video analysis

these are for the following two videos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0yXyYcA8wo
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HChn8u9IdY


After watching two videos of my instructor and me rolling, I’m going to put down my thoughts as my memory fairly blurred about what happened. At first the video made me cringe as I think I look super goofy and really sloppy but I’ll try to move past that and at least figure out what I was attempting to do and should have done. I’ll also try to figure out what he was doing and why.

I have to preface this with the fact that even when I’m doing something “right” it is only because he’s letting me. There is no illusion in my head that he could not finish me at any moment. The difference in technical skill and his insight into my thought process alone is enough for him to win every time.

We start off in butterfly guard. William has right collar control with his right hand and right sleeve control with his left hand. He’s on his left side with a right hook in. I’m trying to keep his hook down with my left hand and whip my left leg out and over to pass.

I raise up to get better balance which is probably a mistake. Will starts pulling my collar more and checking my base. I probably should have sunk my hips down here as I’ve already tipped my hand and by trying to go for the pass when my left leg is light will most likely just get me swept….

Which is what happens next but Will decdides to pivort his body and immediately attack the legs or so I think but really it looks like he just makes me want to think that so I immediately start to worry about the leg lock which means I’m now on my butt.

He puts his right knee up in combat base. I get right collar control with my right hand and right heel control with my left. My left leg is weaving into De La Riva position. My right foot at first is in a butterfly position which I probably doesn’t make any sense but he was controlling it pretty well. I transition to pushing his right shoulder back as a sloppy sweep which he decides to let me have so he can immediately start a leg attack when I’m coming up.

My right leg is too high and I’m not controlling his hips as I come up. Also he already has his right hook in. Since my weight is on my left leg he can easily hook my right and set me up for an x-guard sweep or Zapruder leg lock.

He gets the Zapruder position and partly gets the sweep as well but we’re at a weird angle and my right hip is on the ground. My defense here is to push his knees together which he lets me do as I could have and should have been tapped here.

As I push the knees together my right leg slides out and somehow ends up under his arm. Again, I’ll bet dollars to donuts that he did this intentionally knowing that the triangle is probably my best move but still has flaws in my finishes.

I try to secure the triangle and keep shin control to keep his head down. He shrugs his shoulder, which makes it very difficult to lock the triangle in. I could have straightened my left and gripped my right foot to get it more into place but knew I wasn’t going to get the triangle even if I did that.

Now technically when he started passing I could stiff arm his left shoulder with my right hand. Or try to push his left elbow out and “Steven Seagal” him over. But after really looking at the tape, he gets his left arm straight pretty quickly. Still I should have at least tried that and not sure why I didn’t. The other option would be to give up on the triangle a little sooner, push away with my legs the roll over my shoulder.

Once he passes I want to prevent him from controlling my head. I keep holding his other arm hoping I can either spring back to a triangle or get a shin or foot on bicep and either go to inverted guard or create space and go back to regular guard. I guess there’s also the option of turning away from him and trying the Saulo “running escape” but I feel like he’d easily get my back from there.

His hips are over mine so I’m essentially just flailing like a fish and wasting energy there. He switches to modified scarf hold here.

I try to create some space and point his head away by grabbing his right collar and pushing it under his neck to misalign his posture. But my left arm doesn’t get straight so I have little power from here. Really I should push his chin up and back but I doubt that would have worked and that’s somewhat bad grappling etiquette and in my mind when someone’s kicking your ass, you should be nice to them, because it could always be worse.

Will ends up switching to regular side mount and again I’m focused on not letting my head be controlled. I’m trying to bridge all the way onto my knees controlling his left sleeve with my left hand then quickly reverse if he pushes in.

I’m doing several things wrong. My left foot is not aligned with my knee or hip so I’m losing power in my bridge. My right foot is in the air, which also robs me of power. Also this move is probably done better by switching my hips first rather than trying to bridge first. But he was nice and left his right leg out for me to get in half guard.

Will’s basing on both hand and his head so his hips are in the air. I decide to invert underneath in that space. I probably could have tried to pull in for a single or do an electric chair sweep but the invert is what seemed to feel right. Problem is I’m not sure even looking at it what I’d be inverting too. I might be able to spin around his leg into a cross ankle lock/inside heel hook position. I must have realized I had nothing halfway through and started to just try to work a regular inverted guard.

Will was too far back for it to be effective so I went back to sitting guard. I make the mistake of having no real attack here. I’m not controlling his head or trying to push his shoulder back or anything. I’m somewhat thinking armdrag but knowing that he knows that and will blow through my guard if I do that so I’m hesitating. Well what did Patrick Swayze say about hesitation? He blows right by my guard.

I accept this and let him put his weight on me which is a big mistake but it still would have happened whether I accepted it or not ;) Again I’m trying to prevent head control and walking back so his weight is over my hips rather than my chest. My hips and legs are not doing enough here. I wonder if I need to walk in or walk away at times to change that angle. Bridging and shrimping don’t feel like they’d work.

Again I make the same mistake of not getting an angle to straighten out my left arm in modified scarfhold. I should be walking my legs out here as well. Back in side mount again I’m trying to get him on my hips. His left hand is underneath my collar so it’s almost impossible to face him. Not sure what I should do to make him want to let go of that either.

I try some witty comic relief but it does not work.

He goes to knee on stomach and I’m trying to push his right foot out so I can over hook it with my left foot. I could have tried to pull it in and push him in that direction but that’s a good way for him to trap my arm as well. Again he’s nice and lets me get half guard.

I start to invert and looking at it now miss the ankle lock and kneebar that he’s feeding me here. Maybe I just wanted to get out but I’m pretty sure I didn’t see the opportunity. I have to capitalize on attacks like that as a scramble is always 50/50 but an attack at least means I’m dictating the pace….except with him…

He starts to pass to my right and I don’t push his head down to the mat and to my right. Or I could try to invert immediately but I think I’d be behind on that. He keeps his hips forward and sets up the cross footlock which I’m not even thinking of until I’m tapping to it.

Part 2
We start we with me flapping my leg into a triangle position. He started putting his weight to his left to do a thigh crush. So I decided to use this to pivot around his back. Now of course the whole time it’s a set up. He’s probably just thinking about armbaring my right arm but I think I’m being slick with my combo.

I get the back and right when my left hook goes in I grab his shoulder. I start to work my ratchet sequence. It looks to me like he shrugs on his left side while pushing up and creating space with his right arm. I feel him move out of position and let go of my Gable grip to reposition the over under grip. He knows I’m going to do this so he times it perfectly and grabs my arm. Once he grabs my arm, I know I’m done for because nothing I can do will make him let go. I know this from prior experience.

I’m not sure what I should do instead there. Maybe go to mount? Again it’s probably a matter of bailing on the choke once he’s repositioned himself like that. I don’t have a good answer yet.

Once he get’s my arm, I try a crappy collar choke but don’t give him any motivation to let go of my arm. He secures a funky Americana derivation.

On the next roll I again make the mistake of not securing handles ie head control, collar control etc. so I’m already behind. But my thick skull realizes this so I go inverted and secure sleeve control and foot on bicep. I try to whip back but my aim wasn’t so great so my left leg landed on top of his head rather than around it. Again I need to drill this more.

I let go of the triangle but see that he’s posturing back so I go to hip bump to try to get his hand on the mat which is yet another sequence I have. His arm was underneath so the hip bump inadvertently became a “hopping” triangle (can’t really call it flying)

This time he framed his hand on the inside of my thigh and shrugged. Again he stacked through and this time I let go sooner in order to not get passed. Once again I am too slow to react to the x pass and he blows through it. I need to drill this more as well.

I tried to invert but he put knee on stomach before I could react. Again I’m concerning myself with not getting my head controlled but not doing enough with my hips or walking away or much of anything.

I give him no real resistance to the mount and should have at least tried to get half guard on his left leg. Once mounted I’m trying to use little bumps to get space. It looks like a crappy spazzy dance move but that’s what I’m doing. I’m lying way too flat on my back the whole time as well.

He then pops to side mount, distracts my arms a little, pulls his own gi skirt out and does the rolling choke he just showed us half an hour before.

I learned a lot by watching these videos and so far have just focused on what I did (mainly wrong). I'll watch them in the future focusing on my instructors movements.

I'm going to keep videotaping myself even though my goofy skinny ass and voice that I swear is not mine makes me cringe, it's helping me learn and that's the bottom line.