Wednesday Morning

12/4

James asked what we wanted to work on, and I made the mistake of requesting that we work on the same 93 guard sweeps that we did on Monday. Pfffft. I usually don't bother piping in with a request b/c he never does it anyway, but I thought I had a chance today. It's a running joke, and he doesn't shoot me down on purpose, but whatever I want to work on is seemingly never a good option. So we did top side-control submissions instead b/c Parker is competing in a couple of weeks and wanted to work on that. Sooo....

Cross choke using bottom of skirt, gi d'arce, stepping over their head and going to a straight arm-bar and then moving into a more guard like position to either continue attacking the straight arm-bar, kimura, wrist lock or omoplata. Felt pretty good about all of the techniques. Good detail when switching from top side-control to kesa gatame. Keep your weight on them while switching your hips and scoop into them as you bring the leg through.

Rolls with Sarah, Dennis, James, Parker. I spent the entirety of the 5min round trying to pass Sarah's guard. I'd get close with the pass and then she'd reguard. We didn't do too much of our 50/50 nonsense, but it was a bit of a stalemate as she couldn't quite get the sweep and I couldn't get the pass. I should have tried mixing it up by passing to the right instead of the left.

Dennis and I had a good back and forth roll. I vainly tried for the inverted triangle again, but he had a foot on my near side bicep so I could move around enough to set it proper. I did well with passes and did so-so with maintaining top positions.

I think James was going for a waiter-sweep type of movement when I decided to crowd his head and not let my weight get near his hips. Thought I might be able to lock up a triangle variation but was gi d'arced for my trouble. I fended it off for awhile but he was finally able to get it under my chin for the finish. That is a wicked hard choke to escape.

I did well against Parker. Didn't get a sub but controlled the positions and threatened triangles, arm-bars and was working an omoplata when the buzzer went off. He was able to pass to top-side, but I was able to reguard and harass him with my guard.

After class Russ tackled me and we rolled for about 15min. He came in at the end of class so I figured he wanted to flow. I kinda sorta flowed at the beginning, but I was strangely reluctant to let him have a good position. I did a poor job of flowing. I did let him get all of his grips set up for passes, and then I'd stuff the pass as best I could. I took his back several times, though again, I think he was more into a flow roll than going all out.

I've slightly improved my open DLR/RDLR guard by ensuring that I'm controlling a leg in addition to a sleeve/lapel. James still slices right through it though.