On the mat, I was caught in a guillotine by Steven, a heavy strong Asian dude
(who turned out to be a 2nd-gen Chinese) in his 30s. His right arm was squeezing
and his legs, wrapping around my body, were stretching for extra leverage. My
neck felt the pressure and I had to tap. I vaguely remembered that Henry taught
a way out but couldn't do anything at the moment.
The last day of June, with the adductor injury almost healed, I joined Tim and
two dozen eager BJJ practitioners in the evening for a one-hour class. Compared
with the gruesome 30min exercise in my old gym, the warmup was simple and
afterwards, we had the time to drill three moves. It was the sparring that I
really looked forward to.
First with Tim and then Steven, I got to practice what I learnt by watching
videos. The posture maintenance in the guard, the open guard, cross-side
escapes, and guard-passing and side-control using weight distribution all felt
smooth. I rarely had a tug-of-war moment.
It was interesting how much I forgot, however. I didn't remember to intentionally
breathe. At the bottom, my armbar felt awkward and never worked. On the side,
I gave up after two attempts of elbow-pluck armlock failed as the guy kept
pushing away my foot with his arm. At the top, I didn't even remember to attack
with the americana!
My training philosophy has changed. Rolling with guys for a long time, as I did
in the past, would exhaust me. I would get a good cardio workout only after
making and repeating mistakes. Jiu-Jitsu is about technique and skills, however,
and something's wrong when it gets too hard. I should train smarter, especially
as I'm getting older. Shorter sessions and quick feedback are what I need at
this moment.
It feels a bit ironic now that I have only been able to relax and think about
leverage more after becoming stronger, through running and weight-lifting,
compared with myself three years ago.
At home, it took two minutes to find in my online library the americana armlock
and the defense for the guillotine. I learnt the armlock at my former gym and
from the Gracie Combatives program but the execution was not as effective
against experienced guys as that shown by Henry. As for the headlock, after
re-learning how to defend on the ground, I also visited the standup version in
the self-defense section. And of course, the video showed clearly that I had to
first trap his free arm before plucking the elbow of the other arm to attack. It
felt great to learn and I would definitely try them next time on the mat.
I might be wrong but high-quality instructions through videos should allow me to
train at any gym. The internet is a good thing, after all. Thank you!
