Starting Off the New Year Right

I attended No-gi on Sunday taught by Conan and Gi class last night taught by Jerad.

It was just myself, Patrick, and Conan to start off, then Ken and Adam showed up later.  Our focus was pretty much working on defenses for things that Patrick and I thought of.  We started with Darce defense and moved to North-South and other chokes.  We did some attacks from mount mostly chokes using grapevines.  Then we did the defenses for those chokes and an exercise trying to move the opponent's elbows just enough to relieve the pressure.

I had a battle with Ken that lasted a long time.  I don't remember many highlights but I remember that I had some good moments and felt like I implemented some of the recent changes to my game successfully.  I rolled with Adam next and he basically crushed me.  I also felt okay about my performance here but being in his side control is just awful. 

Last night Jerad's theme was the turtle position.  I'm pretty sure I've practiced all of the techniques that we did but I haven't been using them.  There were a couple of ones that went from the opponent trying for a single leg and some ways to handle that, I get put in single legs often from this position.

I rolled with Robert first with him having a gi on for once.  I was able to get him into an armbar position, but with everything I tried I couldn't break his grip.  There were a couple of times when he had me in side mount that I wanted to tap from being suffocated by his gi.  His strength is definitely an obstacle to overcome.  He eventually got me with a belly down armbar.

I rolled with David next and was able to implement some of the new things that I learned against him.  It wasn't long before I made a mistake and he had side control.  I used the arm triangle defense that he showed me last week by pushing down on him with my triceps.  Which worked but he eventually isolated my arm and got me into an americana not too long after.

By this time I was feeling pretty crappy and drained.  Jerad asked me if I wanted to roll and I couldn't refuse.  While I did some good things in attempt to pass his guard I made a big mistake right away and I got caught in a Kimura because I left my front hand too far back.  We went again and I tried my best to just go with the flow.  He eventually took my back and had my collar, I started to get out of it but then turned the wrong way right into the bow and arrow.

I'm going to take tonight to recover.  I worked out 4 days in a row and helped my brother-in-law move some heavy stuff over the weekend.  I was pretty sore last night after class, so after the kids went to sleep I curled up into a ball under several blankets and moved as little as possible and watched some tv.