July 26th 2015 - Kids & Open Mat

Kids Class Technique: Half Guard Back Take 

Rolling/Game: Half Guard Position, Sumo

Jayden seemed a little sluggish today but made it through the class fine.  They both did a lot better today with the back take than on Wednesday.  It did seem like a lot of steps.  Probably the biggest detail that I helped the class with today was to use the underhook to get under their armpit and shrug them up a little more. 

During rolling I noticed quite a few kids had trouble with keeping their opponent's leg in the half guard.  It's a common problem for adults as well.  During sumo I saw some good match-ups and the kids attempting a lot of cool throws.  I'm still amazed at how the kids seem to be willing to attempt more techniques in stand-up than I see adults do. 

Open Mat
Rolled With: Henry, Greg, Dave M, Jordan, Bhuvana, Alejandro
Game Plan: Deep Half, Insisting on what I want

Henry: We started off with some deep half stuff and he seemed to have some light bulb moments.  We've also been working on a type of shin sweep that he showed me a few days ago.  Henry kicked my butt pretty thoroughly when we started rolling.  I don't think played really any offense with him.  

Greg: I don't think I did anything well against Greg either.  He did give me a good piece of advice though.  He pointed out that often I will not work too hard to prevent transition to mount in hopes of catching people in half guard.  He said that he knew because he used to do it and Tinguinha would yell at him about it, so he was passing it on.

Dave: We had a pretty good roll.  I started in butterfly and ended up pulling him into full.  He was pretty grounded and difficult to move from there.  I attempted to go to cross guard a couple times but he was able to smash it.  Eventually with some work I was able to displace his weight a bit with a scissor sweep.

Jordan: He gave me a run for my money today.  I spent a lot of time in his side control and had to scramble quite a bit to avoid submissions.  He even made me go to turtle to attempt to escape.  Eventually I recovered half guard and did my best to not let it go. 

Bhuvana: She just wanted to work on the omoplata from cross guard.  Had a few bumps along the way that we had to iron out.  The most important thing was that she wasn't raising her hips and instead pushing me away.  Once that got a little better the sweep came pretty easily. 

Alejandro: I didn't feel like I had anything for him today.  I don't remember much about our roll except that I didn't feel like I could do anything to him.  The cool thing was that he showed me some of his deep half.  He likes to go right to the waiter sweep and then to x-guard.  I really like this as an alternative to when I can't sweep from the waiter.  When we were sitting around talking after open mat, Alejandro made the comment that he didn't see me taking a rest in between rolls.  It's true I try to use every moment of open mat that I can and not take too many breaks.  Greg kind of took it a different way and said that when I roll I keep an even level of energy throughout my rolls.  I start relaxed and keep the same level throughout.  Not sure if this is good or bad, because I have been wanting to be more aggressive lately but may not be accomplishing that goal yet.