I am finally back training after a
two-month lay-off because of a broken toe. Sadly, injury is part and parcel of
training martial arts and, even more annoyingly, it becomes more of a factor
for any wannabe Bruce Lees who are in their forties and looking nervously on as
their half century approaches.
Still, it’s good to be training again at
both Hapkido, which I made a tentative return to about four weeks ago, and BJJ.
I don’t expect to make major leaps at either of these martial arts because I’m
essentially a hobby martial artist and my goal has never been to compete, even
though I have dabbled and not entirely disgraced myself. I just want to have
solid fundamentals and be a little more consistently average at both.
Onto class and the first BJJ class was all
about escaping and maintaining various types of guard. My full guard escaping
and attacking was actually not awful and I found myself going back to my tried
and tested double unders pass. I didn’t get it to work all the time, but I was
pleased I actually recalled that bit of my skill set!
Sparring was OK and I hit a couple of wrist
locks. It was exhausting but it was also great to be back.
The second class was all about escaping and
retaining De Riva guard. I was spectacularly awful at this, then sparring was
pretty grim, too. Afterwards, I spent some time on the train reminding myself
about what I should be doing in this position and reminding myself about the
Ball and Chain sweep courtesy of a Stephan Kesting phone app. I did make a very
cool connection, though, which is to drop into the De La Riva guard when an
opponent stands in my full guard. This may seem obvious to most BJJ students
but that penny has taken considerable time to drop for me. D’oh!
Class three was all about single leg x guard
and I was equally awful at this. My main takehome was the positional set-up
from both legs inside the opponent’s feet and climbing one inside leg to
outside the opponent’s hip with the other inside attacking his knee. The other
takehome was to ensure the untrapped leg stays well away from the reach of you
opponent or your balance is truly under attack.
Sparring was OK and I hit a couple of
Ezekiel chokes from inside an opponent’s guard. It’s sneaky and it won’t work
against a more skilled and less tired opponent, but I catch a surprising amount
of people with this. I also hit a single hook sweep at one point.
My return underlined how far off the pace I
am. But it wasn’t as grim as it could have been and, surprisingly, my fitness
was actually OK. It’s good to be back.
Things to remember: Link the De La Riva
position into the full guard position when opponents stand up.
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