Upa

The next phase of my martial growth would involve turning the large into the small. My understanding of this process is to touch the essence (for example, highly refined and deeply internalized body mechanics or FEELING) of a technique, and then to incrementally condense the external manifestation of the technique while keeping true to its essence. Over time, expansiveness decreases while potency increases. I call this method “Making smaller circles”. - Josh Waitzkin, “The Art Of  Learning”




Sunday's FOD: Tiger Versus Crane
Monday's FOD: Long Qi

Monday lunchtime BJJ, GB Seattle.
I have definitely harmed my left knee. I went to place my left foot on my right knee to do those elbow-to-knee calisthenics during warmups, and the left knee went "OOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWW, Don't BEND me that way!!!!!!!!"

Upa's. Opponent starts in side control and goes to front mount. Upa hir back the way s/he came from. Punch hard under the armpit as you hip up. Do not get sloppy or hurrying and neglect to trap the opponent's foot before upa'ing.

Next technique: as opponent goes to front mount, you grab the pantleg at the ankle and leave your near leg down flat to bait hir to mount. As s/he mounts, run your flat leg under hir leg and use the pantleg grip to guide hir leg right into your half guard. Scoot far enough out the side to push on hir far knee with your hand, stick your leg in there and get full closed guard. I had trouble trapping the leg while opponent was mounting from my left- partly because I couldn't resist the urge to keep putting my knee up. I felt clumsy on that side and thus vulnerable. I also had more trouble than I should have had replacing guard. Lord knows I'm tiny enough that I should have had no trouble maneuvering around under there, but I was having some difficulty. You don't want to straighted your body out while you're trying to stuff your leg in, because the opponent will just flatten you out. You have to stay close in and under hir.

I asked Bryan to look at that spider guard sweep, and he didn't have any answers either. Maybe it only really works if the guy is coming at you with his weight moving forward?