Hi Roy,
When I'm inside my opponent's closed guard with a good high posture,
I am having trouble defending my posture when my opponent pulls
one of my arms down, or across his body.
My "good high posture" is as follows:
Both knees on the floor, wide base. Opponent's hips centered in front
of my hips. My lower back is activated -- my butt is not sticking out
-- and my spine is straight and relaxed. My neck is slightly turtled and
I am looking forward, slightly upwards.
My arms are relaxed and posted on my opponent's body, not with any
pressure but to monitor his hip movement. (Here, I feel like if I were
pressuring or putting weight on my arms, it would be even easier for
him to pull my arm down or across because I'm giving him the energy
he needs). My elbows are rotated in and I'm conscious of them in
relation to my center. I'm always keeping my head behind my hands.
Any ideas?
Thanks,
Matt
Are you mostly experiencing problems when training gi, no gi, or both?
Matt,
1 - When you place your hands in posture, it does not always mean they are safe. For example, when higher belts (or people who've attended seminars) know how to remove your posture, then posture is more of a liability than an asset.
So the first question comes to mind, "Does your opponent know how to remove your posture?" If so, then you are out of luck with the use of posture and must use a follow up to his removal of your posture.
2 - When you place your hands on your opponent's body, where do you place them?
A. On the hips - That's a bad position unless your arms are at full extension, your hands are at least two feet away from your knees and your head is down. Yes, I know some instructors teach this position............but, it's not a good position to stay in unless the person using it has phenomenal wrist, shoulder and lower back strength, or, they are shorter in length (5'0" to 5'6" tall).
B. On the belt - Same as above.
C. On the floating ribs - This is a better arm positioning that forces the opponent to uncross his ankles to gain leverage over the arms.
D. On the biceps - This is a best arm positioning because it also forces the opponent to uncross his ankles to gain leverage over the arms. It does require a higher level of awareness and timing to use. However, when dealing with someone who is stronger than myself, I always use this position.
E. No posture - At the higher levels of the game, no posture is used. Why? Because high level practitioners feel comfortable with "perceived positions of vulnerability."
3 - When your opponent pulls your arm down and across his body, let him. Turn and put your back onto the ground and then turn into him and face him. Stop his top arm or leg from coming over top of you and mounting. Go to your knees and come back into his guard (or side mount if your timing is better than his).
Roy Harris
P.S. Sorry it took me so long to answer, but I have been quite busy trying to respond to e-mails. Over the past few months, my trash can has exploded with over 25,000 bad e-mails. How many good e-mails do I receive daily? 40 to 60. And since I have been trying to catch up on e-mails and past promises, my work days have been pretty full.
Great description Roy. On the spam thing...my life has gotten much better now that I use a service called SpamArrest. I have NO affiliation with the company, just a satisfied user.
I funnelled all of my email accounts into a gmail address and have not looked back. I now get 1-2 spams per day, instead of the hundreds I was seeing before.
Yep Gmail is very good. I still get spam but Gmail catches over 99 percent of the spam and throws them into the spam folder. Occasionally I do get spam in my inbox but it's quote rare. However I get under 10 E-mails a day so I don't know how well Gmail would work with the amount of E-mail Mr. Harris gets.
Seamus
Gmail is by far the best webmail service I've seen yet for filtering out the spam from the inbox. Definitely has my vote. (I've got a lot of invites left - if anyone wants to try it, just shoot me an email).
Adam