The upper/lower connection and the 10%.

Rolling with GC last night made me realize that my upper and lower body are not moving together the way they should be. My instructor had told me this last week in regards to my half guard, but I realized last night, this is an overall problem for me.

I kept looking for half guard when it wasn’t there as GC tends to pass standing and that makes it tough to get a half guard. The De La Riva was there but I’m normally not a big fan of it.

After sparring, he and I were drilling De La Riva and coming up with some interesting variations. One of which, I think I’ll call the De La Vandry as it uses Will’s X-guard technique of instep to instep control but from a de la Riva rather than x-guard. It seems to eliminate the knee bar threat but still keeps the opponent tripped up and stretched out.

But while we were drilling GC kept emphasizing for me to grab the collar or the sleeve and I realized I never do that properly. My legs are in decent position but I’m not pulling the opponent down.

And I started to think about my half guard and realized while I’m emphasizing leg and hip movement, I’m not controlling, attacking and defending properly with my upper body. I’m actually giving up those elements and relying on my legs to save me.

GC made me quickly aware of the danger of that by never letting me comfortably set up half guard in the first place. I relied on people “accepting” half guard and a skilled player won’t do that. Again it’s coordinating the upper and the lower together.

Thinking about it a little more I realize the opposite is also true. When my upper body movement is decent my lower body is off. This is especially true with arm drags where my timing is decent but my lower body control is not there. If someone has a feel for my timing, the can just go with the momentum of the drag into an easy pass.

The solution for all this is probably straight up drilling, positional drilling and more than anything being aware of this problem. I had never really thought about it before last week.

The 10%

Another thing that came up in training was the concept of 10%

One of my good training partners, MB, is really good at shutting down the last 10% of someone’s submission. Against someone who’s inexperienced or panics, 90% is usually all you need to get the tap. But when someone knows how to shut down the vital 10%, the attacker, even with 90%, will not be able to get the tap.

What’s most important about that 10% is that most attackers will think they have the tap if they only push a little more or squeeze a little harder. If you can continue to shut down the 10%, control your breathing and your mindset, you should be able to wait out the fire. Meanwhile the 90 percenter will most likely burn himself out.

I’ve been on the 90% side of things many times. I’ve felt myself squeeze the hell out of a triangle or strain for that armlock and have someone just…barely….get out. It’s extremely frustrating and tiring to be on that end of things. You just gave them your best shot and they’re still standing. Often times I couldn’t even tell what I was doing wrong.

So now I’m starting to focus on figuring out the 10%. My instinct is to scramble in these situations rather than really assess what needs to be done for the lock or choke to work. Often times it becomes a game of inches. If you can figure out tiny roadblocks to put up, most people won’t be able to feel them. If you can give someone false confidence that they’re almost there, that if they push just a little bit harder, I think that’s entering the realm of the 10%.

Now I expect this will lead to me getting tapped a lot and having to deal with a certain amount of fear. These are positions that have always made me panic. But if I learn where those roadblocks are, I force the opponent to make an adjustment. And adjustments almost always mean making space for a moment to move. And if I can furthermore start to anticipate what direction they’ll need to move and can work on the timing, I can start turning the 10% into 15% and so on.