5:45-8:30p

5:45-6p: Stretched a little, but mostly chatted with Chet. Chet started one class before I started, but injured his back about 6 weeks. I'm glad he's back on the mats.

6-7p: Self defense course. Rusty was out sick, so Professor Matthias taught the class. We worked on bully choke defense/escapes. Also worked guillotine chokes and the guillotine defense to take down to escape.

7-7:15p: Warm-ups / standard drills. Dorian (white belt) led. Good workout. I did 8-10 regular push-ups and finished 80% or so of the other push-ups from knees. Progress?

7:15-7:30p: Pass the guard. Jessica (blue belt) swept me without too much trouble. I passed Noor's (white belt) guard, but it felt like the only way I passed was by throwing my weight into the torreando. Had my guard passed and got swept many other times. New guy (1st night) came into my guard. He has a wrestling background and is clearly in shape and athletic (e.g., he did the front/back roll drills completely wrong, but looked really good in the process!). He wasn't wearing a gi. I've worked with guys without gi pants before, but this was the first time working with a no gi opponent. He started muscling and attacking. I had a few armbar openings, but he was moving so quickly and his arm was so slippery, committing to an armbar seemed too risky. Eventually he withdrew his left arm to underhook my right leg (presumably for a stack pass?), but left his right arm inside, extended, and exposed. Shot the triangle. He tapped. I normally wouldn't submit someone on his/her first night, but this guy had some solid grappling chops and he wasn't holding back...so...I went for it.

7:30-8p: Dimitri (black belt in judo - purple belt in BJJ) showed the class two judo take downs that were somewhat close to the take downs we learned at the Rolles Gracie seminar. I worked with Dr. Steve (white belt). He's an inch or two taller, but about 20lbs lighter. Not a bad fit for take down drills. I had a good time. I can tell I'd really enjoy judo and know I really need to work on stand-up/take downs, but I'm not sure my body is hard enough to take a lot of falls. Dr. Steve took it easy on me. Dimitri came over to help Dr. Steve and me. I was his demonstration dummy. I think I landed correctly, but it still hurt quite a bit. Wind partially knocked out of me. Hmm...not quite ready for the judo classes.

8-8:30p: Rolls. First up was Jeremy. Jeremy is roughly my height/weight, but he's much stronger. Rolls went well. He caught me in a kimura from half-guard not too long after starting, but the rest of the roll was fairly tight. We both had multiple escapes/reversals. Good roll.

Got Noor for the second roll. He's my height (or slightly taller), but trim and strong. I probably have 40lbs on him. The roll was fairly even most of the time, but then again, he was on the attack most of the time... At one point he committed to arm bar my left arm from guard. I managed to defend well, but had to stand up, step around to his right side side, put my right hand over his right foot (which was across my face), grabbed my right wrist with my left hand (attack notwithstanding), and trapped his arm. He let go of the arm bar, but left his arm exposed. I managed to get the submission by barring his arm over his right thigh. It was a bit scary for me because I only used one arm to do it. I knew I had the fulcrum/leverage, but didn't know how much pressure to apply. He tapped and winced. I thought I'd hurt him, but he said he was ok - it was just sudden and he didn't see it coming. He wanted to know what I did so we went over it a couple times before resuming the roll.

Final roll with Ross (blue belt). Ross is probably a few years older than me, but roughly my size. I felt like he let me pass guard, advance to mount, and work some attacks before he reversed or escaped. At one point I trapped his left arm from half-way between side control and north south. Positioned to set up an arm bar. He started defending aggressively. I fought hard to gain the right leverage, but my legs weren't in the right position and I couldn't break his two-handed clasp. Gave it up and recovered side control. Later in the roll I had him in north south. I was trying to work a choke (remembering how Kirk choked me from north-south on Saturday), but clearly didn't know what I was doing. He stopped the roll: "You can't choke with two hands on the same gi lapel. What are you doing?" Ummm...both hands on the same gi lapel? Whoops. I really couldn't tell. I mean I was in north south and too be honest, I had no idea where my hands were. I felt gi lapels and thought I might have something...like I said...whoops!

Overall Impressions: Tonight was my 5th consecutive training day. I'd never trained more than four days in a row and all day wondered how I'd do given my old man aches and pains. Well, it went great. I feel great. Nice.