May 18th - Open Mat

I really should write these posts right after class because I've probably forgotten a lot of what happened.  My goal for the weekend was to get some practice with guard passing above all else.  Which worked out well because Jerad and Ray both played guard and gave me a chance to do some standing passing.  I attempted to incorporate a lot of what I learned from the youtube videos I've been watching.  Mostly keeping my elbows connected to my knees, keeping one foot in front, and then side stepping and using my grips to push their knees the other way.  I felt like my timing improved and that I wasn't as much of a spaz trying to pass as I usually am.

Another thing that improved was my confidence in my knees.  Part of standing passing requires knee bending and changing directions to pin their leg with my shin or knee slide to complete the pass.  I really didn't feel any discomfort and later that day I felt pretty good instead of my leg feeling fatigued.

I got a chance to roll with Conan, Jerad, Bauer, and Ray.  I got submitted by everyone to varying degrees, but I feel great about the improvements that I made to my guard passing.  I think I'm going to continue on this way, taking a piece of Jiu-Jitsu and work on it for a while.