Saturday's class consisted of review of the previous week.
I normally don't make it to Saturday class because it's early and I feel more foggy headed than normal, making learning difficult. BUT, this weekend I had a dream in which I fell alseep a couple of times and woke up feeling especially refreshed, so I made it to class and rolled *dun dun chh!* right into open mat. I love getting open mat sessions in because I find them especially informative. They also make my fitness tracking app give me an immediate thumbs up for the 2+ hours of exercise I put in.
Anyway, from my last blog post I missed 2 days of class- so the review was definitely welcome.
Mount, for the uninitiated, is when someone sits on top of you, straddling your hips, their feet usually tuck in by your butt so it's not easy to just sweep their legs out of the way with yours. They hope to move up under your arms so when you're on the bottom it's important to keep your elbows down to the mat. Like, hella important.
We trained four escapes:
Trap & Roll:
Get their arm, but don't reach for it - remember, keeping your elbows down is paramount. If they're not down, the person on top is going to climb right up and you'll be in a bad spot. If they do get under your arms and high on your chest, go to the deep mount escape techniques.
So you have their arm, one of your hands on their wrist, and the other one pushing their elbow in so they can't get an easy/good base.
Then you trap the leg. My gym leader was showing me that I need to turn my foot in, so the 'palm' of my foot was facing their leg, opposed to a straight leg with my foot resting on the mat.
Then as I bridge, open my head and importantly, turn my knee (the one trapping their leg) down to the ground to create tension on their leg/hip/foot.
From there you posture up, grab their bicept and put force on it so they can't posture nor punch you. This part actually becomes pretty automatic if you train it enough - I didn't think it would..
You also bring your leg up, kind of like captian morgan, so you can prevent them from shrimping out, Then you can push your hips into that leg you're trapping and slide to their side.\
Elbow Sweep:
When you bridge, your oponent will sometimes base out. I kept being told it was a timing thing - basically you bridge and scoop with your knee - catching the leg that they've based out. You just get the tip of your knee past their leg and then turn it up, scooping it and putting them in 1/2 guard.
From there, you grab their lapel, base out behind you and when you pull them down/forward from their lapel, bring your trapped leg out and go for full guard.
If someone has mount you can hold a very small - CHISAI bridge- which will off center them and cause them to adjust to a floating mount - making one side lighter and able to go for a bridge & shrimp. Even knowing this move, if I'm in mount I'm caught by it. It's like our body's natural disposition to want to stay balanced and so the person on the bottom can take advantage of that!
Deep Mount Escape:
If your arms are free and not pinned above you, put them on their hips and use your shoulders + hips to escape. DO NOT push with your arms. The idea is to get back to a regular mount and try one of the escapes above. If your arms are trapped, go for the punch defense mount escape
Deep Mount Escape w/ Punch Defense:Pull your arms around their torso and hold them tight. If they're in mount and punching, a bridge should get them down where you can grab them like this. From here, take one hand and place it on their shoulder and once that's there, place the other on the shoulder and pull yourself up. From here attempt one of the other mount escapes.
Boxing & Kicking:
My posture is still really bad with punching but better with kicking. Which is interesting because I only just started playing with kicks.
Things I learned: Don't get in the habit of meeting a punch. If I feel like I can do it in training, that's only because it's training and if the person has serious intent I'm going to end up injured. Keep my blocks close and small movements, not large. Meet the attack but not more than an inch or two to keep myself from absorbing all the impact.
Kicking, more of a baseball bat mentality. Keep the leg straight and don't snap it from the knee/down. Personal note: make sure your toes are pointed and not going to absorb the blow!
Finally:
A friend came by my house and was showing me some punch defense with BJJ applications. My gym teaches me to meet the bicep of each punching arm with a grip then to go into t-guard. My friend was showing me to cover up and move in. He kind of argued against the way I had learned it but then said that everything had merit. Then when we were lightly sparing, I found myself doing the same grips I had been taught. So while his might be more situationally appropriate (two triangle arms around your head with hands at ear level, move in for clinch, t-position) - mine might have a wider array of applications - and especially for a white belt will instill that block.
Also went over some takedowns with him.
Oh and FINALLY FINALLY, my good highschool buddies are coming up next week. They're married and one of them is big into MMA - but in the "I live in the country and there are no gyms to train at so I can only dream" sense. I'm really excited for him to visit and the friend in the first part of this finally message offered to lend me his mats so we could roll at my house! ahhh yeee!
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