US Grappling Charlotte - Full Writeup

We rolled into the hotel after a fairly uneventful drive at almost exactly 3pm. We got settled in and then headed out to the venue to see if we could lend a hand with the setup around 5. We helped Andrew and Mike and the rest of the crew unpack the truck and get the mats rolled out and taped up, then Andrew did a mini Referee certification for me and a couple of other guys. Everything went pretty smoothly despite the venue being somewhat on the creepy side as previously referenced.

The next morning we arrived at about 9:30. I weighed in real quick at 147 fully dressed and the Jennosaurus started helping with table assignments and all that kind of stuff while I changed. The rules meeting went down at about 10:30, and I hit the mats for my first match at 11:03 (Links to all of the matches will be at the end of the writeup). I lost every match this time around, but I did achieve two of my goals.

First goal was not to pull guard in no-gi. I fought from standing until my first opponent pulled halfguard on me, and then with my second opponent until there was a snapdown and we ended up on the ground. Second goal was to make an assessment of what I need to work on, and I did. My bottom game has suffered recently, or at least not kept pace with my top game, because of my focus on that top game. So now I'm lacking in the tools to move from the bottom to the top against the people in my division. So time to start working my sweeps and continuing my halfguard work.

I worked the table between my first and second matches, then started reffing after the second match. I was slightly nervous at first, but after the first match went pretty smoothly I settled into it pretty well. I didn't have any complaints about any of my calls, I didn't have any early stoppages or any controversial decisions, so it was a good day reffing.

My Gi division started about an hour and a half after my last no-gi match and I lost all of those as well, the first one I didn't get on video but I lost by an advantage point in an absolutely boring stalemate. I learned I REALLY need to work on breaking posture. I felt like I absolutely could not break anyone's posture at all.

My last match finished up at about 3:30 and I started reffing again and closed out some white belt divisions, again with no controversy, so that felt good.Of course for one of my matches Andrew came over to coach his guy while I was reffing it, yeah... Head referee is watching your match, no pressure... But it went fine. Everything ran smoothly all day, we had a couple of bracket redraws as people dropped out of divisions and things like that, but they were all accomplished within minutes so the day chugged right along and the last match finished up at about 6pm and we started packing up.

This was, once again, an incredibly smooth tournament with no delays, good communication, and an excellent atmosphere. I STRONGLY recommend attending any USG event that happens near you. If you've been to NAGA or Lutadore before then the smooth operation will be a welcome change of pace for you.

***************Video Links, As Promised**************


Match 1

Match 2

Match 3

Match 4

Denticle Stragety!

So we're out at Cheesecake Factory (Me and the Jennosaurus) doing our pre-tournament dinner, I don't have to cut any weight so I had all kinds of good stuff that I won't list here because I don't want to make anyone cry, and we got to talking about shaving and that developed into pre-tournament shaving strategy. I mentioned that some people like to shave two days out from the tournament to make sure they have a really wicked sandpaper layer up again by tournament time, and she burst out with, "Like Shark Denticles!"
So now that's officially been termed the denticle strategy.

As for USG Charlotte, the venue is... strange. We pulled in and immediately thought we were in the wrong place. It looks like a flea market. We had to turn around and go through the other entrance to get to the exhibit hall type areas. The venue itself is HUGE and well air conditioned. It's really nice on the inside, but totally creepy in a 'hillbilly murder carnival' kind of way on the outside.

We helped out unpacking the truck and setting up the mats and everything and then Andrew gave a few of us our referee seminar. Good stuff and well laid out by Andrew. It's all pretty standard with just a few deviations from IBJJF standard, mostly in the direction of leniency towards DQs for things. We give warnings before DQing someone. Also body triangle from backmount counts as control for the purpose of points, which IBJJF doesn't count. So, a few minor differences, but I feel comfortable scoring going in to tomorrow. This will be the first official points tournaments that I've reffed for so I'm a little more nervous than I usually am pre-tournament, but not much.

I'm planning on getting video of all of my matches this time around and I'm going to try to post them up late saturday night along with a full tournament report. Watch for it!

YAY! I'm Horrible!!

Had an absolutely terrible night last night. Was getting smashed left and right, subbed over and over, my guard was getting passed like crazy. It was great.

I'm definitely hitting a plateau again where I feel like nothing works right. I love these places because it means everyone has figured out my game and is shutting it down so I have to either expand my game, or improve it faster than they are improving their counters to it. These periods are almost always followed within a month or two by a significant improvement in my technique.

Since it's my sweep game that's being shut down the hardest right now I'm hoping my improvement will come there. So time to put in some work on my bottom game again. My top game is tight as hell now though. So that's good. Just gotta go back to work on getting there.

Knee Sweeps, Leg Drags, and Dynamic Guard Passing

As part of my tournament prep work I've been focusing on two things, my defensive halfguard work, and my guard passing.
Largely my issues in halfguard have come from originally learning the 'lockdown' in my first year of training and latching onto it as a way not to get passed. As I get better at guard retention and open guard I drifted away from halfguard and never really updated my game. Once I hit purple belt all of a sudden my open guard game and my defensive guard work were no longer sufficient to avoid halfguard as reliably as had been the case in the past, so all of a sudden I was stuck using a whitebelt level lockdown game against purple belt level passing. Not a good place to be.
During my refocus on halfguard I quickly came to the conclusion that I no longer liked the lockdown at all. It pinned my hips and interfered with my mobility in a way that was counter to the entire rest of my game. I started exploring other halfguard options and found Caio Terra's DVDs and adopted the Knee Shield halfguard as more what I wanted to have in place. I also revisited Marcelo Garcia's X-Guard material and began working on ways to transition from Knee Shield half and Z-guard to the X-Guard. Progress has been slow but steady and already I'm getting bogged down in halfguard much less than I was a month ago.

Now, my halfguard progress is great, but that's not what I wanted to write about. My largest developmental improvement and the one that I think represents the larger fundamental shift in my thought process is in my guard passing.
After my last visit to Alliance HQ when EVERYONE was standing to pass I decided that I should give serious thought to standing more and working against standing passes. Only one guy at our affiliate gym REALLY uses standing passes, so I grabbed him a few times and worked against his style and took mental notes about how he moved and what he used to set the passes up, then I looked at some black belts and how they passed standing (Roberto "Cyborg" Abreu is a good one) and took some notes on what the commonalities of successful passing were. I then revised my own passing game and moved away from trying to force my knee cut passes when they weren't really there and developed a few tricks for backing out, standing, and passing.

My passing game now much more often involves looking for a leg drag, then if that fails I retain control of the foot as much as possible and move to a knee sweep pass (Dunno any other name for it), if that fails I frequently am setup for an ankle lock, or I am able to step in with my other leg and pass by moving to reverse KoB. I also switch back and forth a lot and pass to either side. This is a much more active and dynamic passing game than my previous game that involved a lot of pressure and grinding my way through to side control. I still like that method and use it, but having a more comfortable standing passing game has opened up a lot more options for me.
I'm hoping those new options will help me out at US Grappling Charlotte in May.

Triangle Choke Redux

I've been working incredibly hard in class still, forcing myself to push hard and keep moving and keep fighting at high intensity no matter what and I think it's helping my overall mindset. I've really gotten back into the groove with my bread and butter submissions, the omoplata, the triangle choke, and the spin under loop choke.

I've been making it a point to hit the triangle on the bigger guys in the gym and finish it in preparation for the absolute divisions at US Grappling in May.

Mostly it's a matter of just keeping in the groove and getting in good training every week.

Good Training! Again!

Worked more back control tonight, basic slide escape, fatboy roll, and a sort of seio nage shoulder pressure escape to combine with the fatboy.

I rolled with the bigger side of the room since I'm trying to get ready for USG and need to be forced to work hard. Still managed to be lazy a little bit with a new guy, but rolled with Coe and a 300lber to keep me honest.

Monkey flipped the 300lber, which was great, but he moved faster than I expected so my follow up armbar attempt was super sloppy and I ended up back on the bottom and exhausted. Spent the next four minutes or so making incremental movements to avoid getting pressure choked and stuff.

Definitely good training.

I'll have some more real content up next week. Probably next Thursday.

Hard Work is Good for the Soul

Recently I've been feeling like class wasn't really working me the way it used to. I wasn't waking up sore the next day, I wasn't feeling half crippled on the drive home, it felt like even against the tougher guys in the gym I was able to relax and play my game and work on things. Tonight was a whole different story.

A couple of guys from ATT in Atlanta have moved to the Athens area and are looking to find a new place to train down here. They are both purple belts and they kicked my ASS. It was a great time. The smaller of the two is a guy I know from facebook named Sergio and he did the same knee cut pass on me about a dozen times. It wasn't until the 8th or 9th time that I realized what the hell he was doing that kept me from blocking the pass with my bottom leg. He ALWAYS had a grip on the middle of my bottom shin. Even when he didn't have it when he started the pass, somewhere in the middle he ended up with it. So I was never able to catch him to stop the pass.
They also both favored D'arce choke sequences, so my neck got wrenched around a lot. I was able to put together exactly 5 seconds of offense against the larger of the two when I finally caught the DLR right and was able to momentarily take his back before he spun right back into my guard. Both guys moved with a lot of intensity, a lot more than I'm used to rolling with, coupled with excellent technique. They both also had excellent standing passes, which our gym lacks. I'm hoping they decide to stick around to train with us since it will force me to roll with greater intensity OR get twice as tricky if I want to continue being lazy.

I do think I finally figured out how to deal with that standing knee-cut pass though...

GOOD TRAINING!!