June 26th - Gi (The Tip?)

Jerad ran us through a warm-up of animal walking and then some take down/trips/judo throws.  Greg themed the class around a triangle escape fitting the knee into the triangle to make space kind of like a crowbar.  As a precursor to the triangle escape we did a similar guard pass.  I was somewhat familiar with this escape but it is still something to get used to as you have to keep your shin completely vertical because if your knee is forward they will get stuck above it.  I worked with Fuji for the entirety of the class. 

During the demonstration of the technique, Greg was trying to tell us the position of his foot under David's butt in top guard.  He asked David what position he felt his foot was in and David said, "I can feel the tip..."  Everyone burst out laughing and David was fired from being demonstration partner for a while.  Instead of "Danger", Fuji and I decided to change his nickname to David "Just the Tip" Kluthe.

At the end of class we did a kind of the mat with 4 stations and the person in guard would try to sweep or submit and the person on top tries to pass.  I had a pretty good run at the beginning but eventually got dethroned by Ken.  Adam and I had a pretty good one and I felt like I almost was going to pass, we continued even though we ended up on the hard floor for a little while.  Greg of course gave me a hard time, I tried my best to get to an over/under pass position but he was able to prevent me from getting my head against his thigh.  At the end I felt tricked and I wasn't really sure how I ended up on the bottom.

It seemed like everyone was pretty tired after that.  After some rest Mike and I rolled.  It was really fun because we played really loose guards and I could play the deep half and I attempted to get to x-guard a couple of times.  Somehow I was able to pass his guard and took side control.  My main objective from here was to keep my knee against him and not let him regain guard.  I went for a north/south choke and thought I had it but he weathered it and eventually escaped.  I saw it coming and regained side control.  I went for kimura and armbar but he did a great job of keeping his hands in.  From there I grew a little frustrated and I triangled his head.  Still not being able to get the kimura I reached out for his foot and finished a toe hold.

We talked about north/south choke and went over what I did wrong.  I also decided that I should stop going for toe holds in gi.  Yes I love them but they won't be legal for me until brown belt I think.  In other news, I weighed in this morning at 193 lbs, so that is 17 lbs that I've lost since April.