Saturday, July 17, 2010

Just plain ol' training.

LOL, another female blue belt in Texas messaged me and said a local tournament promoter was trying to set us up for a superfight in September. (We both thought he was serious for about a day.. 'till he said it was a joke because we're both redheads.) It kind of made me scared to be honest. Bad enough competing, when no one else cares about your match but you, them, and the coaches. If something is labeled a "super fight" then you have to be, well.. super. Yikes.

We have the womens' grappling group Girls in Gis meeting at our academy tomorrow afternoon after class. That will be fun, but in some ways has potential for unfun. There are some personality conflicts (if you know the people involved you know exactly what I mean.) There are issues with age limits (if your daughter is young should she be allowed to come?) and with the format (teach a technique? just open mat?) There's a smaller teen in another city that I think would really benefit from the support and encouragement of trying techniques on non-180 lb non-men, but she doesn't have transportation. So there's all these side issues swirling around.

As far as my training is going, I struggle to find something noteworthy to report. Still working on my guard passing. Still working on control from the top.. on sweeps from the bottom. I had several fun, fun, fun rolls in the last couple days (and have discovered the power of the blog. Seems like people put some effort in to not muscling things, being controlled and technical, etc when they think they might show up here with some alias for public discussion.)

I did have one new metaphor come to mind whilst rolling with a big gentle bear of a man. We started from knees, and he has substantial nogi experience, so it wasn't long before I was down and in a disadvantageous position. It stalemated there for a while, I couldn't escape but he wasn't getting too much out of me either. Oh, I got to bottom halfguard, and had the underhook, but wasn't having any success in getting up to my elbow for a sweep. If he'd been of a mind he probably coulda kimuraed me (and maybe I was baiting it to try for the armbar) but he didn't. Anyway, after the roll (I don't think we tapped each other, just got tired) I told him it was like being an egg. Under a blanket. The blanket can't crack the egg, but the egg can't get out from under the blanket.

I had another roll with a guy who is incredibly strong. He plays a game I'd like to have-- he's short, stocky and muscular and has a nice 93 guard, scissor guard, butterfly guard... he let me play a while, then reasserted himself and smashed me mercilessly. It was good.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

i have noticed the mention of 93 guard in a few differnt blogs, and I was wondering if you might be able to explain it to me. This is a term that I am unfamiliar with as far as my own jiu jitsu academy goes, and it might be something that we do, but just don't have that same name for.

Georgette said...

93 guard and Z guard are similar, except 93 guard is an open half-guard. Z guard, you cross the feet and have the knee on the opponent's hip, normally played with and overhook or underhook, and a paw grip to stop the crossface.

93 guard, the top leg has the knee on the opponents chest/shoulder, using a grip at the inside of the knee and a collar grip, the feet are not crossed and the bottom leg is very shallow with the foot turned down to block the shin.

Check out Robson Moura's Fusion 2 series for more...

Anonymous said...

thanks. I am sure I have seen this done a time or two at my academy, but it doesnt seem like a lot people i know use it. maybe its just an issue of exposure to the technique...who knows.