Novemeber 10th 2015 - No Gi All Levels

Theme & Techniques: Upa Escape Mount, Arm Triangle Choke
Partner: Derek (Visitor)

In an effort to spread the word of our fine sport, Bhuvana brought another coworker to Jiu-Jitsu.  Although, Derek wasn't completely a newbe because he had wrestled for a significant portion of his life from a early age.  We got quite a few reps in and he seemed like a pretty good guy.

Some tips from the techniques:

• For the Upa Escape, when I've had Greg do it to me it's a sudden explosion, where he takes out my base arm and bridges at the same time pretty violently so I've been trying to develop that timing.  I would say first develop it with the steps but realize that the explosion is probably the way to go. 
• For the arm triangle a big mistake is that people often push too high on the arm where they should be focusing their pressure on the shoulder.  Keep the elbow on the floor on one side and put your head on the floor on the other side.

Rolling: Mount (6 x 2 min), Free Rolling (2 x 4 min)
Rolled With: Derek, Robert, Mike A, John

Had a good day of rolling and got a compliment from Mike on my mount escaping.  I do feel pretty good about getting to deep half from mount as I really only need quarter guard and then an arm under their leg.  I had a heck of a time with Derek when I was on top of mount, any time I tried to make a submission happen and shifted my weight up high he was able to buck me forward and get free, and I'm not confident in going to armbar from there. 

There was some half guard stuff with Robert and Greg even witnessed me hit a Jedi mind trick out of nowhere but as I was coming up I almost got guillotine choked.  John and I free rolled and he defended quite well.  Greg had to tell him not to sit to his butt once I got deep half guard.

With Mike it was a leg lock fest and I am starting to feel confident in my defenses.  I still tap as early as I can when I feel a hint of trouble but I'm triangling my legs better, hand fighting, or going for my own leg locks to help me escape.  We had a couple of cool exchanges and even went for a rolling back take. 

Office Hours Partner: Mike

We went over a couple leg lock things and I showed him a technique from Tinguinha's DVD with the crossguard.