Walter: Part I

11/21

I was almost late for class b/c I was in a catatonic state on the couch and let the time get away from me. Made it just in time though. I was expecting a ginormous class but it was pretty reasonable with about ~15 ppl.

Relatively quick warm-up, then Walter showed arm-bar from guard variations. I like them quite a bit, as it works well for my game and it keeps their arm ridiculously tight to your body. I could not for the life of me get it with any degree of smoothness from my right side though. It was the epitome of "dumb side". We also did a type of sit-out from butterfly guard that sets up for an omoplata. I liked this one a lot too.

Walter and James were rolling while the rest of us did KOTH. I was part of the first group down, and I had Sarah first. I got off to a good start and finished with an arm-bar from mount. After that was Savannah. She is very, very difficult to finish with a submission, but after multiple attempts I finally finished a triangle. Then Michael. I was doing ok, until we ended up in a weird 50/50 situation. He started going for foot locks, abandoned that and then put on a toe hold. Whaaaaaaaaaaa? We normally don't adhere to competition rules as far as which submissions are allowed at a particular belt level, but this took me by surprise. So off I go, and a short while later I'm paired up with Grant. He had me in one terrible position after another, close to submitting me several times. Time was called before a submission was obtained, so I gave myself a moral victory for surviving. He does a fantastic job of getting into positions and he has an idea of what to do for the finish but isn't 100% sure. He's definitely going to deserve his blue belt on Saturday.

After class I chatted with Sarah a bit, and then Nando asked me to roll. I had the impression that he wanted to show off to Walter, and sure enough, he went 100mph. In no time I was back in Terrible Position Land and trying to fend off chokes, kimuras, arm-bars.... Again, he was close with several but I was able to defend. I finally kicked up my intensity near the end and battled to a neutral position. The one thing I have going for me is that my grappling cardio is very, very good. He was exhausted, partly due to cardio and partly b/c he doesn't pace himself.

Body is sore tonight, apparently I did something to piss off my hip flexors. Looking forward to a bit of a break next week with the holiday.