Monday, August 2, 2010

9:00 to 10:40a

9-9:15a: Warm-ups / drills. Learned a hip shrimp drill that will come in handy. Same side all the way down the mat. Hip escape, pull elbow under body, hip escape, pull elbow under body, etc. Actually completed 10 judo push-ups. First time!

9:15-9:30a: Half guard escape to back. Frame, hip escape, pull elbow under body, bring head close to opponents chest, keep small, work way down body, reach around and grab opponent's hip (opposite side), post with other hand, and escape to take back. Nice. I've been stuck here so many times and not known what to do.

9:30-9:45a: Half guard sweep to side control. Complimentary to first technique. Frame, hip escape, pull elbow under body, bring head close to opponents chest, keep small, work way down body, reach around and grab opponent's hip (opposite side), but...if opponent doesn't post both hands on mat, but instead keeps weight over you...trap the half-guard hook foot and extend back to put him/her off balance, then sweep the other foot with hand on heel and other hand on knee pant while lunging in to take side control. Doubly nice!

9:45-10a: Half guard sweep / pass the guard drills. Bottom guy trying to sweep from half guard. Top guy tries to pass. The techniques weren't nearly as easy to implement with a fully resisting opponent. Did manage a couple of passes though.

10-10:30a: Rolls. 7 minute rounds. First up was Chris, a 4-stripe White Belt visiting from Germany (taller, but maybe 10-15lbs lighter than me). He's in town for a month with two Blue Belts (girl and guy) and a Brown Belt. Explosive. We fought the whole time. I was defending attacks most of the roll. Not a whole lot of jiu jitsu going on though. Pretty sloppy grappling, unfortunately. Although I was fairly pleased with a one smooth combination: turtle, roll out to take to open guard, lock in the spider, dropped one leg to bait a pass, then sweep to take side control.

Odd number of classmates, so I sat out the 2nd roll. Watched the visiting Brown Belt roll with Michael. Michael's a 16-yr old four stripe Blue Belt who took 2nd at Mundials and 2nd at the Rio Open last week. The Brown Belt submitted him a few times, but it some great jiu jitsu. Michael was wrapped up in so many awkward positions...I would have been freaking out. But he kept his cool and worked escape after escape. It was great. Can't wait to watch this kid develop under Saulo and Xande's guidance.

Third roll with Yoad (Blue Belt). Yoad is a few inches shorter and probably 50lbs lighter than me. He was fairly exhausted from his prior roll with JJ. We had a good back and forth. Yoad was on attack most of the time, but I did escape, pass, and take side control a couple of times.

Nick (Blue Belt) called me out for the final roll. I don't recall what happened, but within a minute or so I had his back and tried to lock in the RNC. I didn't have the proper leverage and burned a lot of energy trying to sink it. He eventually escaped to my guard, passed, and went on the attack. He took mount a couple times and I established mount survival posture. Nick responded each time with seated mount. He had me pinned, so I couldn't work the seated mount escape. Instead I improvised an escape from the half guard escape I learned early today. Created a little space, under hooked the seated mount, shrimped the hip a little, stayed small and brought head into Nick's chest, pulled elbow under, little movements...until I escaped under his mount. The first time I continued to take down from elevator, but the second time he abandoned the seated mount during my escape and ran around me to take my back (which led me to roll out into open guard). Felt like we had a little jiu jitsu going on! Nick said I could really move for a big guy. After several frustrating classes where I felt like I couldn't move at all, the affirmation was nice.

10:30-10:40a: Spoke to Professor Kadu about squat drill technique. A couple weeks ago he tried to correct my squats during the drills, but I couldn't hear him and we moved onto another technique before I could receive his correction. Kadu showed me that I'm basically doing squats completely wrong. I was keeping my butt/hips/back straight, but my knees were bending forward well in front of my feet. Apparently that's not good for the knees. Never seems to bother me though. I feel burning in my thighs and no knee pain. Regardless, I'm doing them wrong so I need to learn the correct technique. I couldn't do half a squat correctly. I was completely off balance and the pressure on my lower thighs/knees was intense. Add "proper" squats to my list of things to work on.

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