April 1st - No Gi (Unbalanced Ranks)

There were quite a few new people in class yesterday.  It seemed like there was a potential that I'd be teaching class yesterday as no one that usually teaches showed up.  It was okay since I've taught plenty of martial arts so I wasn't that worried.  Finally Ken and Adam showed up so I was off the hook.  For this reason we started pretty late.  I ran everyone through a warm-up while Ken had one of the new people sign a waver. When Ken came back he has us go through the basic falling stuff that I've been through oh so many times.

Most of the class from there consisted of a judo tripping throw.  I worked with Anthony who is a Judo brown belt that has visited our class previously.  After some drills with this throw we got out the crash pad and switched out partners with this throw over and over.  There were 4 big guys in our group and we did quite a few reps.

From there Ken had us work some open guard where the other person is standing.  Most of it was trying to sweep or trip the opponent.  We progressed from there doing all free form and not focusing on any technique in particular.  I worked with one of the new guys that does Karate.  I feel sorry for my partner because I was sweating like a pig at this time.

During open mat I rolled with Erik.  It was so slippery and difficult to get a hold on each other.  I don't remember of being in danger of being submitted although we switched who had the dominating position several times.  I eventually worked him into an omma-plata from guard and got him to submit.  I actually asked him to tab because I didn't want to take the lock any further.  We rolled again and I inadvertently had his back for a while, but with his turtling and us both being slippery I lost it.  We quit after that.

I helped out a new guy for the rest of the time.  I showed him a guard pass first and then rolled with him.  I was surprised that he had a little wrestling skill but I was eventually able to take his back and put him in an RNC.

Hopefully we keep up the new guy attendance so I don't continue to feel like the noob in class all of the time.