July 25th 2014 - Gi

Theme & Techniques: Shoulder Throw, Back Mount Cross Choke, Guillotine from Guard

Practiced the throws with Darijo and Dave and then worked with Tim on the rest of the stuff, who made a rare Friday morning appearance.  All was well with this portion of class and I only gave him a few pointers on the guillotine.  It was mostly about arm position and how to get a deeper hold on it.

Rolling: Back Mount Position (4 x 2 min), Guard Position (4 x 2 min), Free Rolling (5 min rnds & Post Class)

I wasn't feeling good about my back attacks today.  Apparently everyone is getting better at defending them.  I was doing a good job of keeping my chin down on their shoulder and letting go of a hook to push off on the floor.  Also the single leg pry to get a hook back in has been working great for me lately.  For back defense I focused a lot on my head position to get to the side I wanted and then preventing any collar grips.  Ross was doing a good job with his grip fighting from the back.

I rolled with Greg for guard position and felt like I was doing pretty good with some cross guard to 2 on 1.  He had stood up at one point and I was able to feed his arm between his legs and almost got the sweep but he kept his far leg away and I ended up trying for a back take unsuccessfully that turned into a leg tangle to inverted half guard to him passing.  We went over the 2 on 1 sweep after class which I feel a lot better about. 

I rolled with Ross after class with the goal of working on my cross guard/omoplata.  I am feeling more confident in the modified pendulum type sweep that I've been doing from there when I can't get the omoplata.  I noticed some improvement in his stiff arm side mount escape.  I'll give myself a little pat on the back for having something to do with that.  Before we left Ross mentioned that he's not used to anyone going for the omoplata to which Greg said something to the effect of "No one attacks it as often".  I'll take it as a compliment.