Pulling Guard

1/7 - Downtown

Class started late b/c guys were trickling in, then we took a group picture in the snow. Probably started a half hour late, so we did warm-ups, drilled the guard pulls and then rolled. We must have rolled for close to 40min, b/c I counted 7 rolls.

First was with Sarah, and she got to side-control on me a couple of times. She's gotten quite a bit better at passing my guard. Then Matt, which I did pretty well with. Tried to stay tight and close during scrambles. Then James, who let me work a bit, including getting out of an arm-bar. Then Nando, who really controlled the distance with his open guard. Couldn't kill his legs or do much of anything. I think he finally swept me, then we ended up in a bit of scramble. Chris, who again is so solid with his side-control and keeping his knees tight to the hips. Julio and I went, and he ended up helping me with arm-bar from guard, and switching to the other arm if they pull out the first one you go for. I was tired enough that I forgot how to do a very basic arm-bar from guard. Embarrassing. Last roll was with Nate, a blue I haven't seen before. Seems a bit like a wrestler type, although he allowed a fair amount of space that I was able to use to stay out of really bad positions.

Overall, I was very pleased with the rolls today. I didn't do anything exceptionally well, but my hip movement was much better than it has been. I still gave up my back a couple of times. I used one of the basic back-mount escapes successfully and ended up in top side-control, which was awesome.

I was happy to be done rolling at the end, but I felt fine. I think my rolling cardio at least has improved over the past couple of months. It feels like I've been training here for a long time, but I have to keep reminding myself that it's only been two months. Need to manage expectations accordingly.