the Side Control, almost like mentally giving up the position. I need to move a lot more and begin my escapes as soon as I feel my legs being passed. Side Control, or more specifically, being under it is a huge hole for me at the moment that needs some serious filling. I'm going to give up the position in class on Monday and keep working my escapes.
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