So today was the "Mega Throwdown and Spar-B-Q" for Bullshido members... This year's big meeting, in Austin, hosted people from as far away as California for 2 days' worth of sparring, standup, grappling, throws, and lessons from notable blackbelts in a variety of arts, including a judoka blackbelt and a former pro fighter. I have 2 judoka from Louisiana and their wives staying at the house, as well as one of our jits guys from Waco.
I will write a longer writeup shortly but wanted to gripe for a mo' here.
My first roll of the 5 hour session was with a green belt in another style which teaches some groundfighting techniques. He probably weighed about 195lbs. He approached me on his knees with both hands pointing at me, like a bird's beak with fingers all straight and together, arms up in the air, one high over his shoulder and one lower, about clavicle height. I pulled guard and tried to armbar one of these birds, but failed, effectively pulling kind of a knee on belly/scissor half guard. I don't remember all of the roll, but I got smashed. I maintained high structural integrity of my hedgehog form for a while until, from kesa, he extended my near arm and straight armbarred it. (Note: work on kesa escapes against big people.) He also eventually took my back and choked me (note: don't underestimate people simply because they train some other art.)
I'm griping because I'm mad. I AM A BRAZILIAN JIU JITSU FIGHTER. I'm supposed to be able to wax the floor with people from other styles. WTF! It shouldn't matter that he has a good 60 lbs on me. It sucked!
11 comments:
Want some esteem-boosting wisdom? "Jiu Jistu's perfect; you're the one [screwing] it up."
I hear that in my head every day I roll. One day, it will stop.
Wow. I... wow. I am not sure how to respond. That is a definite eye-opener. I think I'd be mad too, although for the life of me I can't actually figure out why.
i definitely understand where you are coming from, but 95lbs is 95lbs. that is a tough obstacle to circumvent, even with good technique. now in the days of youtube and direct-to-consumer privates (dvds), it isn't like the days of the gracie challenges, where the opposition is clueless, which sucks, but you and i both know that next time you would triangle choke his head to "squish just like grape".
I think you had the answer at the end, he outweighed you by 60 pounds and was likely using his strength advantage. At that point all I work for is survival, the longer I go without being submitted the happier I am.
Although I had a hrmf moment this week. A white belt guy came back from a 4 month summer break and proceeded to submit me twice in about 2 minutes. He's 40 pounds heavier than me and was moving incredibly fast. I am going to leave him to the bigger guys until he gets a little more tame.
Sorry for laughing.... but I think if I were you, I would have been laughing so hard at the "bird hands" that I wouldn't be able to put up an effective defense. I wonder if it was a deliberate ploy. I know lots of bizarre poses, maybe I should try it!
I bet you felt just like a guy who gets pissed off because he got beat by a woman! It's not supposed to happen, right?
I looked at some youtube clips recently of The History Channel's "Human Weapon" and realized that several techniques developed simultaneously in judo, jiu jitsu, sambo, and other martial arts because they work. Being better than everyone else takes practice and study. Also, I knew a very good BJJ guy who used a similar starting position. The hand he holds over his shoulder sets up collar drags.
What's kesa?
Zen Walker commented thusly, but I accidentally hit "delete" !!! Oops!
"
...hmmm, he's got significant size and strength on you - then you're working from the knees in a semi-half guard limiting your only physical advantage(speed) and you are miffed because he won?
Let's do some math:
strength + speed > skill
strength + skill > speed
skill + speed > strength
You wanted your "skill" to be able to counter his "strength." Somebody that much larger than you can make A LOT of mistakes and you can't afford to make any. You need a pretty big skill bonus to come out on top. He wasn't a noob so stop kicking yourself.
But I would have been mad too :-) "
@Anonymous: kesa gatame, aka scarf hold...
@Anonymous: the second time we rolled, when he did the birds-arrowing-through-the-sky thing, I did almost laugh... I sat there looking dumbfounded... had to admit when he asked that I'd NEVER seen such a starting position before.
Do you know what style bird hands was using??
@Jamelio- I think (not sure) enshin karate.
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