Mr. Nemo
11-03-2001, 11:03 PM
I've had some experience in doing what you could call "miscellaneous submission grappling" when I was in San Diego over last summer. A guy in escondido basically had an open mat in his house - he was a bjj blue belt who'd also learned some catchwrestling at various Cecchine seminars. I rolled with him, a couple other bjj guys, and a guy who'd trained shoot wrestling somewhere in japan.
Here's what I learned about myself: I'm not very good with the closed guard. My guard is easily passed and not very dangerous. Open guard I mostly use to shove the guy away and try to get up.
Top position, on the other hand, I'm very good at. I have good balance, an instinctive understanding of when and where to post, and by the end of the summer, I could hold side mount on the blue belt (a guy that weighed around 210 lbs.) for as long as I wanted and even try a couple of submissions from there. My full mount was less stable, but still pretty good. Long story short, I prefer the top position and hate being on my back.
Now I'm up in LA, and until recently was a dead broke college student. I've made a few budgetary adjustments and can afford to go to some kind of sub grappling school. What I want is one that will put more emphasis on the "wrestling" end and less on the "grappling" end. Problem is, I understand many wrestling-style schools kind of pretend the guard doesn't exist, and never learn how to deal with it, and as a result, get subbed from the bottom a lot against a good bjj stylist.
I'd like to find a school that doesn't put as much emphasis on guard as bjj, since the top comes more naturally to me, and since I'll be doing some freestyle wrestling as well (next semester my schedule opens up and I can train with the wrestling club at USC. Oh, and I live in LA. Can someone help me out?
Here's what I learned about myself: I'm not very good with the closed guard. My guard is easily passed and not very dangerous. Open guard I mostly use to shove the guy away and try to get up.
Top position, on the other hand, I'm very good at. I have good balance, an instinctive understanding of when and where to post, and by the end of the summer, I could hold side mount on the blue belt (a guy that weighed around 210 lbs.) for as long as I wanted and even try a couple of submissions from there. My full mount was less stable, but still pretty good. Long story short, I prefer the top position and hate being on my back.
Now I'm up in LA, and until recently was a dead broke college student. I've made a few budgetary adjustments and can afford to go to some kind of sub grappling school. What I want is one that will put more emphasis on the "wrestling" end and less on the "grappling" end. Problem is, I understand many wrestling-style schools kind of pretend the guard doesn't exist, and never learn how to deal with it, and as a result, get subbed from the bottom a lot against a good bjj stylist.
I'd like to find a school that doesn't put as much emphasis on guard as bjj, since the top comes more naturally to me, and since I'll be doing some freestyle wrestling as well (next semester my schedule opens up and I can train with the wrestling club at USC. Oh, and I live in LA. Can someone help me out?