1. Close Guard Attacks

 

Machine taught guard attacks including breaking posture and the reverse kimura

as a counter to defense against arm-drag to one side. In the latter, the bottom

guy has the leverage to push the arm nicely under the armpit for an overhook. He

then moved on to omoplata or belly-down armbar. I also remembered the triangle

well.

 

Eversly successully blocked my sitout from turtle. He knew what I was to do when

I had one leg up. But the last time, I feined the sitout and as he tried to shut

it down, I grabbed his other arm and took him down! It was very satisfying.

 

2. How to fight off big guys?

 

Ram, a mid-aged Indian of about 5'7" at 160 lbs, joined us at the noon class and

one day he asked: "How do I fight off big guys from the bottom?" Darren, who was

about my height but 30lbs heavier, turned to me and said "I'd let W answer the

question."

 

"Try to think the big guys are giving you a massage!" I joked. "After a couple

of years, it won't feel that bad." That was truly my experience as a small guy

fighting off bigger guys. Over the past three years, my chances of getting on

top have hugely improved. The more skilled guys can still crush me in sparring,

of course, and they can if they just want to control me. But the moment they

make a move to attack or advance, they'd create some space and that's my

opening. I am getting better to use it.

 

3. Seoi Nage.

 

My Japanese vocabulary keeps expanding since I joined the new gym. We have a

judo instructor and bjj instructors interested in takedowns. I learned sumi

gaeshi, o-goshi, and seoi nage and loved all the moves taught. Each has many

variations and a principle idea instead of just a move, I quickly realized.

 

Tue Oct 8, we learned the seoi nage and I got to throw four teammates full force

onto a crash mat. With no gi, holding the arm was a challenge to me.

 

4. What are we playing? a tag game?

 

Oct 10 noon class, three girls and I showed up. I was reluctant to train with

girls in general as I was too rough for most of them. That day, I again had to

pair up with Larissa. At the end of one triangle escape, she caught me in a

straight ankle lock and I did not tap right away.

 

 

She sneered at my resistance, which I often gave a partner to make sure the

technique we were learning really worked. "We are only drilling," she told me

again as if I couldn't tell the difference from sparring.

 

I was higher belt and much older but it always felt like she was acting Karen

and talking down to me. It also felt disprespectful as she constantly chatted

with coach or griped while we drilled.

 

But I was at peace that day and not offended. "That resistance has a purpose," I

said. "What are we playing? A tag game?" I next quoted Royce Gracie and

retorted. That shut her up and made me feel very good: at least I expressed

myself. (From past experience, win or lose, nothing felt worse than not being

about to state my own truth.)

 

5. Don't play close guard with big guys.

 

I learned the lesson when Q lay cross-side on top of me in a positional drill.

He might weigh over 250lbs and had a thick upper body. I was able to spin under

him slowly and recover guard. Crossing ankles behind his back and trapping his

right arm with an overhook, I felt pretty good until I tried to proceed with the

armbar. But he was too heavy and I couldn't hip out! I was squirming under him

but couldn't even put a foot on a hip. We struggled in that position for over 2

minutes and I gased out.

 

6. Cross-side Control, Attack, and Escape

 

I have a lot of confidence in my cross-side top control and bottom escapes. Two

weeks in October, I kept improving the backdoor escape and it was very

satisfying.

 

7. The Ninja (lapel) Choke

 

Justin came back from a two-month break and gave me a lapel choke from the cross

side top. Even when he passed his lapel to the near-side hand under my neck, I

still was thinking about a way to escape, e.g., by swinging my legs and pull my

head out of the hole. But it came on really fast.

 

He was also very explosive and good at the stiff arm from cross-side bottom.

 

8. The Sitout

 

Figured out while teaching Jorkey Henry's turtle-bottom trap-and-take-down from

chest-grab is the same as the sit-out. What's better is that the head is already

through!

 

Monday, Jorkey the Spaniard asked me to show him the trap-and-roll from the

turtle bottom position facing the opponent. I learned it from Henry Akin's

videos three years ago and have since enjoyed taking 200+lbs guys down

regularly.

 

As the guy on top tried to grab my chest, I trapped his arm under my armpit and

put up my opposite leg as usual. His 140lbs was too light, however, to trigger

my knee-jerk reaction to pull him forward by digging my heel into the mat. I

naturally did a wrestling sit-out and rolled him directly onto his back. No

pulling at all. I never thought it could be so effortless. A giant penny just

dropped!

 

9. Passed Out

 

My ego made me tap too late when a whitebelt, especially the stronger and bigger

ones (which was 90% of the gym) caught me. Since June, I have passed out twice,

first from Justin's bow-and-arrow and second from Matt's triangle which happened

on the Tuesday of the last week. A tall black youth two-stripe white belt, Matt

seemed a decent person. Nonetheless, he invoked the pandemic-era images where

black hooligans attacked Asians which motivated me to train jiu-jitsu. I was

celebrating my escape from his armbar when he switched to the triangle.

 

10. The De la Riva

 

I liked Henry's open guard concepts and didn't want to drill this specific

option. But as Machine taught, it seemed fun and, I guess, necessary to learn.?