Sunday, September 16, 2012

September 16th - No Gi (Ebullience)

Today I wanted to title my post (Feeling Good) but I decided that was a little boring and doesn't necessarily give the whole picture.  So I went to google, paid my 50 cents and looked for some synonyms.  Ebullience was the most obscure meaning: overflowing with eager enjoyment or approval.  That describes a lot of what I'm feeling after today's class.

Conan had us work on passing the butterfly guard today with a focus on hip movement.  While I was a little weary on all of the knee bending that would take place, I ended up avoiding too much discomfort.  Because of the size difference between everyone in class, Adam and I were paired up for the majority of it. 

The first pass that we worked on was the head stand to a hip switch and then side control.  Several variations on this were used throughout the day.  The second technique that we worked on was probably my favorite which had to do with getting kind of an over under and grabbing their lat and then hip switching one way while twisting their body the other way.  Hard to explain but very cool.  Other techniques involved the head stand and hip switch.  Another pass that we did was kind of a surprise hip thrust over their legs right into mount.  Which we then modified as an open guard pass next to kind of stack and use in kind of a double under pass kind of way.

During open mat I rolled with Adam for a good 15 minutes or so.  I felt a little more comfortable coming up on my knees and attacking for the guard pass but didn't do too much of that.  I mostly played half guard and was stuck in bottom mount and north/south for quite a while.  I felt like I was defending a lot of his submission attempts fairly well.  I even controlled him on top side control for a bit and mounted him.  It didn't last and he eventually finished the roll with a banana split from the twister position.

Finally I rolled with the new guy Jerad for another 20 minutes.  I underestimated him a little at first and he did a great job of defending my attacks.  I stayed on my butt for the most part and tried to play some open guard.  I had top sprawl position on him and he was able to turn it into a kind of single leg.  From there sitting on my butt I secured a kimura.  As I worked for the submission he began to roll out of it but instinctively I turned it into an armbar which surprised me.  I had other opportunities for submissions with armlocks and chokes but he seemed to be pretty good at slipping out of them.  I don't remember feeling like I was in too much danger except for a couple of guillotine attempts, but I felt like his positions were pretty good and he knew what he was doing.  We finally got tired and called it a day.

1 comment:

  1. Jared submitted me with a RNC. I'm pretty sure he trained here for awhile a couple of years ago, I think I have a video of him competing in the first BOTP.

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