Thursday 17 October 2013

On the Mat Day 420: Big Guy Lesson (with X-guard)

Another typhoon came to Nagoya on Tuesday but it didn't stop me from going to the club. I never usually go on Tuesday so had the opportunity to spar with some guys I never usually go up against or haven't seen for a while.Most of the guys that turned up were bigger than me. The more I do BJJ, the more I see how different I need to be in my approach to going against different size opponents. Small guys are usually fast and have lots of energy, they may also play complicated guards so I need to smother them, control their legs, hips and finally their head. Big guys, well, they're heavy and if I stay in one place for too long, they can crush me to the mat. I need to stay busy with this type of opponent, always make them feel unbalanced so they cannot think about passing or progressing their position. Changing levels and things like technical stand up from closed guard etc are good to use so they cannot predict my movements.

I sparred with everyone except Morita who still has back troubles after they carried him away in an ambulance a few weeks ago. He has herniated 2 discs in his back. I also sparred with K-sensei at the end doing nogi. I went for a guillotine choke, it was quite deep but could not finish with the 2nd hand. I switched it to Darce and he defended by placing his nearside arm along his body so that he was grabbing his own arse. This made it difficult to cinch in the choke. He is so slippery when it comes to chokes. I see him using defenses for chokes that they never teach in class. I think a great theme for a class would be "defending chokes", here's the guillotine, darce, naked rear, etc. Let's show you how to defend them. I have a basic knowledge of how to do it but its rudimentary at best.

Christiano told us about what happened with the Japanese guy who comes, the guy I describe as the Hulk, since he goes nuts and powers through everything. He had a kimura lock on him but the guy wouldn't tap. Chris thinking that the guy was probably very flexible on the shoulder/arm twisted it some more and heard some pops and let go. The guy hasn't been for a while. Chris is a nice guy and would never do it on purpose - he has very little ego during rolling. The guy who didn't tap is just a disaster waiting to happen. He's rough and hurts other people with his spaz movements. I could tell as soon as seeing him move on the mats that either him or his opponent would some day come down with a huge injury. If I was the instructor at the school, I would definitely nip that in the bud and caution him. Some guys need a pep talk about ego, while others don't.

No comments:

Post a Comment