August 15 - Gi Class - Almost fulfilled a goal

Jerad taught class last night.  The theme was guillotine choke.  We did it from guard and mount as well as some escapes leading to the Von Flue choke and then an anaconda similar to the guillotine setup where you pull them into guard.  We finished class with the 8 minute drill which is actually more like a 16 minute drill.

During open mat I rolled with David first.  We started standing up and when he went for a leg I was able to sprawl and then eventually went for the guillotine.  I thought I had it.  I got him to the ground and wrapped my legs around him.  I dug my forearm into the side of his neck, but he would not tap.  The other thought going through my mind was that I didn't want to use too much strength and blow my load.  However, it's not that often that I get David this close to a submission.  I could here people trying to tell me how to make the choke work but I just couldn't figure out how to make him tap.  He eventually got out of it and kind of laid on top of me I suspect recovering.  I thought that this was the time that I should act and go for something else but I was tired also.  He eventually put me into an arm triangle and I tapped.

I rolled with Matt next.  I tried to give him some pointers.  I told him I'm glad that he was there because at least there's one person that I can submit there.  Hopefully he sticks around, it will be interesting to see how fast he grows since his martial arts experience before Jiu-Jitsu is limited.

I rolled with Adam last he got me into a knee bar with his legs and I felt a shooting pain in my heel.  That kind of worries me.  I know I've felt this before and I'm not sure what it is, some kind of a nerve or something is really tight in my legs.  It's a sharp pain that feels like it could tear.  We moved on.  Eventually I was in top half guard and I moved over like I would if I was in side control.  From here he took a deep half guard and was able to wrap my legs up and sweep me easily.  This has been happening to me a lot lately.  We stopped and worked it a little bit and I think I learned what I've been doing wrong and how to prevent my legs getting tied up in that situation.  So I learned something yesterday.