Choose Strong
For Tim.
1. Close Guard Attacks
Machine taught guard attacks including breaking posture and the reverse kimura
as a counter to defense against arm-drag to one side. In the latter, the bottom
guy has the leverage to push the arm nicely under the armpit for an overhook. He
then moved on to omoplata or belly-down armbar. I also remembered the triangle
well.
Eversly successully blocked my sitout from turtle. He knew what I was to do when
I had one leg up. But the last time, I feined the sitout and as he tried to shut
it down, I grabbed his other arm and took him down! It was very satisfying.
2. How to fight off big guys?
Ram, a mid-aged Indian of about 5'7" at 160 lbs, joined us at the noon class and
one day he asked: "How do I fight off big guys from the bottom?" Darren, who was
about my height but 30lbs heavier, turned to me and said "I'd let W answer the
question."
"Try to think the big guys are giving you a massage!" I joked. "After a couple
of years, it won't feel that bad." That was truly my experience as a small guy
fighting off bigger guys. Over the past three years, my chances of getting on
top have hugely improved. The more skilled guys can still crush me in sparring,
of course, and they can if they just want to control me. But the moment they
make a move to attack or advance, they'd create some space and that's my
opening. I am getting better to use it.
3. Seoi Nage.
My Japanese vocabulary keeps expanding since I joined the new gym. We have a
judo instructor and bjj instructors interested in takedowns. I learned sumi
gaeshi, o-goshi, and seoi nage and loved all the moves taught. Each has many
variations and a principle idea instead of just a move, I quickly realized.
Tue Oct 8, we learned the seoi nage and I got to throw four teammates full force
onto a crash mat. With no gi, holding the arm was a challenge to me.
4. What are we playing? a tag game?
Oct 10 noon class, three girls and I showed up. I was reluctant to train with
girls in general as I was too rough for most of them. That day, I again had to
pair up with Larissa. At the end of one triangle escape, she caught me in a
straight ankle lock and I did not tap right away.
She sneered at my resistance, which I often gave a partner to make sure the
technique we were learning really worked. "We are only drilling," she told me
again as if I couldn't tell the difference from sparring.
I was higher belt and much older but it always felt like she was acting Karen
and talking down to me. It also felt disprespectful as she constantly chatted
with coach or griped while we drilled.
But I was at peace that day and not offended. "That resistance has a purpose," I
said. "What are we playing? A tag game?" I next quoted Royce Gracie and
retorted. That shut her up and made me feel very good: at least I expressed
myself. (From past experience, win or lose, nothing felt worse than not being
about to state my own truth.)
5. Don't play close guard with big guys.
I learned the lesson when Q lay cross-side on top of me in a positional drill.
He might weigh over 250lbs and had a thick upper body. I was able to spin under
him slowly and recover guard. Crossing ankles behind his back and trapping his
right arm with an overhook, I felt pretty good until I tried to proceed with the
armbar. But he was too heavy and I couldn't hip out! I was squirming under him
but couldn't even put a foot on a hip. We struggled in that position for over 2
minutes and I gased out.
6. Cross-side Control, Attack, and Escape
I have a lot of confidence in my cross-side top control and bottom escapes. Two
weeks in October, I kept improving the backdoor escape and it was very
satisfying.
7. The Ninja (lapel) Choke
Justin came back from a two-month break and gave me a lapel choke from the cross
side top. Even when he passed his lapel to the near-side hand under my neck, I
still was thinking about a way to escape, e.g., by swinging my legs and pull my
head out of the hole. But it came on really fast.
He was also very explosive and good at the stiff arm from cross-side bottom.
8. The Sitout
Figured out while teaching Jorkey Henry's turtle-bottom trap-and-take-down from
chest-grab is the same as the sit-out. What's better is that the head is already
through!
Monday, Jorkey the Spaniard asked me to show him the trap-and-roll from the
turtle bottom position facing the opponent. I learned it from Henry Akin's
videos three years ago and have since enjoyed taking 200+lbs guys down
regularly.
As the guy on top tried to grab my chest, I trapped his arm under my armpit and
put up my opposite leg as usual. His 140lbs was too light, however, to trigger
my knee-jerk reaction to pull him forward by digging my heel into the mat. I
naturally did a wrestling sit-out and rolled him directly onto his back. No
pulling at all. I never thought it could be so effortless. A giant penny just
dropped!
9. Passed Out
My ego made me tap too late when a whitebelt, especially the stronger and bigger
ones (which was 90% of the gym) caught me. Since June, I have passed out twice,
first from Justin's bow-and-arrow and second from Matt's triangle which happened
on the Tuesday of the last week. A tall black youth two-stripe white belt, Matt
seemed a decent person. Nonetheless, he invoked the pandemic-era images where
black hooligans attacked Asians which motivated me to train jiu-jitsu. I was
celebrating my escape from his armbar when he switched to the triangle.
10. The De la Riva
I liked Henry's open guard concepts and didn't want to drill this specific
option. But as Machine taught, it seemed fun and, I guess, necessary to learn.?
