April 23rd 2016 - Open Mat

Open Mat
Rolled With: Ty, Ben, Fuji, Bhuvana
Game Plan: Deep Half

Kid's had class today too but I don't have much to say about it. They worked on 2 on 1 to scissor sweep and the back take.

Ty: Had a few good rolls with him to get the day started.  I had to keep an eye on his flexibility and not allow too much space. One cool thing I was able to hit was the back roll sweep from cross guard. After we rolled I worked on a couple deep half things.

Ben: I've had to turn up the intensity lately with him as he's getting better at defending my submissions.  He went to deep half a couple times during our roll but I was able to prevent him from sweeping.  I attempted to setup spiral armbar and cross collar choke from mount.

We worked on a lot of deep half stuff since he's been interested in it since I taught it a few months ago.  We started with getting to deep half from quarter guard and from there went to overcoming getting cross faced.  We discussed why he wasn't able to sweep me earlier and my struggle with the same position previously.

Fuji: I had a pretty tough time with him as usual.  I managed to maintain some semblance of guard longer than usual but I eventually would get passed and have to deal with side control.  I'll probably be thinking about this all week but I need to come up with strategies to try out when we roll again next time.  I thought about the same thing with Jerad and Derek recently.  What do I need to do differently with them?  Where do I need to put the most effort?  Guard retention, attempting to sweep, keeping distance, trying to be faster or more aggressive? 

Bhuvana: She just wanted to work on north/south choke and then allowed me to drill some deep half.  It was a little difficult at first because a lot of people that are unfamiliar with deep half seem to fall over while I'm transitioning into the position, but she got over it.  I got to work on some of the back attack transitions that I've been watching videos of and I'm feeling pretty good after this week of experimentation with it.  We also worked on the twist sweep and she seemed to like that and did a few reps herself.