July 18th - Morning Open

In attendance: Ken, Fuji, Carlos, Claire and me.

Carlos and I tried to roll first and failed. He was nice and allowed me to get a hold of a single leg.  As I was trying to switch to a trip he collapsed and said that his knee was hurt.  Apparently a recurring injury to his ACL.  So I felt pretty bad about that.  Hopefully he recovers quickly.

I rolled with Claire next and saw some good things from her.  She did a good job of regaining guard.  I had to work to pass her guard and then take mount from there I was able to get gift wrap and go right to the back.  Then made her tap from a RNC in a body triangle.

Fuji destroyed me several times after that.  He got me down with double legs a couple of times and then quickly side mounted me.  I'm making the same mistake over and over again when I try to escape by putting my arm across my body.  He takes that easily and puts me into a arm triangle.  He puts down so much pressure that there isn't anywhere for me to move.  I was able to get him into full guard and half guard in our subsequent matches but was in trouble as soon as he stood up to break my guard and then pass.  In our final match he had my back and saw my foot and slapped on a toe hold. Damn, I'm going to have to work a lot harder if I'm ever going to hold my own against Fuji.

Fuji went and helped Claire with some things and I spent the rest of the time with Ken.  Our focus was mostly on standup.  We did a couple of rounds where we just went to takedown and then stopped and started from standing again.  I think Ken took it a little easy on me half way through and let me complete some throws as well.  He was doing a great job with a lot of trips.  I tried to limit my throws to the few that I've been working on lately.  Mostly they are the valley drop throw and the two sacrifice throws I just recently learned, then the single leg as well.  It seems like we keep falling into the same fight from the ground.  Either I'm defending from half or deep half guard on the bottom or I'm trying to pass his guard and he's using his crazy legs.  He was able to tap me with 2 armbars today.