You Can't Shatter Dreams

The same cannot be said for my Pan Ams shadowbox. Apparently they were playing a version of dodgeball in the kids classes and an errant throw resulted my box crashing to the mat. The medals are intact, which is what I'm most concerned with. And none of the kids were hurt. Of course. :p

We had a rack of purple belts on the mat today. Good to see guys in the daytime class that you normally don't see. We did what seemed to be a ridiculously difficult entry into knee-bars, a sweep and deep half. Jason and I were working together, which was apt for two of the longer limbed people to work together on something that required a great deal of body scrunching. It was tough to figure out the angle for the knee bar b/c it's done strictly with your legs and you can't see what you're doing. I had a hard time getting a feel for where his leg was in relation to mine, so I wasn't sure if it was bent or straight. I liked entry to deep half once I got the hang of it. The sweep from the knee bar was somewhat confusing as it relied on a lot of switching around which hip you were sitting on.

Rolls with Jason (b), Antone, Wayne, Manny and Jason (p). I think this is the first time I've rolled with blue belt Jason and purple belt Jason in the same class. When blue belt Jason is promoted I'll probably have to use initials or some other common sense way of differentiating between the two. I did pretty awful against Jason (b) today. I continued with my pass-to-the-right strategy, but it did me zero good. I realized as I was walking back to work that I'm half-assed committed to the pass. I step in, and then I freeze b/c they get grips and I'm caught in no-man's land. If I'm going to step in, I need to commit and keep moving forward. It might not be the right strategy, but I need to do something different.

Antone wanted to do a flow roll today b/c he had a bunch of achy parts. It was a fun roll, as neither of us were really going for subs. Just rolling around in bolos and who knows what else.

First time I've rolled with Wayne in at least 3-4 months if not longer. I did well, and was even able to secure and finish a triangle.

Manny and I had a good roll. He was generally in better positions, but I did well in transitions and kept myself out of really bad positions. Neither of us got a sub. I have a habit of threatening a cross choke from bottom side...which has never worked, but I find myself doing it anyways. Not sure how or why it happens. Sometimes I switch my hands to the baseball bat choke, but I've never been able to finish that one either.

The roll with Jason (p) was the usual **** show. At least he didn't go for toe holds today. He was content to get to side control and then mount attacks on my far-side arm. He got me with arm-bars and kimuras several times. I did a slightly better job of defending in the latter half of the roll.