Deep Half

The heat in the gym has been fixed, much to everyone's joy. It was 61F when we started class.

I was feeling a tiny bit nauseous when class started for no apparent reason. Fortunately it went away once we got into the techniques.

Worked deep half sweeps. One was simply continuing through the roll until you come up on top. Trap their far leg and dump them down. Another was taking them into deep half, elevating their leg, spinning into them and then standing up with their leg to complete the sweep. Finally single leg X, where you pull their leg across, get sleeve control, dump them down and move into side control. I thought I'd struggle mightily with the last one since X usually leaves me befuddled, but I did ok.

Rolls with Sarah, Sol, C (twice), Julio and Jason. I immediately tried out the deep half techniques on Sarah and I think I had success with the first one. Also tried to get the single leg X to work but couldn't finish it. She was trying to work them too, which made for an especially good roll. Nothing quite beats trying out recently drilled techniques (and their counters). Her legs got twisted up without me knowing and as I was trying to pass her guard she tapped b/c they were too cattywompus. I also got a kimura from guard at some point.

Sol passed my guard and that was that. About 4.5min of him crushing me from top side control. He tried some sneaky gi chokes but I was able to defend ok. He wasn't giving his all, and in fact looked a little green around the gills.

C and I had great rolls both times. In the past couple of weeks I've felt like he's been spazzing out in a sortof controlled way during our rolls, which generally doesn't bode well for me. Spaz may not be the right word. Explosive? In any case, I was able to match his intensity better today. At times I tried to slow him down, and at others I scrambled to avoid bad positions. He liked our rolls as well.

Julio was going easy today, not sure why. Usually he crushes the life out of me, at least for the first four minutes of the roll. Today he was chillin, letting me work my guard game, sweeps and passes. Totally uncharacteristic. He had a couple of subs that I'm not sure if I legitimately escaped or if he was going easy there too.

Jason had top position most of the time, but I did at least stay out of awful positions for the most part. I tried for an ezekiel from top half. Don't know how smart that is (didn't work), but thought I'd give it a go.

Overall, my game felt much better than it has over the past couple of weeks. It felt like everyone had their foot off the gas today though. Can't tell if it's me or them. Fake it til you make it, right? In any case, it's a good start to a tournament week.