Rigan Machado Counter to the 50/50 Guard

I shot a video for this solely because I find it impossible to continue to refer to this technique as 'that fifty fifty counter from Rigan's book, I think it's move 16, anyways, that one' when trying to tell people about it. You can actually see it as move #16 and move #20 in his book Encyclopedia of Leglocks. The technique he shows isn't PRECISELY against the 50/50, because no one used it when he made the book. But it works exactly the same with your leg threaded through and triangled as it does in his demonstration. However, here is a brief video showing how it works. As usual feedback is welcome. This is NOT a detailed how-to guide for the technique. Remember this is just a reference video to give you the basic idea.

As usual commentary is welcome.

The Training Roller Coaster

Normally a title like that would suggest that I'm going to talk about the ups and downs of training and how some days you are doing great and other days you feel like a noob again, but I'm not. This is about the rush of being on top of your game. I had another great class last night, we had the No-Gi Pan Am gold medalist and his brother who is also an incredibly skilled purple belt training with us again. It was no-gi which is what they both specialize in so they mauled me an unholy amount, but I'm already improving thanks to working against them.

In every roll that was not with them I was flowing well, chaining my techniques together, and executing submissions with a much higher frequency that I have been the last year or so. My game has definitely bumped up a couple of steps and I'm hoping to carry that into Grapplemania on the 8th of December and come out with a good performance. In the mean time, I'm going to be back to training 3-4 days a week instead of the 1-2 I've been doing. I expect that to help a lot, and I'm going to see if I can get back to lifting weights after the 8th to try and build up my strength again.

Psychological Submission Defense

I had another great 'I am a purple belt!' class today. I was hitting combos and flowing well and sweeping and really felt like I had broken through to the next step. The difference between this class and the last one where I felt that was that this time I got a much clearer mental picture of how to reproduce those results. I expect to have more ups and downs, but I think I'm solidly on the UP path, and watching some brown belt tournament competition is starting to help me see the places I can bridge from where I am to where they are. But enough about that, on to the good stuff!

During the technique portion of class we were working on a nice fundamental Kimura from halfguard top and using it to set up the guard pass, or finish it there. I was drilling it with one of our whitebelts and towards the end of drilling as I was increasing resistance some I started stiffening my arm and moving it through the kimura/straight armlock/americana combo positions.  I then explained the combo and told him not to give up once he had my arm isolated because no matter what I did, until I get my elbow back inside I would never really be better off. I talked about how some people will defend up and down through those three submission positions hoping to frustrate their opponent enough to move to something else where there might be a better chance of escape. I emphasized NOT to give up that position or let them get their arm back just because they broke out of the first submission.

Fast forward to one of the last rolls of the day. I'm rolling with that same whitebelt and, as is my custom, I let him work his way to halfguard top where I fight for the underhook, giving him the setup from the technique portion of class. He takes it, and starts working the kimura on me. I defend, stiff arming and floating my arm around until suddenly I pop his hand off of my wrist and I hear that sweet sweet, 'Dangit' that tells me I'm not going to get subbed. He gave up. I had defeated him. At that point he sort of half heartedly went for the kimura again but he had no commitment behind it because in his mind I had already escape. Sure enough a few seconds later he shifts around and moves to a different position and I pop my hips and escape back to guard, hip out, grab a collar and choke him.

I then pointed out that he had just done exactly what we talked about earlier. He HAD me. He had the kimura solidly established. Just because I popped that one hand off didn't mean anything. My position wasn't improved AT ALL. All he had to do was grab my wrist and lock it up again and he could have continued to work it without any interruption, but he allowed me to beat him mentally and so he gave up a dominant position with a submission 3/4 of the way completed.

When you are in a position where you can work to finish your opponent, and they manage to block the submission, but not improve their position you can not let yourself get frustrated. They haven't done anything except delay the inevitable. Continue to attack and attack and attack without giving them any leeway to escape. Don't give up just because you're having a hard time finishing.

Oh, one more excellent thing from class. I normally don't finish a lot of armbars. I'm lazy about them and tend to just transition to somewhere else after I use them to sweep or something. Tonight I hit two from places I've been thinking about, but haven't really taken advantage of. One was off of a pendulum sweep. I swept, and immediately transitioned into the armbar in one nice smooth motion. And the other was a nearside armbar from side control/knee on belly where I gathered the arm up with my leg and trapped it across the chest and just extended it there. I'm very happy with both of the transitions I used on those.

Preventing the Bullfighter Pass

This is actually going to be about dealing with any pass that involves your opponent getting grips on your pants. These are super basic things and won't work in all situations, but will give you an overview of the ideas involved and it's a good place to start looking at defending against standing passes. It's absolutely white belt or new blue material, and it's not exactly an in depth look at each thing. But it should make a nice reference video. I grabbed my favorite rolling partner, Kris, because he uses this shit on me ALL THE TIME. If I stop paying attention for half a second he's got a double fistfull of my pants and is running around my to knee on belly. He's great at the pass and using it to setup other passes. Anyways, watch the video, then flame me for being a noob, whatev.

Ok, so now from that underhook you can take the option of scooping the leg for a single leg, from the grip break you can keep the cross grip on the sleeve and drop down for a sickle sweep, and if you establish your sleeve grips first you can hit an overhead sweep for bonus style points. Plenty of options, but the most important thing is thing is to be sitting up and paying attention.

Moving on, we had a new Purple Belt in class today, a fellow named Hector who just moved here from Texas. He's a Royce Gracie lineage guy and you can tell from the very deliberate progressive pressure game he plays on top. We had some fun rolls since he's just a little heavier than me and a little better. Makes for a good time because I CAN catch him if I do things right, and there are things in my game he's not used to, but  there are also things in HIS game I'm not used to and he capitalizes on every mistake I make very smoothly. This is exactly the kind of rolling partner I've been hoping for because he's enough better than I am to punish me mistakes and beat up on me good, but not enough better that I can't see the bridge between where I am and where he is. I'm looking forward to working more with him, he's signing up with us tomorrow for good.

We worked reverse scissor sweep combos for a while in class, then rolled a bunch. I was rolling pretty relaxed because I'm still in post tournament chill mode. Next week I'll probably start ratcheting up the intensity a little bit.

I also started running again, 2.33 miles in 24 minutes. The goal is 3 miles in 24 minutes, then we'll see where it goes from there.

US Grappling - VA Beach - Full Writeup

The drive up to VA Beach was about nine and a half hours, most of which the Jennosaurus drove for me because she's awesome. We arrived around 7:45 at the venue and I weighed in real quick just to make it official, fully dressed, with my phone and wallet in my pockets I tipped the scales at a whopping 147. My actual weight the morning of the competition was 142. 

We arrived at the venue Saturday morning at about 9:45 am. I had plenty of time to warmup and stretch before the rules meeting, and by 11:30 I was on the mats and grappling.

I only had one no-gi match. He pulled guard on me and had a very tight halfguard, I was able to secure a guillotine with the marcello grip, but couldn't finish it. I let it go to try to work something else and he popped to my back and secured the choke. Afterwards I found out the guillotine was closer than I thought. I should have kept the guillotine, changed to a power guillotine grip and used it to force the guard pass or play for a more patient finish. Once again my impatience betrayed me.

I jumped over to work a table for a couple of hours until the Gi divisions started, as usual the tables were running smooth as silk with matches constantly running on at least 5 rings out of the 6.

This match again my opponent pulled guard on me, which is starting to become a common thing since I rarely pull guard anymore, but still surprises me. I was able to to cut to halfguard and this time he took the bait and stood up, allowing me to land a serviceable tomoe nage for the points. Unfortunately I screwed up and he managed to get my arm isolated and finish me with a nice straight armlock.

This was against the same guy as my No-Gi match and this time I was able to enforce my top game a little better by using the Gi to control him. I was able to get to his back and secure the collar for a Bow and Arrow choke.

Yup, same guy again, this one was our absolute division I think and it ended up being just us for some reason. He was pretty tired by this time. I pulled guard on him this time, just for kicks, and then we messed around a bit. I hit a sloppy berimbolo and got to mount. I beat him on points here. He went on to do like 5 more matches or something like that in other divisions.

I ended up with a Gold, a Silver, and a Bronze for my efforts, which I'm happy with. Mostly I'm happy that I'm solidly competitive as a purple belt. I could have easily ended up winning both of the matches I lost had I been a little bit smarter about them, so I wasn't outclassed completely or anything, I just wasn't the better man that time, in that match.

As usual the tournament itself was run incredibly smoothly and the last match finished up right around 6 pm. We had the entire venue broken down and packed up in time to head back to the hotel, shower, change, and meet for dinner at 8.

Now I have a few new things to work on, specifically my halfguard top game, and guillotines. Both of my opponents were able to just keep me in halfguard even once I had a position where I normally am able to complete the pass. So plenty to work on from this competition. I did meet my goal of not pulling guard except for my last match where I could have stayed up and let him pull guard, but I wanted to work from the bottom, so I pulled guard first. I hit my tomoe nage, which was a goal, and I felt really good in general. I still don't feel like I'm smooth enough though, so there's that to work on. But a good tournament and a good time.

Oh yeah, and we had to outrun a hurricane heading home. The wind and rain were INSANE.

BJJ Shopping List

My small handful of regular readers might notice that over to the right there is now a JiuJitsu Shopping list box. You might be wondering what the heck that stuff is and why you should buy it, so I will explain.
Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps Pure-Castile Soap, 18-in-1 Hemp Tea Tree, 32-Ounce
This is a tea tree oil soap which naturally fights fungal infections like ringworm and athletes foot. I find it to be very easy on my skin, pleasant smelling, and effective. A 16oz bottle is about a months supply.
Olympia Kinesiology Tape
There is nothing better for wrapping an injured finger or toe or ankle or knee than this stuff. It adheres to itself, but it isn't sticky. It breathes well, and it stays in place well. A roll or two a month is usually plenty.
Tinactin Super Absorbent Antifungal Powde
Another antifungal, this one is a powder that I shake into my gym bag before I pack my gear into it. It keeps my bag from becoming a possible infection source. The powder also sticks to my rashguard and my Gi to help fight the proliferation of ringworm on the mats. I go through a small bottle per month, more or less.
Village Naturals Therapy Foaming Bath Oil, Aches & Pains, 16 oz.
This stuff is just heavenly. I mix a couple of capfuls in with a handful of Epson salts and take a hot soak after a particularly heavy class and it will flat out melt the ache out of your muscles. A 16oz bottle is only good for about 2 weeks for me, but that's because I'm a hedonist.
Epsom Salt 2Lb (907g)
To be mixed with the above Foaming Bath Oil for maximum muscle soothing. Cheap and effective. 2lbs is about a month worth.

Watching The Class: Who, How, and What?

As with most of my best content this was inspired by a conversation and a question from Julia over at JiuJiuBJJ regarding who I felt was the best combination of rolling partners to observe out of these options:

Watching sparring question:Here were the sets of people sparring:
-purple and black (my instructor)
-new white + 2 stripe blue
-4 stripe blue + 1 stripe white
-blue and purple

And because of the way my brain works, that spawned a massive wall of text well beyond the scope of the original question, so here is that wall of text and for the more concise article with perspectives from Black and Brown belts as well head over to JiuJiuBJJ and take a look at her article as well.

When I was a white belt I watched other people roll with a sense of wonder and confusion. Mostly my thoughts were dedicated to wondering what the heck was going on midst the sea of tangled limbs on the mat. People would tap for apparently no reason, and other people wouldn't tap to things I was certain were going to disconnect limbs from torsos. I had no idea what I was watching.
As I gained experience the tangle sorted itself out slowly until I could distinguish discrete sequences and individual techniques from the chaos. By the time I was an experienced white belt I was watching the blue belts to try to figure out what they were doing so that I could emulate it. That theme continued when I got my own blue belt and I started watching the purple belts to absorb tips from them. Now as a purple belt I watch brown and black belts and try to figure out what they are doing that is different from what I' m doing. But, I realized no one ever told me HOW to watch other people rolling, or even who to pay attention to.
As a white belt should I be watching white belts rolling against blue belts and examining how the white belts and the blue belts interacted or would I benefit more from watching two black belts rolling? Or a purple belt and a white belt? I had no idea. I just watched the blue belts because that was the next belt. The one I wanted to get to. What was I even watching for? Again I had no idea. I kept track of what techniques the blues used, but they were all the same techniques I already knew performed at a higher level. I wasn't really getting the most out of my observations because I had never really talked to anyone with experience about what I should be looking at.
Now as a purple belt with almost six years of training under my belt (Check that out, 100% appropriate use of that phrase.) I have a much better idea of who to watch, how to watch them, and what to look for.

Who: My preferred observation subjects are brown belts and purple belts my size rolling with each other. Just as I did when I was a white belt (I had the right idea!) I can watch the more experienced person work against someone of my own rank and see how they counter techniques, how they attack, how they defend, and so on. To generalize this I believe you are always best off watching someone of the rank just above yours roll with someone of your rank. You can extract the most knowledge from those rolls because the level of execution behind the techniques will be closer to your own and so more accessible and understandable. Watching a black belt perform a basic scissor sweep as a white belt just doesn't let you extract that much information because the technique is so smooth that you actually can't see many of the steps involved.

How: How do you watch two people rolling in a way that lets you extract information? You can't watch them the way you would watch a competitive match for entertainment. You want to choose a specific area and concentrate on that area. Watch how a blue belt plays guard against another white belt, or how a purple belt uses grips against another blue belt. Stay focused on one area.

What: And of course, WHAT do you watch for? Well, when you're watching a single area you want to look for subtle differences between the higher ranking persons technique and your own. If you see a purple belt scissor sweep a blue belt effortlessly, and it's a blue belt you can never manage to sweep then you watch for the small details. Look for foot placement, hand placement, hip location in relation to the opponent. You don't care about the macro level, what technique was used, you care about the micro level, what minuscule detail separates that higher ranking persons technique from your own.

Whenever possible try to get some video footage of those higher ranking people rolling with you as well. That can really give you insight into the technique in a way that other observations can't. And it lets you direct the roll in ways that you are most interested in. REALLY want to get detail on that scissor sweep? Put yourself in a position to be swept and fight it to see what happens, then you can review it on video later. When you review your own video you have a much better sense of where your weight was, or how you were balanced when something happens. You know what grips you had or didn't have in a much deeper way than when you are watching someone else.
Observation can be a powerful tool in accelerating your jiujitsu progress and you should make use of it whenever possible. Especially when injured or doing times when you can't train, but can review video. You will also come to class more focused and with a better idea of how to guide your training which just makes everything easier mentally.

Finally Feeling Like a Purple Belt

So it's been just over a year since I got my purple belt and last night I finally FELT like a purple belt. My control of my opponents was solid, I was transitioning smoothly between pass attempts, and I was applying so much top pressure that I actually forced one of our blue belts to tap from forearm pressure across his face while I was working to free his arm for a kimura. I wasn't trying to crush his face, I was just well positioned.

I was also able to completely shut down one of my favorite blue belt training partners who usually gives me a serious run for me money. Everything just clicked in my head and a detail that I've known intellectually for a long time finally manifested physically for me. Specifically while I was watching some of the Metamoris matches I noticed how much focus there was on controlling peoples legs in various positions, it's something I've of course known for years and have thought about before, but something about watching it in that format made it click. I was constantly controlling the legs all night and making it impossible for my opponents to stop me from imposing my will.

I think I've finally settled in to being a purple belt now, give me another year and I'll be all antsy for my brown!

Interesting Takedowns

Last was Takedown practice, we worked on breaking grips and moving to the Russian grip and then attacks from there. Some of it felt natural and kind of fit for me, some of it just was awkward. I had the most successful round of takedown practice ever, I managed to score takedowns against every opponent for over half an hour without getting taken down at all myself. The unfortunate part is that they were all counter takedowns, or guard pull/tomoe nage style takedowns. At one point I actually pulled guard to a sickle sweep as a takedown. Most of the rest were just countering other peoples grips or takedowns and ending up on top.I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not, I need to be more proactive about seeking takedowns that aren't predicated on pulling guard or some derivation thereof.


I keep meaning to do some more video, but everything is so busy that I just haven't had time. I also have some other ideas kicking around in my head that I probably won't get down on paper until after US Grappling on the 27th. Which I just remembered I need to pre-register for...

Recovering my Flow

Last night felt great.

I was flowing well, executing my passes, defending well, executing submissions, and generally feeling very much back in my groove. I even finished a guillotine after setting it up during a halfguard pass in the exact fashion that Sergio kept doing to me on monday in No-Gi. Had my combinations flowing and just had a great night.

It was takedown night too, Johnny is getting a lot more focused with his teaching style, he doesn't wander off on tangents any more which means instead of showing us like 50 variations of one move we're working like 3-5 variations which is a LOT easier for me to work with. I like a focused, deep approach to a small number of techniques. We worked on takedowns off of the overhook and I found out that my firemans carry from that position is pretty tight. I just have trouble getting to that position.

We did some work from standing and I hit a couple of takedowns, and failed a couple too, but I'm definitely improving steadily from standing.

Berimbolo is improving. I hit it on one of our more experienced white belts.

And that's about that. I'm definitely getting back into things.

Rollin' with a Pan Am Champ

So one of the guys that trains with us on no-gi days is a purple belt from the ATT gym in Atlanta, he went up to compete in the No-Gi Pan Ams last week and took gold in his division.

That's him in the middle with the gold medal.

I haven't been to the no-gi class in a couple of months, so it's been a while since the last time I rolled with him. I made it back up to the No-Gi last night and got to roll for probably 30 minutes with him broken up into a few different rounds. The amount of mauling involved was just preposterous. I did manage to force him to use a couple of different guard passes beyond his normal knee-cut, which I consider a victory, but for the most part he was just sliding through my guard and straight into a guillotine from pretty much any angle. I'm looking forward to getting to more of the No-Gi classes in the future and using him to really help sharpen my own game up, but it's great to have guys of this caliber in the gym with us now. It brings the whole gym up.


I had forgotten how slipper no-gi was, and with some rain and humidity the gym was a swimming pool after about the first 20 minutes. I did catch a rather spectacular armbar on one of the newer wrestlers who sometimes is too explosive for his own good. He tried to cartwheel through my guard and I rolled through and snagged his arm as he did it. Definitely one of the smoother catches I've had recently. Unfortunately this guy learns so quickly that I'll probably never hit it on him again.

All in all it was an excellent night of training, and I'm happy to be all set to train three days this week and three days next week leading up to US Grappling on the 27th. I might even be in shape by then... a little...

US Grappling - Virginia Beach - Oct 27

I'll be competing again coming up on the 27th of October at US Grappling in Virginia beach. I may also be refereeing (To be confirmed with the USG folks) and that means I'll be ramping my training up a little bit in an attempt to not be a lazy git when I arrive at competition.

To that end I've been working on 50/50 and Berimbolo offense and defense as well as my normal loop choke offense and my sweep game. I'm also sharpening up my omoplatas again. I'm pretty relaxed with my goals right now, it's all about sharpening my combinations and just pushing my game up to the next level so I'm not particularly concerned with placing in competition right now I just want to test the stuff I've been working on. I'm hoping I'll actually have a weightclass this time around. If I'm lucky I'll be able to do my weightclass in adult and masters gi and no-gi and skip out on being smashed by people in absolute this time. I get plenty of work against people 80lbs heavier than I am in training.

I've got a couple of more interesting and informative posts in the works for this week, as well as possibly a video or two. We'll see how it works out.

Wristlocks? Lolwhut?

This post is a little late due to some still fairly intense work schedule, but I did get to train last week and we have some more new folks in the gym. One of them is a largeish fellow, about 220 or so and my height, who it turns out has some training in some japanese jiujitsu or aikido or something. He spent a solid 6 minutes attempting to wristlock me inside my guard. He was ALMOST strong enough to make one of them work. Instead though after 90 or so wristlock attempts I just ended up with a mildly sore wrist.
I just let him keep attempting them while I continued to free myself over and over and over again, hoping that he will realize they aren't practical before he catches some white belt and injuries him.

We also had one of our giants returning, a guy who is about 6'5" and 300lbs. I rolled briefly with him and grabbed a collar and spun under for the collar choke. I figure I have to get some subs in early on him because once he's been training a couple of months he won't fall for that kind of thing any more and he'll start crushing me.

The new class schedule has us all training from 7pm to 9pm, so we end up getting to roll a LOT more, but the class kind of breaks down the last 30 minutes as people get tired and leave. I think I should probably take that time to see if I can get someone to drill with me, since I don't drill enough.

We've got some folks going to the Atlanta Open coming up, so I'm going to try to help them get some extra training this week and hopefully they'll bring home some medals.

Homework Assignment: Ranking Your Techniques

In honor of another return to training after another multi month long gap I'm doing it big with a brand new Homework Assignment. I know it's been a while since I posted one, but I ran into this post over at Marshal Carper's blog and was struck by what an excellent training exercise that is.

 I suggest jumping over there, reading his post, and the returning here.

 The homework assignment is to take your technique library and to rank each of your techniques that you commonly use and that you WANT to commonly use by belt rank.
 A good way to determine this is by who you can usually land the technique against. If you can hit it against white belts your size, but not blue belts your size or white belts with a big size/strength advantage then it's a white belt technique. If you can hit it against blues, but not purples, it's blue, and so on.

My technique rank breakdown:
 Submissions:
Triangle Choke - Purple Belt
Loop Choke - Purple Belt
Armbar - Blue Belt
X-Choke - White Belt
Guillotine - White Belt
D'Arce - White Belt
Omoplatta - Brown Belt
Straight Ankle Lock - Purple Belt
Baseball Bat Choke - Blue Belt

 Guard Passes:
Leg Drag - Blue Belt
Teleport Pass - Purple Belt
Knee Swipe Pass - Blue Belt (MAAAYBE Purple belt, it's close)
Double Under - Purple Belt

  Sweeps:
Scissor Sweep - Purple Belt
Gift Wrap Sweep - Purple Belt
Pendulum Sweep - Blue Belt
Situp Sweep - White Belt (Which is just ridiculous since AS a white belt this was my #1 most effective sweep. Somehow I've let it fall by the wayside since then)
Butterfly Sweep - Blue Belt
Overhead Sweep - Blue Belt
Lasso Sweep - Blue Belt

  Defense:
Mount Escapes - Purple Belt
Side Control Escapes - Blue Belt
Back Escapes - Blue Belt
Guard Pass Prevention - Purple Belt (This borders on brown belt at times) Obviously this isn't my full technique library, but it's the must common stuff I use and is the stuff I am focusing on improving. So get to it! Rank your techniques based on their individual level and then pick a white belt technique and elevate it!

Back on the Mats Again (For like the 10th time)

After another month long hiatus it feels absolutely great to have gotten back to training last night. I went in at 7 for the No-Gi class and did some warmup rolling with one of the kids. He's one of the guys that doesn't seem to internalize the concepts very rapidly so he kept trying to just flail harder to escape mount. I made him stop and escape it properly a few times during the roll, so hopefully he paid attention. Techniques were one of the basic three move combos. The kimura -> hip bump -> guillotine combo with a bonus omoplatta at the end. All very solid basic stuff and the hip bump is probabably something I need to revist in my game. Once we started rolling I spent the entire time working on sweeps and submissions from guard. I was rolling with a couple of our wrestlers, so it was a very scramble heavy roll. One of them has just SICK shoulder pressure, but constantly forgets to control the hips in favor of driving his shoulder into my neck, resulting in him getting subbed a lot. My biggest surprise was that I didn't feel weak coming back. I don't feel like I lost anything from the break at all... My left knee that I injured in Baton Rouge sent me a sternly worded protest about twenty minutes after class that it did NOT appreciate the activity, but screw that guy. He's just a big whiner. I also took the opportunity to put my new shorts through their paces, so that review will be up tomorrow. I have to say I was a little disappointed in them though. Training again Wednesday and probably Friday as well!

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.