Skip to main content

About Me

My photo
my many faces
My name is Romeo Barnes. I'm an author and a BJJ black belt with cerebral palsy. This blog is about my life balancing existence in two worlds. My latest book, My World is now available Amazon.com. Glad you're here, enjoy the journey.

my discovery

In the entry "Balance" I stated that I hate passing guard, especially guards that extend me or attack my balance outright. Butterfly guard is one of those guards that attacks your balance outright. When you face a guy with a good butterfly guard it's pretty horrible becuause you're flying across the room at his will. It's like being on a rollercoaster full of loops that keeps crashing. The crash being you ending up on the bottom usually in mount; so naturally, it gave me issues.

Well, thursday I didn't train so I mentally review some DVDs I had seen recently, something I always do when I'm not training(I usually watch said DVD but I didn't really feel like looking so yea) and the match between Marcelo Garcia and Pablo Popavitch crossed mind as we trained butterfly sweeps in Wensday's class and Marcelo played butterfly most of the match then, I remembered something one of the Shawn's said(don't remember if it was Williams or Flannery) they were commenting on how good Marcelo's butterfly is(and it's damn good) Shawn commented that Marcelo uses his butterfly guard to set up arm drags a lot or he sometimes uses said armdrags to set up a back take or get underneath his opponent for sweep. "It's like seated wrestling" was the statement. And then it hit me that's absolutely 100% true.
What do college wrestlers do after they clear the hands? Armdrag
What does the armdrag lead to? Takedown/Back take
What does the butterfly guy do after he clears the hands? Armdrag
What does the armdrag lead to? Sweep/ Back take

After all a sweep is nothing more than an inverted takedown.
Even the defenses are the same.
Even if he's in on my legs against the cage he can't take me down if I lower my base(squat)
The butterfly player can't sweep me either from there you work for underhooks to improve your position.
If I keep his hips back he can't get in to take me down.

You're saying how do we control the butterfly player's hips, Romeo? He's sitting down. The answer is control his feet. If I'm dragging feet across my body his hips become useless because he can't get his hooks inside.

If he gets his hooks inside you then put his back on the floor(using your head) and glue his feet to his butt. That position is the same as wrapping your arms around the leg for a single leg without having your hips underneath you.

Now that I understand the principles of the position it's time to drill the techniques which will nullify the offense while creating passing oppurtunities for me.

I'm going to drill my weaknesses and you should too.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Why Physical Therapy sucks

Years ago, maybe 2010 I don't actually remember, I posted a short post here called "Why." That post was about why I prefer to fight able-bodied opponents as opposed to fighting opponents with disabilities. To sum the post up, I do it to prove a point. In that post I mentioned that Physical Therapy(which will be referenced as PT for this post) sucks. This post will explain why. Let me preface by saying PT isn't bad and is in fact a necessary medical service as it's great for pre-surgery, post-surgery, and injury situations. That doesn't change the fact that PT is grossly misused. That's because PTs attempt to make your body work "normally"; what they should do is enhance the way your body already functions. Let's assume you're a cerebral palsy patient who has never walked on your own power and you use a wheelchair for mobility. Instead of putting you in a walker or on crutches and "going walking" around the room. They should p

Guest Blog- A new direction for 2011

This post is for all the aspiring writers out there. It was written by my friend and fellow author Kandie Delley. Kandie is the author of Curtains: The Collective Works, which is available on her website www.kandiedelley.com Although getting a book published is definitely a dream come true, I have to say, I'm extremely excited about this turning point in my literary career. In 2011, I will move into fiction with screenwriting and novel writing- a move that has been challenging yet fulfilling. Novel writing allows you to dive into your characters: the back story, the story arc, plots, and subplots -grabbing details about their surroundings and expressions- showing versus telling. It means having narrative that is just as engaging as the dialogue. Creative Writers also need to learn to write tight. On the other hand, screenwriting affords me the chance to focus on the action, the urgency of dialogue and the transformation of words from script to screen; taking storytelling to a new