June 24th 2013 - Gi (Bachweek #6)

Last night was my final double class of my week without the wife and kids.  They're coming home tomorrow and I'll be very happy to see them.  It's been a long, fun, informative, tough week but I'm ready for things to be back to normal.

Last night ended up being a big guy class with Ray, Adam, Fuji, and Chris.  After our warm-up Greg had us do a few half guard techniques.  The first one was done from the guy on top having the under hook and smashing you.  You reach over their shoulder grab their gi then go for a butterfly hook with the outside leg then pull them back on top squared up.  I can't remember what the other hand does but from there the inside foot bases and bridge and kick them up and switch to full guard.  It was pretty slick.  The second technique was from a better position with the underhook but the guy on top is trying to complete a darce.  From there we grab their sleeve and by their knee with the other hand and then roll under them to a nice sweep.

We trained from half guard after that just rolling with 3 minute rounds and switching top and bottom and then partners.  I rolled with everyone but Ray I think.

I brought an extra gi top again but considered not staying for a second class.  Since Jerad was the only one I decided to stay and Greg was nice enough to take it easy on me.  We worked a self defense technique from a standing guillotine first.  It consisted of monkey pawing the wrist, grabbing the back of their gi over their shoulder and then circling around their legs to the opposite side and then clipping the back of their knee with our thigh for a takedown.  We then did a similar defense from within the guard but we applied downward pressure with the shoulder to make them release.

We talked a little bit about the curriculum and some of the techniques that would be on the blue belt test.  The cross choke came up and I mentioned that I had some problems with it.  So Greg went over that from the guard and I think I have a better understanding of it now.  I would get a good deep grip but I was not bringing them into me and putting my elbow on their chest before securing the other grip.  We then trained guard passing and Jerad smoked me in every possible way from top and bottom.