February 19th 2016 - Gi All Levels

Theme & Techniques: Headlock Escape to Back Mount, Kneeling Guard Break, Knee Slide Pass
Partner: Morgan, Jeff

Cool write up on a leg lock seminar that Greg did during his recent trip to California: Rise Again BJJ

Quote of the day goes to Sam.  In the middle of drilling she said something to the effect of, "your testicles aren't so great!"  Without context I was puzzled about what could be going on over there.  Apparently they were discussing the importance of testicles to ovaries or something. 

Another training session in the books.  Since I don't have much to talk about technique-wise today here's some blog/training stats: According to the counts on my blog I've made 729 posts.  I've made a post for every class, seminar, and tournament.  So I've "done" Jiu-Jitsu 729 times usually for an hour and a half if not more each session (So somewhere on the higher end of 1093-1458 hours).  I've completed 424 gi classes, 120 No Gi and 170 Open Mats.  My teachers have primarily been: Greg 306 classes, Conan 124, Jerad 62, Ray 23, Mike 12, and apparently I've taught 30.  I've competed in 5 tournaments and attended 4 Tinguinha seminars. 

Rolling: Kesa Gatame (2 x 3 min), Guard (2 x 3 min), Free Rolling (2 x 4 min), Open Guard King of the Mat
Rolled With: Conan, Craig, Morgan, Jeff, Sam, Josh

I was partners with Conan for kesa gatame, my all around least favorite position to defend and attack with.  It went as expected, he crushed me a bit from the top and I had to wait for him to give me some space to try to escape.  While he was able to escape me a couple times easily.  Once his head started popping out I felt very precarious and was reminded why I hate the position.  

The rest of rolling I tried to be very methodical in my passing and always looking for the knee slide.  I was able to do a few cross guard sweeps, some butterfly sweeps, I escaped side control once with the granby escape.  I enjoyed the open guard king of the mat as we had one person stand and one person sit.  I attempted to play some sit up guard and single leg-x, but I wish I would have went for some de la riva too.  All in all a good day of rolling.  

Office Hours Partner: Zac, Conan

Conan covered a huge pointer for guard retention.  Zac was doing the same thing that I usually do when someone is making space when they pass by reaching out his leg to try to keep them from moving.  This actually opens up the space that they want for side control so just suck the leg back in and look to sit up and/or get grips.  I find that sometimes I can reach and pull them into half guard but the really good people can get me way over extended and then pass.  I need to fight this urge to stop guard passes with just the tips of my toes and focus on movement and space control instead.