Eric dropped by on Feb 1 and taught the sitdown reverse from the turtle and
defense of the guilotine. That day, I learned some moves from Lance, a tall wiry
bluebelt, after being swept trying to stand up in the guard to pass. He taught
me his butterfly tricks after he swept me twice with it.
Jiu-jitsu is hard as it allows full force in sparring. When the fight-or-flight
instinct kicks in, one does everything in his power. The early days, the mat
reminded me of the coliseum.
To make sparring more exciting, coaches plays music, blasting their playlists
while we roll. Besides a few such as Last Christmas by Wham!, most of the time,
I loved the melodies but couldn't tell the lyrics. So I'd imagine everyone else
is better pumped.
Big Adrian and I were moping the sweaty mat after a noon class and hard sparring
and he was bobbing his head and murmuring something to the tune.
"You must really like it." I said.
"Oh. Man. Are you kidding? I grew up loving this. It was my highschool music."
"I like the beat but can't tell what it's saying."
"What would you like to play?"
"Hallelujah."
That answer cracked him up and he went on telling others what I said. It did
sound funny now I think about it: two dozens of jiu-jiteiros choking and
smashing each other in gospel music preaching faith, hope, and love.
To counter knee-cut pass, Weichi taught the reverse de la riva. I loved the
transition to sweep.
My strategy of countering the guilotine worked. On Feb 6, two of my training
partners, one brown belt and the other black belt, tried to put the guilotine on
me from turtle and I surprised them by clamping their legs, passing to their
sides, trapping their choking arms, and launching the Von Flu choke. I didn't
get them to tap but my moves were beautiful. I felt neck pain, however,
afterwards and took five days off.
Early Feb, a young Greek joined us. He spoke fluent Chinese and told me of his
coming trip to Beijing. A blue belt, he had trained in Hawaii.
"I know the name from the Iliad" I said, after he told me his name, Nestor.
"You are well educated" he said.
We trained together well. On Feb 24, he caught me in an Americana while I was
passing his guard. It hurt a little at the elbow and I tapped. Dangling the
leading arm in front of the opponent's face is a common mistake in
guard-passing. I knew the defense well but didn't react fast enough. Well. As
always, pain is my teacher. "You are intense" Nestor told me afterwards.
That was the thing I should always be working on. I should relax, I didn't know
how many times I told myself. I was too rough and sometimes hurt my training
partners and felt bad.
Master Rickson taught an amazing half-guard pass. The key, as he showed, was to
control the hips by wrapping around my top arm around my opponent's top leg.
Once his hips were in control, I'd stretch the caught leg to break out of his
wrapping. From there, I can proceed from there to cross-side or directly to
mount. If I were a black belt, I would feel like a white belt in this class.
I drilled and tried the trick on a few peeps, gi and no-gi, but as they often
set up the knee-shield, I couldn't get to the deep half-guard easily to execute
the move.
