May 24th 2014 - Kids & Open Mat

Kids' Class

Small kids class again this week with 2 other kids besides my own.  Jayden seemed to be a little goofy today and was looking for some attention.  I tried to coax him a little to work harder, but I decided not to push him and let him be.  They worked on the paint brush technique and today was the first time I've seen them finish a submission.  Usually they just do sweeps, takedowns, and escapes but not anything they'd have to tap out to.  I think it was good for them as they need to get used to tapping when they need to.  They played sumo for the first game and I saw some good takedowns.  Jerad had given some advice before we started ending with telling them they could also trip and I saw the kids try and succeed with some trips. 

Open Mat

My ankle was bothering me again going into practice today so I wore my ankle support which helps a lot.  It actually felt much better after the session.  My main objective today was to work on not getting my guard passed and using the stiff arm bicep stuff we did on Friday morning.  For some reason the elbow stiff arm escape from side control presented itself a lot today.  I wore my new grey gi and I'm very happy with it.  The A2H seems to be a perfect size and I kept telling people it's the color of a shark instead of a goose.

Tim: We had some good rolls as usual.  I had setup a kimura from guard and then used it to hip bump sweep.  Later on Mike showed him a defense for that and we drilled it a few times. 

Henry: Had 2 good roles with Henry except that I ended up gassing out near the end.  Most of the time we battled from half guard.  He would pass it and I would get it back but couldn't do much against his base.  Then I spent a lot of time defending his baseball bat choke and failed.  We spoke a bit after class and I learned that we have something in common in that we are both not on speaking terms with our former martial arts instructors. 

Conan: I didn't have much for Conan, but I did pass his guard at one point.  From side control I attempted to farside armbar but he was messing with my base out arm so I could never get any pressure on his ribs.  He did allow me to get the cross stiff arm a few times by setting it up for me.  Which was nice. 

Austin: I gave some advice on isolating an arm from side control.  He was using his arms too much instead of his body.  He claimed that he learned something today, which was a great compliment.  He played spider guard a lot more than I remember.  Definitely made it more difficult to pass his guard.  

Pedro: We have a huge size discrepancy so I did my best to be smooth and not use too much pressure.  At one point he tried to take a big step to pass my guard and I was able to turn it into the waterfall sweep that Conan had just shown Brian AF at the beginning of open mat. 

Brian AF: Started in guard and eventually ended up in half guard.  Setup a kimura from there and used it to get on top and eventually to side control.  He has a wicked bridge which makes me a really have to watch out in top side control.