Got to class yesterday and it seemed like most people were already there working on something. I think their coming in a half an hour early on Thursday and I'm a little jealous because I can't leave any earlier from work. Conan taught with the theme of side control escapes. It was a good review as I think I've done all of these before. There was one where that when you hook your near leg over theirs and they turn their hips and get out of it into side control. There is some timing involved to bump them on your hips and take them across your body. That one was a little difficult for me but I like the idea of it and hope to get better at stuff like that.
For open mat I went up against Mike. It's been a while since we rolled and from the beginning we seemed pretty even. He was doing a lot of his de la rivas and we had a lot of back and forth. Our size difference is in my favor and there were a couple of instances where he would have had me in a much worse position but I was able to get out of it. He had me almost in the new 10 finger guillotine but I saw it coming and was able to keep his hands from connecting. At one point he had me in knee on belly and was setting up the baseball bat choke, but I was able to put him on his back and tried to stay low and control his elbows so he couldn't get the choke. I attempted an armbar from open guard when he was standing and couldn't finish it. I eventually got him into side control and then somehow worked into an inverted triangle. I tried my best to get his arm free for the kimura but I might have been pulling up too much and not pushing in the opposite direction to break the grip first. I eventually abandoned it and then slid down to north-south choke and with some work got him to tap. We probably rolled for 15 to 20 minutes and it wore us both out.
Afterwards Mike gave me tips on how I could have beaten him sooner. One thing that I want to work on is going for the far leg when they stack an armbar. I've always thought that underhooking the close leg was the best thing to do, but this is much better.
I stumbled upon you blog because our URLs are almost exactly the same, with the exception of our first names. It's cool to read about someone on the same journey as me. Keep rolling, keep writing about it, and I hope good things come to you bro.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment Nick. I read through your posts and wish you luck in your dream. It sounds like you're going all out to get it. Being 34 now I wish I would have had the opportunity and the desire to start Jiu-Jitsu back when I was 21.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to reading future posts on your blog.