Cody and I only had about an hour and 15 minutes to play tonight, so we got right to the ground work after a quick warmup by way of reviewing the 5 throws from my yellow belt level. We reviewed the scissor sweep from Roy Dean's DVD, then learned the next sweep on the disk, the "Knee Push". We found this very similar in principle to the scissor sweep, and it helped to think of it as just a different flavor of it. We also learned the "Hip Bump" sweep, which was next on the DVD.
After several reps drilling those, we switched to my Saulo Ribeiro DVDs. Saulo doesn't name the techniques he's demonstrating on these disks, but they're the first 2 sweeps on the "Guard" disk of his Jiu-Jitsu Revolution Volume 1. The first was a response to the "knee-in-the-tailbone" guard pass, and worked pretty simply. The second was an option in case top guy's knee isn't quite in the middle of your butt for the guard opener. It involved sweeping with your leg up on top guy's shoulder...I'll have to see if I can find some video of something similar to post here so you can tell what I'm talking about.
So we drilled the 4 new sweeps for a while, then moved to ground randori. We're playing with a few submissions now, instead of only going for position. We both still stink at subs though, so it's still a lot of pinning and escaping.
Now Cody is stronger than a dose of coal oil, and faster than corn through a sick goose, so he really gives me a workout, but I tend to hold my own. He got a lot of scissor sweeps on me tonight, but not as many upas as he usually does, as I was looking for them and wouldn't let him trap my leg. I was not as successful with scissor sweeps tonight, but maybe that was because I had 4 new ones on my mind! Maybe next time, we'll only try for 2 new techniques. I think I got one knee push sweep, and a hip bump sweep that was probably only so by the most generous of definitions, but hey, it worked. I was trying like heck to sink some collar chokes, having just learned them, but I still suck at them. I was, however, able to make use of the choke attempt / armbar combination several times. I think I caught him with it 3 times in rapid succession, but then he got wise and defended against them fiercely...probably because he realized my chokes were really no threat to him. I tapped to a rear naked choke to end our time.
I'm doing these study "groups" (do 2 people make a group?) for a few reasons:
- To practice what I'm learning in class
- To discover what I actually understand from class
- To discover what I must not be understanding from class...deficiencies in my game that I need more help with
- To practice some of the things from my DVDs so I can ask Pat about them later
- It's darn FUN!
So what did I observe from tonight?
- I think we were both able to roll a bit longer than we have been able to before giving up due to exhaustion (endurance increasing)
- My chokes suck
- I'm getting slightly better at being able to survive on the bottom
- I still suck when caught in half guard
- I was able to gain and retain mount a little better tonight (although I gained it through trickery half the time, feinting one way, then going another)
- On the same note, I think I was thinking a little more this time...trying to lure him into certain situations...remembering to use my knees to move his arms out of my way...baby steps, for sure, but encouraging.
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