5:25 to 7p

5:25-5:30p: Stretched.

5:30-5:50p: Warm-up / drills. Professor Matthias asked Mike (Purple) to lead a "long" warm-up. Mike started with dodgeball using a boxing glove. Get hit and do 10 push-ups. A bit unusual, but ok... Didn't get hit, but did 30-40 push-ups anyway. Only completed about 90% of the core work due to lower back cramping.

5:50-5:55p: Inverted guard recovery drills. Head between standing partner's legs. Grab ankles. Cross legs and hook outside of thighs. Unwind and spin around to open guard.

5:55-6:05p: Solo drills. Side control bump to elevator and guard recovery. Then running escape from side control.

6:05-6:20p: Bully headlock escapes. Two variations. Both review.

6:20-6:30p: Headlock from side control escape. Bump to make sure inside elbow is tucked to side and on mat. Frame. Step out to create space while extending frame. Pop legs over head while circling outside hand around headlock arm to trap. Extend legs for choke or apply arm lock. Nice.

6:30-7p: Rolls. 5-6 minutes. Got Abhi (White), Will (Blue), Mike (Purple), and David (White). The theme was New Normal. Slow. Easy. Technical. That was the goal. Even if it meant giving up positions and finding myself in a bit of a pickle (and it did...often). The New Normal seems to be working. I survived all attacks. Had a few nice escapes. Passes. Transitions to mount. A few sweeps, including sweep of a pass, deep half guard, and one from reverse de la riva. And a nice step over choke from side control.

Roll with Mike was a challenge. Spent almost the entire roll defending north-south attacks. Need to learn escapes from that position. Seemed like my side control defense was solid enough that it encouraged him to go to north-south. Once in north-south I got bogged down defending kimura attacks. Really couldn't do anything until, after what seemed like several minutes, he either felt pitty on me, gave up from my stellar defense, or made a mistake because I freed myself (probably pitty...).

David (all 135lbs of him) had me all tied up a couple of times where the only way I could see to escape was to muscle a bridge from my bum knee. Chose not to and paid for it. Waited it out...finally found my way back to guard. The same scene repeated itself a few times.

I didn't always make good choices though. Threw a bit too much weight/muscle into a torreando pass against WIll. It worked and he complimented me on the move, but that's not the point. I felt a bit outside of the New Normal. Should have worked for a more technical pass.

It was a good night, but I forgot to stretch post-workout. Dag nabbit. Got to get back into that habit. Looking forward to four days off. Going home for the long weekend.