July 8th - No Gi

Ray was in charge of class this morning and naturally when he asked what I wanted to work on I said ankle locks.  Particularly setting them up from the leglock guard position.  We started from a failed sweep from the butterfly guard and then kicked our leg through and then hooked the hip while the inside leg went up into their crotch area.  From there we worked a few takedowns by extending or turning their knee depending on how they stepped.  The final technique we worked on was how to get out of it from the top guys perspective.  Which amounted to standing up to put the foot on the floor then controlling their leg to keep their hips down at the same time and eventually stepping over into mount.

During open mat I went with Tate first.  It was a very active roll with lots of scrambles and transitions and no one really getting the upper hand.  I pulled off a really awesome toe hold at one point but he fought like a madman to get out of it, after that he turned up the heat a little more and put a lot of pressure on me.  From there he had me in side control and then when I went to turtle he got me with an armbar. 

I rolled with Carlos next in a glorious back and forth battle.  He's getting pretty wise to my deep half guard and whenever I go there he's slipping a kimura in.  I feel like I'm starting to get the underhook on him more and more but he still has the experience to get it when he needs it.  I tried several submissions that did not finish him (North/south choke, darce, toe hold, and a triangle).  I felt like the triangle was so close.  I set it up from closed guard and kept an overhook while I continually tried form the jumprope.  I finally got it after several attempts and some omma plata attempts as well.  It seemed tight but he eventually was able to get his arm free and I ended up in side control.  Once I regained guard and told him that I thought this wasn't going to end so we agreed to quit.  I'd like to know how many points we each scored.  He might have beat me on points as I went for several submissions I think he might have passed my half guard several times more than I had sweeps from deep half. 

We had a little powwow after that with several of us talking about my game plan for the state games.  The main focus was a best - worse case senario of possible outcomes from the feet.  Ray's opinions differed from mine in a couple of cases where I thought my open guard is very strong and maybe pulling guard would be where I want to be he assured me that I should strive to be on top and keep top.  I think I find the guard more fun and facinating is why I kind of like the idea of fighting from there.  I'm going to really be focusing on my gameplan for the next 20 days until the tournament.