Seminar

It was a relaxed affair. Carlos had us do a light warm up, push ups, squats, crunches, and then we reviewed a few escapes from side control and applying the Kimora from sidecontrol and mount. He tried to structure the lesson in terms of strategy as much as technique. I can't really say how much I remembered, as my brain tends to max out around three techniques, but I think I remember the basic escapes and their moral: when in doubt use your hips and your knees. Since I tend to focus on kimora and kimora variations as my primary submission attack, it'll be interesting to see what happens at tonight's open mat.

I spent most of the session working with a child and teen from our dojo. We didn't get a lot of reps in, but really, no one did. Five reps is not a lot for anything, and I hope the four day seminar is more focused.

The dojo we trained at was huge, easily dwarfing ours. Two full sized mats, a heavy bag array, offices, and a full sized ring. Oh, and the man has his own buses, not bus, but buses, plural. Suffice to say, this is one sensai whose doing quite well for himself, economy be damned, thank you very much.

Back to the mats. At first glance I feared those mats. One set was new and shiny, the other looked positively jurassic. Big fat stegosaurus vs T-Rex old, but you know what? Despite the wrinkles and peeled patches (that reminded me of a week old sunburn) rolling on the mats was smooth.

Ah, and the rolling. I didn't get much of a workout, was a bit disappointed. I rolled with the kids, a couple of times, but they don't do much for me cardiovascularly. This was followed, by a couple of CWBs of the no gui variety. How did I know number 1 was a CWB if I didn't know him at all, and he wasn't wearing a belt? One, the excited way he ran to the mat, all legs and arms in his MMA get up (If it sounds like I'm being condescending, I'm not, the outfit was spiffy, truthfully, I liked it, the kid had spunk), and as soon as as we locked up he was stiff as a board. He went full tilt--the only way you can go when you're that stiff--and I kept it close to my habitual 50% as possible. He was looking for the kill; I was looking for position and control. I got sidecontrol, and tried to hold it as long as I could content to let my partner gas out, even though he did gas, he tapped me by way of my arch enemy the triangle (a CWB, but one who knew a few locks). I tapped him with a guillotine a little later. The second guy was larger, working on a spare tire, and since I caught him with a simple sweep, I didn't mind tapping to him; in fact, hitting the sweep felt like a bigger victory than tapping someone out. Those rolls didn't last particularly long, and my partners weren't particularly well conditioned. After spending so much time grappling behemoths, college wrestlers, and prodigies, it would appear raw physical ability just doesn't intimidate me.

A sweep is a game changer. You want to build a game around control and movement, then damn sweeps are where its at. How do you get to top from bottom? Sweep. How do you catch an MMA fighter off guard when he's committed to pounding you? Sweep. You're in a life or death scenario you're on the ground and on the bottom with one yahoo, while his buddies from the The Good Sam Club are comin' your way with glass and bad intentions? Sweep----and then run!