January 15th - No Gi

Jared taught class yesterday with some wrestling help from Adam.  We worked on Adam's single leg stuff that he usually teaches.  I like that he shows us the same thing over and over instead of trying to show us a different series every time. 

I worked with Fuji for most of the class and like usual he was giving me crap about this blog.  Him and David are both worried about ending up in here after the day that I submit them.  Well it didn't happen yesterday, but I did accidentally rack Fuji during one of the single leg takedowns.  I wouldn't have put that in here but he told me to.

Joking aside, knowing that people are somewhat concerned about what I'm going to write about them later is a reason I question continuing to contribute to this blog.  I'm always concerned about my tone and how I portray the events of class, especially if I win in open mat.  I have to remind myself that I wouldn't mind if someone posted about me losing.  Maybe that's because I tap all of the time.  I hope by reading this that no one thinks I'm a braggart by any definition of the word.  I'm saving all of my bragging for when David taps out.

Jerad had us do some stuff that he was currently working on.  We worked on ten finger guillotine, X-Guard, butterfly sweep, shin sweep.  Pretty good stuff.

During open mat, I went with Fuji first.  It feels like I'm improving against him.  Being on the bottom of his side control is still awful, but I was able to weasel out a couple of times and even had side mount for a while but I couldn't finish anything.  My usual technique to try when they turn into me is the darce but whenever I try this on Fuji he's able to get to his knees and out.  I almost got him in a North-South but he was able to blast out of it.  He finally got me with a kimura from half guard.

I rolled with Ken next and we had a pretty lively roll with several scrambles.  I spent the majority of the time in my goto half guard position.  Toward the end I was in a mounted triangle but kept my hands clasped.  He rolled to his back and I got my head out but left my arm in.  I wasn't in a good position to roll out of it and he caught me with an omma plata.

Ken helped me with guard a little bit afterwards.  We did several drills and he gave me pointers along the way.  I saw a lot of possibilities that I hadn't noticed before but I've had them done to me.  This might open up a new addition to my game.