Fun fact of the day - an intense workout can depress your immune system for up to 72 hours. In other words if you train hard, get out of the wet shirt and put a jacket on or you're going to get sick.
I've been watching a lot of old UFCs lately. I just finished getting a huge kick out of UFC 7, where Marco Ruas and his famous foot stomp won the day. It's amazing what the martial arts community owes MMA. The first 10 or so really demonstrated how much bullshit and theory was being perpetuated as reality because respect for tradition had really morphed into a taboo against questioning, which in turn morphed into stagnation.
You can really tell how chaotic and unguided the majority of arts were by comparing the accolades of the fighters with their performances, and I'm not talking about winning or losing. You routinely watched guys with black belts in three different martial arts come running across the cage and start wildly flinging their hands, feet and knees at their opponents, who were just as often doing the exact same thing. It was kind of disconcerting to watch - if these men spent 20+ years practicing a martial art, only to turn into a bar-room brawler as soon as they got in a fight, what was the point? Thank you to Marco Ruas and other early fighters for paving the way by demonstrating actual technique (Ruas beat a 300 pound brawler at 210 pounds to win UFC 7, and was never really in any danger). I'll happily expand on this later, but now to last week's training.
It's the Monday after Xmas, and the last time I trained was last Monday night. I wanted to hit the mat Tuesday night as well since it was the last night we could train for 1.5 weeks, but not only did the injuries pile up higher and higher, I actually got a little sick Tuesday too. So I'm taking two full weeks off in a row, and hoping my finger isn't going to have that weird bump on the side of the knuckle forever.
The last technique I described was an armbar that gets applied *fast* from open guard. A quick review - your opponent straightens his arm out while pushing one of your knees to the mat to step over and pass guard. Before he can step over, grab and hyperextend his elbow.
Now the perennial hyperextension dilemma - what happens if he bends and twists his arm? Answer - the same thing as always, you move to another technique in the chain.
Previously I explained that I couldn't crush my way out of this armbar because Marcus simply kicked my knee out from under me, giving me a face full of mat while he finished making me tap at leisure. But there *is* a chance I could twist my arm around behind me. So taking the attacker's perspective again, you grab your opponent's elbow and try to straighten his arm out, but you miss the elbow by a tiny bit. He's able to bend and twist his arm downward toward his own belt (because in the other direction he has almost no range of motion left, and no strength to pull out of your grip). Well this sets him up for a classic kimura.
If you envision using your left hand to grab his right elbow (as in the previous blog post), you'll notice that as he shoves his hand to his belt to defend, you have your right hand free. Reach across yourself and over his right shoulder, grabbing his wrist while you keep whatever grip on his elbow (or close to elbow...) you have with your left hand. Once you secure his wrist he can't extend his arm anymore. Keep that tight while you slide your own left hand down and grab your own right wrist. In classic kimura form, you have to loop a leg over his back or at least one leg to stop him from rolling out.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
A quick armbar, and done for the holidays
Last night was a good night. I scored a lot of good moves and felt strong. This morning is a different story. I knew last night that my body hadn't fully recovered from the concert Saturday night, not to mention the previous weeks of hard training. This morning greeted me with the familiar full-body exhaustion that comes with BJJ/MMA training, but also I've now racked up enough small, irritating pains and injuries that it's uncomfortable to do most anything beyond sitting quietly in a chair. This includes a slight ankle sprain that I haven't let heal yet, both knees, a ring finger that has been jammed for a month, and the cut over the eye from the head butt at the Vandals show. A few years ago I would have kept training to be tough, now I know from experience that that's a stupid move. Everyone trains hurt. If you wait to be pain-free to train you'll train about once every week or two. But at a certain point you need to take a few weeks off and let everything heal up. I've found that most the time I take 2-3 weeks off to rest after training hard for a few months, I come back better for the rest, as opposed to worse for the time goofing off.
So, on to last night's groovyness.
Often in BJJ we end up on our backs in some type of transitionary position. Not quite a proper guard, but still with our legs between us and our opponent. A common occurrence in the gi is to be caught on your back while your opponent holds the pants on the inside of each of your knees, then flings your legs to one side and shoots past them, often immediately gaining side mount. The armbar we learned last night was something of a trap for that situation.
The setup is simple. Your opponent is kneeling in front of your open guard holding the inside of your knees, and he shoves one or both down to step over or around. The idea is to fight it a little, then let him shove one knee down (I'll assume your left knee for this post). That should straighten his right arm out as he then tries to either shove your right knee the same direction, or just step through your guard. You have a split second there for an armbar.
If his right arm is pretty straight, sit up a little and reach your left hand out and grab his right elbow, cupping the ball of his elbow in your palm. The idea is to not allow him to bend his arm or pull it out. So far I've found it helpful for my other hand to be grabbing his extended wrist to stabilize the arm and keep everything where I want it, but naturally Marcus didn't seem to need to do that. You want to pin his right wrist outside of your left bicep, with the palm facing up. This gives you the leverage to hyper-extend the elbow. To make things further suck for your opponent, keep his arm straightened out and his wrist stuck to your outer bicep while leaning back and rolling to the right. This puts additional pressure on the elbow joint. I asked Marcus if I could crush my way out of the lock by pushing forward aggressively, thus giving my arm the ability to bend. He pointed out that that was why he recommended that as we roll to our side we kick out his knee, planting him on his face. I had completely forgotten that step in the first few repetitions of practice.
But what if your opponent's arm isn't straight when he shoves your knee down? It's likely a good player will put his right elbow on the mat. Well, you can do two things to get a pretty straight arm.
1. Move your left knee backwards. If he holds on (which he almost certainly will since he fought to get that far) he might straighten his arm
2. If that doesn't work because he's wise to your shenanigans and moves forward with your leg, go for the other arm. There's a chance that if he's protecting the one arm he isn't paying as much attention to the other
This is a classic case of "simple but not easy." The move itself consists of very few steps, and though the details obviously must be correct for it to work, for BJJ it's not a very complicated technique. However I don't harbor any confidence in my ability to start snapping this on even new white belts right away. This move requires timing, presence of mind, and the ability to control an opponent's moves to the point that he attacks in exactly the manner you wish him to. None of this is easy.
So, on to last night's groovyness.
Often in BJJ we end up on our backs in some type of transitionary position. Not quite a proper guard, but still with our legs between us and our opponent. A common occurrence in the gi is to be caught on your back while your opponent holds the pants on the inside of each of your knees, then flings your legs to one side and shoots past them, often immediately gaining side mount. The armbar we learned last night was something of a trap for that situation.
The setup is simple. Your opponent is kneeling in front of your open guard holding the inside of your knees, and he shoves one or both down to step over or around. The idea is to fight it a little, then let him shove one knee down (I'll assume your left knee for this post). That should straighten his right arm out as he then tries to either shove your right knee the same direction, or just step through your guard. You have a split second there for an armbar.
If his right arm is pretty straight, sit up a little and reach your left hand out and grab his right elbow, cupping the ball of his elbow in your palm. The idea is to not allow him to bend his arm or pull it out. So far I've found it helpful for my other hand to be grabbing his extended wrist to stabilize the arm and keep everything where I want it, but naturally Marcus didn't seem to need to do that. You want to pin his right wrist outside of your left bicep, with the palm facing up. This gives you the leverage to hyper-extend the elbow. To make things further suck for your opponent, keep his arm straightened out and his wrist stuck to your outer bicep while leaning back and rolling to the right. This puts additional pressure on the elbow joint. I asked Marcus if I could crush my way out of the lock by pushing forward aggressively, thus giving my arm the ability to bend. He pointed out that that was why he recommended that as we roll to our side we kick out his knee, planting him on his face. I had completely forgotten that step in the first few repetitions of practice.
But what if your opponent's arm isn't straight when he shoves your knee down? It's likely a good player will put his right elbow on the mat. Well, you can do two things to get a pretty straight arm.
1. Move your left knee backwards. If he holds on (which he almost certainly will since he fought to get that far) he might straighten his arm
2. If that doesn't work because he's wise to your shenanigans and moves forward with your leg, go for the other arm. There's a chance that if he's protecting the one arm he isn't paying as much attention to the other
This is a classic case of "simple but not easy." The move itself consists of very few steps, and though the details obviously must be correct for it to work, for BJJ it's not a very complicated technique. However I don't harbor any confidence in my ability to start snapping this on even new white belts right away. This move requires timing, presence of mind, and the ability to control an opponent's moves to the point that he attacks in exactly the manner you wish him to. None of this is easy.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Punk pits and more upright guarding
It's the Monday before Christmas (by the way, if I write Xmas it's because I'm lazy, not because I'm protesting anything), and I forewent my BJJ class Saturday morning in preparation for a punk concert that night (The Vandals Christmas show in Anaheim, CA). I tend to spend entire concerts in the pit, so I wanted to conserve my energy. I'm glad I did since I ran around in a decently rough pit for well over an hour between two bands. I also ended up with a nasty gash over my right eye from an accident head butt (echoes of MMA?). Hopefully that won't affect my grapping tonight, though I can't see how I can spar in the kickboxing class. It's a classic boxer's cut, fairly painless but right above the eye and waiting to bleed at the slightest poke poke.
At any rate I feel mostly recuperated from what was a pretty intense, full-body workout after spending all Sunday laying around, with a couple big meals in there. Last week we worked on the upright guard and I only touched on what we learned. I explained the position and an introductory sweep, but we actually went over a series of about six different moves that feed from one to another.
The sweep I described last week involved getting an underhook and falling over backward and to one side while extending the hooking foot. There are several assumptions there, the two biggest ones are:
A. You can get an underhook
B. You're able to fall backward while dragging your opponent
The next chain of sweeps assume neither of these.
The first sweep is another backward sweep. In fact, it's the same as the one mentioned above but without the underhook. Assuming you can't achieve underhook, reach across his chest and grab his opposite lapel with your lead hand. Now pull that lapel to your ear like you're answering a phone as you fall back and to one side while extending your hooking leg. Same effect without the underhook.
But that's assuming your opponent doesn't lean backward with enough power to thwart your yanking on his collar. That's fine, because his leaning back sets up a nice sweep too.
If your opponent knows what's coming there's a great chance he'll lean backwards to avoid being pulled down and swept. At that point you still have a hook (one dominant foot hooking really, while the other kind of hangs out being a pain in the ass) and a collar. Assuming you don't do anything silly like let him get an underhook on you and push you down, you can pull your hooking foot out, put it behind you at about a 45-degree angle and push off it. At the same time use your lead hand (the one holding his collar) to lay a forearm across his chest and push him back, and use your other hand to push his knee. The tricky part is that you're not pushing him straight back, but rather on a 45-degree angle. Your forearm should twist and push to get him back, and your hand on his knee shoves his base in the same rotational direction as your forearm is pushing. You need to hold his knee out of the way until you're completely past his legs, or a savvy guy will stick his knee between you and him and complicate your guard pass.
So now we've talked about two sweeps going backward, and one pushing your opponent on his back should he pull away from the initial sweep attempt. But there's a chance he could counter your last sweep attempt by pushing back on you again, and now your hook is out of place because you pulled it out to launch off of.
In this case you're still in position to attack. Keeping hold of his collar, cup the back of his head and shove it down and under your armpit, almost like you're going for a guillotine. But instead of falling straight backward and trying to wrap him up in a full guard, you keep your feet where they are. Dive your head down next to his so the two of you are ear-to-ear. Now spin so you're on your back, but reach through and grab hold of his tricep so he can't spin to match you. The loose collar grip you had should now be taut across his throat, and if you're holding his tricep he can't simply roll away.
But what happens if you miss and he rolls? Roll with him. Try to skitter around his legs as you roll so he's facing you but you have him in side mount. To keep him from rolling again grab his bottom knee and pick it up. If you've managed to do this while keeping the collar it's a tight choke and an overall uncomfortable place to be.
At any rate I feel mostly recuperated from what was a pretty intense, full-body workout after spending all Sunday laying around, with a couple big meals in there. Last week we worked on the upright guard and I only touched on what we learned. I explained the position and an introductory sweep, but we actually went over a series of about six different moves that feed from one to another.
The sweep I described last week involved getting an underhook and falling over backward and to one side while extending the hooking foot. There are several assumptions there, the two biggest ones are:
A. You can get an underhook
B. You're able to fall backward while dragging your opponent
The next chain of sweeps assume neither of these.
The first sweep is another backward sweep. In fact, it's the same as the one mentioned above but without the underhook. Assuming you can't achieve underhook, reach across his chest and grab his opposite lapel with your lead hand. Now pull that lapel to your ear like you're answering a phone as you fall back and to one side while extending your hooking leg. Same effect without the underhook.
But that's assuming your opponent doesn't lean backward with enough power to thwart your yanking on his collar. That's fine, because his leaning back sets up a nice sweep too.
If your opponent knows what's coming there's a great chance he'll lean backwards to avoid being pulled down and swept. At that point you still have a hook (one dominant foot hooking really, while the other kind of hangs out being a pain in the ass) and a collar. Assuming you don't do anything silly like let him get an underhook on you and push you down, you can pull your hooking foot out, put it behind you at about a 45-degree angle and push off it. At the same time use your lead hand (the one holding his collar) to lay a forearm across his chest and push him back, and use your other hand to push his knee. The tricky part is that you're not pushing him straight back, but rather on a 45-degree angle. Your forearm should twist and push to get him back, and your hand on his knee shoves his base in the same rotational direction as your forearm is pushing. You need to hold his knee out of the way until you're completely past his legs, or a savvy guy will stick his knee between you and him and complicate your guard pass.
So now we've talked about two sweeps going backward, and one pushing your opponent on his back should he pull away from the initial sweep attempt. But there's a chance he could counter your last sweep attempt by pushing back on you again, and now your hook is out of place because you pulled it out to launch off of.
In this case you're still in position to attack. Keeping hold of his collar, cup the back of his head and shove it down and under your armpit, almost like you're going for a guillotine. But instead of falling straight backward and trying to wrap him up in a full guard, you keep your feet where they are. Dive your head down next to his so the two of you are ear-to-ear. Now spin so you're on your back, but reach through and grab hold of his tricep so he can't spin to match you. The loose collar grip you had should now be taut across his throat, and if you're holding his tricep he can't simply roll away.
But what happens if you miss and he rolls? Roll with him. Try to skitter around his legs as you roll so he's facing you but you have him in side mount. To keep him from rolling again grab his bottom knee and pick it up. If you've managed to do this while keeping the collar it's a tight choke and an overall uncomfortable place to be.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Beginnings, and basics of the upright guard
This blog is my notepad. I found a couple of years ago while preparing for an 8-hour lab exam that it helped immensely if I wrote out everything I had just learned in a narrative. It forced me to explain things as if the reader needed matters presented so clearly that I couldn't assume they would "just get it." I often learned a topic in greater depth as I blogged about it, and that's what I'm hoping to get out of this. If anyone reads it ... even better.
It's the Thursday before Christmas, so I only have a couple of training sessions left before the gym shuts down for the holidays. It's probably better that way. Most of us there start to twitch if we take more than a week off at a time so we rack up nagging injuries that we just live with by doing things like duct taping bent fingers to straight ones. A couple weeks of forced relaxation will likely do us all some good.
Now, enough fluff, on to the mat work.
This week we've worked on the upright guard. This is an interesting variation of guard that I've been hit with many times, but never really spent much time studying so I wasn't entirely sure what was about to happen when I got dumped on my back. If I avoided a sweep it was instinct or luck.
Essentially to have someone in an upright guard means that you are sitting down with both feet in between the legs of an opponent who is facing you on his knees. One hip is slightly more forward than the other, and the corresponding foot is "hooking" your opponent's leg. Your upper body is perpendicular to the floor (hence "upright"), and one shoulder should be forward (the shoulder corresponding to the leg/hip that is forward).
Once you establish a dominant side, you probably want an underhook. So plunge that forward arm under the armpit of your opponent. If you can't get an underhook it's not the end of the world, but if he gets an underhook on you he has the dominant position, so it's probably a good idea back of and do something else rather than force the position.
If you can get an underhook, trapping the arm you're not underhooking will take away his ability to defend a sweep to that side. So just fall backward and to the trapped side until your head is touching the mat and use your hook to flip him. Using a lot of "kick" in your hooking foot is counter-productive; your opponent will end up flying so far away from you that he'll get away before you can wrap him up in a tight side control. Also, while it's possible to go directly to mount from this sweep, a quick thinker will snatch one of your legs and pull you into half-guard. The risk is there, the choice is yours.
It's the Thursday before Christmas, so I only have a couple of training sessions left before the gym shuts down for the holidays. It's probably better that way. Most of us there start to twitch if we take more than a week off at a time so we rack up nagging injuries that we just live with by doing things like duct taping bent fingers to straight ones. A couple weeks of forced relaxation will likely do us all some good.
Now, enough fluff, on to the mat work.
This week we've worked on the upright guard. This is an interesting variation of guard that I've been hit with many times, but never really spent much time studying so I wasn't entirely sure what was about to happen when I got dumped on my back. If I avoided a sweep it was instinct or luck.
Essentially to have someone in an upright guard means that you are sitting down with both feet in between the legs of an opponent who is facing you on his knees. One hip is slightly more forward than the other, and the corresponding foot is "hooking" your opponent's leg. Your upper body is perpendicular to the floor (hence "upright"), and one shoulder should be forward (the shoulder corresponding to the leg/hip that is forward).
Once you establish a dominant side, you probably want an underhook. So plunge that forward arm under the armpit of your opponent. If you can't get an underhook it's not the end of the world, but if he gets an underhook on you he has the dominant position, so it's probably a good idea back of and do something else rather than force the position.
If you can get an underhook, trapping the arm you're not underhooking will take away his ability to defend a sweep to that side. So just fall backward and to the trapped side until your head is touching the mat and use your hook to flip him. Using a lot of "kick" in your hooking foot is counter-productive; your opponent will end up flying so far away from you that he'll get away before you can wrap him up in a tight side control. Also, while it's possible to go directly to mount from this sweep, a quick thinker will snatch one of your legs and pull you into half-guard. The risk is there, the choice is yours.
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