3.17.08 #38 St. Patty's Day

Trained with Mauricio Villardo

I trained with Mauricio while I was down in Boca Raton, work wasn't about to keep me from getting some time on the mat. There are bjj schools all over the place down here. So I went to train with Mauricio Villardo, a Royler Gracie black belt. We went through arm bars, step over to razor, then a shoulder lock or americana, finally we discussed arm triangles.

I picked up a couple of new things today, including some real basics. We discussed dropping the weight more from side control. Mauricio suggested that I get my head further across my opponent and glue my chest on his. I thought I had been doing this, but in reality, my head was on my opponents chest and most of my weight was on my knees. I have to get the weight off of my knees and on my opponent. He also told me to keep my knee into my opponenet, to prevent the hip escape. This knee isn't to support any weight, but to get in the way. The arm bar Mauricio showed me was going for the opposite arm (instead of the close arm on the karate chop set up), trapping the arm in the crook of the neck with the right hand. Getting your left knee to your opponents head and then stepping over and putting your left foot into the lower side of the armpit. Basically, this move is opposite of everything with the arm bar I learned last week. The step over that he showed me was a review of the move we do at GT. The triangle choke he showed me was much easier to finish then what I had learned previously. Mauricio finishes the triangle choke from his knees and finishes with more head pressure then body turn. The key was to get your arm through under the neck, but get your hand to your ear and get your head on the ground and then apply pressure for the finish. I would love to redo this class and get some reps in to sink both of these moves in.