wildernessVoice

We’ve been training a lot of high guard in the advanced class it seems. And I think it’s definitely paying off for me. Just to clarify, since every school system seems to call moves by different names, I’m talking about the transition from regular closed guard when you move to the side and start to work towards the back. What I’m really starting to like about the move is that it doesn’t have to be executed from the bottom of closed guard alone.

During our fundamentals class last night, we started off in a fairly precarious position with our opponent having back control on us and with both hooks in. The only thing they didn’t have was a good seatbelt grip or arm in for some type of choke. But it was still pretty bad. In the class, we worked a lot on the scoop escape from back control. So when we got to the up down and out drills, I knew my opponent would be expecting certain counters that we practiced. I opted to change things up a bit. Rather than resisting his escape from my back control, I used my high guard tactics to gain better control.

I started to come around to the side and I trapped the arm against my body so my opponent couldn’t turn back into me. And then I started to come around for mount. Knowing that my opponent would try to counter that move by turtling up, I simply slid back around and re-took the back, but this time with a hand deep in his collar for a choke.

I found that by not resisting, I could actually keep sliding around to control my opponent, whether from the top, side or from the bottom. And this really opens up a lot more opportunities for me to setup attacks.

In the advanced class that followed, we worked more on controlling the high guard position as well as some sweeps and submissions from it. One of my new favorite moves will be an arm bar from high guard. As I start to come around towards the back, I only come around enough for my bottom foot to press against the outer part of my opponent’s far thigh. This helps to keep him from posting out with his far leg when I start to roll him over to take mount. Now, to remove his ability to post with his hand, I’ve got two options. I’m posted up on my far side arm, so I need to use my inside hand to remove his possibility to post. I reach across and grab either his far side elbow or sleeve and drag his arm over as I simultaneously push into him with my hips and use my foot pressure to keep his leg from posting. I then roll him onto his back and land with mount on him.

But the other option is a lot more fun and results in a quicker submission. I still setup for the sweep the same way. But rather than removing his arm post with my inside hand, I post both of my arms out and away from him. I can sweep him simply by using my hip pressure and a slight twist. The counter to this move is for him to post with both of his hands. Basically, he’s turtled up and then posts somewhat wide to resist the roll. I scoop his near side arm as my top leg comes around his head for the arm bar position. I then turn onto my side, facing away from his head to tighten things up. This move is very quick and quite difficult to counter from such a bad position.

If my opponent doesn’t double post, I’m going to sweep him or continue to take his back. Either way, he’s in a bad spot and I’m going to capitalize on it.

Continue reading

A couple of weeks ago, I was talking with one of the guys at our dojo about the fact that I never see him breathing hard, no matter how hard he might be going. So I asked him what he did for cardio. As it turns out, he really doesn’t do anything for cardio other than Jitz. He said he doesn’t waste his energy trying to hold on too tight or by pushing too long and hard.

Now, I’ve heard a lot about conserving energy and relaxing since I started BJJ. And while I think I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t panic easily, my ability to conserve energy hasn’t been too great. I took to heart some of the things this guy said and tried to incorporate it into my training as of Sunday. Rather than resisting his moves so much, I tried to flow with them or push off of them. Basically, I didn’t just let him get his desired moves. But I didn’t use all of my strength to resist him either. The end result is that I didn’t feel gassed like I normally would. And my breathing was much lighter and more consistent.

I tried this again in training last night. The end results were pretty much the same. The problem hasn’t been my cardio. It’s been my muscles. I still got fatigued and sore at the end of 2 hours of training. But that’s something I can work on and that I think I can fix fairly easily.

When I think about this in relation to other things around me, I realize there are so many times we resist what’s going on around us as opposed to trying to flow with them or trying to use them to our advantage. I suppose it’s our survival instinct kicking in. But sometimes we have to replace certain instincts with better ones. We have to retrain ourselves.

Like I said, I’ve heard a lot about this before.  But I think I’m finally understanding what it feels like and how to actually incorporate it.

Continue reading

Training has been such a tough thing lately. It’s been almost 10 weeks since I tore my MCL in my left knee. And since that time, I’ve suffered other injuries and sickness, and busyness, and …

It has simply been one thing after another. Well, on Thursday I tried to train and it really seemed like an exercise in quitting. It was awful. Sure, I got in a couple of  submissions against some strong training partners (one arm triangle and a decent shoulder lock from Kesa Getame). I even found myself dominating from the top of mount for a while. But I felt soooo dehydrated and the lactic acid build up was overwhelming. I actually found myself verbally tapping even when I was dominating. I just wanted to stop.

Saturday was a different story. After our class (I still feel like it was directed to me) got lectured about quitting, I was bound and determined to keep pushing and to not give up. It was a whole new ball game. I simply kept moving. And by doing that, I was able to get some submissions, some sweeps and just better my position. And against much better opponents, I was also able to keep surviving.

I’d love to say I felt 100%. I didn’t. And my cardio still has a ways to go to catch up to where I left off before the injuries. But I have confidence it will come. I just gotta keep going.

For this week, I’d like to work on loosening up again and keeping my elbows and chin in tight to my body. If I can do that, and keep moving, I think I will have reached a new level in my BJJ training.

Continue reading

The other night, we were working on some different sweeps from the bottom of butterfly guard using an arm drag. Now, I titled this as a butterfly/half-guard sweep. And the reason for that is that there is a transition that resembles half guard, which got me thinking that I could also execute the move from the bottom of half guard.

The setup for the move involved our opponent in our butterfly guard with both of his hands trying to control my knees as if to go for some form of a smash pass.  The counter to the knee control was an arm drag.

Now, the arm drag wasn’t so natural. It was more natural to grab the wrist with my opposite grip rather than my same side grip. The problem with what feels more natural is that there isn’t much of a drag that can go on from that. It all relies on arm strength since you’ve got to keep the arm bent in order to do any sort of drag.

The other unnatural thing was the grip on the wrist. The natural thing was to shoot in and grab my opponent’s wrist so that my thumb was on top. The problem with such a grip is that it’s very easy for the opponent to simply lift his arm up and back towards himself. This makes the thumb the weak point in the grip. By turning the hand the other way so that the thumb is on the bottom is that pulling away challenges the stronger part of the grip.

The real power in the drag comes from the opposite hand cupping high on the triceps. But rather than pull your opponent into you, slide into him. Again, this wasn’t so natural either. But if you think about it, it makes it much harder for your opponent to resist.

Where the sweep comes in is when you lift and chop.

1. Execute arm drag and pull yourself into your opponent
2. As you’re pulling yourself in, remove one leg to the outside of your opponent
3. Reach up and grab the opposite lat
4. If your opponent leans into you, then use the arm and lat as anchors as you chop the leg with the outside leg and lift with the inside leg
5. If your opponent stalls or holds his weight back, then keep coming around and try to take the back

This also makes for a great use of the high guard too. So there are plenty of options with this entrance from butterfly guard.

Continue reading

BJJ, butterfly guard, darkhorse, half guard, mike young, sweep