Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Half Guard Bafflement

11/13 - Morning

I really wanted to do the no gi class last night, but my neck objected. It felt better today, but not 100%. I should take the rest of the week off and let it heal completely. However, it feels well enough that I don't think rolling is going to make it worse.

Relatively small class today. Went over half-guard sweeps if opponent is in reverse kesa gatame. I was understanding it fairly well until near the end and tried to over-think it. I thought I was being clever by tying another technique in and ended up confusing the hell out of myself. Sad for me. I didn't take notes at the end of class, but I should have.

Rolls with Todd (twice), Jason (twice), Jeremy, James. I was leery of my neck, but aside from some warning signals it sent every now and again, it was fine. After a couple of rolls it felt pretty limber and didn't bother me at all. Seemed like Todd was letting me work back mount positions today. I set up a chain of submissions from back-mount, mount, guard that I was particularly happy with. Jason used DLR to take my back the exact same way at least three times in a row. I kept thinking my strategy was sound but not to much. Once I really started controlling one of his legs I had a bit more success. He still pretty much tooled me.

I kept Jeremy in my guard for most of the roll. I felt bad about not initiating more, but he's still looking for his grappling cardio so it probably wasn't such a bad thing. Also, he might have close to 100lb on me, so I wasn't about to risk too much and end up under him.

Wasn't expecting much with my roll with James since I didn't feel like I was really on today, but it still turned out to be pretty fun. I think I legitimately escaped a calf slicer, which had me damned near ecstatic. He was applying it slowly though, so not sure how legit it was. I don't remember much else, other than enjoying the roll.

This was probably the last roll for my Koral. At least the pants. :(

No comments: