June 6th 2014 - Gi

Theme & Techniques: Shoulder Pressure Guillotine Defense from Guard, Ezekiel Choke from Mount & Top Half Guard

Mike (Tumbleweed) was able to join us for the first time at 6:30 AM due to his new position on the night shift bringing us to 7 total students for the class.  It's nice to have another blue belt around.  I worked with Ross on this portion of class and all of the techniques came more naturally than Tuesday.  I played around with my path to finishing the ezekiel quite a bit.  I gave Ross some pointers to tighten his mount by moving up a little higher and then clamping his feet into my hips so I couldn't regain half guard.  This came around to bite me in the ass during positional rolling.

Rolling: Mount Position (2 x 2 min), Half Guard Position (2 x 2 min), Free Rolling (4 min & Post Class)

So like I said with Ross on top I had to work a little more to get out of his mount.  Of course I'm not sure if he was already doing that or if my suggestion actually sparked something but I'll take any credit I can get.  I couldn't get the ezekiel from the top either I had to resort to other techniques, but I did attempt to set it up.  Maybe I'll try incorporating that choke next week when everyone's moved on to the next techniques.

I worked with Greg next in half guard.  From the top he passed my guard fairly quickly by getting pant grips and then switching my knees to the other side, I think I may need to ask him about it later.  The second time I was able to setup deep half, but couldn't do much with it because he controlled my outside leg.  Eventually he stepped over my head and all was lost.  From top he did the quick hip switch that he's been working on and took me completely by surprise.  I prevented it the next time around and I think he had swept me with something just as the time ran out.

Did free rolling with Mike and I didn't have much left in the gas tank.  He played some worm guard and I did my best to keep distance between us until I brought my opposite leg up.  From there on it was all defensive from my end.  He took my back and I defended off some bow and arrow chokes and then he took side control and started going for brabo grips which I did my best to defend, finally he caught me with an armbar.  He mentioned that I was still turning away during knee on belly instead of turning into him.  I thought it was just because he was switching sides so fast that I couldn't keep up.  I do need to be more aggressive in defending my knee on belly though, I've been armbared and choked too many times lately.