July 18th 2015 - Open Mat

Open Mat
Rolled With: Ross, Jerad, Henry, Morgan, Austin, Ben
Game Plan: Be first to act and go after what I want instead of being reactionary

Ross: He was very tough today.  Probably the most difficulty I've had rolling with him.  He was much more aggressive than I remember.  We fought quite a bit from half guard and he maintained good pressure from the top.  I made the comment that I didn't think my first roll would be so difficult.  There are mixed feeling about him moving to New York.  

Jerad: I almost got him in deep half guard.  I guess I was there but it wasn't usable to sweep from before he was back to passing.  After our first roll he insisted that I move more from bottom side control to keep my opponent from focusing all of their attention on submitting me.  Our second roll I did more of that while on the bottom.  It helped but he still submitted me eventually. 

Henry: I tried to stay on the attack more with Henry instead of my usual reactionary style.  It seemed to help a little bit and I gave him some competition.  It still puzzles me how he can stand up and knee slide out of my half guard at will.  We had a couple of interesting position changes with some rolling back take attempts.  I had to fend off his gi choke pretty seriously at one point.  In the end I was able to catch him with an omoplata.  However, not soon after in our second roll we were in half guard and attempted a kimura.  He began to posture up and I attempted the kimura back take, but somewhere in the middle he turned it into an armbar very slickly.

Morgan: He is doing very well for how new he is, very strong and has a natural ability to recover guard.  Within my guard he made a few mistakes by putting his hands up too high.  I do think he's going to get good quickly. 

Austin: Some good rolls were had between us.  He is pretty difficult to submit.  There were a couple times I felt like I had him in chokes that I should have successfully completed.  I was able to setup the spiral armbar that I've been working on though.  We worked on the technique after that and he seemed to like it. 

Ben: I made a mistake at the beginning and Ben passed my guard.  I spent ample time in his side control.  He worried me a few times as he attempted to isolate my arm.  Eventually he went to mount and I caught him in half guard during the transition.  Eventually I ended up in top quarter guard.  He had a little trouble getting out of the position.  I showed him the basic half guard recovery and it seemed to help.