I Don't Remember JiuJitsu Being So Much Work!

Today my muscles made a few attempts to remind me that I have done hardly any jiujitsu and that maybe I should take it easy, but I told them to suck it up and quit complaining.

As a result, back on the mats at 10:30am this morning. 12 or 14 people in the class, which was awesome. Started out with a jogging warmup, then drilled Upa mount escape followed by sit-up sweep for 5 minutes each.

After that we worked 3 no-gi guard passes, one of which I had never actually drilled before.

The first one was the standard kneecut. Pop the guard, combat base, drive the knee in, opponent blocks it, you cut to the outside and bring the non-cutting knee up and walk the foot up. Flat palm to push the knee off and clear your leg, backstep and push the far knee to the mat to kill the hips.

Second one was guard break transition to achilles lock. Opponent curls you forward to break your posture, you catch yourself in their armpits and bring one leg around and pinch their leg with yours and your elbow. They open their guard to attack or transition and you bring your knee up into combat base. Then circle your arm back (put it in your back pocket) and drop back for the ankle lock.

Third was the one I had never drilled before, it was a very slick transition to the back. Opponent tries to hip-bump sweep you, you block the knee on the side OPPOSITE the one they are sweeping you towards. So the knee they are trying to use to drive you over, you block that one and pop your knee up on that side, then you step OVER their knee. Drop your knee on that side to the ground aiming for their far hip, and at the same time bringing your inside leg up to catch the first hook and bringing your arm around to set up the RNC. Then you just complete the transition to the back with both hooks in and work for the RNC.

After that we did a gauntlet with 1 person starting on guard bottom, I think I got 4x5 minute rolls out of that, I felt slightly less retarded in no-gi today and was actually able to make some stuff work properly without gi grips, so that felt good. A final round of rolling starting from the knees and then I had to ditch out to shower and head to work as it was 12:05.

So far I am absolutely loving this gym. I won't be able to train tomorrow as I will be buying all of the stuff to install a new hot water heater (inline, woohoo!) and run a 50 foot length of 10/2 and a cutoff switch for the HVAC install monday. I will be back on friday though!

Tournament Footage Review

Greetings my jiujitsu brethren! I've been out of the picture and out of training for a while now due to changing jobs and general personal chaos and I've taken the time to review a lot of my video footage from last year. In addition to my weakness against deep halfguard sweeps I noticed a couple of key weaknesses.

I am guilty of one of the key white belt errors that I talked about two years ago. In competitions I will frequently reach for head control when I should instead be attacking much closer to the hips and legs in order to begin passing guard.

A second thing I've noticed is that my movements around my opponent aren't as fluid as I want them to be. I feel jerky during my movements and I need to flow better from position to position.

And finally, underhooks. I'm REALLY REALLY BAD about giving up underhooks and not fighting to regain them.

So, now that my new job has settled I should be training again starting this wednesday and I plan to address all of these things. I probably won't be back in competition until late this year, or maybe even next year, but I plan to work hard and close al ot of holes in my game before then.