Flow Rolls and a Milestone

7/6 - Downtown

Flow rolling is a running joke at our school. I'd like to think that I'm decent at it, but sometimes it's a cluster if my partner isn't moving enough and I have a brain fart about what to do next instead of just moving into the next thing. Only four of us on Saturday. It was good group to flow roll with, and I didn't feel like I was stuck during the flow portions at all. We rotated through everyone 2-3 times with flow rolling, then James showed us a sweep from DLR, then back to regular rolling. We got a solid hour of rolling in, which I was very happy with b/c the rest of the week had been heavy on technique.

During the flow rolls I kept trying for a tripod sweep on James b/c I couldn't seem to think of anything else to do. I even commented on it at one point that it was the only sweep that I knew. It's not true, but I can't ever get DLR sweeps to work when my opponent is standing, and he rarely had both legs forward. Anyway, toward the end of our second set of rolls (not flow rolls), it occurred to me that I should try the double-ankle sweep. Apparently I had lulled him into complacency with my failed tripod sweep attempts, because he was not expecting the double-ankle and went down on his butt hard. It surprised the hell out of both of us. I was so shocked that I didn't come up to finish the sweep and thought he must be hurt. He laughed and said it was well done and had really surprised him.

I'm pretty happy with my first legitimate sweep of my coach. :)

When rolling with Fernando (white) I found myself holding down his near side-leg without thinking about it as I was passing. I don't remember how I initiated the pass...might have been a scramble. In any case, as I was passing to side-control, I was controlling the near side leg automatically. Having my body do a small thing like that without a great deal of conscious thought is very gratifying. It was nice to see evidence of progress since lately I've been feeling like I'm stalling out.