Fri Morn Deep Half

Woke up feeling like I'd been hit by a truck. Doing the morning and night classes on Wed, followed by a night class on Thursday and knowing that I had class this morning and seminar tonight... damn.

A cup of coffee more or less got me moving in the direction of work. Felt decent by the start of class. Walter showed us an entry to deep half from seated guard. Will be curious to try it outside of drilling, b/c it presupposes that someone is kneeling in front of your seated guard. Got a lot of reps on this one and started to feel pretty good with it. 

After that it was a deep half to turtle attack, and then a nice choke from turtle. Good stuff, new, easy to digest. Awesome.

KOTH, win by submission only. My first roll was with Quito, who's a big white belt. I KNEW better than to try to triangle him, but I went against my brain and tried it anyway. Predictable fail, and got passed for my trouble. It was all downhill from there, as his weight was too much of a match for my technique. I managed to get to 93 guard and tried to dive in and sweep him to the other side, but couldn't load him up nor I could I get control of his leg. I can't remember exactly what happened, but it ended up with me being arm-barred. Bah. Credit to him, he's really developed his technique and uses his weight in the right way. 

So back to the wall, and back to feeling like shit about KOTH. A relatively short wait and then I rolled with Ryan. It felt like we were rolling forever, but it was probably closer to 20-25min. He was pushing the pace in the first half, and his top control was good as he kept moving around instead of hanging out in one spot to allow me to work an escape. I had to tell myself to chill out several times and not get discouraged about being housed by a(nother) white belt.

He had a lot of advantageous positions and some submission attempts, and came fairly close on having an omoplata set-up. He had a triangle briefly set but I was able to posture up and he bailed on it to try an arm-bar instead, which got me out of his closed guard.

At one point when I had regained a semblance of guard, I got a loop choke that wasn't amazing but decent. He jumped over the top of me and I somehow ended up in mount. I very, very briefly felt like a rockstar for applying a loop choke that accomplished something.
 
I eventually got to his back and fought for any sort of purchase under his chin and finally got the grip I needed for a bow and arrow. He got one of his legs free, but that was fine as it helped me transition for the finish. I was worried that my arm was going to burn out before he tapped, but he finally and thankfully tapped. 

I was proud of not getting too down on myself and just giving up on the roll. 

After that Tyrone came over and mentioned that he was mildly concerned that he might get sick (puke) b/c he'd been going so hard. I looked him with some alarm and suggested that we flow instead. He happily agreed, but we only had a few minutes before the end of class.

Walter had a lot to say (there is something to the saying of the darker the belt, the more you talk), but I do love listening to him. After he wrapped it up, Kelly got a red sash on his belt as an instructor. Well deserved.

Pounding water, bananas, electrolytes. Rinse, repeat.