January 5th - Gi

Conan taught class yesterday and we did several different things with some focus on standup and then sweeps.  Our warmup consisted of the standard falling routine.  We worked on some Kazushi and fitting in.  It was a pretty good drill as I'm still not that comfortable with the concept.  I think it helped.

We did some sweeps from butterfly guard and then half guard.  The first butterfly guard sweep (one underhook one over) was pretty cool and fun.  The second sweep we worked on I have been familiar with because I have it done to me frequently.  It's especially used when someone tries to pass your butterfly guard and you kind of kick them off to the side.  For the rest of the class we worked on the Shaolin sweep that Greg taught us.  I really like this too and was glad to get several reps in with it.

For open mat I went with Adam first.  Of course I ended up on the bottom once we actually engaged.  I was able to get to my knees a couple of times but never had a good position.  I feel like I defended well throughout.  We both tried a couple of the sweeps that we worked on yesterday.  Conan ended up having us stop and change partners before a submission was to be had.

I went with Conan a couple of times after that.  In our first match he was messing with isolating my arms and messing with them quite a bit from side control.  There was one point where I surprised him with a timed reversal from side mount that put me in side mount for a few seconds.  Which was cool.  In the end he tapped me out with an americana from a top crucifix position.  We then talked a little about getting my arms free when they are trapped.

With three minutes left I went with Greg.  It seemed to be a little different going with him than before.  I don't know if he was trying something new but he felt really light and didn't really use any pressure on me.  It seemed like a scramble the whole time with me getting half guard and losing it over and over.  Finally he was in side mount and had both his hands near my collar.  I knew too late what was coming when he put on the baseball bat choke from the top.