So true to my resolution I continued working on my A game and my general flow last night and I can definitely feel the improvement over where I was six months ago.
Techniques were an ezekiel from the back where you rotate so that you are looking in your opponents ear, drive your bottom wrist around to on top of their far shoulder, grab your sleeve, and ezekiel.
Then a quick armbar from the back, then an armbar from the back with a kimura grip for greater control.
And finally an armbar vs the turtle where you scoop their far arm with your far arm then roll onto your side. You can finish there or have the option to flip them over and finish.
We did specific sparring from the turtle, Rugby is getting better already, he was able to shake me off a couple of times and get back to guard. Once was my own fault since I felt the triangle setup that I use and automatically went for it, resulting in him escaping to a neutral position.
My single collar choke setups are getting sneakier and sneakier as well.
Rolling was with Ankhor and Katie. Ankhor is one of the super athletic guys that does Muay Thai and BJJ, he's got an MMA fight coming up at the end of those month. A few months ago he was giving me absolute fits because of how strong he is, but over the last 3-4 months I've gotten a lot stronger and improved my technique. So last night I was able to breakdance all over him for the first time in a long time.
Katie is like 14 and is Casey's daughter. I'm not sure how seriously she takes JiuJitsu, but she's there pretty regularly and I try to give her tips on how to make stuff work when you are 100lbs lighter than everyone. Sometimes she seems to be working hard at it, sometimes she doesn't seem to care. But I think if she had some more people her size that she could see the stuff working on it would motivate her more. Instead the next lightest person is like 40lbs heavier than she is and probably 5x as strong. Definitely not a recipe for morale building.
I see your concern for Katie. When I was growing up, I was always competing against my brothers and their friends. I always lost. As a result, I thought I was a horrible athlete. Now I realize that I never was a bad athlete, I was just competing against people that were older, bigger, and stronger than me.
ReplyDeleteThe positive of this is that when I started BJJ it didn't bother me so much to tap. The negative is I that as a teenager I didn't have the confidence to participate in sports.
As far as her being fickle about BJJ, all girls her age are fickle about everything. You might be able to give her some women to look up to, and maybe emulate. Of Course there is Kyra Gracie. Layla Ali and Lucia Rijker are two of my favorites. They are both undefeated against women. The only fight Lucia lost was against a man. There are a ton of female fighters out there. Maybe you could con her into checking them out. Yes, I said "con", she is a teenager after all, which means it has to be her idea.
Good Luck!!
Jodi