Monday 29 December 2014

On the Mat Day 564: Spider Guard

Grapplearts does a great job with its DVD sets. I just bought Spiderguard Masterclass and am both enjoying and overwhelmed by the amount of details. There are 5 DVDs chock full of good advice and techniques which I plan to devote the next six months to perfecting unless my fingers fall off in the process from all the gripping.

Too cold, I want to go home and get back in my futon
I attended the drilling class yesterday morning at 8 am and it was unbelievably cold. I looked at the thermometer hanging up at the door and it read -3 degrees. I felt like I needed gloves because each time my hand touched the mat it ached from the cold.

During drilling I mostly concentrated on spider guard of course and guard retention. My brain has not yet absorbed enough of the DVD yet to put it into practice and I am not sure where to start so I did basic drilling for breaking down the opponent.

I've also just got back from today's training. We are in the holidays for the end of the year and there were quite a few people turning up for training. I used spider guard entirely for each sparring partner and my hands and forearms now throb from being overexerted. I've forgotten how much grip power you need for spider guard. This should come back with time.

I was very successful with taking people over the top of me with the Roletta sweep and generally working to prevent passing. I find that I get tried much more trying to pass than when I play guard so felt like I had more energy to keep going but my grip gave out in the end. I need to address being passed when the opponent pushes their hips forward to remove my grips while standing. I also had my lasso hook stuffed to the floor and was passed on that side as well. It can be very hard to break down the opponent's posture when they are driving forward and hips forward. The deep lasso hook is very good at pulling down the opponent to destroy their base if I can get it in deep enough.

After class on both days I just had to have my favourite Boss canned coffee. Like liquid chocolate to spike my sugar as a good pick-me-up. I need to find a T-shirt with their logo for when I feel like a Boss.

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