New moves and skills

The first things first. Head lock escapes. Very basic very neglected. 

1. Like scraping something off yourself you must use your underhook to push against their shoulder. Elbow comes to their hip, get to your knees/their back.

2. Hook the leg. They leave their leg close elbow comes inside using a bridge. Hook their leg use that hook to pop your hip/ride their hip over the top. The thrusting pressure is whats important.

3. The bridge and roll. They run from you so bridge their head forward to the mat, then bridge up, slide the knee under them, bridge again and over.

4. They run too far, scissor kick to your knees after walking away from them, then bring them back.

Escaping side.

Getting to your knees. They control your leg, so shrimp away from them while pressuring their hip and collar. Walk away extra far. Tuck the hip arm in. Post with your foot, and push with the collar arm. Get to your knees.

Knee ride escape.

Turn away from them. Walk your leg one step out, bring (the leg close to them) over your far leg. Crunch, and swing wide and windmill leg back into guard. It goes over their head and around.

Good Works

Things to remember. 

1. On knee through passes the knee stays glued to my chest. 

2. Re-grip and grab their sleeve.

3. When they grip me in open guard guard grab their lapels and don't give them space to sweep.

4.Use elbow to force their head to the outside when they attempt to pass.

5. Stay tight with chest to chest in transitions around n/s and side.

6. Nick's Pass. From butterfly guard grip their sleeve keep your elbows in tight, push knee to the side, use chest to flatten, switch hips to other side, open legs, grip their close knee, walk around or over.

Improvement

I've not posted in quite some time, due to forgetting to and school. However I accomplished some of my goals.

First, my ability to survive in guard and pass guard in gi/nogi has improved, I've been able to survive and pass the guard's of purple belts and even two brown belts. Breaking grips has become more natural in guard, as well as defending collar chokes.

I have several new gi passes, The ABC pass from Relson, Phil's Scissor sweep counter pass, and my favorite Arm thread pass. ABC starts out with as a counter to a deep cross collar grip, putting your head on the floor, blocking their opposite arm gripping their gi at the bicep, knee in the butt, leg by your head stand up, weight down with your head and opposite shoulder.

My top game has much improved as far as my control of their upper spine, and ability to hold mount and side control.

However, my guard and submission defense from the bottom has unfortunately declined. My open guard can get passed by spaz noobs, and I've been having trouble breaking posture, and sweeping. 

I now feel I need to focus on my side control escapes, shrimping to guard, keeping my defenses tight even under pressure. For the next 4 weeks I will focus on guard/open guard, escapes, defenses, and controlling posture/hip movement. I will also begin to diet for my tournament in February, and drill more often/ stick to my weight training regimen. 

Stuck on subs

I've noticed that whenever I am facing a difficult opponent or in high stress the submission I resort to my fall back move is the armbar right arm, usually from guard or knee ride. Its instinctual almost a subconscious obsession that when I'm in trouble on bottom I resort to. A fail safe high percentage submission. I've won tournaments and beaten better people with it. I wonder is it just because my opponents are exposing their right arms to danger so much or the more likely answer I have drilled it so much from the same side that it is now almost perfect in setup. I am thinking about forcing myself to go for the other side armbar or triangle even. Maybe obtaining the next level is more about going that second step and becoming proficient and perfecting two three or four more techniques that compliment each other on a different level.

Plateau effect

I'm writing today because lately though I've been improving and did very well in my last tournament I still wasn't what I wanted. I got submitted from guard by an armbar in nogi. However later I was told he competed in Mundials last year so I guess I'm expecting too much but I feel I need to be able to survive in peoples guard even if they are good. I need to work on keeping posture in guard, breaking guard, submission defense in guard, and passing the guard. I'm generally a smaller guy who when in a pinch relies on his guard in trouble, however recently I've been using my top game. I'm only training at a club now at a University so my opponents aren't top notch, and nobody dominates me. So without the constant watchful eye of a blackbelt I've been slowly improving, but this summer I will be able to get constant daily training. I'm fearful and have heard alot of the dangerous blue belt plateau effect.

 

I've been told about the dreaded plateau effect and wish to avoid it at all costs. I think its more of a mental thing, like once you've got that blue belt you feel theres no need to progress your skills anymore, which is why I like nogi. There is no end the only goal is the top or the guy in front of you. I digress. I'm trying to focus my goals and see significant improvement in my game so as not to fall victim to this process. So my first goal is to learn all I can about maintaining posture in guard and passing guard. Wish me luck folks! Also in that tournament I got my arm popped for the first time hard, it sucked.

What and Why

Hey this is just an intro for my blog explaining what I'm doing this for and why.

First of all the what. The point of the blog is for me not yall (sorry). Its a recording of my thoughts, techniques, and experiences with Brazilian Jiu jitsu and MMA.

Secondly why. Simply to measure my progress and organize my thoughts to make sure I am continuing to progress and challenge myself to minimize the dreaded plateau effect.

Now for who I am. I'm a Relson Gracie Blue Belt. For the majority of my training I trained for around a year and a couple months under a different instructor in my hometown. However for the last couple of months I've trained mostly with a different instructor who belted me, its an odd situation but I try not to get bogged down in the politics of Jiu Jitsu. I'm mainly into no-gi training I'm just not a fan of wearing the pajamas, though I do train with the gi.