March 4th - No Gi (Injury Scare)

Huge class yesterday for a Sunday.  Seems like the new guys keep coming back.  We ended up covering a lot of ground so I'm not sure I can nail down a "theme" to the class like a usually do.  The class did have a progression to it where one technique led to the next so it wasn't incoherent.  We started off working on our shooting and while I'm still not a master at this I took it as a sign of improvement that most of the new guys were having trouble dropping to their front knees for the shot while it's become a lot easier for me (completing the takedown is another thing entirely).

After working some double and single legs we went to sprawling and how to do it and then some things to do if someone sprawls on you.  From there we moved to turtle position and spent some time rolling the other person over or trying to get our hooks in or half way going into the twister.  I had a lot of good interactions with my partners.  Maybe they were a little more excited to work with me because of the way we have the junior people rotate amongst the seniors so I was with a senior person each time.

Finally we worked on some controlling and escaping from back mount.  I took a little punishment here from Sara who smashed my nose pretty good while executing the face crank, then by Adam when he was transitioning to mount his knee was against my rib and I was pushing against him.  I heard celery crunching and yelled tap immediately.  It didn't turn out being as bad as I thought but I'm still a little sore today.  I'm assuming it's just some cartilage that popped.

I didn't go too hard the rest of the class while it didn't technically hurt I could still feel something there and I didn't want to actually injure it.  Well foolishly I rolled with Ken anyway.  I think I did pretty well with him considering but I never know when he's playing possum or when I'm actually doing well.  I was able to pass his guard and stay on top for a while, had the gift wrap for a little bit and locked up a kimura at one time but couldn't make anything come of it.  He was able to isolate my arm and get me in an armbar.