Stripe 2

I've only trained 1.5x since my last post. Last Thursday (1) and last night (0.5).

Thursday was a good night. Worked two side control escapes. The first from Kesa Gatame and the second from traditional bad spot side control. Rolled with Professor Matthias and a Purple (among others). Pleased with both sessions, although Purple worked me over pretty good. Survived/escaped back attack. Oh. Got a second stripe Thursday.

Last night started ok. I felt well (enough) during pre-class stretches. A larger White asked to roll. I've been watching this guy roll a lot the past month or so and know he's a handful. He obviously has experience. Finished stretching and started to roll. Struggled a bit. He had me in a few bad spots; his top pressure was intense. Great weight placement and distribution. Forced me to bail to turtle. Then flattened me out. Couldn't get hooks. Thank goodness for turtle to x-guard. Managed a couple sweeps. Passed a couple times. Took his back. Mounted. But he had solid technical answers for all of it. Especially impressed with his back survival/escape. Textbook Saulo stuff. Turns out he has a significant rassling background plus no gi experience. Just starting gi. My guess is he won't be a White much longer.

Gassed out. Unusually so. We didn't roll that hard either. Warm-ups were a bit of challenge. Sweep / pass the guard killed me. Had a few sweeps and a couple passes (including a 4-stripe Purple via standing guard break to x-pass), but I literally collapsed when Professor called time. Felt extremely noxious. Sat out technique. Didn't feel any better. Decided to call it a day. Feel fine now. Not sure what was up.