The Gentle Art

Doesn’t feel that gentle when I’m against a resisting opponent.

This is the crux of a great deal of issues for a lot of problems.  What’s the point of dominating a live roll if you are exhausted at the end of it.  I completely burned myself out in a roll the other day.  Against someone who is very strong and fairly well versed in not doing anything stupid like exposed arms etc.

So for me,  I feel totally inadequate.  I don’t have sharp technique to take advantage of timing.  I get into strength battles.  I’m currently trying to improve my arm bars.  I’m now finding people see the setups coming and defend like crazy.  I’ve fallen into the trap of trying to fight through it.  Perhaps my setups aren’t correct, or I need to adjust to  essentially make the setups impossible to defend regardless of the action.  Monday and Tuesday I resorted to brute strength – and failed.  The thing is, I see lots of other people do this too…it seems like it is the accepted norm. Especially when you get the big guys walk in wanting to learn MMA.  They progress fast for awhile because of their size.

So I wonder,  how do you train using the gentle art?  Where things look and feel effortless.  It’s doubly hard when someone is technically more proficient than you or at least close to equal.  I don’t know the answer to this question. 

I do however want my game to be based on the gentle art.  I think that requires that I just use whatever it is an opponent gives me. This requires good timing, understanding of small details for leverage.

For my current skill set – that seems like a pipe dream.

My Love Affair with Sweeps

Part of the last few days I’ve spent a fair bit of time drilling my guard sweeps and going over the basics of them.  The basics are fair from simple when it comes to sweeps.  You can’t really force a sweep. I want to make my sweeps feel effortless for me and my partner - I’m finding the best time is in the transitions of attacking and defending from guard.  Feeling where their weight is committed.

So with that in mind I’ve gone through the basics again of Scissor Sweep, Sitting Rollover sweep, Rolling Shoulder sweep and the Hook Sweep with all starting from closed guard.  They all have advantages and difficult timings.  I’m trying to identify for myself the exact timings to use on each one and also the likely blockages when I’m not doing the technique correctly.

For instance what I’m working on mainly is Scissor Sweep.  I picked this sweep specifically because:

1. I like it
2. I can get it but not as often as other sweeps
3. Rickson Gracie likes it, and there is a good chance he will be teaching it in his seminar soon.

So what are some of the challenges I face for the Scissor Sweep?

1. Partner puts all his weight down very low, to stop me from getting his weight onto my shin
2. Opponent pushes down the knee the is across the belly pinning it
3. Opponent doesn’t open his leg to the side that benefits me transitioning from closed guard to Scissor Sweep.

Still with these challenges I’ve also had some good wins with it.  Mainly the following little tips

1. Grip, get it first before anything.
2. Timing – Anticipate and feel their reaction
3. Space,  don’t get cramped and have no room to move.
4. Push Pull action to load up their weight onto your shin.
5. Feel where their weight and posture is, understand it
6. Drive with your grip hand and commit to coming up onto your knees into mount.
7. All sweeps have a window of opportunity,  transition once that window is gone.

Drilling Resistance

I’ve been thinking recently about how much drilling I do.  I worked on a simple sequence  last Saturday that involved an action—>reaction—>action—>reaction round trip sequence.  While in cooperative drills I noticed one of my partners would do the moves, however when we moved to in the hole resistance drilling to train the timing etc he would not perform the moves required so I could get my timing.

I noticed that this actually stifled my ability to train working out the timings for reactions etc.  I’m of the camp that believes in repetition to increase muscle memory, and I’m starting to think that’s what I need to do to improve my reaction timing.

I sometimes feel a step behind in a live roll. I  know what to do, but I’m just not anticipating peoples reaction.  So I end up resisting their reaction instead of using it against them.  I want to make the other person feel like they are one step behind.

So I’m going to see how my strategy of focusing on resistance drilling develops, so for each of the ways we can resist I can feel comfortable in the transition.  From now on I’ll be asking my partners to use resistance, but limiting it to 4-5 options.  So that way I can practise my counters and timing as well.  Over time I hope to bring in more options to the drills.

Hope that makes sense!

Dan