December 30th 2015 - Gi All Levels (Drilling Open Mat)

Theme & Techniques: Drilling Open Mat
Students: Mike A, Ben, Tom, Tyler, Cassie, Morgan

Right at 10:00 there was only 2 students and Mike and I.  I decided we should just have a drilling open mat class instead.  After I said that everyone else showed up but since I already announced it I decided to go through with a drilling class.  Unfortunately there were an odd number of partners and I ended up having to sit out while everyone else trained. 

I ran it like a competition class with 5 minute rounds for each partner to work their technique.  Each set of 2 rounds had a theme 1. guard pull or take down, 2. guard sweep or submit, 3. and guard pass.  I went around and gave assistance where I could. 

Rolling: Guard King of the Mat
Rolled With: Everyone

Had enough guys to do some king of the mat too.  I had everyone pick their own guard as the king.  I ended up playing some half and closed like usual, but also tried my hand at butterfly and spider which I rarely do exclusively.  After one of my rolls I was heading back to the line when I heard, "Hey, Josh, Look!" Ben was in deep half guard and wanted me to see.  It's very cool for a teacher to have an experience like this.  It's immediate feedback that something that I taught is useful to someone else.  What more could I ask for?

Mike and I had a couple of good rounds.  He passed my spider guard immediately to leg drag but then gave me some pointers on it.  He also complimented me on my back defense to which I say "it ain't easy."  I saw some good things from Tyler today, I'm really impressed with how fast he's learning. 

Office Hours Partner: Tom

Tom is becoming more of a challenge, I think he's figuring out how to defend my main stuff so I'll have to start being more creative.  One thing that I'm still trying to figure out is the lasso roll to omoplata.  I'm so close but always seem to get stuck or I'm too far away and I end up rolling back into closed guard.  Have to probably drill this instead of keep expecting it just to work.  I showed him some cross guard stuff before calling it a day.