It’s been an interesting week. Felt pretty sharp on Tuesday and then in a total fog yesterday. It was like I had no clue what I should be doing at any moment. I had to start focusing on the smallest of goals as my mind kept racing to everything other than jiu jitsu in the middle of the roll.
It was no gi and any moment my training partner would come close to passing I just kept thinking I wanted to be anywhere but there. I started from closed guard over and over. My goal was to control from there and I was having a really tough time.
For quite a while I’ve felt a little limited in closed guard. At some point I realized traditional rubber guard/mission control is not for me. My knees can’t take it and one surgery is enough for me.
But I admire the control that it gives and there are moments like yesterday with a good scrambling wrestler where I miss it a little bit. Now the Shawn Williams guard is still a big part of the game and something I need to used more often. And I’m starting to come up with some decent neck attacks that lead to wrist control.
When they posture back, my hip bump/close line works well some of the time. But I knew something was missing. Yesterday was about surviving and accumulating evidence for me to study at a later time.
And now looking back, I’m realizing the closed guard hole is an extension of the open guard one: I need to attack the legs. I keep coming to this conclusion over and over again but just was not able to see the opportunity or really even think about it yesterday. I wanted to get the back, control and choke as everything else just felt impossible.
I was really annoyed with my lack of ability to adapt at the moment. I’m glad I didn’t quit and there’s something to be said for using the money moves at times, but it’s going to be a continuing problem as long as I limit my attacks. Those same attacks won’t work once those guys make a few adjustments.
So I think the only solution is to force myself to only attack the legs from the bottom for the next few weeks and see what happens.
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