October 12th - Gi

I've been rather happy with the direction our classes have been going lately.  It may be because I'm healing more but our warm-ups have been better and I like the focused training after the technique portion. Jerad warmed us up and then Greg took over. 

The focus was on regaining guard from the the turtle position.  Basic principles were to hand fight and not let them get any good grips or secure chokes.  Next we did a sitout kind of motion to slide our shin under into guard and then recover fully.  I worked with Mike for the majority of technique time which was good because turtle position still causes me a bit of trouble and I can't sit my butt all the way back yet, so working with someone lighter made it a little easier to take. 

Next we worked from someone to the side.  We did the granby roll first which is basically doing a forward roll and then swinging your leg into guard.  The thing that causes the most trouble with this is fighting their hand off that is around your body.  I like the resistance I get with Mike, he doesn't just let you do anything but at the same time he doesn't over fight and he gives good advice.  The final technique was more like the first one from the front headlock with sliding the shin to regain guard.

We did a few rounds of top and bottom for 2 minute rounds then switched partners.  Mike had no trouble regaining guard, which isn't that surprising.  I however, did have some problems.  I went with wrestler Jordan next and he didn't seem difficult to deal with at all.  I was surprised because I thought turtle would be his home.  But maybe he just needs to work on his jiu-jitsu positions a little more.

We went to free rolling next and I had the honor of rolling with Greg first.  I can't tell if I'm doing good against him or if he is just taking it easy on me.  I spent most of the time on the bottom doing various half guard type stuff.  The one time I did get on top he put me into x-guard which was cool to see.  I used my new love of the baseball bat choke to regain guard at one point.  Hopefully that surprised him.  I can't recall how he submitted me, it might have been a bow and arrow choke because I remember trying to defend that for a while.

I finished the day with Fuji.  He's been working on spider guard so he tried to put me in that right away.  I grabbed his pants and tried to prevent it and completed the bull fighter pass to knee on belly.  I stayed on top for a good long while, but really couldn't make anything happen.  I don't know why but I made the comment "This is weird Fuji, usually you're talking shit to me."  From then on he started talking smack and eventually I lost top position.  He kept me in side control and knee on belly and I couldn't do anything to get free and it sucked.  Eventually time was up so I avoided getting submitted barely.