January 9th - Gi

David warmed us up with some basic stuff with some ab work.  We also did the front shrimp partner drill that I'm both glad and sorry that I introduced to the class.

Greg taught the remainder of the class with the theme of defending the double underhook pass.  It was pretty informative as it is a place that I end up often.  I was surprised to hear at the end of the class that at the high levels of Jiu-Jitsu this pass isn't done because the elbow defense makes it so easy to foil it.  Some of the defenses were pretty tough since my abs were already a little fatigued.  There was a lot of pushing back and walking the shoulders away.  We finished class by drilling from this position and it was surprising how often the defenses worked after just learning them.

Robert and I were partners throughout the class and we also rolled together for open mat.  There were several times that I felt like I was going to finally have him but he was always able to weasel out and I would get fatigued.  I was using the gi to the best of my advantage as he's not used to it yet.  I was even able to pull of the elbow push side mount escape that we just worked on in class.  He was still able to get me with a couple of armbars after much struggling.

I went with Ken next and somehow we got into a weird donkey half guard back take kind of position.  It took us a while to get untangled.  He eventually wormed his legs into a reverse armbar.  I was just waiting for him to put me in an Omma plata so I could do the roll defense but in waiting for that he finished the armbar.  I should have dealt with the armbar instead of depending on him going to that other technique.

I went with Jared a couple times to finish the night out.  He's been doing a lot more standing up in my guard and when he has side mount on me lately.  I'm not sure if it's what he's currently working on or if it's something that he's doing against me specifically but I need to take advantage of the given space more.  Even though I knew he was working towards it, he still was able to set up the bow and arrow choke twice.

Hopefully we can roll tomorrow morning at 7.  Ken let me know if you are still planning on being there.