May 30th 2014 - Gi

Theme & Techniques: Koshi Guruma, Basic Open Guard

It was rather bright out this morning when I woke up around 5:45.  So much so that I thought I missed my alarm and was late to class.  Thinking I'm late always wakes me right up.  Had a rare appearance from Jordan A, who said he's looking forward to starting again for the summer. 

I worked with Brian AF today and I think we both were productive and learned a lot.  This was the first time I've seen Greg teach this position in class.  While working on it, it seemed pretty powerful and like it had so many options.  Getting into the position was similar to getting into spider guard, except we started with a deep collar grip and then worked our way to feet on hips and then put our foot on the shoulder opposite the collar gripped side.  From there a lot of the techniques I do from cross guard were available like omoplata and triangle, but it's more of a straight on position at first.

I was surprised to see that Brian was not that familiar with omoplata.  But, it makes sense since it's not on the white belt curriculum.  I guess, I'm biased as it's probably the technique I have the most success.

Rolling: Closed Guard Position (4 x 2 min), Basic Open Guard (4 x 2), Free Rolling (4 min)

With every roll I attempted to get to the open guard position that we worked on.  Submissions didn't come as easy as I thought they would.  The opponent's elbows are the most difficult thing to deal with in this guard and I found when I was on top it was rather easy to hunker down and keep my elbows in tight.  The technique that worked the best for me was the scissor sweep. 

Rolling seemed more difficult than it should have been.  Not sure if it was a lack of sleep, dehydration, or not eating enough but I had a major lack of energy.  I needed to sit by the fan again before heading out and was feeling back to normal after a Gatorade.  Hopefully I get over this, I'll try increasing my water intake before class.