10a to 12:10p

10-10:10a: Stretched as kids judo wrapped up. LOTS of kids today for judo. 15 or so. That's a lot for a single instructor (esp. when average age is about 7 or 8).

10:10-11:05a: Self Defense course. Michael taught. Michael competed in the Grappling X tournament last week and won his division (155lb) and absolute for adult Blue Belts. Amazing given that he's only 16. I was the only adult for the Self Defense so I got to work to be Michael's trechnique dummy. Today's lessons included basic jiu jitsu (arm bar, scissor sweep, and hip bump sweep). I helped the 5-11 year olds with the techniques. Glad to help teach moves that I have difficulty executing in a live roll. Walking through the steps little kids forced me to replay the techniques in my mind, step by step, over and over again. Good practice.

11:05a-12:05p: Open Mat. Warmed up a bit and asked a large Blue Belt to roll. I forget his name, but he's taller than me and weighs more. We rolled for about 10 or 11 minutes. Very good work. Got caught in an arm bar once. Spent a lot of time trying to step around hooks to finish smash passes. He trapped me in half guard many times and seemed very comfortable. I'm not comfortable in half guard. Need to work that more.

Rolled with three white belts after that. Had a couple arm bars and a bow and arrow choke. One arm bar was a triangle to arm bar transition. The other was when an opponent made a mistake trying to choke from the back and reached over my shoulder too far. I simply extended my arm to make a fulcrum, grabbed the wrist with my other hand and applied the lock. Showed him how to avoid it next time. Also showed him the bow and arrow choke since he had it set up a couple of times and didn't go for it. Didn't get submitted by any of the white belts, but they passed my guard and mounted me a lot. Part of it was me wanting to try to work from inferior positions (these guys were 20-30lbs lighter than me and their side control and mounts didn't make me feel completely miserable). The other part was I popped my miniscus during one of the rolls and, although it wasn't in too much pain, it felt odd and I was definitely babying it.

12:05-12:10p: As I was about to exit the mat and call it a day, a 5 or 6 year old boy approached me and asked if I wanted roll. How could I say no? Showed him a basic guard break, pass to side control with cross face, transition to knee on belly and mount, then a cross choke to finish. We did that combo a few times before the buzzer rang.

Professor Leo worked with Saulo today, no gi. I ran into him in the locker room and we chatted a bit. He said he's been watching me and can tell I'm improving. Said my movements and transitions look much better and he can tell I'm thinking more about what my opponent is doing and what my response should be. I am certainly in better shape than I when I first started training at UNIJJ in early July. Certainly stronger. But better at BJJ? Sure. I suppose. The learning curve in the first year or so should be fairly steep and I take it for granted that with every day and every practice not only is my physique changing, my BJJ game is improving too. But I was a bit suprised that an instructor who has only observed me roll a 4 or 5 times since I started here at UNIJJ noticed improvement in my bjj game. Very encouraging.