Saturday Class and Women's Open Mat

Class

Three and a half hours of continuous jiu jitsu. My body hates me right now.

Technique in class was attacking submissions from half guard. Or more accurately, passing half guard and then attacking submissions. Not surprisingly, attendance was higher than normal. Funny how guys that you haven't seen in months (literally) come out of the woodwork when they know that a women's open mat is going to follow. Hmpf.

Anyway, the technique portion was good. I paired up with one of the visiting women for drilling. She was nice. I think she drove over from Seattle just for the open mat, which is quite a bit of dedication for an open mat. She was a four stripe white belt, but I think she had recently taken some time off from classes so was a bit rusty. 

Rolls with Josefina (?), Zack, Manny, Sol and Nando. Another roll with Nando after class. Nando and I had fun rolls both times. He said that my game has jumped up a notch lately, which was nice to hear. He was trying to pass my guard and work a top game. I worked a weak quarter guard game but was able to create solid enough frames that I could fend him off and regain a better guard. 

Zack and I had a pretty back and forth roll. I got my inverted triangle from bottom side, couldn't finish but did use it to work my way to the top. 

Manny passed my guard and I got that stupid inverted triangle AGAIN and came very close to finishing him. He said he was close to passing out, but I didn't know how close it was and didn't want to hang on to a submission past the point of viability. I let it go and moved onto something else. When I finally figure that stupid thing out, everyone better be ready. :p

Sol tried to pass my guard but I had decent frames. I can't remember if he eventually got past or not. We reset at one point and I tried to pass his guard. He had excellent grips and was trying to do his favorite sweep of late but I was able to stave it off until the end. I am not doing a good job of managing grips though, especially with him. 

Open Mat

We had 8 women for the open mat. I think I had two rolls with Rachael in gi, several rolls with her in no gi, several no gi rolls with Katie, Jenny, Kim, and Josefina. Only one roll each with Joyce and Stephanie. 

I was most challenged by Rachael. For one of the rounds, it took me most of the 5min round to pass her guard. What a grind. Our no gi rolls were pretty even affairs. 

Jenny and I had really fun rolls. She is small and very, very scrambly. She can get to your back in a hot second if you aren't careful. We had a fair amount of back and forth. She is entering a bench press competition and her upper body is strong as hell. I was being cautious about not using my size to my advantage (I have about 40lb on her), but I'm not that much stronger than her. I stayed out of her guillotines, and she was able to neutralize my guard game. 

Great day of jiu jitsu. I'm trying like mad to rehydrate before tomorrow's advanced class. Not really looking forward to that.