May 16th 2015 - Open Mat

Kids Class
Technique/Game: Double Leg, Kneeling Guard Break and Single Over Pass, Guard Position, Takedown Sparring

Kids did fine today.  There were a couple of hick-ups that mostly stem from who gets to go first during drilling.  The rolling portion went well and after class I tried to drive home the importance of practicing the techniques to use them during rolling. 

They finished class with some takedown sparring and I was happy with a lot of the matches that I saw.  Some kids were doing pretty good Judo throws and I saw a few double legs.  There were also some almost takedowns that resulted in scrambles and lead to a different takedown.  Jace hit his signature move of taking the back of someone in turtle.  Jayden wanted to do a couple more matches after class and another kid was willing to go up against him.

Open Mat
Rolled With: Morgan (New Guy), Bhuvana, Jordan, Greg, Adam
Game Plan: Bottom - Half Guard Top - Baseball Bat Choke

Morgan: Greg had me go over the upa escape from mount and the basic side control escape.  He seemed to have a little bit of experience.  I played pretty light and methodical.  A couple rolls into it I went over breaking and passing the guard. 

Bhuvana: She wanted to work on a lot of things and so we did.  We went over elbow escape, half guard, but mostly north/south choke.  I showed her some of my personal setups and tried to get across that she needs to take up all the space.  She complained a little bit that it was too much information but thanked me all the same.

Jordan: It's been a while and it was nice to roll with him again.  I started off playing guard and somehow ended up in a triangle and I was able to finish it!  That almost never happens.  On our last roll he ended up passing my guard and spent a lot of time attacking in side control.  I defended for quite a while until I regained half guard.  I went over the kimura setup from the north/south mostly on isolating the arm because he was in that position with me a couple times.

Greg: The one cool thing that happened was I pulled off a perfect x-pass into side control.  He regained guard right away again, but the feeling of seeing the opportunity and then automatically going for the technique was awesome.  Otherwise he destroyed me.  I ended up in the same position as yesterday in the spiral armbar position as he stepped into mount.  He was setting up the side control to mounted triangle, and I blocked it but my arm was caught up in his hip.  I'm thinking about trying this setup more often myself.

Adam: Had time for one more and couldn't pass up a roll with Adam.  I wasn't able to mount an effective defense.  After he passed my guard I defended side control for quite a while.  I eventually got an underhook and regained half guard.  I did pretty well there for a while but wasn't able to sweep.  He eventually put me into an americana and finished it from mount.

Heard that Sam took double gold and Mike took silver in absolute at the Circle of Iron tournament.  Not sure about anyone else from the school yet.