trianglegrrl
Team Estrogen
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« Reply #19 on: July 12, 2009, 07:57:35 AM » |
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This happens to me all of the time, and is fresh in my mind because yesterday I visited another academy and rolled with two guys. Both of them had less grappling experience than me. One of them outweighs me by 50 lbs. The other was literally twice my body weight (I'm 150 and he was over 300).
With the (relatively) smaller guy I found it easier to disrupt his base from half guard bottom. I'm smaller, faster and more flexible, so I got a knee-in half guard, created enough space to get a deep half guard, Glover half guard'ed him, came out underneath, took his back, and switched to an armbar when I couldn't get the choke.
The bigger guy was a lot harder to deal with. I couldn't disrupt his base in any way, so I got to closed guard (where "closed" kind of means "open", because he was so big that I couldn't cross my ankles behind his back), tried an omoplata, switched to a triangle and got my ankles crossed behind his head, and then held on for dear life and armbarred him when he stood to get out of the triangle.
The bits of wisdom I would share as someone who is smaller than most and weaker than almost all of her male training partners are these. Note that they are exactly what your instructor has always told you about technique, so I'm just reiterating the key points specifically for use against a bigger opponent:
1. Use momentum to create force and space. Swing your legs, frame and bridge, etc.
2. Don't try to push them. Hold them in place and move yourself.
3. Be very aware of where your centre of mass is in relation to theirs, and try not to let them get to a position where they can disrupt your base by being under it and taking away one or more of your points of connection to the ground.
4. You're probably going to be faster than a bigger opponent, so use that. If you're significantly smaller, it's easy for them to lay their weight on top of you, but harder for them to take away space to keep you from moving. So when they give you space, take it RIGHT THEN.
5. If you're on top, it's unlikely that you'll be able to use brute force to hold them in place, so be ready to move. If they start to move, adjust. Don't waste time trying to hold something if you feel like you are losing your base.
6. On top, keep your centre of mass somewhere close to theirs, but not past the centre line of their body (for side control, for example, you want your weight as close to the centre line of their body as possible, but just on the near side of that line, with your force driving at a diagonal through the centre line). This allows you to move and makes it harder for them to disrupt your base.
7. There are certain pressure points that are very uncomfortable and require relatively little effort to exert a lot of control. A great example of this is the Russian Crush from N-S. I don't know if there's another name for it, but I learned it from two of Roy Harris' black belts and it's a brutal pec-crushing setup for a N-S kimura/reverse triangle/scissor choke series. I've been using it in the academy on guys who outweigh me by 50 lbs or more, and it hurts so much that some of them even tap from it.
One good thing about being a girl in jiu-jitsu is that you're forced to focus on these details from the very beginning and not rely on pure strength. The reality is that men are stronger, so you're never going to out-strength them. The smaller guys (say, under 140 lbs) probably have the same experience because almost all of their training partners are bigger.
I dunno if that was useful or if I should even be contributing to this thread, but this has been my experience and I thought I'd share.
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