Sat Fundies and Nooner

I was a little apprehensive about Fundies, since I wasn't really happy with my last outing a couple of weeks ago. Yesterday's class went well though, covering sweeps starting from closed guard. Eight students, which is average. Hip-bump, scissor, flower and pendulum. Near the end, I reviewed all of the techniques again, and then I had them pair up a final time while I called out techniques at random. I told them not to rush through them, but to make sure they were sure about what they were doing when they were doing it. I've found this to be immensely valuable to me when an instructor has done this at the end of class.

James has mentioned a couple of times that while it's all well and good for individual fundamental techniques to be taught, it's more valuable for those techniques to be chained together so that they address common responses from an opponent. So don't just learn how to upa escape from mount, but if the upa escapes because your opponent doesn't X, counter with Y. I think that approach makes a great deal of sense, but I wonder how much you can cram into fresh white belt brains.

I'm going to work on an approach for the tail end of next week's class that takes that into consideration. It's going to be subs starting from closed guard. Instead of calling out specific submissions at the end, I'll direct the top person to place their body in a specific position and have the guard player figure out what is most appropriate to do from there. I think that might be a good approach.

The noon class was good, around 20 people or so. Mostly white and purple with a few blues. We covered side control escapes, and James went over a few details on some basic escapes that I've either missed before or didn't full understand. One of them was the basic bridge up, hip escape back and get a knee in to regain guard. He keeps the same side arm in as the knee that's going in to help protect from the opponent pushing your knee back through. 

Rolls started with the higher belt in bottom side-control. I was able to get out of Rachael's side-control less than midway through the round, which was a moral victory in itself. I ended with top position and was happy with that roll. 

Rolled with Joyce, Opal, Brad and Russ. Brad is a purple belt from somewhere else, and I couldn't tell if he rolls mellow or if he was holding back b/c I'm a female. 

Overall pleased with how I rolled.