November 1st 2013 - Gi (Morning Crew)

I still have teeth, I'm just wearing a mouth piece in the pic

Theme & Techniques: Tripod Side Control escape, Butterfly Guard Sweep

One after the other people kept showing up to early Friday Jiu-Jitsu until there were 6 of us including Greg.  Hopefully we can keep this up.

Matching up size wise I ended up working with Adam.  I felt pretty good with both of the techniques we worked on.  My tripod to single leg is still not as strong as I'd like it to be, so I may need to put more attention into that.

As Greg worked with the other group on some of the finer points of the butterfly sweep, Adam and I were challenging each other a bit.  The person being swept would hunker down or make the sweeper switch sides or use the overhook instead of the underhook.  It was very productive training remaining within the confines of what we were working on.

Rolling: Side Control Position, Butterfly position, Free Rolling

Side control defense has been frustrating me lately.  I feel like I should be better at it than I am.  I think I need to revisit the basics and work on refining the tried and true techniques.  Adam bullied me from the top for quite a while but I was able to stave off a submission just barely.  I was able to escape Brian a couple times but I felt like I was missing opportunities or telegraphing my moves too much.

Who better to drill butterfly with than the man himself.  Even when he let me get position he would figure a way out of the sweep and pass my guard.  When he was on bottom he took the opportunity to setup the two on one grip stuff that we've been working on.  Of course, it worked great for him.  It was very hard to deal with and made me want to include it in my own game more.

I free rolled with Alec to finish up the class.  As usual it was enjoyable as we usually end up in unusual positions.  A lot of butterfly hooking and attempted back takes, etc.  That was until he was attempting to take my back and then he started to bleed all over the mat.  I wasn't sure what I did, but it turned out to just be an existing scab that fell off from rubbing on my gi. 

After class I rolled with Brian a few times.  I worked some spider guard and even pulled off a sweep that I don't usually get.  Taking the back was my main goal, which I somewhat accomplished in our last roll.  He did a great job of defending my hooks, but I kept dragging him out so he couldn't escape and finally tricked him into letting me get a bow and arrow grip.

WHOYA: November 1st 2013 - Gi (Round 2)

I've been doing this section of the blog for quite a while now and one of the things that keep running through my head as I read it is "What a difference a year makes.  I hardly knew anything then.  Old me was really ignorant of BJJ."  I'm hopeful that future me a year from now will look back and see how dumb I am and how much I've improved. 

I had the 2nd match of the round robin tournament with David and while I lost I mention improvement as David smashed me the first several months of Jiu-Jitsu.  Before that the theme of the class was tornado and other inverted guards.