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Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Reporting from Pancake Town

I have not been having the greatest success in adapting, lately. There is one person in particular that I have a really hard time with and, as such, Fabio puts me with him nearly every class. I am not complaining. That's good. It is forcing me to learn and adapt. I just wish I could adapt faster.

On of the things I have a hard time doing with this particular guy is moving out of turtle. I can get to turtle to prevent being smashed in side control or half guard (those were the places I used to get stuck in all the time with this guy, so I can see some progress, I suppose). He is very strong and fast, and also is technical. It is hard for me to get out of turtle once I get there. When I try, I usually end up getting smashed or getting my limbs peels back so he can take my back, which is strangely easier for me to escape than turtle.

Anyway, I haven't been having much luck moving out of turtle when I try it against this guy, so I started deliberately putting myself in turtle with some other people I grapple who I feel I have more of an advantage against. I think it is helping, though it has only been a week or so that have been doing that.

Read a blog over at Jiu Jitsu Blues talking about starting from bad positions. He brought up some great points.

Also, estou aprendendo Portugues. Yes, I found a way to use my nerdiness to increase my obsession with BJJ. I love languages, so I am looking forward to tackling Portuguese. :)

4 comments:

Georgette said...

That's cool that you're learning Portuguese! Are you using Rosetta Stone, or a textbook, or what? :)

A.D. McClish said...

Steph and I are using the Pimsleur system. I love it so far. The only thing that is messing with me is that I took four years of Spanish, so I want to read and pronounce everything the way I would in Spanish...and it's not the same. lol But on the upside, the grammar and many of the words are very similar, so I can remember them pretty well. It's fun! Have you used another system?

Anonymous said...

thats a good idea, i've been wanting to because a lot of good seminars/highlight vids are in portugese. Although you can generally tell what they're doing it always seems like i'm missing out on the little details because they little details are what count.

A.D. McClish said...

@Shakia -- I was thinking the same thing. Plus, I really want to go to Rio one day and train. And I want to be able to understand what I'm hearing! ;)