Battle Ball

I didn't think I was going to do night class, but Rachael texted me this afternoon and said that she was going to be at class a half hour early, so if I wanted to get in some rolling...

So yeah, I went to class. My attitude is much better and it's making a big difference during rolls. Rachael and I had a 20min continuous roll that started off trying to be a flow roll but stalled and then ended up being a more serious roll. I'm conscious every time of not moving her knee laterally and trying to not mess with it when it's planted. We had a good back and forth exchange. She was getting a high lapel grip that I didn't break for a long time b/c we were "flowing". 

The warm-up for class was two teams sprinting to the other end of the room, grabbing a tennis ball, bringing back so the next person could run down and do the same thing. I was the first to go from our team, and I was so excited about getting a fast start and I'm so unused to sprinting that I fell right on my face a couple of yards into it. I managed to turn it into a front roll, but my god the lack of grace was astonishing.

Class consisted of the same escapes from reverse kesa gatame that we went over a couple of days ago (Monday?). I was happy to work something that I'd seen recently, as my mind was quickly turning into mush.

KOTH with wins consisting of a submission or mount. This was going to be a good test if my attitude really was adjusted or not. I was one of the first ones down, and Rachael came over first. I'm not sure exactly how it went down, but I passed her guard and mounted in relatively short order. Then it was big Jesse. We battled it out for awhile, probably close to 15min or so. I tried a triangle at one point and as soon as I did I face-palmed internally. WHY would I try to triangle someone that big? Dumb. He had top position quite a bit, but I was doing a decent job of preventing mount and submissions. James was encouraging me to get up on my elbow at one point to hip escape from side control and I was like, dude, there's 220lb flattening me right now. How do you expect me to get up on my elbow? I wish I could have stopped the roll to ask him. In any case, Jesse had top position for too long and eventually got a kimura. I wasn't pleased with myself.

After that was a roll with Savannah, which I knew was going to be tough. It's rare for either one of us to get mount or a submission, and today was no exception. She passed my guard, I fended off mount attempts and at one point was able to get her back. I had both hooks in and tried for a modified bow and arrow and then a wrist lock when I had her back in a sortof turtle position. It was a no go. At one point she kneed me in the mouth, which didn't hurt but it did kick me into a second gear that I haven't been in awhile. I need to find that gear more often, as it really makes me move instead of being so passive all the time.

Time was called while we were still rolling. I should be relatively happy with that performance, as I was able to spend a fair amount of time on the mat.

After rolling we did a game of battle ball. Everyone is divided up into two teams and are facing each other from the ends of the room. A medicine ball is in the center of the room, and from your knees you and your team try to move the ball to the other side of the room. The other team got really, really close, but we managed to yank it out right before they passed our goal line and get a score of our own. I was in the bottom of the scrum for a piece of time and I had at least one of the big dudes and someone driving into my chest and I damn near tapped. (Tapping is allowed if you're getting pummeled on the bottom)