Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Tuesday roll...

Today I lucked out and got 90 minutes of rolling with Robert. It was gi, so I was hot, but I was only conscious of that for the first 5 minutes or so. His guard is tough to pass, I keep getting triangled, and he likes kneebars. What else can I tell you? Oh, I tapped him once-- thanks Tom, you're right, Americanas are much easier from side control, though that isn't to say they're easy. Of course I tapped many times myself, usually to an armbar, but not once (I don't think) to the ankle lock or kneebar. I did successfully forward-roll out of the omoplata, which he turned into a kimura, boohoo. I have yet to manage a RNC on this booger. I need to remember to stop trying for it when I'm on his back and wait until I have him sitting between my legs on the ground- otherwise, he just shoots each leg backwards to get rid of my hooks and then rolls me around his torso. Don't know if that makes sense?!

OH OH OH-- almost forgot-- I "invented" something, surely it's been done a million times, but I've never seen or read it, and it came to me by accident. I was in rear mount, sitting on the mat in front of him, defending an RNC. He had each of his feet grapevined around each of my legs. Somehow, I maneuvered his legs with mine such that I ended up crossing his at the ankles, yet sandwiched between my own legs, so he didn't notice my ankle lock until I started putting pressure on him.Let me clarify-- I don't think I invented the ankle lock itself! I meant I maybe invented the means to force them into crossing their ankles. Robert is far too clever to actually cross his own ankles (and now that I did it once, he'll probably never let me get away with it again.)

I did almost get the armbar on him too.

Tomorrow, looks like I get an hour with him in gi at 9am, and hope for another session of no-gi with Tom at 7pm. I definitely come home hungry! But I'm trying to lose weight, so I'm trying to have discipline. Today I had half a banana, about 12 oz. of grilled chicken breast with lemon and capers, some spinach salad with pears, raspberries, blue cheese and pecans, and two oatmeal-raisin cookies. Yeah, yeah, not perfect, but good regardless.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

regarding your "invention"...
http://tinyurl.com/3lg3ff

note the cached/highlighted area regarding "crossed-ankle lock"

I'd say in my BJJ training it took a few weeks to pick up on the idea that any sort of crossing your ankles when you had someone's back or a rear mount was generally a bad idea...these posts from the bullshido.net forum seem to reiterate that...

"To answer you directly: Crossing the ankles works GREAT on total dopes - ...

But against anybody with half a brain, they can put any number of horrible things into play...it can turn into a pretty gnarly ankle lock about half a second later..."

"Your average one-month BJJ white belt prays to hit the crossed-ankle lock whenever they get backmounted. So much so, in fact, that I've had a few new guys try to slap in on me while my hooks were completely parallel and I have to tap them with body triangles as punishment.

Crossing your ankles even against total beginners is a bad idea. Hell, back in the day I manually crossed someone's feet just to land that lock."

and we did indeed as newbie white belts hope for the even newer newbies to not know yet so we could catch them with this invention...the catch is no one makes this mistake twice...so as you progress in your training this invention becomes pretty irrelevant - unless you keep training with people who haven't learned the don't cross your ankles lesson

the good news is...if someone is indeed trying to control your back and is foolish enough to cross their ankles you can indeed distract them from their submission attempts or back control by mashing their ankles together...and you are right it has been done a million times before

BUT most importantly I'm sad to hear that where you're training and looking you have not "never seen or read it"

Georgette said...

I wasn't clear enough. Yes, I've read of and been told about that ankle lock, and no, my rolling partner did not cross his own ankles. What I was preening about "inventing" was that I manually crossed his own ankles, by maneuvering them with my legs, while he was trying to tighten up the choke. Thanks for the link though!