I made it to BJJ on both Tuesday and Wednesday and feel pretty good. Not a lot of time to write today, so I'll just summarize a few of the high points briefly.
First, on Tuesday, instead of regular sparring, we picked partners and rolled without stopping for about 20 minutes, then switched partners and rolled non-stop until the end of class, about another 25 minutes. The idea is to get used to pacing. So often, we get out on the mat and go 100%, using up all of the gas in the tank knowing that we'll be able to rest for a few minutes between rounds. But you can't always do that. I took it easy and felt pretty good.
Last night, we did things more the traditional way, which is fun. Short rounds... 2 minutes... so you have to stay active. If you don't aggressively pursue a submission, you won't have time to finish. Completely different kind of rolling.
One of the guys in our school is a little on the crazy side. Nice guy whom I've seen roll before but never had a chance to roll with myself. I saw him out on the mat and made a point of jumping out when I could. It was an enlightening experience. When I mean crazy, I mean he's one of those guys who's fearless in trying off the wall stuff. I don't know how constructive it's going to be for him, but he goes for cartwheels and rolls, creating scrambles which I've never dealt with. I feel like I was doing okay in the scrambles as he was pretty loose and I was always able to get back into guard or pop to my knees to reset whenever things got too out of control. For the most part, I played a loose open guard, get good grips and try to slow him down a little. I got hold of him, pulled him into closed guard and caught him with a cross collar choke at one point. He didn't like that, so shortly after, as I was beginning to feint with a scissor sweep, he tried to jump my leg. My knee ended up catching him right on the button and he was out. I didn't even feel it on my knee and was wondering what happened for a second or two. He was fine, no worse for wear, but I'll bet it hurt. He seems like a tough dude, which I guess he'd have to be considering his style.
What I enjoyed in this match is really working on keeping my transitions tight and staying sharp while he worked to create scrambles. Personally, I try to avoid scrambles, because to me they imply a loss of control. I may be wrong, but the way I think of things, scrambles are basically neutral, and whomever is better in the transition will likely end up in a superior position in a scramble. So, in this last roll I tried to think about transitions and up until he tried to headbutt my knee, it was going pretty well.
First, on Tuesday, instead of regular sparring, we picked partners and rolled without stopping for about 20 minutes, then switched partners and rolled non-stop until the end of class, about another 25 minutes. The idea is to get used to pacing. So often, we get out on the mat and go 100%, using up all of the gas in the tank knowing that we'll be able to rest for a few minutes between rounds. But you can't always do that. I took it easy and felt pretty good.
Last night, we did things more the traditional way, which is fun. Short rounds... 2 minutes... so you have to stay active. If you don't aggressively pursue a submission, you won't have time to finish. Completely different kind of rolling.
One of the guys in our school is a little on the crazy side. Nice guy whom I've seen roll before but never had a chance to roll with myself. I saw him out on the mat and made a point of jumping out when I could. It was an enlightening experience. When I mean crazy, I mean he's one of those guys who's fearless in trying off the wall stuff. I don't know how constructive it's going to be for him, but he goes for cartwheels and rolls, creating scrambles which I've never dealt with. I feel like I was doing okay in the scrambles as he was pretty loose and I was always able to get back into guard or pop to my knees to reset whenever things got too out of control. For the most part, I played a loose open guard, get good grips and try to slow him down a little. I got hold of him, pulled him into closed guard and caught him with a cross collar choke at one point. He didn't like that, so shortly after, as I was beginning to feint with a scissor sweep, he tried to jump my leg. My knee ended up catching him right on the button and he was out. I didn't even feel it on my knee and was wondering what happened for a second or two. He was fine, no worse for wear, but I'll bet it hurt. He seems like a tough dude, which I guess he'd have to be considering his style.
What I enjoyed in this match is really working on keeping my transitions tight and staying sharp while he worked to create scrambles. Personally, I try to avoid scrambles, because to me they imply a loss of control. I may be wrong, but the way I think of things, scrambles are basically neutral, and whomever is better in the transition will likely end up in a superior position in a scramble. So, in this last roll I tried to think about transitions and up until he tried to headbutt my knee, it was going pretty well.