Arm-Wrap to Victory

Today was getting an arm-wrap, both for gi and no gi. From there, transitioning to an omoplata or triangle. Or, create some space and do a modified butterfly sweep or hit another triangle. Triangles....triangles everywhere!

Relatively small class today. I was working with Van, and her flexibility slays me. We did a couple of extra scenarios with the triangle, one of them being an americana if they try to keep your hips down with their trapped arm. I could not finish the americana to save my life. James came over to fix my angles, and he could barely finish it on her. He had to hip up as high as he could go and rotate her forearm in a nauseating amount. I've never been able to finish an omoplata on her. It's absurd.

Rolls with Van, Jason, Wayne and James. Van's knee slice pass is good, but my defense was just a touch better today. I was able to get my arm under the leg she was trying to pass and use that to keep her from getting through. At one point, I trapped one of her sleeves next to her opposite leg (her left wrist to her right leg) and swept her to the side. I've never executed that sweep before, even though we've drilled it a few times. I was pretty pleased with that...not so much that I executed a sweep, but that there was something in the back of my head that I never use that I attempted at the right opportunity.

Jason and I had another really good roll. He had a suffocating top side-control. I kept trying to weasel out and weasel out, and finally I got his far arm trapped and went for my high-frequency-zero-success inverted triangle. This one was apparently pretty close, as he rolled and I had him mount. But I was facing away from him at this point, and once again had no idea how to get the angle I needed. Once I was in that reverse mount I didn't think my legs were in good position anyway, so I let it go and tried to get a kimura from technical mount. He told me after the roll that he was close to tapping from the triangle and that it was tight through the transition to mount.

I don't remember much about my roll with Wayne. He got me with a footlock b/c I lasso'd his arm like an idiot with a spiderguard variation but didn't do anything else with it. I got him later on with a triangle or something. It was driving me crazy to roll with him b/c he had spilled coffee on his gi (a brand new white gi, what a shame), and having a strong odor of coffee mid-roll was just too much for my brain to handle.

James finally quick ducking me and we had a roll. I say that in jest, as the past couple of classes he'd come over to my square like it was about to go down, and then he'd call an end to class. Today we actually rolled, and I did moderately ok. He bolo'd me at least twice. At one point he partially had my back and was sinking in a choke, but I was able to defend and escape. I think it was a legitimate escape, as he really seemed to try to finish the choke.

Several teammates are going to the sub only tournament in Oregon next weekend and I'm bummed that I'm not going. I don't miss the stress of competing, but I do miss the camaraderie and overcoming personal fears. Hopefully I'll have money to compete next year.