September 11th No-Gi Class (2 epiphanies 1 class)

Had a good class yesterday and I'm glad I could make it.

Greg taught a pretty small class of Ray, Jared, Adam, Matt, and myself (James showed up later).  We started out working on a wrestling technique going off of pummeling taught by Adam.  I had a pretty tough time with it and it tweaked my back a little.  I couldn't get the hang of the off balancing.  I wasn't the only one though.

After that we did a stand-up live drill where we tried to take each other down from the pummel position.  I was not impressed with my performance here.  Standing grappling is something I should be good at but against some of these guys I feel like a beginner.  I think I just have to loosen up a bit and try to use off balancing a lot more.

Next we worked on a guard pass that utilized the armpits since with no-gi there isn't any clothes to grab.  I have done this before and I really like it.  Like with everything it's a little more difficult live, but not completely undoable.  We finished with some live training on trying to pass the guard or not get passed.  I felt pretty good about this.  I went with Adam and Matt.  I'm not very strong at keeping my guard closed and I have a hurt ankle so I pretty much opened up right away.

During open mat I rolled with Adam.  It was a pretty good roll for me.  After it was over we were talking about deep half guard and Greg showed me some things that I was doing wrong.  One major thing is I wasn't blocking a crossface from this position which was putting me at a huge disadvantage.

After that I rolled with James.  He pretty much dominated me and put me in a arm triangle choke.

I rolled with Jared last.  I was able to implement the deep half guard sweep that I just worked on with Adam.  However Jared got me in a kimura and made me roll over and tapped me out.  I was discussing with him how I seem to get put into North/South position all of the time lately.  He showed me how he puts his hands and arms in bottom side control.  I had my arm that is down by the hips under the body way too much.  Hopefully this change will help me prevent letting guys put their crotch in my face repeatedly!