5:30 to 7p

5:30-5:45p: Warm-up / standard drills. Felt achy as soon as I hit the mats.

5:45-5:55p: Sweep / pass the guard. Crowded tonight, so I only got 2 attempts to pass in the time. Chris (Blue Belt) and I went at it for a long while. I deflected the hip bump sweeps, but eventually gave it up and got back in line. I had hogged enough time and couldn't pass. Got Professor Doc Eddie next. He swept me and took my back with the same technique he showed at the seminar Saturday. I knew what was coming, but couldn't defend. He caught me with that sweep twice last night as well. Hmm...

5:55-6:30p: Techniques. Mount escape. Reviewed survival goals (frame to keep opponent low and over hips) followed by a basic upa-type reversal when opponent goes for a predictable palm up cross collar choke. Doc Eddie added a variation involving a hip scoot to counter a good mount. Worked that a bit. Then worked an arm bar from s-mount. Reach for the palm up cross collar choke. When opponent defends the neck, switch to technical mount and slide knee up and around the head. Trap the inside arm and bring in the outside arm. Switch from technical to s-mount. When both arms are tied up, release the choke and post to assist with transferring leg over head before laying back. Pull lever...arm...from wrist toward the head to maximize leverage and break opponent's hold. Hips up and get the tap. Nice. Maybe some day I'll be able to control someone well enough to execute all those steps.

6:30-7p: Rolls. 5 minute rounds, but there were so many people on the mats we broke up into groups of three and rotated in. I rolled two and sat out two. Got Big Steve (White Belt) and Chet (White Belt). Steve passed my guard without too much trouble and at some point I recovered half guard. Got stuck in deep half. Spent almost the entire roll in deep half. I believe he passed again and I recovered half again, but most of the roll was in deep half. I never felt too threatened and didn't expend much energy, but I certainly couldn't do anything to get out of half guard. Posture busted up. He had my back flat and cross face much of the time. I'd fight back to deep half, only to get pushed on my back. Rough... My last couple sessions with Steve have been very similar. Stuck... Need to figure something out.

Chet kicked my butt too. He broke and passed my guard. It didn't take long and he took my back. Can't remember how exactly, but as he took my back he sunk in both hooks. Tight too. I defended the neck attacks and worked on an escape, but he had an answer for all my attempts. After a couple minutes Chet stopped and said he wasn't learning anything because he'd tried everything to choke but couldn't so he didn't know where to go from there. I showed him a couple choke options (he already knew them), but I couldn't pull them off when he defended so I was basically where he was. I should have showed him the arm bar from the back that Dorian caught me with last night...will have to do that next time I see him. We reset and rolled a bit more but I don't recall what happened.

Forgot to stretch...again...drats.

Saturday is the GB Compnet tournament. Thankfully I don't need to cut weight to make the Heavy division. The problem is that no one else is registered in the Master's Heavy division. There are 110+ registrants, but most of the brackets are pretty thin. There's one Super and one Ultra Heavy in the Master's division and a couple teammates (Cleveland and Henry) are in the Adult Heavy division. I'll compete wherever. It's for the experience. Although I've had a number of unnerving comments lately from classmates and instructors that they expect me to do well (actually, one instructor said I'm going to "kill those old guys"). That's a lot of pressure for a first-timer with only 6 months experience. Let's just say that if I compete anything like I rolled tonight, I'm not going to score any points and I'll be lucky if I don't get tapped. Yeah...nerves are starting to set in. I'll train light for an hour tomorrow night and I'm taking Thursday night off. Might go see a movie or something. I'm helping to set up on Friday night and will work the event on Saturday. Hopefully I'll find someone to take some video.