Day: January 30, 2019

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.