Lapel Guard for N00bs

Lapel guard ain't easy. 

It's even more difficult when you barely get to drill it yourself, b/c you're spending all your time coaching a 3 week white belt through the move. I'm being a bit selfish and squirrely, I know. It's partially due to the fact that anytime I've gotten on the internet today, I was met by the resounding notes of immaturity, stubbornness and outright hostility. I have GOT to get myself off the boards when sensitive topics arise.

Anyway, back to lapel guard. I pulled Rachael aside after class and was able to drill the techniques. We rolled before class, which was good b/c it was KOTH night. :( I started off with a visiting purple belt, Mark. I thought it was going to be a kindof fun roll until he knee-barred me. Mental note: spend some damn time on leg-lock defense. 

Rolled with Sam, who to his credit, has great movement even though he trains once a month (if that). He transitioned from a north/south choke into a beautiful arm-bar as I tried to defend the choke. I'm not sure how it happened, but it was super slick.  

Rolled with a guy who's name I don't know a couple of times. He's very chatty, but even so I was able to take his back once (rear mount or sub resulted in the match being over) and finished with a triangle another time. Rolled with Cory T who passed my guard after a failed loop choke on my end (sad face) and went to some crazy near-side americana something or other that almost made me tap. Truth be told, if it wasn't a white belt and/or we weren't right in front of the line of people waiting to roll, I probably would have tapped. But pride got in the way and I somehow kept my shoulder from breaking, got into a slightly better position and then finished an anaconda from the bottom. First time I've ever finished an anaconda while rolling.

Nando and Rachael pressed me again about Master World's. Money.........

I Said No MMA!

I had to take a few days off b/c my body wasn't feeling quite right. I felt dead tired after Saturday's classes and was doing good just to drag myself out to the yard. Had a slight headache and felt really off, like my brain wasn't fully engaged with the rest of my body. Very mono-ish. Felt somewhat better Monday, but still off. Decided against classes.

The headache wannabe is still hanging around, but otherwise my body felt good enough to roll. I was chilling on the mats before class just minding my own business when James asked me to warm up the class. Slacker. 

Guard breaks for today. Nothing new, but a lot of details that I miss. It was a little tricky working with Kayla b/c her legs are much shorter than mine, so it takes very little for some techniques to work. I wasn't as smooth as I would have liked, and kept forgetting to pressure the back of the leg that wasn't pinned the mat when setting up the knee cut. Also kept forgetting to trap the pinned leg with my far leg as I was finishing the knee cut. 

Rolled with Kayla no gi the entire time, as James wanted her to work guard passing for an upcoming fight. At one point she lightly punched my sternum and I told her that I wasn't here for that MMA nonsense (she knew I was joking). On the last round, James had me start in guard with my head against a padded corner of the room so that she could feel how the cage could help her pass. It was miserable trying to get my hips around with my head backed into a corner. :( I'm definitely not doing MMA shit.

Body felt pretty good after class, so going to drink a crap ton of water and hit the night class too.

Great news...no formal classes this weekend, so I'm off the hook for Fundies and get to watch college football all day!

Fundies and Sat Class

Today was back-mount escapes. Went pretty well. Felt like I might have let the drilling portion go too long, but people had questions, so....  Overall it went well, I felt like everyone was pretty engaged.

After class Chris asked me to flow roll to try out his back. It seemed to go well, the only thing that bothered him was when I was working standing passes. It'll be great to have him back on the mat if his back allows it.

For the noon class, James went over a spiderguard sweep variation that I haven't seen before. The premise is that they break one of the grips free, so you get a lapel grip instead and either do the regular sweep or switch to a triangle. The sweeps themselves are totally legit, but getting there in the first place is what's tricky for me.

Rolled with Sarah (last time before she goes to Seattle for 2 weeks, boo), Clayton, Jerry and Nick. I was doing really dumb stuff with Sarah b/c I was feeling pretty tired at that point. 

Clayton called me out and proceeded to crush my dreams by getting some good sweeps and choking me several times. When he's close on a choke, he really slaps that thing on, doesn't mess around. After Clayton roughed me up Jerry wanted to take a swing at me and smothered me from top positions. He was letting me out at some points, which wasn't ideal. I get what he's doing though. Midway through I decided that I wasn't going to take the domination passively and put up more of a fight. Didn't do me a whole lot of good, but instead of sitting back mid-pass when he was threatening legs and such, I stayed up and pressed forward.

Last roll was with Nick, can't remember what happened except that I got a flower sweep variation b/c he likes to put a leg up in my guard and without a grip on my same-side sleeve. 

Left class with a bit of a headache. I've been having slight headaches all week, I think my water consumption isn't where it needs to be.

Ride Before the Storm

Wake up, beautiful weather outside.

Eat breakfast, and BOOM!!! thunder.

Race to work on motorcycle before rain falls. Make it just in time.

Rain rain rain...which stops before I leave for class. Lucky me.

Jerry taught today, and I was really looking forward to his passing concepts. He is very good at immediately controlling the legs from a standing pass and making your legs feel useless. I've tried to pick his brain before on whether its a grip strength thing or if it's more a matter of where he's applying pressure and in what direction. 

He started off with warm-up drills (arm-bar from guard, omoplata from guard, americana to arm-bar from mount) and then got into his X-pass. I've drilled it a bit before, but it's been awhile. I felt like my weight was too far forward, even though I was trying to stay fairly midline. I'm not sure if it was a perception issue on my part or if my weight really was too far forward. He had us pushing down with the lapel grip, which subsequently brings you forward. 

We did some drills if they curl up tight as you try to torreando, which didn't quite seem realistic, but motion of using their legs to spin them side-to-side is legit. 

Positional rolls with Sarah and Chuck to either sweep or pass, depending on if you start on top or bottom.

Rolls with Jerry, Savannah and Sol. Jerry pushed the pace, so I was defending quite a bit. He was doing catch and release on submissions to keep the roll going. He had top position for most of the roll. Afterwords he said my ability to regain guard was strong, which was funny b/c I doubt that I legitimately got back to guard. 

Savannah is starting to work an open guard game now, so I worked several different passes with little success. I got the Dern pass once, but couldn't finish much of anything else. I really, really need focus on passing for a couple of months (at least).

Sol was working a gi d'arce from top side when my fingers got caught in an awkward position in the gi. Had to tap b/c y'know, digits are important. We reset and he got one of my lapels and fed it to his other hand behind me while I was in half-guard. I was completely stuck in my pass attempt, but he was nice enough to show me that the arm was wide open for attack.

In the last two rolls I felt like I was moving constantly in a manner that I knew was counter-productive to me being successful in accomplishing my goals. That is super frustrating, and I don't know what the factors are that lead me to doing that.

Submission Escapes Part II

Decent sized night class. I got there early, as it occurred to me while I was at work that it was about to storm in a very unpleasant manner and I was on the motorcycle. I parked in front of the gym just as the rain was starting to come down.

A 10-15min roll with Rachael before class started. She had top position for most of the roll. I was finally able to regain guard and try for a top position when class started.

More submission escapes, this time kimura from bottom side and omoplatas. I requested the kimura from bottom side and was very happy to have some time spent on it. I was working with a very new person though, so I spent more time showing them how to apply a kimura than escaping kimuras.

KOTH, win by submission or mount. I started down, and Rachael literally ran over to me. Sure enough, we took the entire time. She had top position for a good portion of the roll, but I managed to get a triangle. With her leg inside. James thinks those are legit, but I've never tried one before and didn't know enough to get her chin off of her leg to finish the choke. I had her in that for several minutes, and transitioned several times to a mounted triangle. I tried arm-bars, americanas and wrist-locks but couldn't finish anything. She finally tapped from hating life in that position, but I was never really close on the choke.

After class we rolled for another 5min. This time I was able to get to her back and harass her for most of the round from there.

Submission Escapes

James is not that keen on teaching submission escapes. His philosophy is that you shouldn't get there in the first place. I respect that approach, but the reality is quite different. 

I also get the feeling he takes it for granted that everyone knows basic submission escapes, but since he almost never touches on it, it's probably not a good assumption. I plan on teaching some escape basics as part of the fundamentals class, so it's good for me to get a refresher. 

Bow and arrow escape, both if they have the leg over and if they don't. Standing guillotine escape to side-control, arm-in and arm-out guillotines from guard. Triangle escape if your arm isn't across and if it is pulled across.

I know it's not his favorite to teach, but the techniques are immensely valuable.

Rolls with Sarah, Savannah, Corey, Dennis and Jason S after class. Sarah and I played footsie for awhile trying to come up on top after I back-stepped over her guard. I got a sortof bolo and her back. She prevented one of my jumping guard passes and collapsed my legs together to get the sweep. Fun roll, as usual.

Savannah has decided to start working her guard game. I'm going to pass her guard all day while I still can. I tried to kindof surf on her a bit by moving forward and then trying to back-step or knee cut through. She was doing a good job of not letting me knee get to the middle. I was almost set up for the Dern pass several times but I have a difficult time committing my weight forward and getting the underhook at the same time. We had a pretty good back and forth roll. 

Corey was doing a lot of good things instinctively, and I told him that after the roll. I was impressed with how he was reacting to what I was doing. I did catch and release subs to keep the roll moving along.

I was excited to roll with Dennis b/c we haven't rolled in awhile. We had a different roll than usual, but it still consisted of me trying to keep him from passing my open guard. I was doing a fairly good job of keeping him at bay for awhile. He eventually passed, I regained guard and near the end I almost pulled off a flying omoplata (trying to omoplata a standing opponent). I knew I had to commit hard to it, and I did but he was able to shrug it off. I'm not sure exactly how, but I probably didn't have a good grip on the arm.

After class I grabbed Jason for an untimed roll. I avoided his lapel guard, but I wasn't making much progress on passing. He eventually got the sweep b/c I committed too much weight forward. After that it was a lot of trying to defend submissions from bad bottom positions. He had a lot of setups (bow and arrow, arm-bars and at least one kimura) and was flowing well from one thing to the next. I'd work my way out of one bad spot and end up in another. He finally got an arm-bar b/c I had just worked my way out of a choke but left an arm hanging out too far and couldn't retrieve it. He commented that I did well to defend submissions, but there were a lot of instances where I was leaving arms dangling. 

Saturated Saturday

Saturday was a blur. Fundamentals class where I taught mount submissions. It seemed like people weren't especially engaged in class, but my perception may have been off. 

Regular class where I don't remember what we went over or who I rolled with.

Women's open mat after the noon class. Rolled with most everyone and did several rounds of no gi. Five hours of jiu jitsu. Eek.

Sunday advanced class consisted of  Sol, James and myself. We mainly chit-chatted, though I did pick James' brain about when and when not to use back-stepping for passing. I was disappointed that we didn't drill more, but I was ok with not rolling after the Saturday extravaganza.

Fri Morn

I forgot that we're alternating gi with no gi every other Friday morning, so arrived at class somewhat unprepared. Not a big deal, wore gi pants and a non-compression top.

Worked sweeps from 93 guard, specifically the kneebar setup and deep half. I feel good with these, but can never get enough detail as I'm rarely able to get the sweep I want when rolling. Did the technique portion with Sarah, who had a monster bruise on her shin from the Vegas Open and tender ribs. She competed against a judo black belt so...y'know...

Rolled with Sarah, James, Manny. I did my best to avoid Sarah's ribs, so we had a sortof flow roll. We were both a bit perplexed about not having gi grips.

Had a fun roll with James, who resorted to wrist-locking me to finish a pass. I did a pretty good job of keeping a frame and inverting when necessary to maintain guard, so was pretty happy about that. I haven't been able to roll with him much lately, so it was nice to get one in today.

Manny was using his legs to maintain good control of my legs. Several times my legs were jammed up and I had a helluva time trying to get them free. I'd get to a point where I thought I'd have a pass but he'd get my legs tied up and get a sweep + pass.

I enjoyed the rolls. I meant to ask James after class under what conditions I should be back-stepping when passing, b/c I feel like I'm picking poor times to do it and am subsequently getting swept. Instead I asked him about his arm-bar set up from mount, since that's what I'm teaching tomorrow. It never ceases to amaze me the level of detail I need in order to feel comfortable with teaching.

 

Thursday Night Vanna White

Russ asked me before class if I would be his Vanna White (demo dummy). How could I possibly say no to that?

He did the basic spiderguard sweep (he called it the hammer sweep) and a funky DLR cross-legged/cross-armed variation if they step up the opposite foot after you establish spiderguard. Also pendulum sweep b/c someone asked for it.

Rolls with Chuck, Nick, Michael F., Kevin and Dennis. I was trying to avoid Chuck's left side b/c he recently had it tattooed and it was still tender. As a result, I had the opportunity to work on regaining guard quite a bit. 

I probably should have let Nick work more, but I wasn't in the mood. I did catch and release submissions though, so there's that.

Michael is apparently on a berimbolo kick, but I was able to stuff him multiple times and keep him inverted. At one point his knee mashed into his face pretty good. He was able to continue it through a couple of times to at least get a scramble or top position. He is also going for leg locks of late, which is no bueno for me.

I tried and tried to get Kevin to do the mount escapes but he froze every time. I shouldn't have been exasperated with him. I didn't let it show, but it was driving me crazy. He gets a lot of stuff pretty fast (before class he was trying out some nutty Kit Dale side-control arm-wrap shenanigans), but the basic mount escape isn't clicking for him. Will try to get him aside sometime on Saturday.

Haven't rolled with Dennis in awhile. He had a dominant position for the most part, but I was able to snag his far arm when he had reverse side-control and wiggle my way into a back-mount position. I committed an arm too far over though and gave him an easy escape.

After class Russ and I did a sortof flow roll, and I was able to help him with a lapel guard sweep just by us sitting there messing with it. I don't feel like I roll like a purple belt, but it sure is a blast at least knowing enough about the art to be able to have in depth conversations and noodle things out.

Monday Night

Soooooo... apparently a good time was had until the wee hours in Vegas last night, and it's a lucky thing that they were even able to make it on the plane. In any case, Russ was teaching and James was nowhere to be found. :p

Russ asked me during warm-ups if I could do the half-guard lockdown. I never, ever use it, but was pretty sure I could do it. As such, he used me as the demo dummy for his half-guard pass to mount, which included a defense to the lockdown.

I started working with a new guy, Steve. He hasn't had much jiu jitsu specific training, but has done a fair amount of MMA. He would do the move slowly one time, and then race his way through the rest. I tried to encourage him to slow it down, but it was falling on deaf ears. He did ask after each time he went through it whether it was right or not...

Drilled with Savannah (she was still somewhat hungover), rolled with Corey, Ian, Kevin and Rachael. I felt good with all of my rolls, though I keep doing this weird thing where I try to pass by doing a sortof back-step and sitting on them, hoping they won't pull me into back-mount. Surprisingly, it's not working out well for me. I did get to back-mount on several people tonight and actively worked for the bow and arrow and lapel chokes on Rachael but wasn't able to finish. I even played around with the body triangle for a bit. I came very close to competing the Dern pass but AGAIN I neglected shoulder pressure and didn't have my knee far enough through. 

Someday I'll remember shoulder pressure.

Ataque Tartaruga

Jason showed some interesting attacks on the turtle position today. I liked all of them quite a bit. One of them was the gator roll, which somehow I've gotten this far in my training and hadn't been exposed to it yet. If they try to hide their arm after you've separated their near-side arm from their knee, there are a couple of good options, including an easy shoulder lock or doing a modified gator roll to a crucifix.

Rolled with Sol, Jason W. and Jason S. The three biggest and highest ranked guys, all in a row. How awesome for me. Sol had top side control for the most part. I tried to turtle to get him to start the roll differently and he just pushed me over. :p He eventually played my game and then pushed me over and passed to side-control. Meh. After one of our resets I almost kinda sorta passed his guard. I started the Dern pass (as I'm going to henceforth refer to the pass that Mackenzie taught at the seminar) and then dropped to my side like Jason W showed me. I had absolutely no shoulder pressure to the head, so there was no surprise when it didn't work out in my favor.

Jason W. had top side as well. He did the thing where he grabs the jacket under both arms from N/S and yanks up to take the back. I did a pretty good job of only allowing one hook, but I basically gave him an arm-bar in the process. He maintained a grip on the jacket on one side which kept my shoulder on the mat.

Jason S. also played a top side and KOB game. I was in a whole lot of trouble between a mounted arm-bar attempt, triangle, arm-bar etc., etc. I eventually tapped when both of my arms were jeopardized. At some point in the near future I need to spend some time on submission escapes, specifically arm-bar (mount and guard) and triangle. My posture was so broken on the triangle b/c it had started as a mounted triangle that I had no idea what to do. 

Even though I pretty much had my ass handed to me, I still felt pretty good about the rolls.

I'm on a week of staycation, so will be going in tonight to hear all about the Vegas Open and get my ass handed to me some more.

Big Fundamentals Class

Five minutes before class was scheduled to start, it appeared that I'd have three or four people tops. Turned out to be 12+. Biggest class I've had thus far, including a family of judo black belts (mom and three kids). The size was a little daunting, but I was going over something I was pretty comfortable with and was very basic (mount escapes), so I didn't feel too overwhelmed.

I had planned on showing three varieties (trap and roll, elbow escape and butterfly) but only got to the first two. I was nervous to start, but once I got into it I was ok. There was lots of drill time, as it took me awhile to get around to everyone. I get nervous about having too much drill time, but as long as people are focused and not chatting, it's probably an ok thing.

Jason W. taught the noon class, and expanded on the arm-wrap series. This time we did a cross choke, scooting to the opposite side as the shoulder lock. This seemed counter-intuitive at first, until he showed the arm-bar possibility if they bring their other hand through to block the choke. I like the series quite a bit.

Rolled with Rachael twice, Sol, Jason and Joyce. Having Sol and Jason back to back is soul-crushing. Both of them were intent on making my life miserable from top side. My first roll with Rachael she had the more dominant positions, but I was able to work more of a top game in the second. Joyce is doing well, and I managed to once again get her a position so that she could practice what we did in the Fundamentals classes. 

Next Saturday is going to be exhausting... Fundamentals class at 10:30, regular class at noon, women's open mat from 2pm - 4pm. I should start carbo loading now.

The team did pretty well in Vegas...James, Julio, Savannah and Shaun earned silver, Sarah and Nando earned bronze. Can't wait to hear their Vegas stories.

I Know a Neat Trick, If Only I Could Use It

On Sunday Jason W. showed me a super cool escape/sweep if someone is trying to pass your guard using double-unders. All this week I've been trying to bait people to pass my guard this way so that I could use my shiny new toy. But alas, no one would bite. Today, Nate got double-unders and started to pass and frantically in my head I was thinking "Damn it! I know something really cool from here but can't remember what it is!!!" After he finished the pass I remembered. :p

Today was the smallest weekday class I've seen in a long time. James & co. are in Vegas for the Open tomorrow, so I figured attendance would take a hit...but not that big of a hit.

Jason W. went over arm-wrapping from guard. How to get the arm-wrap from various positions, the Frank Mir-ish shoulder lock, pendulum sweep and countering a wrist lock with an arm-triangle. All of them felt pretty solid for me. 

Rolled with Nate, Jason and Oscar. Nate was his usually scrambly self and spent quite a bit of time on top. He tried to bolo me at one point and I was able to completely reverse it and take his back. Once I got my hooks in I Mu-ha-ha-ha'd right in his ear. We have a friendly rivalry when it comes to bolos and rolling back attacks.

Jason was in top side for awhile making my life miserable. At one point he gripped my jacket on either side from behind, stood up and then pulled up on the ends of the gi, which left me sitting on my butt and pretty helpless to do much of anything. The point was to take my back, but he just hung out there for awhile to see what I would do. I felt like a trussed up chicken and couldn't think of a counter. After awhile he dangled a leg out and I made a half-hearted attempt for it, but with the gi pulled behind me tight under my arm-pits, there didn't seem like much to do. He finally descended into more side-control sadness.

Oscar and I spent the 5min round with him trying to pass my guard, occasionally succeeding and then me regaining guard. Rinse and repeat. I tried to be mindful of keeping a good frame with my arm to give myself room to get a knee up if was smashed down. I also tried to weave my legs in when he worked passes and had some success. I have this habit of trying to create distance with my far leg instead of my near leg. So if they're trying to pass to my right, I'm typically bringing my left leg across and trying to create distance. Once I push away with my left, it's easy for them so smash it down and then finish pass. Hopefully there'll be folks that show up on Sunday so that I can drill weaving my legs in and out.

Wed Night

Rolled with Rachael for 15min before class and manged to not get injured. I consider that a victory.

Technique was a mixture of passing the seated guard. The first was an interesting and pretty slick backstep into a kneebar, where you sortof figure-four their far leg to prevent them from defending the kneebar.

Rolled with Missy, Sol, Nando and then Opal and Rachael after class. Nothing of any special note about the rolls, other than Sol's side control is just as crushing as usual. I had a good roll with Rachael, spending a little over half the time on bottom and the rest of the time on top. 

Nando was on top the entire round and basically kicked my ass. I kept wanting to turn his bad knee this way or that and a few times I did, but mostly I laid off it. It probably wouldn't have changed the outcome of the roll though. He seems ready for Vegas. 

Wed Morn

So far, not doubling up on classes to start the week is turning out to be a really good idea. Getting behind on energy and sleep isn't a recipe for success.

Today we went over transitioning from a half guard pass to a monoplata from mount (or technical mount) and some variations thereof. I felt good and sharp during drilling, which was a nice change. I thought I had a legit defense to the monoplata by grabbing my own leg (similar to the kimura defense if you're in someone's guard), but James didn't think it would be very effective.

Rolled with Sarah for the entire time (~25min). I let her get some positions, others she got on her own. I was excited for her b/c there were a couple of sub opportunities that she pounced on and was super tight most of the way through.

I hope nerves don't get the best of her and that she's able to compete to the best of her ability in Vegas.

Mon Morn

Invariably when you learn something cool and want to try it out in live rolls, you can't PAY someone to get you into the position you need to pull off the move. I don't know how to bait someone to go for the double-unders pass, which became very clear to me during rolling. I know that some people won't go for it no matter what, which is probably a big part of it.

Today we did loop chokes...rotating with their arm trapped, rotating without the trapped arm, getting it from standing, transitioning to side-control and a peruvian necktie from the basic seated guard set-up.

Sarah and I rolled straight through, so about 25min. We got into our usual assortment of funky positions. I tried to bolo once for fun and she reversed. She got me good a couple of times, especially once when she transitioned to N/S and I left arms hanging out all over the place.

Rolled with Blaine after class. I basically tackled him into side-control so it wasn't much of a fair fight. I was able to maintain top side for awhile and went for an ineffective N/S choke a couple of times. Was in guard and tried the gi d'arce but didn't have enough of his jacket. Fun roll, lots of different positions.

Sunday Advanced

There was a seminar on loop chokes in a nearby town for a cheap price, but it would have eaten my entire afternoon. I wanted to go for a ride in the evening, so I did the advanced class instead. Jason W. and Jerry were the other attendees, so we rotated through drilling 2-3 times and rolling twice. Well over an hour of just drilling and rolling, can't complain.

Jason showed me a couple of awesome moves. One involves turning a double-under pass into an americana sweep, and the other is using the beginning of the pass I learned from Mackenzie's seminar into a slightly different pass where I just dive down hip first next to them. Will take some coordination, so we'll see how that goes for me.

Nothing of special note during the rolls, except that I escaped something and managed to turn it into an almost triangle. Jerry let me work from his back a bit, which was a nice change of pace.

 

Fundies and the Nooner

Covered the scissor, flower and pendulum sweeps in fundamentals this morning. Felt pretty good about all of them, except I didn't do as good of a job as I would have liked with pendulum. That's how you learn though... Had six people for class, Rachael, Missy, Kevin, Nick, Joe and Mike. It was clear to me before how important it is to load someone when doing sweeps, but it really crystallized for me when I was teaching it.

Noon class was also sweeps, but fortunately of a different variety...reverse scissor, a no gi reverse scissor and a kimura sweep from reverse scissor if they stand. Also a half guard sweep if you try to take the back but they get a whizzer. It's waaaay more complicated then my goto of hooking under the far leg and dropping them to the other side. 

Rolled with Sarah for 10min, then 5min with Akina, and 5min with Ian. After class did a round with Rachael and Jerry.

Overall I was satisfied with my effort. A lightbulb clicked on about framing as they're trying to collapse your leg so that you can get your leg back up. I executed the sweep from reverse half guard TWICE on Sarah which was awesome. First time I've ever pulled that off during rolling. I tried to keep the rolls with Sarah and Akina moving and not stalling out in one spot. Sarah and I get into some ridiculous positions. I can't even describe what we ended up in today, but it was very odd.

Haven't rolled with Ian in awhile. I don't quite remember how it went, but I feel like I used my frames pretty well. Ditto with Rachael. She got a sweep, then I think I swept back and spent a good portion of the roll trying to complete a pass.

Jerry is crazy good with pant grips when passing. It's very frustrating trying to break his grips. He was toying with me a bit throughout the roll, but I did a couple of good things. I asked him after our roll how he does his pant grips, b/c they are so effective. Part of it seems to be that he gets them before I can establish a contact point on his body, and he also crowds me with my own legs, which gets my hips off the ground. That's partly whey it's so difficult to break the grips, b/c I can't get the leverage I need when I start with both hips already up. That's my hypothesis anyway.

Fri Morn

We're doing a new thing where the 1st and 3rd Friday morning class of each month is no gi. I was looking forward to doing some no gi rolling, but also brought my gi b/c Rachael and I were going to roll with Sarah to help get her prepped for Vegas. 

Technique was going from an arm-drag to trapping the arm under your armpit and then getting nice and tight for either an armbar, a shoulder lock (Frank Mir-ish) or bastardized versions of the pendulum sweep or flower sweep, depending on what you have available to you.

I felt good with all of the techniques, and it was especially timely b/c I'm planning on teaching pendulum and flower sweeps in the fundamentals class tomorrow.

First round of rolling Rachael and I swapped out every minute and a half with Sarah. Next roll I did no gi with Nate, gi with Sarah, and no gi with Jason W (I finally learned his last name). The no gi rules were that you had to do ten jumping jacks if you were mounted or back-mounted. I managed to avoid those with both Nate and Jason, though I noticed that Jason did a lot of catch-and-release submissions since they weren't allowed. I was pretty happy with how I handled Nate, though I was in bottom side the vast majority of the time. There were a couple of instances where I had a shadow of an opportunity to get to mount or back-mount myself but my technique wasn't good enough to overcome his scrambling ability.

Overall feeling much better about jiu jitsu than Wednesday night. I really need to get over myself sometimes.

In other news, there'll be an IBJJF tournament in Seattle this year....one week before Master/Senior Worlds. Not sure what I'm going to do with that situation. The bank account will probably solve that one for me.