On the Mat Day 431: Working on my weaknesses

This week I went to class on both Tuesday and Wednesday. I never usually do consecutive days of training and was surprised at how my body held up and I was still energetic on the 2nd day. I guess it helps that I work from home now. I was so disappointed with my performance at the Rickson Cup that it makes me want to train more. I feel a burning desire to improve.

After sparring with everyone on Wednesday, I asked Kaba-san to hold me down in his closed guard and work submissions while I break free. This was to mimic the situation I failed to get out of during the tournament. Seldom do people at our club use closed guard except myself and maybe K-sensei so I need to increase the opportunity for me being in this position to work on breaking out of it. I worked on several breaks, one with a label overwrap to Wilson Hayes pass, the Barbosa closed guard break that uses both grips on the pants and elbows deep into the opponent's thighs, and also a standard break where I control one of the opponent's hand, stand up and open his legs. I've also been looking at other breaks to add to my repertoire, particularly standing since they have the most probability of success. I was, however, unsuccessful doing the log splitter break.

After class I did a few minutes of techniques with Morita-san and asked F-sensei about escapes from kimura and americana locks. Some of the bigger white belts in our gym go for these often and I expend too much energy preventing it so was looking for a more efficient method - F-sensei showed us some good principles to escape it. During sparring I also did well to escape a kneebar by rolling and kicking at the my opponent's backside to loosen the hold - it worked! Usually I have been too slow at doing this and tap.

I've also been working on the fake guard ankle picker takedown as used by Gui Mendes after seeing him use it at the Rickson Cup. I hit the technique last night and it seems high percentage if done correctly with good speed.



Click HERE to see the ankle pick done at the Rickson Gracie cup.