What Is Going On Here?!?!

Man, this afternoon's class was so awesome! Learned a lot. We drilled an escape from when someone is doing an armbar from guard. I will definitely use it. But the things that I was really excited about came during grappling and after class.

I was going with Barf (his real name is Brian). He is one of those guys that, after I've finished grappling him, I always walk away having learned something. Today, he very kindly caught a few foot locks to show me that I was making my feet vulnerable when I'm doing inverted guard. He didn't finish them. Just caught them so I would be aware. Fabio has been catching a lot of them on me to so I would notice.

Just when I thought I was making some progress in the area of leg defense! haha. Before, heel hooks were my nemesis. Now it's foot locks. Grrr!

I was kind of confused about the best way to escape since I usually got caught by them when I was using inverted guard to defend my guard or something. Being upside down, I wasn't sure how to move to escape! lol So, after class I asked Fabio the best way to escape them.

He showed me. Basically, I have to reverse the way I'm going before they can sink it in, or roll out the same way I would from an ankle lock when I'm right side up. It was a little weird escaping upside down at first. But I am sure I will have lots or practice in the upcoming grapples!

But after he showed me how to escape, he explained that I need to change the way I use my feet when I'm using inverted guard so that I make them less vulnerable to attack.

First of all, I have to use my feet like I would normally use my hands, and my legs like I would use my arms. In the same way that I wouldn't fully extend my arm out to an opponent, I shouldn't extend my legs out. Also, in the same way that I use grips with my hands to break my opponent down, I need to use my ankles and heels to hook/grip my opponent and break them down.

When I asked where I should generally be hooking, Fabio told me to look for the light. Any place where I can see light, I should hook: under the arms, at the neck, at the elbows, in the knee pits. I shouldn't be trying to push someone away with my legs. I should be using my legs to break down their posture so I can sweep them, go for a submission or take their back.

He also reminded me that inverted guard is a great position for defense and transition, but I shouldn't be hanging out there too long. He said that I a m getting there and waiting for the other person to react. What I need to do is get there and attack their posture, go for a sweep or a submission the same way I would in regular guard.

Big eye opener. I can not WAIT to get back on the mat and start experimenting with all of this.

Another minor revelation I had this week came with all my focus on trying to pass guard instead of playing guard: I actually LIKE being a top player!!! What the heck is going on here?!?!

I realized why I was hanging around so much guard. I thought is was safer against big, strong guys. I know a lot of you seasoned veterans are probably tisking and shaking your heads, but I really thought I would be safer in guard. This week, I have realized that I have so much more control when I pass guard from the beginning and try to work from the top.

Don't get me wrong, I am still a guard-lover. I still feel more comfortable there.
But, even though it takes a little more energy and aggression to pass guard at the beginning, it pays off, in my opinion, with not being on defense right away. Yes, guard can be an offensive position. But for me, I was having a lot of trouble keeping the big guys in my guard. As opposite as it seems to me, I have a better chance against them when I get on top from the start.

Phew. I'm exhausted. But happy. And looking forward to more of this crazy journey.

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

They Were Right

Went to class tired and cranky, not really wanting to be social. Had a crappy night at BJJ last night and I wasn't looking forward to a repeat. Liam did a great post on his blog, The Part Time Grappler, that goes over some of same issues I was dealing with. Nothing like having an outside perspective to give you a new take on a situation. I think I need to work on being less forthcoming about my aggravations with people on here and more forthcoming with the actual people I am dealing with. lol. Even so, I didn't feel like grappling today.

Turned out to be one of the best classes I've had in a while. Guess they were right about the whole "the best time to grapple is when you're tired" thing. We worked the same exact x-guard sweep as last night, but I took away a completely different set of lessons.

The first thing that really stuck out to me today was the importance of hipping in. A lot of emphasis is given in BJJ to the hip out. But the hip-IN is just as important. Without it, most sweeps cannot be done correctly. That is definitely the case with this x-guard sweep. If I expect to get my little legs up underneath some guy who has got seventy pounds on me, I have to first hip under him to get him off his base and get his weight up over my body so I can move him around. I can tell when I haven't hipped in enough when I am having to use a lot of muscle to pull his weight up on top of me.

The second thing that I took away from today was that I have to be ready to stand up sometimes during a grapple. In this case, when you are executing the sweep, you have hold of the person's leg (you swim it in the beginning). As you are trying to take them over, they may post out wide with their arms. But the sweep is not lost. If you still have hold of their leg, you can stand up and pull their hip up and in toward you, forcing them to fall back. Then you can drop into knee on belly or side control. It never occurs to me to stand up during a grapple. Need to be more aware of that option!

During grappling, I found myself trying to use spider guard a lot. I was trying to sweep people using spider guard, but was having very limited success. And by limited, I mean none. After my grapple with Ben, I asked him if he could pretty please show me how to sweep someone using spider guard. Don't know how many times I've seen this already. But I was forgetting key details.

Instead of just pushing on the person's elbow with my foot and trying to pull them over and down, what I need to do is bring my knee in and then out to the side again in a "V" motion. At the same time, I let go of the opposite arm and grab hold of their leg on the sweep-side, pulling their leg in. If I do the motions all together, it takes away their ability to stop themselves from falling on that side.

I'm going to play around with this and see if I can use the same idea to sweep from inverted guard. In that situation, my legs and arms are reversed, but I think the concept can still work. I don't know. I'll give it a go.