April 25th 2015 - Kids & Open Mat

Kids Class
Technique/Game: Armbar from Mount, Basic Side Control Escape, Mount and Side Control Position

The boys only worked with each other today which would often end up in them screwing around too much.  Minus being silly a few times they kept on task.  The armbar was still a little difficult for them but they made progress.  I had to skip a few of the steps in the side control escape and told them to just go for full guard.  Sometimes if they know the main goal they naturally do some of the things to accomplish it without harping on the minor details.

There were no back takes during rolling which was a surprise.  Jace attempted 2 americanas in a row on Jayden and got them, but on the third time, Jayden was able to defend it and roll him over.  Hopefully I'm driving home the importance of learning the techniques during the drilling portion of class so they can use them during the rolling portion.  Jayden did a great job of maintaining mount and I think he kept it the whole roll.

Open Mat
Rolled With: Adam (NP), Brian (AF), Ross, Bhuvana
Game Plan: Deep Half

Adam: The brothers from North Platte came in for a visit again, always happy to have them.  It appears he's been practicing his x-guard because he was able to sweep me with it.  I ended up in half guard and full for a little bit, but couldn't get much going.  He ended up passing and spending a lot of time in side control as I defended brabo grips.  He finally caught me with a choke where you put the opponent's lapel under your knee in side control along with the brabo grip and then work your way into a bread cutter.  Pretty cool.  Our second roll went better for me in the beginning.  He put me into x-guard and while I struggled to stay afloat I was able to eventually get my leg free and move into side control.  I had 3 good attempts at a baseball bat choke but I was unable to finish.  I think I needed to move my hips around a little more.  I gave up on that and went for a farside armbar but my leg was not secured over his head and he ended up coming to the top and worked me over until he got another gi choke.

I had several attempts at side control escapes but my lack of confidence in escaping got the better of me.  I need to focus my efforts into escaping bad positions and guard retention.  Maybe more of the latter would do me some good, preventing bad positions before I end up there, is ultimately preferable.

Brian: I showed him the cross guard pull that I learned from Tinguinha's DVD.  He seemed to really take to it.  When we rolled he jumped across to my back right away.  Luckily I got my shoulders on the floor before I got too deep, but it was a wake-up call to take him seriously.  There was a point where I went for a farside armbar and he pushed my leg into half guard at the same time.  The armbar was a no-go but it did put me in a great position for a kimura.  In our other roll I worked hard for the north south choke and even had Conan come over and give me some pointers. Brian did a good job of bridging and turning and keeping my hands from coming together.  With the help of my knee and keeping my base low I finally got my hands together.  We went over defending the over/under pass and doing head push stuff in general. 

Ross: He flattered me by asking for some help with deep half guard.  So I tried to go over the most important details that I've learned lately.  During entry into the position bury your head to prevent crossface, grabbing the thigh and pulling it into the shoulder, keeping good posture with your head and not letting your neck bend, and keeping your knees pointed up.  We went over the Homer Simpson sweep a few times. I showed him a couple ways that I entered the position and that mount escape was one of the major ones that worked for me.  We rolled a few times and I went to deep half and did the sweep for good measure.  I don't remember too much from our roll besides that.

Bhuvana: She wanted to work on defenses so asked if we could just start rolling and then walk her through escapes once I got into a good position.  From mount I got the deep collar grip and talked her through upa, but instead I based out with my leg and had her go for half guard instead.  We talked about going from quarter to half by leveraging the ankle with the thighs and pushing their knee down with the hand.  Eventually I went to back mount via rolling back take and attacked a bow and arrow collar grip.  I showed her that she wanted to get my arm from behind her head by getting her head into my armpit and the floor.