September 9th 2015 - Gi All Levels

Theme & Techniques: Head Lock Escape to Back Mount, Standing Guard Break to Knee Slide
Partner: Tom

I had a little bit of a problem getting a good hook in on the leg and then pushing off the other leg for the head lock escape.  I got it, but it didn't always feel secure.  Close to the end of demonstration portion Greg happened to trap my arm while going to the back.  As a challenge I tried some different ways to duplicate this while practicing.  It seemed like getting my knee up high and then bringing my foot around his shoulder as we rolled to the other side was the key.

We did several reps of the standing guard break.  Tom was pretty new to some of the details but had done a similar technique previously.  We went over some no-gi options to go with the underhook.  I had to work on pulling up on the sleeve because I would forget to do it on my left side sometimes. 

Rolling: Closed Guard (4 x 2 min), Free Rolling (2 x 4 min)
Rolled With: Tom, Roland, Jordan

Wanted to play some 2 on 1 again and seemed to get shut down by everyone.  Maybe I'm not trying hard enough or I'm being too obvious.  Had a couple close calls where I had to scramble to regain guard.  I ended up in head lock position at one point and felt like I didn't have an automatic answer for it.  I think I may hit up Adam with some good responses from there.  I may just need to work on my sitouts more because I'm too hesitant to go for it.

From the top I hit a couple knee slides trying to attempt what we worked on in class.  Tom noticed a couple times that he was attempting to get to guard and I would sit on his shin/foot so he couldn't.  This is most definitely a product of the over under pass and natural at this point.

The only thing that stuck out in free rolling is that I got a couple low butterfly sweeps that have been materializing lately.  I get a grip on their post hand and bump under them and then sweep and keep bumping and pressuring toward their base hand until the sweep is complete.  Seems to be working but I don't always end up in the best passing position.

Office Hours Partner: Tom

Tried to do the Uchi Mata a few times but felt worse than Saturday.  I watched the Mat Lab video again and I think I was pushing too much sideways at first instead of lifting my elbow.  Tom wanted to work on the north/south choke and the defense.  I feel like I've been teaching it a lot lately.  It's pretty cool as it's something that developed organically for me.  I really didn't drill as much as the other things in my "A game" it just kind of developed over time.  I will say though, that I failed at it a lot which led to contingencies and developing a nice series from there.  Some people like Jerad are able to defend it consistently, so there is still work to be done.