5:45-6p: Light stretches. Watched MMA practice. Shawn (purple belt) was an animal, again. Fresh guys rotating in to simulate strikes from mount as he tried to defend/escape. His stamina is incredible.
6-7p: Rusty's self defense course. Started with side fall technique. Learning to fall is fairly important and I know I'm very weak. Then we worked rear choke escape/throw and a front grab with arms trapped escape/throw. Didn't actually throw. Just picked opponent off ground. Each simulated throw felt like my chest was getting crushed. But it was only my weight...wowzers. I am soft. Also worked ground headlock escape. All good techniques I've never seen before.
7-7:15p: Warm-ups / drills. A four-stripe blue belt led. I don't know his name. I haven't seen in a long while. Probably since he injured his knee as I passed his guard. Warm-ups were different. He had us do different push-up styles (like on the backs of the hands - OUCH!). Could only do 60% or so of pushups from knees.
7:15-7:30p: Pass the guard. I passed a blue belt's guard (another Steve). He went for a front gi choke and didn't let go as I passed. The force of dropping into side control tweaked his wrist pretty good. Hope he's ok. Passed Cleveland's guard once as well. Got swept several times. Did ok overall.
7:30-7:45p: Heel hook escapes. Learned another variation where the escape is achieved by shifting to almost all-fours position and using free leg to try to create space by pushing on the hand on the hooked heel. Seemed almost impossible. Asst. Instructor Colin made it look too easy!
7:45-8p: Straight ankle lock escapes. If you are late with the standard escape, we learned a punch through with control of at least one lapel and escape to side control. Again...another hard trick and it seems impossible to execute in a large roll. Will keep working on it when I get the opportunity.
8-8:30p: Rolls. Big Steve up first. Started with him in my guard. He passed to side control in about a minute. Then took his time to advance to mount. From mount, he spent a good amount of time setting up an armbar. I couldn't upa. I couldn't pop him up and regain butterfly guard. Couldn't do much of anything. When he finally went for the arm bar, he didn't have it set up completely before going for it. I spent about a minute trying to posture up and save the arm. He wouldn't let go. Finally escaped and took side control. He was gassed. I proceeded to mount and tried to control an arm. Didn't ever get good control and time ran out.
Second roll was with Cleveland (big, strong 4-stripe white belt). He really applied some pressure. Struggled to survive relentless choke attempts. Cleveland spent most of the roll in side control trying to choke me with his gi. Escaped a couple of times to his guard, but eventually he had my back flat on the mat again. Finally caught an armbar and forced me to tap. Dagnabit!
Last roll was with Jeremy. He's a two-stripe white belt who comes 1-2 times per week (approx my height, but 20lbs or so lighter, and 8 yrs younger). We've rolled before. It seemed like we were pretty even most of the round, except when he kept destroying my posture and eventually caught an armbar.
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