Study Group, 1/28/16

Judo:
We got LOTS of reps of the yellow belt throws (osoto, deashi, kosoto, and hiza). Then we worked on sasae tsurikomi ashi for a good while. This is one I have limited experience with, but I felt like it was going ok! We ended with 10 reps each of ippon seoinage.


BJJ:
Nothing but live rolling today. Oh, I also showed Mitch how to do an arm triangle choke.

Judo Study Group & BJJ, Jan 25-26, 2016

Judo, 1-25-16

We reviewed our yellow belt throws, then worked mainly on ukigoshi (still a little sloppy for me) and koshiguruma (we're getting pretty good at that one).

BJJ, 1-26-16

We drilled a few options from closed guard (bottom), including pendulum sweep, hip bump sweep, and kimura. I had a few rounds of live rolling, all of which started from standing. I felt like my judo was going my way today! I got a kouchi gari against another white belt, a drop knee seoi counter, tani otoshi, sumi gaeshi, and I countered a tai otoshi with a tai otoshi of my own against a blue belt, and an osoto gaeshi against a brown belt. Lots of throwing folks around today!  I had some good transitions, good pressure, and a successful americana against the blue belt. Fun rolls!

BJJ, 1/21/16

We drilled some guard passing motions, while dealing with a couple defenses bottom guy might resort to when you're passing. Then we drilled a few arm drag techniques from bottom, while our partner was in our guard. The first one was a really tight arm bar, then an Americana, then a sort of pendulum sweep. All very slick.

I did 4 rounds of live rolling, and did about as well as I normally do, nothing much to note.

Study Group, 1/19/16

Judo:
I've been too busy to post yesterday's training session...here are the highlights: we went through 2 sets of uchikomi for each yellow belt throw, then played light randori with only those throws. We also did a brief intro to koshiguruma (an orange belt throw). I feel like we both did well with it.

BJJ:
I worked a lot on the excellent arm bar drill from the video below, and we worked on the basic D'Arce choke from side control, too. A little live rolling to finish up our time. Fun!

Study Group, 1/18/16

Judo:
I worked with Mitch again today. We went through 2 sets of 10 uchikomi's (throwing on the 10th) each for each of the yellow belt throws (deashi, kosoto, osoto, and hiza). I feel like were both throwing them all very well today. Mitch shows a lot of improvement. Of those 4 throws, I think the one we both need the most work on is kosotogari. We also got a few reps each of ippon seoinage and seoi otoshi, and we were both feeling good about those.  Lastly we played with countering deashi with tsubami gaeshi, and countering seoi otoshi with the first method in the video below. It works really well and it's super easy!





BJJ:
We drilled a leg separation guard pass several times each, and then rolled a lot. I practiced a pretty cool arm attack series from my new Erik Paulson DVD series.We spent some time live rolling too, and both got some good work in. Mitch has been getting deadly with his triangle attacks, so I had to pretty much resist 100% to give him some tougher practice.

Study Group, 1/13/16

Judo:

Today I practiced with Mitch again. We reviewed osoto gari and deashi, and both got a couple dozen reps of each. Emphasis on the reaping action in osoto and "standing foot" direction and sweeping leg motion in deashi. Good stuff!

Then I taught Mitch ippon seoinage and hiza guruma. We both got several good seoinages. We worked on hiza for most of our judo time, and I felt better about it today. We both reviewed Kyle's video from my previous post, and things went ok. There were no huge airfalls, but almost, on a couple occasions!

For gravy, we looked at a hip block counter to seoinage, and what I remember of a hiza counter (relax the back and step over).

BJJ:

After some more triangle practice, we looked at creating more top pressure when you have your opponent in side control. We talked about making bottom guy so uncomfortable that he feels like he needs to move, and when he does, you can capitalize on it. We also looked at what Saulo Ribeiro calls a "defensive bump", that buys you some time and disrupts an attacker's efforts. Finally, we practiced a couple of udegarame variations from side control.

Study Group, 1/11/16

Judo:

Today I worked with my other drilling partner, Josh. I mainly drilled ippon seoinage today. I got a lot of reps in!  And my ippons today were some of the best I've done. Admittedly, I think some of them were more like ukigoshi, but I was really happy with most of them. Josh has a good osoto gari and deashi barai already, so I worked my counters for those throws. I tried a few reps of hiza garuma too, but I've never been great at that one, and it really needs some work. We had some extra time, so I was trying to remember some of Pat's koshiki no kata coolness. I think the closest I could recollect was sort of a sumi gaeshi. I'll have to look up the videos on those too. My plan next time is to work on hiza until I feel more comfortable with it. I'm gonna try this approach:




BJJ:

Josh is getting ready for the Houston Open coming up next month, so we drilled a good bit of guard passing, pressure, back taking, arm dragging, and all manner of transitions. I was mainly a grappling dummy for him, but I got to drill lots of the guard pass series we worked on in Friday's class.

BJJ, 1/8/16

We started class by doing a standing pummeling drill, and a discussion on some situations where pummeling well is useful. When we were pummeling competitively, I stunk at it!  Apparently even the other white belts in class had wrestling backgrounds. One gave me a tip about not flaring my elbows when I did it, which I was apparently doing.

The main class lesson was about leg separation and guard passing. We worked one pass, and an alternative for when bottom guy gets savvy. While drilling the passes, I felt like my top pressure is way better than it used to be, especially my shoulder pressure.

We had four rounds of live rolling which wore me slap out. I think a strength of mine is surviving on bottom more and more. I end up in bad positions pretty quickly with more experienced guys, but I'm getting better at fending off / frustrating their attacks. Of course that's all while striking isn't allowed - I might be way worse off if they could hit me!

Oh, we started the rounds standing again, and I got a nice, smooth kouchi gake / maki komi takedown on one guy. The other guys just tended to pull guard rather quickly.

Study Group, 1/5/16

Judo:
Yesterday I taught deashi to my drilling partner. We started with the foot-sweep-to-control drill and worked that a good long time, then worked on getting 4 feet on a line, and completing the throw. My buddy was reacting funny when I would try to do the throw on him, because he's still getting used to it; and that made the throw a little harder for me to do, so I used something Pat taught me years ago - let his foot almost all the way back down, and stop it just before he expects it to touch back on the mat. It worked beautifully over and over, and he'd fall immediately (and more dramatically than he would have otherwise) whenever I'd do it.

Once he had a feel for the throw, we did a good bit of deashi-only randori, focusing on getting the off balance as the guy is stepping backwards, by gently exaggerating his motion and momentum. We talked about the "maximum efficiency, minimal effort" concept, because he kept trying to off balance me against my motion instead of with it. He picked up on it quickly and we had some productive play!

BJJ:
We drilled triangles and D'Arce chokes again, then rolled for the remainder of our time. It was good and exhausting! When we were done, though, we were horsing around, and ended up chipping my tooth (crown actually)! Fortunately the dentist was able to grind and polish it down some so I didn't have to replace it. Still put me in a foul mood though, haha!

Study Group, 1-4-16

Judo:

What a nice way to begin the year!  Me and my drilling partner worked on Osoto Gari for a good long time. He hasn't done any judo before, so it's all brand new to him. We went over the basics, and got lots of uchi komis. After working the throw to death from static, we did it stepping back and forth, looking at extending uke's step, and using that for more kuzushi. 

Lastly, we worked for a little while on an osoto-gari-to-osoto-makikomi against a resisting partner, and countering osoto gari with osoto gaeshi. By the end of it, he seemed to be feeling better about his osoto, and loosened up a lot. 

After we moved on from osoto and worked on our ground work, we did several rounds of light, standing randori. I played very light with him, and mainly worked combos and constant attacks. Then I'd just move around and let him try to find osoto wherever he could. I did catch him with my first sumi gaeshi in randori, and was able to do it gently enough not to throw him far or hard.  ;-)

BJJ:  

We drilled a lot of triangle chokes. My buddy is getting really good at his setups for it, and I'm having more and more trouble stopping him. I was doing better with mine today. We've been working on a Ryan Hall version of it where uke's arm being across your body is irrelevant, but for my body, or movement tendencies, or whatever, the arm is still very relevant to me getting the choke. 

We also drilled a D'Arce choke when you have the guy in side control and he turns in to you. This is getting to be a bread and butter move for me. Today I was working on a D'Arce-to-armbar combo for when bottom guy keeps his elbows in too tight for a D'Arce. Needs work, but I think there's a good combo there. 

I got a few reps of my "running escape" guard recovery, and I'm feeling better about that too. 

BJJ, 12/29/15

After stretching, we worked on partner drills for scissor sweeps, knee & elbow escapes, pendulum sweeps, and S-Mount arm bars. The version of the pendulum sweep we did was way easier than the one I'm used to. The "pendulum" leg didn't have to do much at all except get out of the way.

I rolled 5 times. I dominated the first two rounds, then fought a black belt (I tapped a lot), a blue belt (I tapped even more), and a brown belt. The brown belt was in the UFC years ago, and has another fight (in a smaller organization) coming up, so he wanted to start all his rounds standing. I was pleasantly surprised at how I did while we were on our feet! Of the 5 times we stood up, I threw him at least twice! One was with an Osoto gaeshi counter to his Osoto gari, one was an ouchi counter to his tani otoshi, and I forgot the other one. And the times he did take me down, it wasn't decisive. Of course he decimated me in the ground, haha. But I felt great after throwing him.

We got a rare treat at the end of class. The instructors had a Q&A for things we've been having trouble with. I was shown how to properly do the running escape from side control. I've been getting into the first position a lot but haven't been able to complete it. Apparently I wasn't controlling top guy's arm. Can't wait to drill it more!  Good class!

BJJ, 12/15/15

Today we started by doing the both-guys'-hands-in-their-belts guard passing drill. That's exhausting. Then we went over fundamentals of the lasso guard. How to get into it, key points, common mistakes, etc.  Most of our drilling time was spent doing a lasso sweep when your opponent moves around to the inside, or pushes your leg that's on his hip to the outside. It was kind of like this:




Live rolling was a pleasure for a change, and I was pretty happy with my performance, if not my cardio endurance.

BJJ, 12/10/15, and a Rant

I'm kind of frustrated. I've been thinking lately about the typical BJJ pedagogy. At least it's typical to every BJJ school I've ever been to: About half the class (if that) is warming up / stretching, and learning and drilling a technique or two, and the other half of the class is spent rolling. BJJ guys take some pride in the fact that it takes SO long to get a black belt (~ 10 years), but I think the same level of proficiency could be achieved in a much shorter time if more time was spent on technical work, and less on drilling, up till purple belt or so.

I'm not saying eliminate live rolling for lower ranks, just spend more time building a foundation. Rener Gracie has been a big proponent of a similar method (his students don't roll until blue belt). His reasoning is that jiu-jitsu is a martial art designed for weaker people, but the typical approach weeds out weaker people so only the tougher ones ever make it past white belt. I know that's a generalization, and people will argue, but speaking from the perspective of a weaker person, who gets frustrated when he can't do anything with higher ranks (or even other white belts, depending on their experience), I agree with him. Most people aren't going to keep taking that kind of punishment long term. Yes, sticking with it will make them stronger, but it's questionable whether they will stick with it.

There are a few reasons I think it can be so punishing. First, like I said, there isn't enough of a foundation when you first begin. You're expected to learn by experience as you go. "Oh (six months later), I see that letting my elbow get far away from my body opens me up to an attack".  Why not teach things like that on the front end instead of waiting for the universe to reveal it to them. Thankfully I've got enough experience (and had some exceptional teachers) to know enough fundamentals to at least survive for a little while against better grapplers. Secondly, I don't know what it is, but I find Judo's spirit of Jita Kyoei ("Mutual welfare and benefit", or as Pat puts it "you and me getting better together") is missing from every BJJ school I've been in. The typical student (especially white belt, but I've rolled with some blues like this too) just goes so hard in rolling, like there's money on the line. If live rolling is supposed to be a learning experience, it just doesn't strike me as the most efficient way to learn something, going pedal to the medal, all-out, out of the gate. This approach seems to be encouraged (or at least not discouraged) by the instructors. This might sound like whining, and maybe it is; I just feel like it's a shame that jiu-jitsu could be such a beautiful art, but it gets "thugged up", and a lot of the gracefulness is obscured by current training methods.

That brings me to today's class. A guy I'll call Captain Sambo was teaching the class, and had a room full of white belts doing an advanced rolling armlock (we did some basic ones first, as well as some grip breaks). Basically, the white belt I was drilling with was not being at all cooperative. He was trying to stop me from drilling every move we were working on. I don't know if he thought he was doing them better than me because I was actually letting him practice the techniques, but whatever. I just had to work a lot harder to get them to work, and they didn't look as pretty. He was much newer than me, so he probably just didn't know how to be a good drilling partner. Anyway, he was going hard even during drilling. Like he didn't get the point that there was no trophy up for grabs, and we were supposed to be learning the techniques. During the rolling armlock thing, the guy hyper-extended my elbow. Kind of badly. It didn't hurt as badly during the rest of the class as it does now, but it seems to be hurting more and more. Anyway, I was able to finish the class, but don't think I'll make it to tomorrow's class if it's not feeling much better.

To sum up the rest of the class, I rolled with the same white belt first. He was huffing and puffing, and going all out, but I survived everything he tried. I stayed safe, but couldn't work on much offense. Still valuable I guess. Good thing he didn't have a knife.  We started each round standing, and the next white belt I went against seemed like he really wanted to throw me with deashi. I countered with a fine tsubame gaeshi and dropped him soundly. Then I went with a black belt, and of course got nowhere. Next roll was with a white belt that I pressured pretty well the whole time, and submitted him once. Last roll, another white belt, strong guy, that got me with an armbar on my by-then-hurting-much-worse arm.

I'm considering not doing BJJ any more. I still enjoy the kickboxing class a couple mornings per week, so I'll probably continue doing those. I'm still doing Judo a couple nights per week at a much cooler school anyway.  I need to reevaluate whether it's worth me continuing to do BJJ there. It's a sport-oriented school, anyway, so maybe the effort I'm putting in doesn't have enough of a payoff given my personal goals and interests. I guess I was hoping getting more mat time in during the week would help my Judo. Maybe I can still drill with friends a couple times a week for lunch. We'll see.

This Week in (My) Martial Arts (Dec 1-5, 2015)

It's been a super busy week, so I haven't had a chance to post. My wife is still recovering from hip surgery, so I've been taking care of her, the house, etc, and I've fallen behind in my training logs.

To compound matters, I've trained a heck of a lot more this week than normal. I've joined UFC Gym, and in addition to a couple of pre-workday kickboxing classes, I've added no less than three BJJ classes per week! They offer them at lunch, so it should be easy for me to make most of the classes.

Here is the breakdown, as I remember it:

BJJ, 12/1/15
We worked on a ground mobility cycle that took us from kesa, to side control, to ushiro kesa, to mount, then up the other side. Basically everything except north-south. The focus was on not getting rushed, and constant pressure.
We also worked on an Americana and straight armbar with the legs, both from kesa.
We wrapped up the class with five, 6-minute rounds of rolling.

BJJ, 12/3/15
We reviewed the two armlocks from the previous class, then went over the following choke from mount:



We rolled for three, 6-minute rounds to end the class.

BJJ, 12/4/15
We reviewed the two arm locks again, then looked at another choke from north-south. I hardly remember the details, sadly. I need more drilling.  We ended with four rounds of rolling.

Karate, 12/5/15
Promotion time is coming up, so 90% of the lesson, we worked on my orange belt promotion material. Kihon, three-step sparring, and heian nidan. I need to fix the following things in heian nidan:

• My spear hand is too high
• My back foot always turns out on the second kibadachi, for some reason
• I need to work my hips more in that same transition

We also went over my tendency to do things really slowly. I need to start moving faster. Not just the strikes and kicks themselves, but from the moment it begins, it all needs to be faster. I'm concentrating a lot on doing it correctly, and that's slowing me down. 

Goodbye, BJJ. Hello again, Judo.

Thursday I went for a private BJJ lesson with a blue belt I know.  I've been of two minds regarding BJJ for a while now, and I went partly to help settle my thoughts about it. More on that in a bit.

After a warmup, we worked on a shrimping variation that uses the opposite leg you'd normally use to shrimp. It allows you to keep your "top" leg up as a guard against your opponent. Difficult at first, but kind of neat.

We worked on a couple things from having someone in your closed guard; first, we played with sort of a scissor sweep variation, that allowed a really easy arm bar if it failed (or even if it didn't). It depended on sort of a "cheat" though (grabbing the inside of the pants leg), at least by competition rules. Next we worked on survival while under side control, easily one of the most miserable (and frequent) positions I often find myself in. It just involved the basics of trying to build a frame and making top guy as uncomfortable as you are.

I've really been struggling with whether or not I want to pursue BJJ again. On one hand (the "pros" column), it's a magnificent art. Endlessly interesting. And effective within certain constraints. On the other hand, ("cons") it's expensive, and it's a big time investment on weeknights, which are already packed for me. While it's great exercise, I've already been doing much better with exercise lately on my own, and BJJ always makes me feel more like I've been through a meat grinder than that I've had a good workout. One of the biggest "cons" is that all of the BJJ around here is very sport-focused. I'm way more interested in practical self-defense, so I don't care to spend time on X-Guards, using my gi to wrap my opponent's hand, etc.

For these and other reasons, I've decided not to pursue BJJ any more, but to start learning Judo again. It's been a while, so I'm super rusty, and will probably just start from the beginning again. Pat's Judo is more traditional, in that it's more self-defense oriented, not geared for competition. I won't win any BJJ tournaments with it (they're two different things, despite the similarities), but that doesn't align with my goals anyway.

BJJ, 9-18-13

Tonight we drilled arm bars from the guard, then worked on triangles. Next we moved to a "teepee" triangle as a response to your opponent posturing up to defend the original triangle attempt. We worked an arm bar from that position, then practiced omoplata from a failed triangle.

Live rolling was next. I rolled with a blue belt for my first round and did about the same as I usually do against him, which is to say, not very well. I guess I was able to survive (postpone?) some of his onslaught.

Round two, I went against a no-stripe white belt (same as me)...little did I know he had a strong wrestling background. He rolled hard the first round and I played a lot of defense. Definitely more of a challenge than I was expecting. Class was running late, so we had the option to stop or go for one more round. I rolled again with the same guy. We turned out to be the only ones rolling, so we had an audience. I immediately went for a "shoulder guard" I've been studying up on via a Cyborg DVD I have. From there I quickly slapped a triangle on him, just like in the video, hah! Unfortunately, he postured and I had to rely on my just-learned teepee triangle to stop him from escaping. I squeezed hard but he wouldn't tap! I figured it wasn't working so I tried to transition to an arm bar but that was a mess that allowed him to get me in side control. From then on it was back to my increasingly normal "defend-and-suffocate-until-they-submit-me-or-the-bell-rings" game. He told me after the round that he would have tapped after two more seconds of that teepee triangle. Two. More. Seconds.

Despite almost submitting someone tonight, I felt like it may have been my poorest performance. None of my escapes seemed to be working even when I feel like they should have. I seemed to be getting gassed more quickly than usual too. I feel like I pretty much got steamrolled tonight.

BJJ, 9-16-13

Class was taught by one of the blue belts tonight. We drilled a ton of techniques, probably too many for me to remember, but I'll try:

• Ogoshi (to arm bar)
• Koshi garuma (to arm bar)
• Osotogari
• Arm drag to heel stab takedown
• S-mount to arm bar
• Full mount to knee on belly transition
• Knee on belly to far side arm bar (in response to bottom guy pushing your leg)
• Baseball choke from knee on belly and side mount (gi and no gi variations)

No live rolling tonight. 

BJJ, 9-11-13

After our warm up we drilled a few techniques from a Thai clinch. The first was just a way to practice controlling our opponent's head, while keeping our body's relatively safe from his attacks. Things for me to remember: pinch his head/neck with my arms. Put a hand on the crown of his head to keep it under control and deny him the ability to raise it. Keep my chest to his head if possible (keeping me higher than him), and keep my legs far enough back to avoid getting taken down. Step back (tsugiashi) to keep him fighting for balance. Emphasize the body drop during the step by putting weight on his head.

Next we worked on pushing his head out to the side on a recovery step to set him up for a knee and/or elbow to the face. Obviously an MMA or combative application.

We also worked on "shucking" him down to the ground and sprawling over his turtled position. Then we worked on keeping pressure on him while doing a "knee tap" turnover. That was kind of confusing for me. Need more work with it.

Lastly we worked on a counter to being in someone's clinch. It turned out to be a lot like some aikido self defense stuff (in aikido it's from a grab, then you turn his arm over into wakegatame), but we played it as a disengaging/escaping technique. They had no idea how close they were to a maiotoshi. Although the goal wasn't to throw the guy away, but to get out of his clinch and establish a more dominant position.

Instead of rolling tonight we played a game: 2-3 guys would start on the floor, and the rest of us lined up against the wall. Each of us on the wall would take turns going to an available guy on the floor and get in his guard. Bottom guy's goal was to sweep top guy. Top guy's goal was to pass bottom guy's guard. whoever accomplished their goal first stayed on the mat while the loser got back in line. It kept things moving nicely, and allowed us to play positions without being concerned about submissions.

I did ok, I suppose, but I never won. I came close once, almost passing a blue belt's guard. I do remember that I tended to keep getting caught in half guard when I'd try to pass, then get stuck. To the video library!

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!

BJJ, 9/4/13

I went to BJJ tonight for my second class. The warmup was way more grueling tonight, but I can use the exercise.

We began with arm bar drills from guard and mount, then worked on four techniques from the same arm drag entry.  One was the arm-drag-to-back-control we did last time. Next was a strange way to go under his arm and control the opponent's body with your head until you're controlling him from the back again. This led naturally into a fireman's carry throw, and the last technique: a way to take his back if the fireman's throw failed. Things for me to remember: 1) Make the guy take a step and time the arm drag with his footfall (duh, I should have seen that). 2) I need to step around the guy with my inside leg for the arm drag. 3) Lay your opponent's body over you early and get a really good grasp on his leg for the fireman's carry throw.

Next it was time for free sparring. My first round was with the teacher, a 2-stripe purple belt. He was really helpful, reminding me to keep my hands off the mat, and recognize when he was trying for a triangle. He also showed me how susceptible I was to getting swept when my CoB is too high while trying to take his back.

Round two was with a 2-strip blue belt, much bigger than me. I don't remember much besides getting arm barred a lot. really nice, helpful guy though. I find that all the guys have been willing to help, and give me a ton of instruction, but it really is like drinking from a fire hose - I am so befuddled by rolling, it's tough to keep their tips in mind on the off-chance we end up in the same position. I appreciate the 30 words of wisdom tonight, but I think it will take more time and practice before I get it!  :-)

Round three was with a young guy, maybe 12-13. I didn't try to crush him, just let him work his positions. I could have smothered him but I know how unpleasant that is.

Round four was interesting. I rolled with a guy I rolled with last week again. He was much more..."enthusiastic" this time, but a good kid. I'm not sure if it's legal, but while in his guard, I got a very decent kotegaeshi on him. He didn't seem to know how to deal with it, and it basically denied him the use of his left arm for most of the round. When he would try things with his right hand, I would gently prompt him to return his attention to the wrist lock. It worked out well, and I maintained control of him the whole time. I eventually let him out, just to avoid being a punk. His determination not to let me grab his hand again resulted in me getting an elbow to the lip, but it was accidental. It happens.

My last round was with a no-stripe purple belt. He seemed to just looooove the spider guard, and I don't really know how to deal with it, so I felt like a marionette for most of the time. He did let me out of it occasionally. This past weekend, I was getting Pat to help me with some grappling issues I've been having. Namely, getting smothered and shut down, especially under someone's side control. Pat reminded me of a Judo escape from munegatame that involves creating space, then using top guy's attempt to close the space to chunk him over your head and get side control on him. Normally these things make sense and work well for me in drills or practice, but pulling them off against a resisting opponent is another story. Now, don't get me wrong, I understand this guy was in a whole different world than me in terms of skill, and he was toying with me for most of the time... but I'm telling you: there came a time I saw he was about to get me in side control, so I got a little on my side, and pushed back from him as he tried to solidify his position...and as if in slow motion, things started playing out exactly as Pat had demonstrated on Saturday! As he tried to get on top of me, I hugged him, bridged, and threw him over into my side control....Now who's asking the questions?!?   Now, it may be that he just wasn't expecting it and I caught him by surprise, but he didn't let me do it. So whether he was caught sleeping or not, I'll take it as a small victory. There were a couple other times I was able to sweep him, but I believe he was just letting me into the game at those times, sort of allowing it.

Great fun, and great exercise tonight. Looking forward to next week!