Hold On For Dear Life!

Small class yesterday afternoon, which I always enjoy. More time for me to harass Fabio with questions. ;) He showed me a few really cool things yesterday. He had noticed a few mistakes I was making which were leading to my guard being passed and he explained what I need to do to fix them.

First, when someone gets my knees together and shoves my legs down to one side, they usually try to come around toward my front and then fit their hip in next to my side, flattening me out into side control. When they start to pass this way, I cannot go inverted because they are keeping my hip down. What I need to do is bring my elbow and bottom knee together, creating a wall and to hook their neck and head with my elbow.

Hooking their neck with my elbow is the big key. As they try to come around, I am hanging on their neck, so my body just turns with them. I have to keep as much of my body weight on my shoulder that is touching the ground as possible so that I can spin easily.

If they slip their head out from under my arm, I can go on all fours, trapping their arm and then sit out toward their head, putting pressure on them with the back of my shoulder. They go down and then I turn into them, toward their legs and establish side control.

He showed me lots of variations of this concept and now I have a lot of ideas to start playing with during grappling. I am itching to get back on the mat tonight and start trying these things. The only thing is, I have to catch the person's neck quickly as they start to pass, or else I won't be able to hang on them and do the whole turn-table spinny thing. I think it will take me a while to get the timing right. But I am still excited.

Also, Fabio pointed out something else that made me laugh. I was asking him what I was doing wrong with my guard passes. He watched me try to pass guard, then told me that I was doing exactly the opposite of the guard passes people were doing to me that were giving me trouble. If someone usually comes around one side when they're passing my guard, I automatically try to pass on the other side. It's like I'm avoiding the evil pass I don't like even when I am the one doing it! LOL

I didn't realize I was doing that. Fabio was like, "You know for yourself that the other pass works, so use it!" Yeah...sometimes I'm slow. :)

My Crazy Gi!!

I finally got my butt in gear and made a gi for Meerkatsu's gi competition. People have made some really cool gis. Go check it out!! :)



For more information about this crazy competition, visit Meerkatsu's Page or Tatami Fight Wear!

In other news, we've had some major plumbing leaks at the house and I've been wrapped up in moving furniture and jack-hammering up the floor. As we speak, I have a friend coming to take out my kitchen cabinets. Sigh...

But the bright spot of today is that I am having a private lesson with Fabio this afternoon! Woohoo! I'm going to ask about guard passing and sweeps from guard. I will let you know how it goes!

I have kind of been "cheating" an getting quasi-privates during every class by watching Fabio when I'm sitting out from rolling. I've noticed several things he does when he is defending his guard and I've tried to mimic them. They've gotten me instant results.

I mentioned a few of them in my previous posts, but here is one more: Fabio has a fifth appendage. (So THAT'S why he's so good! lol). It's his head. He uses his head in the most literal sense. Sometimes, he uses it like an extra arm or leg to pin something somewhere, or make space, or keep pressure.

When he is doing butterfly guard, I noticed that he always uses his head to keep space between himself and his opponent. For butterfly guard to work properly, you need a certain amount of space between you and your opponent so you can get the proper leverage to sweep. Fabio uses his head to keep that distance. And he does it in more than just butterfly guard.

I added that to trying to keep on one hip or the other (to stay mobile) and instantly my guard became a little harder to pass.

There are a few other things I noticed him doing in defense of his guard, but I don't understand them well enough yet to write about them. I plan on asking him about it in today's private. Happy rolling to all of you!!

Move It!!

It's funny to me how Fabio can tell me something and show me something over and over again and it still doesn't take. I understand the concept, but I can't seem to reproduce it in grappling. There's some kind of block. Then, out of the blue one day, something clicks and that little piece of the puzzle falls into place.

That's how it was this afternoon.

I had been having a lot of trouble defending my guard and was using strength, even though I knew that was stupid. I was trying to keep people in my guard. Fabio kept telling me I needed to move my hips. I didn't get what he meant. I thought I WAS moving my hips.

Then, this afternoon, I was sitting out during for one roll and watching Fabio go against another blue belt in the school. He was defending his guard for most of the grapple. He looked effortless while the blue belt was just scrambling trying to get around.

While I was watching, something clicked. I noticed the way he was moving his hips. He was never sitting facing his opponent straight on. He was always on one hip or the other. When his opponent tried to power through on one side, he'd slip out the other side and get his back, or hip out and return to guard, or go inverted and return to guard. Hip, hip, hip. Move, move, move. THAT'S what he had been trying to tell me!

What I was doing was killing my movement by trying to hold the person in my guard with my arms and legs. I was sitting on both butt cheeks most of the time, or worse, laying flat on my back with the person in my guard. It goes against my instincts to think that the way to control someone in a fight is to move. Normally, you'd think the way to control someone is to get them in a position and hold them there. But that's not BJJ. And it doesn't work.

How many times had Fabio or Ben explained this to me? I don't even know. But I couldn't wait to roll again and try it out. When I did, the difference was like night and day. Moving made it easier to stay in a dominant position. It wasn't the SAME position the whole time. But I actually felt less vulnerable. I felt a LOT more mobile to do different things.

After class, I told Fabio that I was finally beginning to get what he had been trying to tell me. He said he knew I would, but that this is how it goes. You hit a wall, get frustrated. The instructor can tell you what you need to do, but only mat time brings you to the place where you can FEEL it and understand it yourself. That's why a lot of people end up quitting. They get to a certain point, hit a wall, get frustrated and decide it's not worth the frustration. The people who stick it out and keep working are the ones who really love BJJ.

Hopefully I will remember this the next time I hit the wall. A friend of mine in class says I go through cycles like this in a regular pattern, every couple of months. I wonder if he's right. I should be able to find out from looking back at my blog. lol