Takedowns

1/14 - Downtown

Didn't do squat on 1/13 to let my body recover, but really, I should have taken this day off as well. Body not completely rehydrated, but oh well.

Come into class and James says "circuit training!" with a gleam in his eye. Awesome. We did three or four rounds of battling ropes, sit-ups with a ball, zercher squats and sit-outs.

After that it was takedowns, my least favorite. This time it was a judo type takedown...basically get opponent's arm behind your head in fireman's type carry, get into their grill, lay down to the side and over the top they go. We did this quite a few times, with a variation of wrapping their wrist with your gi if they have a hold of your lapel. High potential for injury though so not something I'm likely to try.

Moved into a flow from the takedown to kesa gatame to trapping their arm by stepping over their head and using your hips to move their near side arm to the other side of their head. Their arm is now wrapped around the front of their face, almost as if they are choking themselves. Keeping ahold of that with one of your hands, you can move into a variety of positions/submissions. Head/arm choke, move to s-mount and choke or arm-bar, or back-mount and RNC.

My body was feeling fatigued, but the 30min roll still felt like cake, comparatively. Rolled with Matt, Dennis, Kyle x 2 and Julio. Had a really great back and forth roll with Dennis. Lots of transitions and I felt like I was keeping my hips where they needed to be and was staying tight when it was appropriate. Julio was interested in catch and release and at one point showed me a nice transition from pulling guard to armbar BUT was using the leg opposite of where I had sleeve control. James made it very clear that in order to not allow your opponent to get points for a takedown, the side where you have sleeve control is where your leg goes. So I'm not sure I want to buck that advice on the off chance that I'll get an arm-bar on the takedown. Something to keep in mind though.