Other Way, Stupid...

Made some progress today, albeit small, in my goal to play more of a top game. Normally when I roll, I wait for the other person to move and then usually go to some form of guard.

Not today.

I refused to allow myself to go to guard at the beginning. If I was going to be in a dominant position, I needed to pass. And pass I did, for the most part. Also, I made it a point to pass the way Fabio pointed out that I wasn't passing.

Sadly, in almost every grapple, I ended up in guard again at some point. It is just freaking hard wired into my brain!! My body goes there against my will!! But I've been having more success with sweeps lately, so maybe I won't be such an anti-guard nazi.

Bad news is that in one of my grapples someone fell back for a heel hook and I accidentally rolled out the wrong way. I don't know what I was thinking. I had already rolled out twice before that day and had done it correctly. Guess I had some kind of brain glitch. Either way, I tweaked my knee a slight bit. Nothing major.

I must have had some kind of weird premonition that this was going to happen because I normally only wear a knee brace on the other knee but I went to the store yesterday and bought a second knee brace and wore it today. I was thinking that I was going to be rolling a lot harder than normal and I wanted to protect my knees. Unfortunately even knee braces can't protect against stupidity. ;)

So Much Information!!

Afternoon class was hyper productive. As a warning, I'm writing down everything so I don't forget all the stuff I learned. Gunna be a long blog. ;)

Firstly, we worked leg-lock escapes. Kind of funny, after all the talks I've been having with people lately. It's something I definitely need to work on. We worked both a regular heel hook, corkscrew escape and a reverse heel hook escape.

I noticed several things I was doing wrong. For one thing, when corkscrewing out, I was too concerned with the placement of my foot when I'm pushing off. That's not really the key part. The key part is turning so your heel and knee are out of danger. I was trying to place my foot first and then turn. What I needed to do above all was turn. I also noticed that I was corkscrewing to the side instead of corkscrewing straight back, away from them. If I corkscrew to the side, they can roll with me.

Had plenty of practice with those escapes during rolling. Fabio, knowing I need to work on keeping legs out of danger and escaping leg locks, has been going almost exclusively for my legs. He'd catch one, let me escape and immediately go for the other leg. It was frustrating, funny and highly helpful all at the same time.

After grappling with Fabio, I went with a blue belt named Brian who we all call "Barf" (it's a long story. lol. No, he didn't barf.) and he has been a very helpful training partner from the get go, when I first came to Fabio's. Today, he got on me about my gi choke. He--and several other people--have pointed out that I go for the regular gi choke straight on. What I need to do is hip out a little bit so I have an angle to get my first arm deep. Then, using my leg to break them down the other way, I can get the second hand much easier. How many times do I have to be told/shown this to remember it?

Also, I picked Ben's brain about something that vexed me during a roll on Monday night. I rolled with a girl who was visiting from another school and she kept doing the mount escape where she puts her foot in my belt and pulls me off backwards. I have learned how to do that, but I couldn't remember how to combat it. All I could think to do was get low and grapevine. But that usually ended with me getting pulled back and dropping into a weird, half knee on belly thing where neither of us could really do anything.

Ben showed me several different ways to deal with it, but the main idea was that I need to go with it, not fight against it. The first way to deal with it is to stand up, hold down the leg that does not have the foot in your belt and step over. From there, you have several options, one of which is to roll over your shoulder and under their leg. They have no choice but to roll with you. You come out behind them and can then take their back. The other thing he showed me was to come forward, toward their head and turn and catch their leg. Their foot is trapped behind your back and all you have to do is set up kind of like a regular heel hook and rotate your body over their leg. Their own belt does the heel hook! Pretty cool.

Lastly, Fabio put me with a big guy named Orlando. He told Orlando to do nothing but hold me in guard and try to sweep me. It was a good exercise. I know I need to work on guard passing. This showed me some of the areas where I'm having trouble.

My brain is saturated. Great class. Lots learned and lots of fun. Now I'm going to go ice my shoulder and watch Food Network Challenge. ;)

Zombie Grappling

Yesterday afternoon, I went into class like a zombie. I haven't slept well the past few days because my son has been sick. Most of the time when I go to class tired, I end up having a really good class. Yesterday I just ended up getting leg-locked a lot.

But there is a bit of good news from the lately complainy, gloomy girl! I am realizing why I am getting ankle-locked so much and I'm starting to see it right before it happens. A few times I was able to snatch my leg back. Mostly because my friend Salsa John was going in slow motion so I could do it. :) At one point he swept me and my brain was lagging so I didn't tuck my head. He literally held me up in the air for a second so I could tuck my head. Good training partner, right there.

After class, another of my good friends at Fabio's, Thomas, was having a private lesson. He let me hang around and be his practice dummy for the lesson. Unfortunately by brain was soup and I didn't retain much. But I promised him I would write down what I remembered. And I will. Later today. :)

[An aside note, I wrote this post before I had read all the comments about leg locks on the last post. lol. This post looks different to me after reading all those comments. I meant nothing disrespectful by this post, just so you guys know!!]

Snap 'Em Like Twigs

I have a problem with my legs. They're in the high risk category for potential locking.

My last grapple tonight was with one of the purple belts at my school, Brian Morgan. Fabio asked Brian to go for my legs whenever they were exposed. Let me tell you, it pointed out a big weak point in my grappling! I don't even know how many times he went back for a leg lock. He didn't actually apply any of the submissions. He was letting me try to work out of them which showed me that, not only do I expose my legs a lot for submissions, but my escapes are shaky at best.

This is not news to me. I've always had trouble with leg lock escapes. I expose my legs a lot because I like to play open guard and I can't really blame guys for going for them when I lay them out on a silver platter.

There's not really a lot I can do about my legs being exposed. But what I DO need to work on is learning how to react quickly to get my legs out of danger. I need to read people better to know when they're going back for leg locks. And I need to work on my escapes. As Brian pointed out, I need to be careful who I work leg lock escapes with. If I am not sure if someone is going to be controlled enough not to crank my ankle, I'm just going to tap. But if I'm going with a higher rank who is letting me work and who isn't going to try to rip my foot off the end of my leg, then I need to start going for the escapes.

I have been taught several escapes, but I hesitate way too much in executing them. You can't hesitate with a leg lock. You have to be escaping as soon as you even see a hint of someone going for one. And even when I do actually do the escapes, they're sloppy and fumbly. But I am going to focus on trying to read my opponent and get my legs out of danger before they can fall all the way back into the submission.

Also, tonight, we learned a weird omaplata that you get from rolling someone out of turtle. Your opponent is turtled and he over-hooks your near leg. You sit back on his wrist and roll forward, triangling your legs around his arm and then catching his leg as you sit up. Then you apply the omaplata. Or, I guess it's an americana from there. I don't really know. It was one of those moves that didn't feel natural to me, so I kind of stumbled through drilling.

Also, to my chagrin, I noticed my pride creeping back up into me during a few of my first rolls of the night. It showed in my game. Tense. Less movement. More pushing and exploding, less flowing and reacting. Overall, it got in the way of me moving like I should have been able to. I was able to calm down after that, Had to talk myself into getting my focus back where it needed to be. It's not about what people think. It's about learning. Stop worrying about if someone passes your guard!! Ah well. Tomorrow afternoon hopefully I'll be able to just come in and not argue with myself like an insane person.

Despite that, it was a great class. Learned a lot. Had fun. Can't ask for more than that.

Straight Leg Lock

Today was a small class in the afternoon, which is always fun. We worked a straight leg lock. When Fabio had shown the basic technique, he showed us a variation that was really cool. You place your wrist bone on the achilles, kind of like the blade of a knife, and as you go back to do the lock, you turn your wrist into the ankle.

It hurts. Lots.

I still haven't used leg locks very much in grappling. Not only do I just not think of them during rolling, but I am still a little apprehensive about using them because I don't want to accidentally hurt someone. Also, when I start using leg locks, the other person generally starts using them back. And that's bad news for me. I guess I should look at that as an opportunity to get better at escapes! ;)