August 12th - No Gi (MMA)

The first thing Ray said when I walked into the Dojo was "Did you bring Gloves?  Cause we're going to hit each other today."  Cool, too bad I didn't bring my gloves and my knee isn't 100%. 

My knee held up okay throughout class.  We hit the pads with some boxing and then threw in some round house kicks and a push kick.  We also did some double leg shooting off of punches and kicks.  To end the drilling part of class we did 90 leg techniques with 30 round house kicks on each leg and then 30 knees from the clinch.

We split into 3 groups and had different stations.  First we grappled with MMA gloves and were allowed some light punching contact, next was stand-up boxing and the third station was just rolling.

Adam and I started out as partners for the first go around.  In the past when I've worked on ground and pound type sparring I've felt like I've done pretty well.  Adam is a completely different type of beast and ending up on the bottom was a terrible action for me to take.  I feel like I did okay but he would have destroyed me if we were using more contact and he didn't like me.  I did a little bit better on the feet.  Although I probably would have been in trouble with Adam if wrestling was allowed.  The gloves that I had sucked and at one point my contact fell out so we had to cut our match short.  I felt pretty useless on the ground with my knee still hurting.  I have no advantages against Adam anyway so with a gimpy leg I pretty much just try to survive.  He tapped me out with a pair of kimuras from side mount.

I went with new guy Wes for another round of 3 stations.  Due to it being Wes's second Jiu-Jitsu class I didn't have too many problems anywhere with him.  He is in shape though, so he's not a complete push over.  With the ground and pound I stayed on top and tied him up the best I could with crucifixes or mount and then sent down a few punches.  From the feet, it was a little awkward with the big gloves getting in the way.  I'm kind of a sniper and not a combination kind of fighter so I missed some opportunities to throw multiple punches.  With rolling instead of just dominating him I showed him some mount escapes and some basics.

After class I rolled with Ray a couple of times.  He took it easy on me and we decided no ankle locks.  I've been successful with a omma-platta to triangle combination lately and was able to threaten it on Ray he still defended both but it was cool to work it.  I believe he choked me out with a guillotine and something else. 

I rolled with Claire until Daito-Ryu came out and to challenge myself I tried to use my hands as little as possible.  While I kept her at bay for most of the match and had a triangle and a few omma plata attempts, escaping from side control was the hardest, and I didn't know what to do when I had mount.  I also found myself cheating a couple of times on accident.