8:50 to 10:35a

8:50-9a: Stretched. Only white belt, but this time not the oldest. Cliff, a mid-40s purple belt also on the mats.

9-9:20a: Warm-up / standard drills / stretches. Counted my crunches in Portuguese for the first time. Nice!

9:20-9:35a: Butterfly guard sweep technique/drills. Very similar to what we worked on last week.

9:35-9:50a: Butterfly guard sweep variation. Added an arm lock with wrap-under cross choke. Professor Cantu had a fancy name for it, but I don't recall. Nice technique though.

9:50-10:05a: Sweep / pass the guard from butterfly. Rotated partners every few minutes. Got swept multiple times. Tapped due to arm lock once. Only passed guard once by trapping a butterfly, reaching under to grab opposite leg cuff, then push knee and pull cuff to step around. The Blue Belt apparently hadn't seen that before so he tried it on me. As he was working the technique, Professor Cantu came over and showed me how to defend and maintain guard. Unfortunately, his technique required hip/core movement that I am either not strong enough or not coordinated enough to pull off. Oh well. More to work on!

10:05-10:35a: Rolls. 7 minute rounds. Got Cliff, the Purple Belt, first. He swept me a couple of times and took my back. He attacked the neck most of the roll. I did my best to maintain back survival posture, but I struggled the entire time. I eventually established the posture, broke the hooks, and escaped/reversed to a half butterfly as time ran out, but it seemed too easy. As if he allowed the space. I don't recall tapping during the round, but I doubt Cliff was trying too hard either. Good workout though.

14yr old orange belt phenom, Angelo, was next (see first couple minutes of this video). I pulled him into my open guard and set in for De La Riva with my left leg hooked and my right foot on his left hip. Angelo basically gave me his left side and I shot the triangle. Struggled a bit to angle for the lock, but had it locked up with a bit of posting/hip shifting. Spent most of the rest of the roll in various open guards trying to stretch him out and break posture.

I grabbed Blue Belt Pilot Chris (as opposed to another Chris I've rolled with before) for the third roll. We had a good back and forth and at one point he went north-south. I really don't know what to do when on bottom in north south. I sort of just wait for my opponent to do something and do my best to defend against both arm attacks and chokes. Well...Chris grabbed a gi collar and started walking around. It wasn't choking me, but the pressure on my jaw was intense. Didn't feel like having a dislocated jaw so I tapped. I also don't know what to do when I have someone in my half guard. Again...sort of just wait for the inevitable pass. I look for kimura opportunities, but to date, haven't found any. Chris also took my back at one point and I again struggled to establish and maintain back survival posture so I could work an escape.

4-stripe Blue Belt YJ was last. Got my butt kicked all over the mat. YJ turned what I thought were solid omoplata and arm bar escapes into different arm bars for the submissions. YJ caught me in a triangle. Professor Cantu coached me on posture and to use an elbow to create some space. Next time I defended the triangle well enough and he let go. Spent a couple minutes in back survival. YJ was angling for all sorts of chokes, but I fended them off until time ran out. It felt good to be attacked for 7 minutes solid. I wish I had the same experience rolling with all upper belts. Seems like most give me too much to work with. Right now I'm content working on survival and what better way to survive than to be attacked incessantly by someone who knows what s/he's doing and can work combinations? Thanks YJ!