Month: January 2019

First week back

The tweaked knee has changed the way I’ve been rolling last week. Still wearing a knee brace, though the physio reckons it’s mostly a placebo/confidence-booster at this point. Basically, total flexion is not good for it right now, and neither is any lateral stress. That means basically for the left leg:

  1. no DLR and RDLR hooks
  2. no butterfly hook, no crab riding (inverted butterfly)
  3. no omoplata/triangles
  4. no top armbar with the leg tucked in by the armpit
  5. no closed guard
  6. no sitting inside closed guard
  7. no knee sliding to the right (how i hurt it in the first place)
  8. no 50/50
  9. no leg lock turning escapes
  10. no guard retention via leg pummelling

This has been quite the difference- as Pedro commentated, my guard game is heavily dependent on being able to pummel my legs. Luckily, I’ve been working on my half guard for a few months now, which I can continue to use. Right now, I’m trying to utilise the ‘shell’ variation of half guard where the bottom leg knee is at a 45 degree angle, blocking the hip. What’s nice about this is that it slows down or even shuts down the opponent’s ability to immediately stand up to initiate a standing pass.

On top, I’m working hard being tight with my pressure and going primarily for the over/under pass. Once I pass, I’m working on either getting the armbar on the far arm (which I never used to get, until I saw some great details from Demian Maia’s video), or if I’ve gone from over/under to the 3/4 mount, finishing the pass into the mount using the tripod movements (again, Demian Maia stuff!) and working on isolating the arm for a arm triangle, armbar, or back take.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to my 2 readers. I think I’ll be making the blog public soon.

The last few weeks of December was supposed to be a week of no work and more training. I had plans to attend a Sunday charity marathon roll and then fly back to Christchurch to spend time with my parents and drop in at the local gym for a week.

Unfortunately things didn’t quite work out as planned. The charity roll itself was great; the mats were more packed than ever before as people from many of our affiliates, even other gyms, came together to roll and donate to a good cause in the wake of a recent suicide of a young woman within the local jiu-jitsu community. I had the chance to meet some new people and enjoyed some good rolls, although I’d say the mats were a bit too packed.

However in one of my rolls I went for a knee slice and felt my left knee pop. There wasn’t immediate pain, but soon enough it started. Soon I had to sit down mat side, and after the event wound down and people went off to the nearby cafe for a bite, I felt the pain come on as I walked. On the bright side, the cafe serves a good coffee, and it was nice to catch up with Hux who had moved to Australia a couple of years ago and was in town for a couple of days.

Since then I’d been on the couch smashing Red Dead Redemption 2 and Final Fantasy XII: Zodiac Age till I went off to Christchurch, where I spent more time couching and eating food while my gi (packed just in case) sat unused.

I have been trying to watch jiu-jitsu instructional though, and have a renewed appreciate for Ryan Hall’s Deep Half Guard set, which I think I have had since early blue belt. There’s a lot of stuff, particularly in disc 1 that I glossed over earlier in my journey, that now makes a lot more sense conceptually. His approach to half guard is interesting and definitely a little different from Lachlan’s, though the structure of the half shield is pretty similar. one thing I’ve picked up that Ryan, as well as Seph Smith (no surprise as he’s one of Ryan’s black belts) and Rob Biernacki do is use the bottom knee as a frame as well. I have kinda short legs so I haven’t naturally done this, and I’m not sure I can, but definitely something to keep in mind.

Anyway, as of a few days ago I’ve managed to pick up my yearly throat infection. However, good news on the knee- not a tear, diagnosed as pinching of the tissue in the knee around the patella and meniscus. Once I’m no longer sick, I’ll ease back into some training, using pain/discomfort as a guide.

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