Onwards to 2011

We had our grading last night.  Nice to see a few more people made Purple belt after a gruelling 10 rounds of fun for them.  It’s a nice way to end out the year.  For me there was no rank improvement, for which I’m grateful!  I’m actually quite happy staying where I am, while I rebuild my game. 

As it was, part of my game I’ve been trying to get under control is the scissor sweep. It’s funny how you can have months of frustration with a technique, then suddenly it all comes together. Twice last night I surprised my training partners even though they knew it was coming.  It was really a combination of the following:

1. Speed (Decide when to “go”, then make sure you aren’t doing it lethargically)
2. Space (create lots of space with the hips, kicking away with their legs if needed and sit up)
3. Timing (knowing when to stop pushing to make space with legs and arms and when to start pulling)
4. Grips (using the grips to pull the person forward into the hole, keep contact with their legs and hips too at all times)
5. Momentum (Not stalling or stopping at any point between these parts, sit-up while creating space and lie down while sweeping)

I’ve been working on different set ups but the single biggest improvement has been wrapping the opponents gi behind their back and using that as the grip instead of the lapel inside the collar.  The real breakthrough though came with the realisation I need to move back, sit-up and create lots of space, then make the person chase me down and use their momentum against them.  It’s a timing thing, which brings me to what I want to improve in 2011.

Here is a short list of things that I want to improve.

1. Timing (right speed and using the right momentum of the opponent)
2. Efficiency – being able to increase my work rate but not gas by being efficient
3. Create a simultaneous defend attack mentality

There were some really good things I did in 2010, the biggest I think was resistance drilling and focusing on a position.  So for 2011 I’m going to train the following ways:

1. Position of the month – work entries, exits, submissions, flows from this position
2. Trigger flows – multi-position setups to account for action/reaction
3. Each training revise of one of these basics – guard sweep,  guard pass, side control pass and escape, mount control and escape, cross collar choke submission (all positions)  and variations, back control.
4. 70% effort with 100% timing – keep my timing fast against training partners
5. Applied concepts – learn underlying concepts (angles, stiff arms, sit-up, hip control etc) and understand every concept for every technique I work on.

I’m planning to make 2011 a technical learning year.  One where my wrestling fitness does improve, but my focus is on making my BJJ more efficient for me.  I will start writing out each move individually and finding out how all the underlying concepts apply to that particular move or technique.