April 15th 2016 - Gi All Levels

Theme & Techniques: Standing Head Lock Escape Valley Drop, Kneeling Guard Break, Single Under Pass
Partner: Bob, Craig

Bob and I met 15 minutes early to do some Judo before class.  I'm pretty impressed with his ability to make Judo work and have only experienced this with a few other people.  He threw me a couple times and it felt pretty smooth and effortless most of the time.  A couple of times I felt glad that I know how to fall well because the ground was coming fast.  Major take aways were to use my elbow more when creating kazushi and to take away the slack of the sleeve.  We also went over a way to do o-soto gari but setting it up with more of a mahki komi.  If you get a chance I'd encourage anyone to work with him on throws.  You could work with Ray too if you see him in class.

Nothing new to report on the techniques of the week. 

Rolling: Several Rounds of Different Positional Sparring: Closed Guard, Half Guard, Turtle, Side Control
Rolled With: Craig, Jordan, Jeff

We got done with the techniques fairly quickly and had a lot of time for rolling, which is why Conan had us do so many different positions.  Turtle was where I got stopped the most.  Craig did a good job of grabbing my ankle or pants to keep me from rolling.  Jordan was pretty aggressive in half guard with some good pressure.  He would get a crossface but eventually let me get the underhook, so I tried to give him some pointers on that.  Otherwise it was business as usual. 

Office Hours Partner: Jeff

While rolling in side control I talked to Jeff about blocking and preventing the cross face and turning it into an underhook escape or stiff arm escape.  He seemed to appreciate this and some of the other things we worked on.  He pointed out quite a few times that some of the things I was telling him to do were kind of mean like knee on belly.  I can understand his position there are somethings I avoid doing (unless it's Adam) because I think they're mean.  I tried to explain to him that we're all big boys and girls and can handle some pressure, cross faces, and some meanness.