January 14th - Gi (Invisible Piano)

Got to show off my new gi last night.  Jerad had us work on some gi chokes from guard.  We worked on the cross choke a few different ways and the loop choke.  I've never really felt confident in these types of chokes, it always seems like I don't have my forearm in the right place or there is just enough space for them to get out or wait me out.  The last couple of classes using these chokes have made me want to drill them more and add them to my game.

Invisible Piano Stance

I felt pretty good about the loop choke by the end of class once I figured out it's more about the elbow coming up rather than the hand you feed into the elbow.  Chris and I were killing each others throats after that.

We did king of the mat guard passing from closed guard.  David and I had a couple of good matches.  He wouldn't open his guard for me and eventually swept me with a flower sweep twice.  I've got to figure out an answer for this.  I passed a few people and swept a few.

Jerad and I rolled 3 or 4 times during open mat.  I guess I'm done with my no open mat rule, I don't know?  My knees are doing really well since I started biking and doing some knee extensions and curls during my lunch break at the Y.  There's still something there but no where near as bad.  I was impressed with some of the things that I pulled off against Jerad.  I hit a couple of sweeps and I submitted him with a straight armlock from the top.  He also took me apart when he wanted to passing my half guard whenever he wanted and then knee on belly or north/south side control always hunting for the bow and arrow.  Later he and Mike paid me some compliments and said that he wasn't going to take it easy on me anymore.  Kind of a bitter sweet compliment as I didn't know how much he's been taking it easy on me but cool that he sees me as a threat.

Ken took some pics of me in my new gi.  Apparently I'm making of the "Invisible Piano" stance as Kilgor pointed out on facebook.