September 6th - Gi (Injured Game)

Conan taught class with the focus of getting to Back Mount from Guard.  I didn't have too much trouble with this except I had to keep weight off my left knee while kneeling in top guard.

There are a couple of difficult parts about getting back mount from guard.  One is getting around the opponents arm, you have to clear one of their elbows across your body.  We were using a double sleeve grab and then a hip bump to push it over there.  We also went for an underhook and go for the straight armlock.  From there we would grab the wrist for a gift wrap or grabbing their lat muscle.

Next you have to deal with getting your leg free and taking a hook.  This we accomplished by either letting the opponent pass one leg or by kicking out their knee.  We moved on to other things like rolling them over if they tried to center back up.

I rolled with Jordan during open mat and took it easy.  Like usual lately I pulled side mount and then worked from there.  He was giving me a lot of space to work and when I pointed it out to him, he said that he's never on top.  So, I showed him some things I like to do in side mount and told him he should ask to start in top positions some times so he can work on them.  He got a little better after that.  I'm happy to have another practice of not hurting myself.

Before class I had a long boring meeting at work that really didn't apply to me so I started mapping out my current game with techniques that didn't require the use of my knees.  It's pretty limited and I apologize for my sloppy writing.  In addition to this map I also wrote down the things to avoid:  Turtle, Butterfly, X-Guard, Triangle, Closed Guard top and bottom.  Click on the image to get a larger view.