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August 2008 Archives

Monday August 4, 2008

Half-Mount Help

Haven't updated for a while; just left old job and started a new one so I've only been making one class a week or so while I'm adjusting.

We just had open mat tonight. Rolled 3 or 4 times with bigger folks of various skill levels. I worked out a problem I've been having escaping from a half-mount.

Half Mount Escape
* Get underhook
* Bump their armpit with my arm, pushing towards my opposite shoulder
* At the same time, bump with leg to throw their balance

Monday August 18, 2008

Transitions

Did a light warmup of jogging, then paired up and did some short rounds of light rolling.

After that we started drilling transitions from side control to kesa gatame to north/south to a new transitional hold to side control.

Transitions
* Keep pressure on them throughout the movement
* Don't rush it, if your game is tight it should be tough for them to escape

Wednesday August 20, 2008

Pummel and Stick

Didn't make it to MT so I stayed for JKD, which is a bit earlier than it used to be since Judo is on hiatus. We started with some pummeling exercises up against the wall, then did some basic stick drills.

I worked with someone near my size (70kg or so vs my 58kg) and on the second round we went a bit harder with an effort to throw/trip/takedown our opponent, or let them know we had them then release. On a failed takedown I got reversed, went for a guillotine and ended up someone banging up my right knee. Had a nice goose-egg on the side that I had to ice when I got home.

Pummeling
* When going for a trip, try getting the outside leg to opposite side to trip them at an angle
* Pivot them towards the foot that is caught

Sticks
* Once I have the basics of 1, 2, 3 & 4 down start doing them in patterns, such as 1-2-3-4, 2-3-4-1, 3-4-1-2, 4-1-2-3, 4-3-2-1, etc.
* Reverse 1 should be pulling the stick up as if "drawing a sword" (no comment) and then back down at the same angle as a regular 1
* Reverse 1 can come from the left side of the head if I put a bit of a lean on it
* 3 and 4 seem to get more hip power if I lean back the slightest bit

Saturday August 23, 2008

Swing It Like You Mean It

Did a light warmup, some bag work (kicks and combos) and then spent some more time with the sticks. Coach came over and gave me some tips:

* Don't stop the swing early, follow through with power till the end
* The stick will stop where it's supposed to stop

Reverse 2
* 2 should end in the 1 starting position, bring the butt of the stick across face and down in the angle of a 2, but coming from the 1 side of my head
Reverse 4
* *4 should end in the 1 starting position, bring the butt of the stick across face, then rotate it around back to 4 position and swing

Monday August 25, 2008

Rollin

Everyone just started rolling around at the start of class, so coach just had us do an open gym.

I rolled 5 or 6 times, most of the time with guys around my size which was nice. I had a lot of luck with my guard, keeping them locked down and slowly working them into subs, but I'm still finding sweeps hard to do unless we're just going light or they totally screw up.

I did roll once with a new guy, 200+ who has done some japanese jujitsu and wrestling (in hs I believe he said). I just spent some time working the guard with him and trying to keep his weight off me. I didn't ever feel in any danger, but I think I was way too cautious when I had the opportunity to work on sweeps and my top game.

Coach stopped us for a bit and pointed out that some of us are taking the "be the ball" approach a little too far, and that we should never let our opponents hips get above ours when in this position. If they start moving forward, we need to use arms & hips to create some space.

Saturday August 30, 2008

Sticks & Kicks

Did some stretching and ropes to warm up, then swung the sticks around for a while. I focused on swinging them without stopping prematurely, and spent a little time on reverses.

I also did a bit of combo work on the bags and some kicking. A classmate helped me tighten up my technique on my kicks. Apparently I've been bending my leg too much at the knee and robbing them of power.

Kick Tips
* Rotate hips
* Keep leg straight and power through with hip

Coming Up For Air

Didn't have time to stay for the full class, but I had time to get a couple rolls in with guys significantly bigger, stronger and more experienced than me, which was fun.

I've really been giving some people fits with my guard game, but so far it's been mostly defensive and I haven't been able to get a lot of subs out of it. One of our coaches showed me a way out of this today:

Guard to Back
* When they're in my guard
* Reach arm behind them and grab opposite shoulder blade
* Use this leverage to keep them down, and start working my way out the side
* Transition to back

I'll definitely need to drill this some in order to get it to work, but being a small guy the back is where I'd like to be and I think this has a lot of potential.

About August 2008

This page contains all entries posted to Larptastic in August 2008. They are listed from oldest to newest.

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