FABULOUS

Biggish morning class, around 12 people.  Spring Break, apparently.

Similar to Monday, we went over gi d'arces, this time from guard. Collar choke with bottom of lapel, gi d'arce, arm-drag if they defend with the "telephone" choke defense and an arm-drag to arm-bar. I felt good with all of the techniques and felt like I belonged in my rank. Drilled with Sarah, who's an awesome drill partner.

During the demo of taking the back, James showed the motion w/o a demo dummy and as he pushed his chest forward and planted his hand on the mat, he said "FABULOUS" in a high-pitched voice to give the notion of a model preening for the camera. He got some teasing about thinking that in his head each time he arm-drags, and I daresay that my arm-drag technique might improve for this very reason.

Rolls with Sarah, Jason (p), Jason (b) and Nate. I had to sit out the last round b/c I didn't grab a partner fast enough and even though there were even numbers, one of the older guys sat out.

I did well with Sarah, though she wasn't feeling so hot after a late night. Was able to pass and got a choke from half guard that I've tried a couple of times before to no avail.

Jason (p) decided to run all of his leg-lock nonsense on me. All kinds of weird entries to knee-bars and calf slicers. Each roll starts off about the same. He lets me get grips and pull him into my guard, and then he shuts down my attempts to sweep. When I invariably do something wrong, he uses the opportunity to pass and then submit me. If he starts in guard, he immediately sweeps me, passes and submits. I should be learning something from this, but apparently I'm not.

Had a surprisingly good roll with Jason (b). Passed his guard twice, which is unheard of for me. He was able to get top position too, but I did a fairly good job of not letting my knees get collapsed.

Nate and I had a pretty back and forth roll. He passed my guard and I came close to taking his back but only ended up regaining guard. He did a rolling back attack towards the end, but I managed to fend off the hooks.