My Jiu-jitsu – 2009.1
My jiu-jitsu level as I see it at the end of January 2009. First post in what I hope to be a regular feature. Regular meaning every other month or quarterly. Would be nice to post video of me sparring with the people I will use as my own personal jiu-jitsu gauge.
Bottom (Inferior) Positions
Guard
My closed guard is pretty solid. But as soon as it opens, it sucks. Big time. People pass at will. I haven’t submitted anyone in my guard ever since I was a white belt. If my jiu-jitsu was a board game there’d be five or six big spots you could land on saying “automatically pass guard, two points”.
Side-control
Ah, here we go. My bottom side-control is decent. I bump a lot more now than I did before to create the space I to escape. First it was me using as little bit of energy as possible but using the tiniest bit of space to my advantage. Then bottom side-control sucked. It was submission city. Fed up, I looked to find new ways to escape side-control. Now I have a very large list of side-control escapes. But it all comes down to the bump and creating the space – then I head back to guard or get to my knees.
Turtle
I’ve got a poor bottom turtle. I’ll either give up my back or barely escape a submission attempt.
Mount
My mount escapes are quick. Probably my only saving grace from when I was a white belt.
Back mount
I have a weird mentality when I give up my back. It feels like I go into a lull. Not really fighting back, but not really giving up. I guess it had something to do when I was a white belt and everyone would body triangle me as soon as they get the back mount. There was really nothing I could do then. Now, I know a lot of attacks to the body triangle but it doesn’t solve the issue of getting out of the back mount. Probably why I got 2nd place in my division for no-gi.
Top (Superior) Positions
Guard
I can pass now! It was never my strong suit. Anything top position I sucked at. I lacked the confidence and the skills to pass guard. But now I have the confidence and I can pass guard if I time it correctly or press hard enough. And thanks to the healthy supply of purple belts at Paraestra I can escape attempts at armbars or triangles or omoplatas, of lesser skilled practitioners.
Side-control
Of all the positions that I have had the most improvement with it’s top side-control. Within a year I went from crappy, being as threathening as a feather floating down hoping to poke your eye out, to spending more than 20 seconds on opponents twice my size, which is crazy!
Turtle
I usually lose out during the battle for position if I’m in top turtle. Don’t know why, maybe I’m trying to go strength vs strength in which case it’s pretty easy to see why. But, most of the time I’m trying to work a transition or feint with a submission to get to that transition, and I try to be as technical as possible, yet I often find myself back in bottom guard scratching my head.
Mount
My unicorn. The position I rare see. Even with people my size or smaller or lesser skilled, I still lose this position.
Back mount
My back mount is pretty solid. I have a pretty high submission rate. Probably because most of my sparring partners are like, “Oh crap! There’s a small monkey on my bac… oh no, it’s just Patrick” and then I submit them. And I know how to work a body triangle safely because of my personal receiving-end-of-the-technique experience with it.
My Current Submissions
Top Finishers
Suprior Back mount > super collar choke OR mata leo
Top turtle > clock choke OR guillotine OR Marcelo guillotine
Top Attempts
Top side-control > Kimura, armbar, triangle arm choke
Top half-guard > sleeve choke, triangle arm choke
Working On
Wristlocks from the guard or off an armbar/Kimura attempt
My Current Escapes
Bottom side-control > fake armbar to guard OR elbow/knee escape to sweep OR bump to backdoor (backspin) to guard
Triangle attempts > base, elbow/knee, knee-on-belly, push away at the leg OR stack n step over
Armbar attempts > hitchhike OR break leverage apart
What I see as my “style” of jiu-jitsu
Slow and easy with lots of quick movements. Like a ninja trying to sneak into a castle, trying to move carefully but darting along if the spotlight or samurai guards get too close. Hiya!
That or a butterfly with a jet pack. Either’s good.
What I’m working on
More wristlocks, my open guard (gotta get it through my skull that open guard is not a place to stall but to transition – sweep, submit, or get back to closed guard!) and I think that’s ’bout it.
What are my problems
Nothing really. Things are sort of falling in place. I kinda scratch my head once in awhile, but chalk it up to either being inexperienced and not applying the technique correctly. I’m finally at a place where I don’t mind the size/weight/strength disadvantage. I’m physically fit enough to push myself harder if I need to, like to work an escape, which eventually I won’t need (the athleticism) to do as I get better. Or at least I hope so. But I still want to be physically fit.
My weekly workout routine
It’s wintertime so I haven’t been going to the park to rope climb as often as I want to. The last time I did, I could only climb up and down a three meter rope twice with only 30 second holds to strengthen my grip. I used to be able to it three times non-stop and hold my body weight for 2 minutes. Sigh.
I also miss going to the gym and doing my deadlifts. I miss my deadlifts. I also miss swimming, which I did during my winters in Kurogi town. Double sigh.
I also do cardio and strength exercises outside of my jiu-jitsu training.
For cardio I do 3 sets of 10 burpees, 200 meter run, 10 knee tucks and another 200 meter run.
For strength training I can now do over 70 push ups, 2 minutes of bridges, 30 upas (on each side), 100 situps, 2 minutes of hindu squats and six leg pistols.
My Jiu-jitsu Gauge
Tomari-sensei (black belt, instructor, same weight class)
I have no clear way of judging my growth against a black belt, much less the black belt who teaches me. So it’s safe to say I eat collar chokes everytime I spar with Tomari-sensei. He’ll do whatever he pleases and I have no ability to stop him or even delay the inevitable.
For me it’s same outcome. No matter what, I can have fun rolling or give it my all, Tomari-sensei just rolls probably at below half of his potential with me.
I’ve also adopted his casual attitude when trying to pass guard. Like he knows what he’s going to do and he just does it. So I try to do the same except it’s more like – I know what I’m going to do and I get side tracked.
Ide-san (purple belt, two weight classes above)
When Ide-san giggles, it means that his opponent is messing up and he’ll capitalize on it. Lately, he hasn’t giggled so much with me so I guess that’s a good thing.
Ide-san hasn’t submitted me as much as he did when I first came to Paraestra. Not because he can’t. I suspect it’s because he’s helping me get better at my escapes, especially with knee-on-the-belly. He actually told me that I have a weak defense for that position. So I worked on that and I’ve gotten out of a few knee-on-the-belly positions with other blue belts, and even escaped from one or two purples (then they choke me out).
And usually when Ide-san is in top side-control there’s always a point when he pauses before he’ll go for a submission. If I don’t do anything, he’ll go on and submit. But for most of the rolls we’ve had he’s always played bottom guard and because of that he’s given me a better sense of my balance when I’m trying to pass guard (it’s the giggle thing).
He also does his best to match me up with other people my size – I guess to get a better gauge at my skill level because I’m usually rolling with people much bigger.
That or he’s secretly trying to say to me, “see this guy, he’s the same size as you and I know you’re better than him so don’t let me down.”
Shimosako-san (purple belt, one weight class above)
I’m closer, skillwise, to Shimosako-san than anyone else in my Jiu-jitsu Gauge. I can actually pass guard, hold side-control, hold back mount, and threaten with my submissions. Of course, Shimosako-san will escape, but I’m nowhere near trying to do that with Ide-san or Tomari-sensei.
Doesn’t mean I’m purple belt level either. Our latest sparring match at the time of writing was still tap city for me.
Training on Tuesday was all about the mount. John told us that the vast majority of people will explode in to action immediately after getting mounted, but obviously shouldn’t be able to keep up that level of effort.
Because of that, he says it can be a good idea to to straighten your legs out (not be up on your knees, making an L with your legs) then either do the frog legs to hook their knees or cross your own feet in the middle. Probably more important is that you should let your body go limp and flop your arms out to the sides. You should have your head on the mat this whole time too. All of that should make it really hard for someone to get out from under you or sweep.
I’m sort of embarrassed typing this out, it might all be really obvious but it really helped me.
Thanks for the advice goo! I’ll try it next time.
I agree with goo. Establish the position first! An alternative… lately I’ve found that pushing my hips into them, almost like arching my back, can be a good way to do that, too.
I remember an old mario sperry video where he said mount with your own legs crossed beneath their legs, your head on the floor on one side, one arm around their neck on the other side, and your other arm free for balance, nobody could ever escape his mount.