All this estrogen in the house

Posted by shakiaharris on January 4, 2011 · 4 Comments 

Yesterday was probably one of the most enjoyable times I’ve had training in the past 7-8 months.  Many of the guys simply don’t understand that for women it’s simply a different game.  Me and Shannon actually had a pretty interesting convo about this yesterday.  I spent the first 6 months or so of my training completely engulfed in working my defensive game because technique is all I have against a lot of the guys.  It sucks being overpowered and it takes a while to have enough faith in my offensive game when I feel like my chances to work it are few and far between . My instructor’s been telling me to be more aggressive and at first I think angry, but now I’m trying to translate it to being more offensive, working to control the pace of the roll, and simply attacking.

The class started out as an open mat session and I rolled with Shannon and Fighter girl then Josh started class with an interesting sequence from guard.  The sequence was tailored to work in either a grappling or MMA setting.  Here’s a quick overview of the technique that he showed.

GUARD: Your opponent’s in your guard so you use the momentum of bringing your knees to your chest to break their posture and bring them in close to you, then acquire an over and under grip and hold their upper body tight to yours.  From here whichever side you have the underhook use the same side leg to shrimp out HARD and use that underhook to shuck your opponents arm up, from here you’ll end up moreso on their side and you have MANY options.

Option 1: Since at no point are you breaking your grips, you’ll notice that your overhook side is conveniently around your opponent’s neck and your underhook side just left their arm available too SO you could simply lock up your arms the way you would for a rear naked, use your own head as leverage and finish the arm triangle.

Option 2: If they don’t posture up when you shuck their arm up and get to your side THEN you can maintain your grips and take the back.

Option 3: If they DO posture toward (put their head toward your underhook side) the side you just shrimped to then place one hand on the same side arm’s bicep and the opposing arm’s tricep, shift your hips and secure the armbar.

It was a really fun series to drill and I hope to have some luck with it this week.
–Note::If you have any questions about my descriptions leave a comment and I’ll contact my instructor for a verbatim account of the technique he showed.

I’m actually considering getting with whomever teaches after class and trying to get a picture of the technique they showed not only for myself but for the sake of my wishy-washy descriptions lol.

Yesterday I rolled A LOT. Some with newer people but mostly with some trusted faces.

Memorable rolls

Ashcon aka Beauty queen:: I had a fun roll with Ashcon.  I think he walks at around 200 lbs. (i’m teetering between 141-143, and yes every lb. matters 🙂 ) I tried practicing being more aggressive and offensive with a guy his size and I think it helped.  I take pride in the fact that at least he stayed busy.  The downfall was that I was POOPED, but I went my hardest.  One thing I am experimenting with is the knee bar from half guard.  I almost went for it on him but then I got nervous and opted to simply ask him the best way to go for it and he critiqued me pretty well (Thanks beauty queen).  I’d love to expand what little game I have to include a few leg attacks, I think it’d make me way more versatile and would catch a few of the guys off-guard.

Herrington:: This guy is my new favorite person to roll with. He’s a blue belt and is SO patient with me.  He never rolls to light or too hard and if I do get a sweep or manage to escapes he doesn’t belittle me by saying “Oh I gave it to you.” We had a very active roll and I did manage to get a pretty legit sweep on him which I’m proud of.  It’s not always about submissions, I’m glad I paid attention to his movements, saw an opening, and capitalized on it.  That’s at least proof to me that I am improving, slowly but surely.

josh and debandi rolling on new year's eve

Joshy Poo:: got to roll with my instructor while everyone else was doing striking class and it felt more like a private than anything.  We rolled a lot and I kept finding myself giving the big puppy dog eyes and going ” Please one more roll” lol he had been there for a while but was still willing to work with me.

Overall a great day of training and bonding.

P.S. the guys ended up rolling on New Year’s and I didn’t get to bed until after 4:30 a.m. ….sounds great except for having to get up for work at 8 am 😦

Filed under Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, guard, leglocks, MMA, shakia harris, sweeps