Garage training days – rerevisited

Trained in a garage today for the first time since the days with Sean and Judo Marc years ago. Had a few things I wanted to work on, most of which came together eventually but I struggled with at first.

Was happy that even though, in my mind, I only wanted to work on mainly arm bar from the closed guard and combining that with getting the arm and taking the back along with sweeps that appear when the resist.

At first really have having problems getting the proper control in closed guard. While some of that is indeed related to keeping their head down, but if I grab the wrist and elbow, pop my hips up and shift the arm over my center line then I’m off to the right start. What I kept missing was getting that same side foot on the hip. My leg was tight and it might have even appeared that it was touching the hip but I was actually a little too close. Towards the end of the training I would actually push with my hand for a moment just to move back a tiny bit. It felt pretty tight once I could get that far in the game.

Feet on the hips is great control and I need to continue to incorporate but I’m glad that I could actually identify a problem and make an adjustment from there. Would like to start taking the back more from the basic armlock position but seems like they usually lean in which makes the sweep to the side they’re pushing in the best option.

Don’t feel I did well in terms of working distractions and position advantage. Not seeing what the distractions are in certain moments, but at the same time that just may mean the technique is already there for me to just take. It needs work though but I definitely think I’m still on the right track with that.

R also came by and showed some really interesting control positions within the guard and explained the concept of controlling the hips from inside the guard. It was very subtle and interesting what he was doing to really pin the hips down to prevent triangles and other things from happening even though it looked like he’d be vulnerable to that.

I’m looking to add more details to my game like that as it really enhances overall calmness to have those specific details to shoot for rather be in a spot between positions where the only mindset is scrambling.