BJJ, 9-9-13

We started with the usual warm up - arm bar drills from guard and mount. The first part of tonight's instruction was the Ezekiel choke, also from guard and mount. We practiced making it work even if we got swept from mount. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be like this, but my and my partner's Ezekiels kept feeling like more of a pain on the adam's apple than an arterial choke.

Next we worked on the collar choke with a couple of variations / fallback options, and the scissor sweep.

I rolled three times tonight:

Round one was against another no-stripe white belt, but he's been training off and on for 3+ years. He got a few arm bars on me, but I was pleased with my defense while he had my back. I used Saulo's "scoop" defense rather than a more typical bridge, and it served well. Once I "chased" one of his arms, contrary to Saulo's advice, and paid for it. It was easier to remember to keep my hands near my neck for defense after that.

Round two was with a 3-stripe blue belt. It was like rolling with a tree - I couldn't move him. I kept getting caught in the same positions over and over. I hate being in someone's spider guard!

Round three was with our instructor, a 2-stripe purple belt. Again, he was more interested in teaching me that steamrolling me. I was happy with my control on the top. Pat has demonstrated (on me) putting pressure on / smearing bottom guy so many times, that I think I must be picking some of that up. I kept a great position for an anaconda choke, but couldn't remember how it worked, haha! My teacher coached me through it, and I look forward to trying it again. I picked up a couple tricks from a Stephan Kesting DVD that I was able to use tonight: one dealt with "stepping one leg through" (into kesagatame) in response to bottom guy's attempt to control that leg. The other was getting really heavy when you have bottom guy in side control, and "running" from his near leg when he tries to move it toward you. That served me really well, and elicited a compliment on my improved top control.

I was struck tonight by how very cerebral grappling is (while simultaneously being very physically demanding)...it's indeed like a chess match; the more counters you know, and the more quickly you can recognize when to use them, the more fun it gets!