Thursday, October 9, 2014

Deconstructing the Fail: Purple Belt Featherweight



I hadn't been able to find footage of this match until now. In my mind, the loss was worse than it turns out. I don't know the score and I'm sure it was a fairly wide margin, but the mistakes were technical in nature or perhaps rather I didn't capitalize on opportunities in my grasp. It's not like I was never in the match and never in a position to turn the tide, which is a much better position to work from than the alternative.

Some positivity before I break into a litany/laundry list of missed opportunities:1) I blend together some open guard mix and matching
2) I  do manage to sweep and get to several strong sweeping positions/grips
3) I manage to recompose my guard or some form of open guard after being passed several times

The takeaways:
1) I don't impose my will despite several strong sweeping positions
2) I fight back to open guard several times, but again, I do not commit to coming up on the sweep and being insistent
3) my open guard is largely reactive here and when facing resistance I retreat or perhaps receive too much pressure rather than fighting to where I want to be
4) I need to work on my conditioning through the duration of a match. Being technical is awesome, but in a division with guys who are lighter weight, the balance of skill to strength and speed has to be more aligned
5) At no point to I even consider closed guard and slowing down the open guard passing barrage that I'm facing and clearly having trouble addressing


Fail 1: 
0:13
I don't strip the cross collar grip following the guard pull to foot on the hip. I let him establish his right hand cross collar which is a super strong offensive and defensive grip for the guardeiro

Fail 2:
0:25
I don't step over the left foot/leg by stuffing it through with my left hand. Between the cross grip and having not stepped over the left foot, getting knocked onto my side and swept becomes more a matter of time rather than a possibility.

I recompose by kicking over the top with the ankle grip, but lose the position when the ref doesn't stop the action to pull my Gi top back over my head

By 1:30 I'm reset in the one-legged x-guard type position.

Fail 3:
1:37
I have the opportunity to hit a nice waiter type sweep but don't come up aggressively enough to finish or initiate a scramble with what could have been a pretty strong grip coming up on top.

By 2:14 I want to feed his lapel through his legs for a sit-up DLR guard sweep but he has control of my right sleeve because I haven't framed or maintained distance against his pressure to pass.
I have to turn to my side and fight the knee through against his superior leverage in this position, especially since he had my sleeve gripped.
I know if I stay here he'll pass so I spin back the other way to fight to deep half and he reacts accordingly with a quarter guard/near mount type position

Fail 4:
3:14
I don't aggressively come up on the double under grip from deep half and he is now able to back step and pass my guard with a powerful underhook on my far side arm.
I fight back to a recomposed position underneath

Fail 5:
4:13
I have the opportunity for a sit-up guard sweep ala Cobrinha, Otavio Sousa, or Rodolfo but don't commit to it and he fights again to knee through, though this time I feed the lapel at 4:27 which buys me some time and I go to shin to shin guard to stuff the knee through pass.



Fail 6:
4:45
I have the lapel grip I want again to come up on a single leg/DLR sweep but I am fatigued (a fail in and of itself really) and he gets his knee through and spins for the back.

Fail 7:
5:00
I should have fought with whatever I had left to stay on that single leg but again, I'm fatigued and he spins to the back.


 
 

No comments:

Post a Comment