So I have two videos today, one of me starting from the bottom of side control against my instructor, Alliance black belt Casey Baynes, and one of me starting from top of side control against one of our purple belts. They both weigh in around the 215 mark meaning I'm giving up about 75lbs.
Rolling with Casey
Take note of my arms starting at about the 3 second mark and going the 12 second mark. I'm working to link them together both to protect them, and to provide a better lever for creating space. At the 17 second mark Casey senses my intentions and changes his position to stop me from shrimping and grabbing half guard. You can barely see my feet at the 22 second mark where I am preparing to get all spider monkey up in this thing. I slide my shin into the crook of his elbow and set my other foot up as support, then when he pops his hand free that gives me the opening I need to kick my self around and try to get my knees between us, he eases up the pressure some as I get close to success and lets me rotate through to guard. Against most people, that ease in pressure isn't needed, I just pop them up into the air a bit and spin through, but Casey could easily counter that and crush me.
From there Casey grabs me with his unbreakable steel grip and I work to keep some distance and try to free my legs. At the 49 second mark he cuts through my guard and I get squirrely and snag his leg for some desperation halfguard. At 1:03 I switch to a modified half guard that gives me a better ability to lift and move his leg, it doesn't do much good against Casey, but I find it very handy against anyone else that I end up on bottom of halfguard against. At the same time I'm defending a kimura attempt on my right arm and I take advantage of a momentary opening to rescue that arm and move it mostly out of danger.
Casey then pops past my halfguard and I try to shrimp to regain guard. He stalls me out and I turtle, he moves to my back and I slide down to my side trying to hook his bicep with my knee to give me some leverage. It doesn't work. I try a running man escape and he locks me down, then he makes the transition to my back. I fight off the RNC and at about 2:40 he lifts me to dump me forward to stop me from defending, I counter by curling me heels back to give myself support and bracing and manage to fight off the RNC until the end of the round.
This kind of overmatch is all about tenacity. I don't get intimidated by Casey and assume things won't work. I play a little more cautiously and look for ways to be extra sneaky, but I don't ever assume I'm about to be crushed. The reality is that I AM about to be crushed, but I don't let that affect my efforts and every small victory, like managing to spin through mostly back to guard, or fighting off an RNC for a few seconds longer than last time, shows me that I'm improving.
Rolling with Coe
This roll starts off very slow. I'm always cautious on top of anyone that is capable of just throwing me off of them if they get the chance. The first 25 seconds are me working on freeing his lapel so I can try to tie his arm up with it. I partially succeed which is when he makes his first escape attempt at 23 seconds in. He's trying to trap my arm with his legs, but i'm wise to his shenanigans and I avoid it and go back to the lapel. Again I come close to getting an arm tied up and he makes a move to escape. It's essentially a power move, using his superior size and strength to just sit up against me with a minimum of leverage. At 42 seconds you can see where I am braced on my knee and move to kick out his supporting arm, he adjusts to avoid it being hooked, but that's all I need to get his weight back and roll him over. You can see at 46 seconds how I am grabbing his knee to control his hips. I was using that same pants grip back at the 38 second mark to stop him from getting his legs involved and pushing me over the rest of the way. He's tenacious though and tries to lever me up again and I use that same grip and my head control to dump him over. at 1:10 he's working some gi related shenanigans and trying to choke me from the bottom of side control. It doesn't work, but it does give him enough of an opening eventually when I try to move to mount for him to start an escape. At the 1:50 mark I'm working on floating on top of him, making my body as heavy as possible as he tries to roll me directly over using the leverage on my head. I succeed in stopping that escape attempt, but again I move for mount when he turns into me and this time he catches my leg and keeps it. At the 2:02 mark I'm working to get past his knee, but he uses some strength to just push me back. We go through a scramble and I end up briefly in upside down guard. With Coe that's like having a fencepost driven through your chest, so I can't do much with it. He wraps me up as I try to spin to guard and I end up with desperation halfguard. He starts working some crazy lapel choke just as time runs out.
When you're on top of a bigger opponent the game becomes one of leverage. You MUST maintain enough leverage to counter their strength and weight or they can just toss you to your back and crushify you. Learning ways to make your body more difficult to move is an important part of that, knowing when to go rigid and when to be dead weight as well as knowing what support bits are the easiest to kick out when someone is pushing you around. And again, don't be intimidated by people. A purple belt with 75lbs on you? So what! If you do shit right it will work on them just like it works on everybody else. They know more counters, and more tricks, and you have to do it EXACTLY RIGHT to make it work, but it all still works.
As always, commentary is welcome. Tell me how much I suck, what a noob I am, etc...
No comments:
Post a Comment