October 29th - Gi (Punishment)

My body took a lot of punishment and I haven't felt this worn out after Jiu-Jitsu in a long while.  Jerad led us through a good warm-up with some different body weight exercises thrown in.  The punishment started when I decided that I was okay enough to join in the team leap frog exercise around the mat.  I've been skipping it ever since Greg introduced it a couple of months ago.  I did okay with a few exceptions of landing gingerly (I hate that word).  I did have to opt out of some of the squat jumps and lunges that we did later.  I tried my best but my left knee was feeling fatigued at that point.  No need to push it.

The theme of class was sweeping someone that stands up in guard.  All were good techniques that I've done before starting with the basic grab ankles and then bridge with the knees in their center.  We finished with the star sweep and knee bar.

For training we did guard passing starting with the top guy standing.  My first opponent was Fuji.  I came so close to passing him and putting him into side control but he regained and we started over.  Somehow on my second pass attempt he secured a toe hold and stupidly I tried to fight out of it.  We rolled a bit and just as I was about to tap my ankle stretched a little bit and there were some crunchy noises.  It's not serious just a little sore this morning but it worried me a little at the time.  I was miraculously able to pass Jerad after a hard fight.  Then I went up against David (Judo guy) he's pretty tough with his grips and he pushed me around a bit, but I was able to maintain guard.  In the end he stood up giving me the opportunity to do the star sweep that we worked on today.  I went over to turtle and then swept his leg and took side control.

Apparently David Kluthe had to go do something silly like help his girlfriend cause her car wouldn't start.  So instead Mike and I fought the first round of the round robin tournament.  We did a five minute round starting from standing.  I tried to do some Judo and started with an inside trip that I was going to turn into a throw, but he kind of fell to his butt and from there I worked to pass his guard.  I didn't get take down points because he only went to his butt and I didn't put him on his back, got to remember that.  We stayed in guard with me trying to pass pretty much in Mike's half guard and him securing grips and trying to choke me.  I almost passed once but he inverted and was able to regain guard.  What won the match for him was when he threw up an armbar that I was able to pull out of.  He also tried a triangle after that but I was able to get my shin up there.  So it ended up that he won due to those attempts.  I shall reflect on what I should have done differently cause I wasn't getting anything done in his guard.

I rolled with Ken next.  I am having a really hard time with Ken lately and I don't know what it is.  With everyone else I feel like I'm improving but Ken has my kryptonite for some reason.  If I get anywhere near the deep half position with him it turns into him taking my arm and kind of taking my back and somewhat triangling me there.  I think I need to take a different approach when it comes to him.