Sunday Night Open Mat... and fresh baked cookies.

So I stopped by Sunday Night at Seattle Jujutsu. Matt and Lana were running open mat. There were a few observers with some people from the club coming back with a visitor or two. There were perhaps 8-10 people in the club that night. The night's open mat was just newaza randori.

Things I was working on:

1. Passing the Guard

a. Guard Using the knee to the half guard then from the half guard to a scarf hold (Kesa Gatame) or shoulder hold (Kata Gatame). Relatively successful.

b. Guard passes using an arm to get underneath one leg. Bad Idea, very prone to triangle choke (Sankaku Jime) or straight arm bar (juji gatame). I'll make sure to scratch this off the list, as it did work sometimes, the bad thing about it is that I'll be prone to arm bars or triangles. I think I'll just chalk this up to bad haits, and probably worked because of my opponents most likely using the guard as a delaying tactic, as opposed to the guard as an attack position.

c. Keeping myself posted up, and keeping my arms out of reach to prevent armbars.

d. Defending against sweeps. Have to lookout for sweeps.

2. Reversals.

a. I executed a few reversals, mainly by bridging or shrimping.

3. Hadaka Jime (Rear Naked Choke)

a. I worked on this but, I have a hard time in getting the arm and the right angle.

b. I managed to get on my opponents back, bring him backwards, and executing control. I just have to work on the final aspects of the choke. I do have control on rolling someone so that they're back is to me and execute control. The hard thing is to actually fish in there to get the choke, but usually the opponent tries to fight the arm going around their neck.

4. Positional adjustments.

a. I was doing okay in getting the initial position, and I'm quite strong in position, going from a scarf to a shoulder to a north south and a side hold. I just have to maintain pressure, and at the same time, slowly attack to get a bent armlock (ude garami). From a pin (oseakomi), I only know submissions from the side hold (yoko shiho gatame); and consequently, I'd hate to give up my strongest pin (north-south) to a side pin to execute a bent armlock. Or I could attack and go post his shoulder up and then execute a straight armlock (juji gatame).

Overall it was a fun night at open mat, and there are some things I'm working on in newaza mainly, guard passes. A lot of people keep a closed guard, some people keep a relatively open guard and others keep a butterfly guard.

I have decent pins, and for me, easier to execute than the more technical submission. As an oseakomi for 25 seconds will get you an ippon; consequently the pins are hard to break from, and I just have a habit of stopping at a good pin. Now the bad thing, is that I'm not that good in transition from a pin to a pin. The transitional pin and mobility is where I need to work on. And it's a good habit, as I look "beyond" a pin and look for a submission. I think this thinking opens up a whole array of options. Now that I think about it, I'm actually starting to connect what Bert from the Budokan told me about the "weave." The "Weave" is to go for a pin, go for an armbar, go for a pin then back to an armbar or armlock..... and the key is transition from attack, to attack, to attack, to attack... And to attack from different angles... Wow. I finally made a connection. He's been saying do the "Weave" for over a year now, and I finally get it.

I think that stepping back and looking at things from a "generic" grappling standpoint is good. Looking through things in a context of rules is quite myopic. As always, competition rules change. However the big picture is to maintain control, and not only just control to maintain the status quo, but control to push things forward. And that's the big picture, always look ahead.

And Sarah stopped by the dojo to visit and dropped off some cookies! Fresh baked. Wow. Eating freshbaked cookies after a workout is just plain delicious. Yummy.