June 5th 2015 - Gi All Levels

Theme & Techniques: Double Leg Takedown, Mount Upa Escape, Cross Collar Choke from Mount
Partner: Ross

Double leg has been feeling good all week.  I just need to build up the confidence to use it in rolling.  During one of the mount escapes, Ross's elbow was pointed just right in my thigh and gave me a bit of a charlie horse.  Still feeling it a bit.

Greg had us only do the alternate version of the choke with one hand in the collar and the other hand on the shoulder.  This was pretty brutal because in order to get under the jaw we would start with our elbow against their cheek then push their face across our other arm.  This felt pretty solid or at least more usable than any other cross collar choke that I've attempted.

Rolling: Mount Position (6 x 2 min), Free Rolling (2 x 4 min)
Rolled With: Ross, Michelle, Zack, Conan, Dave

Alas I didn't pull off any cross collar chokes during positional sparring.  People were covering up way too much.  Otherwise I was able to maintain mount and escape pretty well.  Ross kept me from submitting him from the top and I just barely escaped before the timer went off going to deep half.  Zack gave me trouble from the bottom he did a good job of escaping.  There was a visitor, Michelle, that I worked with on mount.  She asked some good questions and had a good attitude.  

Had a good roll with Conan.  It seems like for both of us we do much better against the other while passing guard rather than playing guard.  I took the bottom open guard and while I held him off for a little while but he eventually flattened me out in side control.  He attacked and finished an americana.  Our second roll I was able to attack from the top of side control until the timer went off.

I took it pretty easy on Dave and let him work a little bit.  He took my advice from last time and went right for pant grips and into a pass.  Greg and I saw that his knees were a little too close together for side control and we helped him with that a little bit.  In the end I made it to side control and attempted the transition to mounted triangle but just made it to mount.  I attempted to setup the spiral armbar but I couldn't seem to get him on his side.  I have been running into this a lot lately.

The thought crossed my mind that maybe I shouldn't allow people to pass my guard.  I don't think Greg does, as far as I know.  Am I being lazy?  Is it condescending?  Part of it is that I often want to work from bad from positions and the other part is that sometimes I feel bad if I submit someone too quickly.  That does seem condescending.  What do you guys think?  Do you have a level that you go with for each partner?  Do you sometimes give up sweeps or guard passes to training partners?

Office Hours Partner: Ross

Ross wanted to work a bit on the split pass.  He gave me a good stretch with this pass.  I worked on the spiral armbar and had him give me a little resistance.  Greg suggested I should move to a higher mount before lifting my leg up.  That seemed to help.  I also changed the direction that I was pushing them, instead of trying to lift their shoulder I would push them on their side more.  We rolled a bit no-gi and it felt pretty good even though I haven't rolled no-gi in a while.  Changing from grabbing the collars to grabbing around the neck was natural.  Many of my submissions are gone, but guillotines seemed more accessible.