At the Eric Estrada Stage.
I want to thank you guys again for your continued support during my Mustaches vs Cancer campaign on behalf of the pediatric department at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. So far, we’ve got $70 in and I can’t thank you enough for it. Overall, the Mustaches vs Cancer campaign has raised over $22,000 for the kids at MSKCC.
But we’re only halfway through the campaign. My stache is growing and I’d really like to at least double the number of contributions in the second half. They make it very easy to donate. You can use PayPal or just give them a call.
In jiu jitsu news, I’m looking forward to Saturday. I was 187 on the scale this morning. I’ve been so busy, this post was actually started on Friday and I’m only now getting back to it. Brown Belt Thad ran class that day and I picked up a couple of good tips that I don’t want to forget.
The first is a simple one. Just widening the knee out when you’re finishing the armbar from the top. It’s a basic thing that I feel like I should have known, but… well, there you go. I didn’t know it. When I’m finishing an armbar, I’m so focused on heels back, knees tight and all of that, I’d never thought about whether I was actually giving my opponent space to counter. So, when I’m moving to armbar from mount, I’m going to think about widening my outside knee out to pin his head and keep him from being able to turn in.
The other tip was one of those things where it completely shifts how you move. I’ve always been like an uncoordinated oaf when trying to transition to S Mount. It’s been pathetic. Thad told me to forget about the back leg and just concentrate on driving the front knee up and around so that it’s right behind my opponent’s head. Focusing on the lead knee made a huge difference in how I moved around. It felt a lot better, and the trailing leg seems to slide right into place, putting a lot of pressure on my opponent’s diaphragm.
Sunday class was led by Bobi, who showed us a couple of defensive takedowns from a blocked single leg. So, a person shoots for a single leg on me, my first step is to block him by framing the arm on the same side as the trapped leg to keep him from climbing that leg and getting the leverage he needs for his takedown. From there, depending on his grips, I would have two options.
The first, if he’s gripping in a way that I have space to take his arm, I would get a figure-four, kimura grip on the arm inside, take a little hop in to get my hips closer to his and then basically drop and do a backward roll while using the leverage from the kimura to take him with me. Keeping the grip, I should end up in either mount or a position to finish the kimura (depending upon how the roll goes). Bobi also shared a tip for finishing the kimura. Where someone has grabbed his belt or pant leg to defend, you can bring the same side knee up and then use that as a fulcrum, levering your own forearm up so that it easily breaks his grip (if that makes any sense at all.)
The second take down is, from the same shallow single leg position (remember, I framed up and kept him lower on my leg), I’ll work to get his head on the outside where I can either chinstrap or get a lapel grip. From here I’ll take a hop in so I can grab his leg behind the knee, or his gi pants at the knee if it’s gi. The take down is, in one motion, driving my trapped leg back while using my grips to take him down.
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Thank you for the tips, Steve. I would really like to see that first option on the single leg block in action. The backward roll into mount or a finish on the kimura sounds like a very slick move.