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.