Matisyahu

Saw Matisyahu at the Howlin’ Wolf after class last night. Great show = Late post.

5:20-5:30p: Stretched. 5:30-5:50p: Warm-up / standard drills. 210 core reps. No problem. 80 push-ups. Finished 90% from knees. 5:50-6p: Sweep / pass the guard. Got swept by a Purple via omoplata transition. Passed a Green via standing torreando variation. Swept a Blue…can’t remember how. Blue passed me via torreando variation. Disappointed because I dropped him on his butt twice when he stood up (using a sweep from Revolution 1), but I couldn’t transition to top quick enough to complete the sweep.

6-6:30p: Technique. Bully head lock take down, escape to arm bar. Standing guard break. Very similar to Saulo’s standing guard break from Revolution 1. Geez. One other technique, but I can’t remember at the moment. Will revise post if/when it comes to me… ***UPDATE*** The other technique was a double leg stack pass from open guard after a standing guard break. Thanks for the assist Matt!

6:30-7p: Rolls. 6 minutes. Got a Purple, Blue, and White. Purple destroyed my posture…repeatedly. Got swept twice from busted posture via flower/upa combo. Managed to reverse both mounts via upa. Done messing with busted posture, I grabbed a high lapel and fisted it down to the mat across his throat. That worked…sort of. Regained posture and opened guard, but got swept via de la riva (maybe tripod). Shot a triangle while he was trying to pass. Timing was good, but his posture timing was better. I let it go thinking I couldn’t finish. Afterwards he told me I shouldn’t have quit. Said I almost caught him and I definitely had his full attention. Interesting.

Blue passed to half guard without too much trouble. Tried to defend the cross face, but he insisted… He passed to side control and got me in a mean cross face pin. Didn’t feel good, but I wasn’t threatened either. We must have sat there for 3 minutes. He started suggesting that I shrimp. Uh, no. He had me so tight and I was so tired, I couldn’t spare the energy to do something I didn’t think I could pull off. Besides, he wasn’t advancing or threatening me. Why waste the energy? Purple reminded me afterward that I should have tried harder to escape because, in a tourney, although a good ref would tell the top guy to advance, it would burn valuable time and I was down on points. He’s right. Need to adapt my survival mindset. Blue finally tried to advance (went to north-south). Started working for inverted guard but time ran out.

Roll with White was fun. Long (and strong) legs. Tight closed guard. Tricky open guard. Encouraged her to work a butterfly hook or two into her open guard. She’s doing remarkably well for only a few weeks into training.