July 18th - Gi/No Gi (Too Much Turtle)

Was able to make it to beginner gi class yesterday to have a little extra prep for the test next week.  I was surprised that the testing will be done semi-privately with 2 students testing at a time.  Jerad and I scheduled ours for next Friday during my lunch break.  Superexcitednervous.  Saturday Greg said he's going to be there to go over curriculum questions.  In other news, supposedly the air conditioning for the school is getting fixed today so I'm interested to see how much of a difference that makes to my performance in class.

The gi class started out with the judo turnover from turtle and we worked on turtle the rest of the day.  I was pleasantly surprised that I didn't have any real problems with my knee the whole time.  Although, I could be a little more flexible.  I don't get nearly as low as Greg or Mike which would help tremendously with this position.  I worked with Jerad on these techniques.  We took the back or went to side control.  We also worked on the granby roll escape to regain guard from the turtle.  We finished the class with a couple of 2 minute rounds of positional sparring from the turtle.  Fuji completely dominated me from this position to the point that I felt helpless.  So new rule has been established, avoid turtle or get out of it as soon as possible against Fuji.

In the no-gi class Mike and Robert joined in with Jerad and Adam remaining.  After a warm-up we got into more turtle.  We did a back-take by doing a forward roll over their back.  It seemed to be a little meaner than I have practiced it in the past because you drive your bicep into the back of their neck and then roll and kind of trebuchet them over you into the back mount position.  We worked on this for quite a while.

The rest of the class was spent on rolling with 5 or 6 minute rounds.  I was surprised to pull off a butterfly guard pass that I had just learned recently, which has caused it to level up in my arsenal.  Mike truly trounced me and I got little frustrated.  He has really advanced quite a bit lately.  I did well against Robert who is the only person that has less experience than me in the class so it's understandable.  Jerad reminded me that he can do a knee slide pass on me at will and my half guard has nothing on him.  Greg did his fancy hip and leg work to pass my guard with magic and then arm bar me.