January 28th - Gi

Had a great class yesterday with Jerad teaching attacking from back mount.  We started with some basics of the position (where to put the hooks, how to clasp in seat belt, which side to roll to based on the underhook.  Another thing that Jerad brought up which is probably obvious but I haven't heard it brought up before is you need to keep the underhook and then the opposite leg hook to keep control.  If you have the underhook and the leg hook on the same side they can easily turn into you.  From there we focused on choking using rear naked, x-choke, Ezekiel, and finally bow and arrow.

I like partnering with Mike because he tends to find flaws in my techniques.  Sometimes I get a little annoyed with his teaching style because he can be pretty blunt at times, plus my ego.  I just need to keep reminding myself that I still have a lot to learn even with things that I feel like I'm already good at.  My problem last night was with staying tight on his back and keeping close with my seat belt grip.  Normally I don't hold myself that tight to my opponent from the back and even with just drilling Mike was escaping my hooks easily.  So I choked up a bit on my seat belt grip and put my chin in tighter on his shoulder and was able to control him better.  I think I was used to bigger guys and that my hands hook at a certain place in my seat belt, but I think I need to be choking up on everyone from now on.

We did king of the mat at the end of class with guard passing.  There were 3 groups and I was able to pass several times and then defend several times as well.  It seems for me I'm at a skill level where I decisively beat the new people and I decisively get beat by the people more experienced than myself.  Which is probably how it should be.

Jerad and I were the only ones to hang around and roll afterward for open mat.  This was really good for me, besides destroying me, he went over some pointers and a pass that we worked on before.  We discussed knee on belly defense which is something I need to work on a little more. 

I feel like I may be plateauing right now and to overcome it I may need to find an aspect of Jiu-Jitsu to focus on.  So I extend the question to anyone that reads this, send me your suggestions on what specific things I should try to improve?  So if you've rolled with me or watched me roll others and thought, "Josh would be so much better if he improved X" please drop some knowledge on me.