Napier Trip 14-16th Dec
Was down in Napier over the weekend for a wedding, so naturally Kristin and I planned to hit up the local BJJ gym in the morning. The other couples all had winery tours and such planned… not our thing haha.
Saturday morning we went on down to an open mat in Hastings at Clark Gracie Gym NZ. We were greeted by the very friendly owner Damian and had a chance to get in some rolls with two of his students that were there, a blue and brown belt. In between rounds Damien showed me loads of technique (he saw that I was playing half guard and gave me some gems) and we chatted non-step about everything jiu-jitsu, despite me having just met the guy and not even being a member of his team. It definitely left a huge positive impression on me about the kind of black belt or gym owner I would like to one day be.
I had good success with the underhook game and kimura grips to the back against the blue belt; however I did get my ass kicked by the brown belt, who had a very good kimura and guillotine attacks from the top. I did manage to hit the transition from half guard to X guard sweep (from the Lachlan Giles set) which I was stoked about though, as well as a half guard sweep that Damian had just showed me!
Absolutely would recommend anyone travelling to the Hawke’s Bay to hit up Clark Gracie Gym. Afterwards we hit up a local smoothie bowl place in Havelock North (Pixies). Really nice, probably the best acai I’ve had in New Zealand.
Yesterday night’s rolls back home:
I’m still working on my half guard and implementing the material from Lachlan Giles’ Half Guard Anthology set.
I rolled 3 times with Clint. Usually in training you’d roll with different people each round, but I think its quite useful to roll with someone multiple times especially if they are similar or slightly better in skill, as those are the rolls you get the most improvement out of, and also by rounds 2 and 3 they know what you are trying to do, so the technique has to get better to be successful.
Unfortunately in those rounds, my high elbow guillotine escape streak has been broken. I went the wrong way and didn’t do the escape. I’m sad about this. Clint laughed evilly.
Overall I felt like I struggled to get into half guard against Clint; he knows I want the position and refuses to give an inch. I need more work on this aspect. Instead, I find myself more in quarter guard against his knee slice. I’m still getting darce’d from here. It’s because I’m not winning the underhook. When I do win it, I’m getting sweeps. I’ve got to be more aggressive with it.
On a positive note, somehow hit a triangle choke. I went for the reverse locked triangle when they hid their arm behind (baiting me to change to omoplata) and kept squeezing until they exposed the arm during the escape where I was able to drag it over for the conventional finish. Quite surprised by this as my triangle is not that great.
And lastly managed to use Choi bar as a counter to over/under pass and general cross-face attempts. Couldn’t finish the sub, but man it’s awesome. I’m a believer in this now.
Tonight is going to be another strength session with Tash. And then I’m going to crack into a bit of John Danaher’s Enter the System: Back Attacks.
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