October 16th 2015 - Gi All Levels

Theme & Techniques: O-Soto Gari, Basic Side Control Escape, Side Control Americana
Partner: Craig, Visitor

A friend of Craig's attended today and did pretty well. I guess he had a little bit of prior experience.

Kept focus on the things I've been working on.  Big bridge along with timing my breathing in the side control escape.  Keeping a low profile and not flaring my elbow while setting up the americana grip.

Rolling: Side Control (2 x 4 min), Free Rolling (5 min)
Rolled With: Craig, Josh

I felt like I used a lot of knee on belly during rolling.  I went for the techniques of the week and was able to succeed sometimes.

Looking back on my mission to use the techniques of the week  was pretty fruitful and I could see some improvements in setting them up.  I think doing this every week is going to help shore up deficiencies I have with the fundamentals.

Office Hours Partner: Dave, Josh

Did some more tournament prep with Dave. We worked on the throw he wanted to work on and Conan gave some tips on kazushi.  Then we went over 2 on 1 for a while.

I put him through a tournament roll starting from standing and put some pressure on him. I put him in some bad spots and talked him through escaping them and not giving up.

Rolled with Josh also starting from standing and I realized I really need to take control and try some things from standing. Once we were on the ground I gave him some more knee on belly so much so that Conan said he'd go over defending it on Monday morning class (message me if you're curious about this).  Josh and I went over escaping kimura afterward and I think I helped him with an epiphany on moving shoulders to get your back flat in mount it north/south.