Awesome place! Sorry my terminology is prob well out. the double hand neck/head clinch. lots of our guys are in the habit of trying to using it when in top positonin guard or half guard.
loving this guy's videos lately. this one really works...have been able to successfully use this during sparring. always had a problem getting out of open guard. which stinks because i really like giving people the open guard. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agB67UNdaw8&feature=g-user-u&context=G244945aUCGXQYbcTJ33YtPJeEUUBvLlDEdS9SLV6_8T4gCpHmZLU"]Kurt Osiander Move of the Week - Open Guard Pass - YouTube[/ame] other videos are great too. i like how when he's showing an escape, say side control escape, he always starts..."if you're here, it's because you effed up".
So that's what i'm doing wrong. Drop base and work the grips, instead of stacking like a crazyperson. I keep walking into spider guard a lot too because i usually try to force my opponent to pull half guard or Z-guard since i'm good at holding and passing them. In other news: I envy that man's hair. I wonder if he already knew BJJ when they thawed him out of his iceberg.
I often get stuck attempting to re-pummle the arms/strip the hooks but once I do manage this I used to either force the legs towards the centre (at the knees) and the step to the leftside and pressure against right leg/hip to keep legs/hips locked for transition to knee on belly or attempt to just rag the entire leg back and skip over... I might just try this instead as it looks like a ton less effort if base and posture are solid.
you know what sucks? always being on the bottom. was rolling in a very low-energy state this morning. just seemed like the whole time, guard's passed and i find myself on bottom struggling to get someone off me, can't breathe, etc. i'm having one of those 'god i suck, why do i do this to myself' kind of days. got popped by my partner's elbow as he's trying to americana me while in side mount, in the brow. so now, i'm tired, feel like i suck at this, AND have a shiner to deal with too. great. thank you bjj. guess it's better than the alternative: self-aggrandizement. the good news? the open guard pass i posted previously seems to work very well for me. when i get my base down in surfer pose, it's hard for people to move my 220 lbs. but just had a very hard time getting free of grips. at least wasn't getting swept though.
It'll pass (no pun intended). I felt the same when 1) coming back from time off from an injury 2) coming back from a few months 'working' in Thailand (damn you Chang/Singha) and 3) having come back from an extended hiatus, post unemployment. Take solace in the fact that the whole time you're stuck on bottom getting battered, you're just becoming more and more familiar with 'the crunch'... while others know nothing... [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufP1bXKBipg"]you know nothing of the crunch - YouTube[/ame]
simply put, get through this period and you are 100% more likely to get better than if you quit at this point lol
You know nothing of the crunch till youve been on the end of the shoulder of justice the mount of the damned and the guiloteen if the spazz newbie with 5 years nogi. So your saying pass using posture and pressure?
the process of learning constantly amazes me. on monday, got to work with a beginner. dude was seriously strong though. we were drilling closed guard; my job as the bottom guy was to submit or sweep, the other guy had to pass. he was ridiculously hard to break down. but i managed to submit him twice using a kimura and a triangle. i was like 'maybe this is working' and 'maybe i'll not be someone else's toy anymore'. of course, then i get a purple belt. ugh! 'twas not pretty, but the survival skills are getting better, slightly. still have a problem always getting stuck on bottom. as kurt osiander would say, "if you're here, it's because you <expletive> up". sorry, not wanting to curse, but that's actually what kurt says. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCu3MmHfbb0&context=C3e272e4ADOEgsToPDskI2Cv0kZNUKow6zXGzlcKov"]Kurt Osiander Move of the Week - High Mount Escape - YouTube[/ame]
got to go against a former northwestern football player yesterday. <ok, ok, you might say that they don't play football at northwestern and you might have a point> it really is all about being smaller, weaker, slower, yet being able to to apply technique for effect. this guy was huge: 6' 2", 250 lb., no fat. passed his guard almost like nothing. he tried spider guarding me and i passed that like nothing too <thanks kurt>. got him in my guard and kimura'd him. yeah sure, the more he comes the more techniques he'll get. i'll be screwed then, i'm sure. but i think because he is so big, when i rolled with him, i realized that strength just isn't going to cut it against this guy. so it naturally led me to technique. i roll with lots of guys and i usually only post when i fight big strong ones. one of the problems i always have is that i'm pretty strong. yes, somewhere under all the fat and even with the advanced age, there is some muscle. it's actually not too hard for me to pick up most guys when i'm in their guard and just gently shake them off, even 250 lb-ers. so when i go up against the few that are actually bigger, the challenge is to use technique, and to use technique even against smaller and faster guys.
