#newaza

Beauty folds like a bow: in the middle

At the waist or as lines on our face

Upon itself in swaddle

Beneath itself in grief

At the waist and in the lines of our face

Beauty folds where it takes a bow: in the middle

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bound 🖤: @sacrificethelamb

When it comes to partners that have long leg reach, I tend to find myself on the defensive rather quickly. Their guard play is tricky for me and I frequently get caught in their triangles or sweeps. 

Thinking back on last night’s rolls with two very tough partners with long legs, I found that they were able to utilize their limbs effectively whenever: 

1. They had grips on my sleeves/collar+sleeve. 

2. I was in front of their open guard. 

Playing tight won’t help me much if they have strong grips on me. So, of course the natural thing to do is to break them free. I need to remind myself to stop avoiding the grip breaks. Not sure why I don’t address it but if I avoid it long enough (like most things in life), it will only make the situation worse for me. 

Break the grips, dummy!

Now, I know better than to stand in front of their guard. How else am I suppose to pass, right? Well, I don’t know what’s come over me but I didn’t move around to the sides as much as I should’ve when rolling with these particular partners. I was in front of them, in plain sight. Even when they didn’t have effective grips on me or grips at all, I was still in front of them. Perhaps I was hoping to get in a butterfly sweep? I recall at some points trying to initiate some leg attack entries but I would often get blocked effectively. Still, I was stubborn, so I just continued to attempt butterfly attacks to no avail! Fail! Gotta do better than that. 

If they don’t have grips on me, or if they have weaker grips secured, then I have the luxury of movement, and I should effectively maneuver to the sides while nullifying their legs, to pass their guard. Simple! But not easy, am I right? I need to improve on that. 

Partner A -- the first of the two guys giving me trouble with their grips and legs -- is a more advanced purple belt with a very strong grip game and knows how to use his legs and feet to pull & push you off balance. It works almost every time. Without fail, he’d secure strong grips on my sleeves, then would eventually use my energy and momentum (when I’m flailing around to get some leverage on him, yeah right) to get his feet on my biceps, shoot his hips up, and triangle me. Or at least get the triangle lock on me and if I was able to defend the choke, he’d work an arm and/or wristlock (dirty bastard... love it). This was a common occurrence in our multiple rounds together, sadly (for me, and maybe for him too). 

Partner B is a tough blue belt who’s been using his even longer legs to his advantage against all of us in the school. Most times, he’s able to get a nice scissor sweep on many of us -- even those above blue belt. It’s scary. My rolls with him weren’t quite as punishing for me as when I rolled with Partner B, but Partner A still gave me lots of trouble whenever I was physically in front of his open guard (dummy, stop doing that!) He’d manage to get me off balance here and there by attempting scissor sweeps and spider guard tactics but most times he didn’t secure effective grips; because of that, I was able to fend off some of his sweep attacks, pin one of his legs down to work a knee slice pass, or stack him to attempt pressure pass. On the other hand, he was very good at recovering guard due to some impressive flexibility of his, which kept us in a constant battle for position. 

This just shows how significant it is to address the grips. Where both partners demonstrated effective use of their legs, Partner A had a better advantage by securing powerful grips and was 100%  the one to dictate how the “fight” (not even close) would unravel; as oppose to Partner B, with almost equal skill with his legs as Partner A, didn’t quite employ grips as effectively and thus, giving me more chances to pass. 

This was longer than I anticipated -- forgive me -- but I need to really hammer it in my head to not fucking be in front of their open guard so much and to fucking break the grips before I move my ass!