If at first you don't succeed, get triangled again.

In my never-ending quest to work my "top-game", I have been trying to make a certain guard pass a part of my (tiny) arsenal. This pass is done by pinning one leg down at the knee with the palm of your hand, on the inside of their thigh, while at the same time keeping their other leg over your shoulder, with your weight on their thigh/butt to keep their hips down.

Here's the thing. If you don't do this pass correctly, you are essentially setting yourself up to get triangled. I am, apparently, an expert at doing it incorrectly and getting triangled. The last few classes, I have been getting triangled left and right.

But I think I've figured out what I'm doing wrong. Instead of keeping my weight on their thigh/butt and on the arm pinning the knee, I am sitting back on my own base and just trying to use my arm strength to keep their legs under control. If you have seen my arms, you will know this is an unwise strategy.

You really have to sprawl to put your weight on them correctly and I am not doing that. I know why. I am not committing fully. I am trying to do the pass and "stay safe" by sitting back on my base at the same time. But, by trying to stay safe, I am actually putting myself in more danger because I am setting the move up incorrectly.

Moral of the story: Either commit or don't try that pass!!

Tomorrow morning, I am going to try it again in my grapples if the situation presents itself. And I am going to commit. I'll let you know how it goes!!

Getting off my Guard

As a white belt, there aren't many things I can do well. Even the things I feel I do with some level of skill still have room for miles of improvement. But, for where I'm at, I feel that my guard is one of the strongest parts of my game.

That's exactly why I've been trying to avoid it.

I've been working at moving out of my guard and into other scarier places like side control and north/south and knee on belly. To that end, I had a few private lessons over the last few months and have been attempting to incorporate these elements into my game.

I'll be honest. My progress has been slow. For one thing, in order to get to these other positions, I have to do one of two things:

1. Pass the other person's guard at the beginning of the grapple.
2. Get them into my guard and sweep.

My sweeps are generally known to be garbage. But they are getting a little better. The thing that is helping is learning how to feel where the person's weight is and using their momentum against them. As I said yesterday, I am still having trouble sweeping people who are significantly bigger than me. Or who have any other color belt besides white. This-especially the size thing--is a testament to problems somewhere in my technique, but I am not sweating it too much. I've come to accept that I can't do everything perfectly, instantly. I'll have to improve my sweeps little detail by little detail, over time.

Or maybe I'll get another private. ;)

Anyway, I've been opting to by-pass my guard all together and try to be the aggressor in the beginning and pass the other person's guard. This is not my comfort zone. It is especially not my comfort zone when I am going against someone who is bigger or higher ranked than me. But I've been forcing myself to be the aggressor even when I know I am out-matched. If I fail, so what? These are my teammates and this is where I learn.

Since I started trying to force myself into being aggressive, I have started to see small improvements in my guard passes and, once I am in side control, in my ability to STAY there if I want or to move somewhere else. Again, my success in this area goes down as the size of my opponent/color of their belt goes up.

I can also see an improvement in my general movement on top as well. I still look like a floppy, flaily white belt when I move from side control to north/south or mount or whatever. I'm OK with that. Being smooth will come later. When I'm awesome. Which, as Stephanie so aptly put it, will happen on the 2nd of Never. ;)

Here are a few things that aren't going so well:

1. Staying in mount once I get there. If I am focused on staying in mount, I can usually stay there (again, depending on the size/skill level of my opponent). But if I start to focus on a submission, I guess I make space and ruin my base because I find myself getting swept and having to work from guard again or else having my opponent start to move out of the position and me having to establish it again.

2. Side control. Same story. I'm alright until I start trying to work submissions.

3. Sweeps from guard. Oh how I loathe you.

So, my goals for now are pretty general. Keep working on passing the guard/sweeping from guard and establishing a dominant position. I will keep looking for submissions from these positions, but I won't worry about that too much. Right now, my focus is on movement and control. If I can control my opponent, then submissions will come. That's the idea, anyway.

Great Blog

Just read a really funny/insightful blog this morning by the Jiu-Jitsu Fighter. Go check it out!

Also, I posted about jealousy on my
"other" BJJ blog, in case any of you are interested.

Headed out to BJJ class this morning. Following an idea from Meerkatsu's most recent blog, my goal this morning is going to be to get on top and stay on top. I'll let you know how it goes!!

I'm Not Going to Sulk

My husband has a way of pointing things out that are true, but very annoying. For example: Last night when I came home all weepy about not getting to be instructed by Ben and Mario at Summerlin, he pointed out that God has turned around several things that I thought were going to be horrible and made them into something great. He very kindly listed them off.

When I moved from Tampa (the city where I grew up and knew a lot of people and had access to a lot of places) to Bartow (a city where I knew only my brother and sister-in-law and that had a Walmart, a Publix and not much else) I was pretty depressed. I'd left my family and friends and had come to a place where I didn't want to be.

But, when I got here, I met a lot of people I now love and now feel like this place is my home. Since I moved here, I got to take on my dream job of being a youth minister, plus I get to be nerdy and write fiction on the side. Also, if I hadn't moved here, I never would have even known what BJJ was.JJ also pointed out that one of the things I always preach to my youth kids is to be flexible and to trust that God has a plan.

As much as I didn't want to hear these positive things at that moment, I slept on it and woke up realizing that he is right(Dangit!!). Things do have a way of working out, and a lot of times they work out better than I could have hoped.

You know, this whole reacting and adapting idea is so much like what I want to be able to do when I'm rolling. It's funny, I have been so focused on relaxing and going with the flow during grappling, but when something didn't go my way in my life off the mat, I forgot all about adapting. Guess I'm still a white belt in life as well!!

Anyways, onto a different topic. Last night, during grappling, I went with a blue belt we call Yeti who I roll with fairly often. He's a great sparring partner and he challenges me while, at the same time, always being careful not to put submissions on too quickly or too hard. He asked if he could go a little harder on me last night, and I welcomed the challenge. I knew he was going to pass my guard and that I would find myself in bad situations. But my goal was to not freak out when that happened and to not get intimidated.

As I expected, he passed my guard multiple times. But every time I tried to stay calm and be focused on what I needed to do to return to a neutral position or to sweep him. He was still moving at a slower pace against me than he would people at his skill level, but I at least felt like I was able move alright. Yay!

On the other hand, I rolled with a white belt guy who is a lot bigger than me (almost 100 lbs more so) and I could not pull of a sweep from guard or half guard to save my life. There must be a few (hundred) flaws in my sweep techniques because that boy was not going over. Something to work on.

So, here's to adapting and growing! Happy rolling, everyone!

Really Sad

Tonight we found out that one of our BJJ schools is closing. It's not completely final. One of our instructors, Ben, might be able to stay on and continue teaching the class. But, as it is right now, it looks like the school is going to close.

I'm really sad. I cried like an emotional mess at class.

I will still get to go to Fabio's, but I am REALLY going to miss Ben and Mario's class for a number of reasons. Ben and Mario are both great teachers and I'm really going to miss learning under them. I don't even really want to go into it all the reasons why I'm so sad right now because I'm tired. This week has been sort of bad for me already, so this was kind of the crappy icing on the already crappy cake. lol Sorry for the overly emotional post.

Congrats!!

A big congratulations to my teammates Stephanie, Phil and Thomas for competing and doing well at NAGA yesterday!! I am so happy for you guys. Go Fabio Novaes BJJ!!

Hearing about how well the team did is motivating me to kick my preparation for June NAGA into high gear. One way that is happening is thanks to one of the girls in my youth group. She came up to me this morning and asked if I would be willing to drink only water for forty days with her for Lent.

Ouch.

That is going to be a huge challenge for me. I love me some coffee and soda. Mostly, I love me some caffeine. But this is going to be good for me. I need to cut all that sugar and extra calories out of my diet.

For this competition, I am not going to try to drop weight. My focus in training is going to be mostly mental. I mean, obviously I'll work on areas of technique that think are my weakest. But the thing that stands in my way the most is the fear of someone dominating me.

At Fabio's, I roll a lot with people who are farther along than me and more talented. I am going to use those rolls as preparation. I'm not going to worry when they pass my guard or take mount or go for a submission. I am going to work on staying cool and calm and reacting to what happens.

Also, I am going to focus on trying to get into a dominant position even when I know I am out-matched as far as skill goes. Sometimes, when I am intimidated by a person, I don't try to get into the dominant position. I mostly focus on defending from guard or half-guard.

Training at class is the best time for me to work through this fear of getting overwhelmed by someone better than me. I will get thoroughly owned, but they won't be trying to hurt me. Here's to my future butt-kickings!! Happy training to all of you! And congrats again to Steph, Phil and Thomas!

Leave Me Alone, Injuries

I have lots of nagging little injuries right now. I hurt my knee several months ago and popped my elbow about a month ago and both are nearly better but still twitchy, if you know what I mean. My right shoulder started giving me trouble two weeks ago. By the end of class, it's usually burning. I've been doing strengthening and stretching exercises for the rotater cuff and am starting to see some improvements. Then, today, when I left class and got in the car, I noticed that the lower, left side of my back is really sore. Just in one, weird, broad spot on the right near my side. I'm icing it as I type.

What is with my body lately?! I know injuries are a part of BJJ, but it seems like I'm getting lots of small injuries. I would think it might be over training, but I've actually cut back recently. I was out for a week for being sick and, even though I'm back in class now, I haven't started jogging again and I've cut my at home work outs way down.

Very mysterious. And annoying.

Other than that, I've really been enjoying the direction of class, lately. In honor of some of the team who are competing at NAGA this weekend (GO STEPH, PHIL AND THOMAS) we've been practicing lots or take-downs. Thankfully, they're take downs I feel like I can actually do. We've also been working a lot of chokes, which are always fun.

There's two that I really want to incorporate into my game. Neither of them have names that I know of. The first one is a choke you do from side control, or directly from North/South. I call it the four fingers, one thumb choke. lol! You get four fingers in under their gi, at their tag. Then, with the arm that's under their neck, you get your thumb in their lapel. Using the arm that was under the neck, you bring your elbow around, over the neck. To finish, you bring your elbow to the mat and pull back with your other arm, keeping your elbow in tight.

I've tried that one a few times, but am too slow and fumbly.

The other is a choke you do from someone's back. I call it the double-pass choke. If you're trying to get a choke from the bck and they're defending, this is a sneaky one. Slide one hand down the same side lapel, then pass it to the opposite hand. Bring it up to the person's shoulder, around the neck. With the original hand, reach around behind the neck and take the lapel back in the original hand. With the hand that is now free, grab the gi at the shoulder, four fingers down. Gi choke like normal from there.

This one, I ALMOST got today, but the person was escaping my hooks by the time I got it and they got out. Dern it! It's sneaky though. They didn't know what I was doing until I almost had it.

I don't have class again until Monday, due to Valentine's Day and NAGA. Hopefully my injuries will heal up a bit between now and then.

Happy Valentine's Day to all of you!!