June 26th No-Gi

Pretty small class yesterday with me being the least experienced.  Greg taught and Ray, Adam, and Aaron were also in attendance.  We warmed up with some shrimping up and down the floor. We did a couple of mount escapes that I have worked on before and got some pointers on.

We went through a drill of one person surviving from 4 different bad positions for 2 minutes each: Mount, Back, Side, and Turtle.  The bottom person was supposed to improve position and the person on top was trying to submit.  I started off on bottom with Aaron as my partner.  I had a hard time with mount as usually people can neutralize my legs by putting their feet under them or grapevining.  Back mount wasn't as much of a problem for me mostly because we started from sitting and there is no pressure on my chest from that position, I pretty much have to guard my neck.  Side Mount is my least favorite position.  It seems like I regularly become immobilized and all of the bucking and shrimping I do just tires me out.  Turtle wasn't as bad as the others, maybe 50% I'd end up in guard.

We cycled partners and I watched Greg do the top positions on Aaron and it was very cool to observe.  It's amazing to see him work.  After that I worked with Aaron again on Side mount and mount while Greg took on Ray and Adam.

I rolled with Aaron a little bit which was pretty good.  I haven't rolled without a gi for a while and I was able to move quite a bit more.  We had several scrambles and I was able to slip out of a couple of submissions.  In the end he got me in an figure 4 armbar from side mount.  I hadn't worked with Aaron before since he's been injured for a while.  Hopefully he'll be around more often now.

While Ray and Greg were working on stuff I asked Adam if he would show me some wrestling.  We worked on an armdrag, double leg and single leg.  The single leg stuff was pretty cool as there were 3 or 4 transitions that you could go to (at least that he showed me).  Adam was a little surprised that I was interested.  Personally I'd rather end up in the top position if I can and I think learning a little bit of wrestling can only help.