Friday evening no-gi at Cindy's. JB and I were a little late because of awful traffic (again). We still managed to make *most* of the warmups, though! My hand was slightly painful tonight but not too bad. I think I'm going to be able to keep training as usual with it, as long as I'm careful of certain grips and positions. JB stepped on it once tonight, but luckily she stepped on the thumb side and not the little-finger side.
Break the guard, stand up and step back to disengage. I had actually used this once or twice in the tournament last weekend. Cindy had taught me that before my FIRST Revolution..... it had never occurred to me before that once you were grappling on the ground, you still had the option to disengage and then re-engage on YOUR terms. Now I use that quite a bit.
We worked having the person on the ground move around to try to keep the standing person (who had just disenaged from guard and was circling) between hir feet. Cindy likes to pretend she's lying in a reclining gunner pilot's seat and aiming twin cannons between her feet at the opponent... hey, it works for the kids, it works for me! I was making JB laugh by "shooting" at her.
Then, the person standing grabs the ankles of the person on the ground. Throwing the legs to one side and passing the guard (we tried it with the person on the ground rolling both ways- if s/he rolls toward you, you pass the guard and get side control; if s/he rolls away, you take the back). Then, same thing, only you pass the opponent's foot to your other hand and keep ahold of it as you go in, so that s/he can't keep hir legs between you.
Then, one of Cindy's favorite things to do- you're lying on the ground, she'll control your ankles and start pushing your knees up to your chin. The second you push back, she slams your soles to the floor, vaults your knees, and front mounts you. This was one of the first things JB and I learned when we first started coming to Cindy's. It's really scary if you're not expecting it; suddenly that person's groin is hurtling right into your face at about 100mph. Of course, JB and I are now expecting it, so we know better than to ever push back! In fact, I've been so brainwashed to never do that, it was hard to make myself do it for the drill!
Positional drilling from closed guard- JB and Leilani. It continues to be very difficult to pass JB's closed guard. She keeps yanking me down on her chest so that I can't posture up, and I don't have the strength to stop her from doing that. I pretty much have to wait till she opens her guard to try to do something, and then make my move. That's what I have to do with a lot of people, though... so I'm getting somewhat good at launching into productive action as soon as those legs shift.
Leilani- I reached back with one hand and slid it between her ankles to break her closed guard. Then I showed her why we never do that on anybody but clueless white belts. She knows how to do a triangle, but doesn't recognize the golden opportunities to try for it. I also showed her how to grab my heels and drop me on my ass if I stand up square in her closed guard.
Short timed spars with Leilani, JB, and Alecia. Alecia and I struggled for some time with me in her triangle, stacking her. Eventually she transitioned to an armbar and tapped me out with that, but not before I'd made her work hard. She had me on the bottom, and she also had me back mounted. I still can't do much of anything with her but stay on the defensive, but that armbar was the only tap she got out of me tonight. I even seem to be getting fairly good at defending her dirty little painful tricks. She is taking me by surprise with them less often.
With Leilani, I told her as we began that I wanted her to get that underhook like clockwork every time she found herself in bottom half guard. I had to remind her a couple of times, but I put her in bottom half guard repeatedly, and had her get the underhook and then escape out the back. I swept her several times, including one really interesting reversal that I invented on the fly. I'm very happy to be able to have the chance to work on this weak part of my game with Leilani. I need to remember to tell her that, and thank her, before she gets too frustrated with being repeatedly swept. I let her sweep me a couple times, too.
JB got another hip throw on me, which was a little embarrassing, especially as I knew what she was going for (and successfully defended her first couple attempts). But we went down and rolled over, and I ended on top- which was cool. I tried to keylock her with Cindy's reverse-motorcycle trick. It took me a really long time- she is very flexible and usually won't tap to keylocks- but I finally did tap her (just as I was about to give up). She tapped me back with a keylock a little later. The bummer of teaching is that your favorite submission is often your students' favorite submission too. That is the first sub I taught her!
I accomplished one of the "moves of the day" on her- passing the leg to the other hand and then holding onto it as you pass. She replaced guard almost immediately (before I could get a controlling position), but I did kinda SORTA pass- almost- and Cindy saw me do it and called, "Good, Kitsune!" Which is always nice.
I played with George a little- he wanted to drill a wrestling trick where you are on all fours with the opponent hugging one arm over top of your waist; you're trying to get to your feet and the opponent is trying to keep you down (mostly by pushing forward with a leg behind your butt). It took me a bit to get the hang of what we were doing and how, but then I caught on and got a little better at it. Then I started faking George out by suddenly yanking him BACKWARD, and occasionally throwing on an RNC. That wasn't really within the scope of the drill, but hey, the guy needs a challenge.
Meanwhile, JB was using the same sit-up sweep on Lamont that she he hurt her knee with on Wednesday when she was doing it to *ME*. And she hurt the same knee, AGAIN. Out came the ice pack again. I told Lamont that I'm going to get him for hurting my friend.
(pic- Cornelia)
No comments:
Post a Comment