May 17th 2014 - Kids & Open Mat

Kids' Class

My oldest son seems to be going through a phase.  It took some convincing to get him to Jiu-Jitsu and then get his gi on, plus he missed Wednesday's class.  He seems to want to play by himself with lego more than anything else.  However, once he was in class he had a good time and did everything that he was expected of him.  Hope this passes, I'm doing my best not to pressure him into going. 

The technique of the week was O-Soto Gari and I helped Jayden and Conor.  They both did well, especially once they were "driving the bus" in the correct direction.  Sumo was their first game.  Both Jayden and Jace had some good matches.  I like how they're trying new things and aren't easily getting taken down most of the time.  But, size does make a huge difference at their age and they more often than not lose to bigger kids.  Which I think is a good thing since I've seen Jace deal with losing better over time, even though he still has his moments.  We finished the day with a fun game of blob tag. 

Open Mat

Had a great session today.  On the way I decided my focus was to be more aggressive with other blue belts and then deep half and 2 on 1 with white belts.  I felt a little light headed at the end of class and needed to sit for a while before I could drive home.  I think I should have ate more prior. 

Tim: I made a few attempts to get to deep half guard on him but may have forced it way too much.  When ever I'd make it there Tim was already on his butt, which was good in some ways because it made me go right for the sweep, but I really wanted to work on the waiter sweep and never got a chance.  At one point I showed him the knee pry escape from triangle which is pretty much the same as the knee in guard break.   

Conan: After class we talked about how I don't roll as well against him as I do with other people.  It may be that our styles clash or that there's an intimidation factor there.  For most of our roll I worked hard to try to pass his guard, though thwarted many of my attempts.  I cycled between over/under to bull fighter to knee slide.  The way that he is always positioning his hips, makes it very difficult to pin him down.  Finally he swept me to side control.  From there I defended the best I could until he finally isolated my arm for an americana.

Austin: Main goal was to attempt to get to deep half again but I ended up similar to rolling with Tim.  I did work from Austin's back for quite a while and used it as an opportunity to perfect my RNC setup.  I think I was being too nice as I couldn't get under his chin even with locking his arm up with my leg.  I finally got there, but still don't feel confident in setting up RNCs.  I talked to Greg about it afterwards and he gave me some good suggestions and said I had to be a little meaner.

Mike: I haven't done this well against him in a long time.  I was able to pass his guard with double unders and slowly working my way around to side control.  It really seems like a comfortable position for him so it doesn't have the same effect on him as a non-flexible person.  My focus from there is to not allow any space, because if I do he'll put a knee in that space and then return to guard.  I worked my way to mount and then automatically went for the mounted triangle.  From there I looked for the armbar but decided to sit to the side and go for the triangle.  I probably wouldn't have tried this with Mike, if I hadn't of done it the day before with Darijo.  We rolled a couple more times after that where I setup a farside armbar and he finished the third roll with the brabo choke.

Tristan: I was so impressed with his skill today.  He was all over me trying to pass my guard and he did a few times.  A little bit of my disadvantage was our weight difference.  I didn't want to crush him or use too much strength, but there were a few times when I really needed to.  He didn't really threaten me with any submissions but he was always moving.  I attempted a north/south choke at one point but his neck might have been too small and I couldn't finish it.  We ended up quitting because I had a little nose bleed. 

Henry: The first roll ended fairly quickly, where I was attempting to pass his guard standing.  He sat up and I was able to slap on a guillotine that I followed forward to the ground.  In our second roll, Henry brought it and after multiple attempts to pass my guard he reached side control and worked his way to the baseball bat choke.  I really need to brush up on the defenses for this.