April 27th 2016 - Gi All Levels

Theme & Techniques: Backmount: Escape, RNC, Bow & Arrow
Partner: Frank

Glad I went to class today even though my back has been sore again.  The muscles on the other side of my back decided to tighten up this time.  Been thinking about trying to incorporate some yoga or some other type of training to strengthen my back and I think I have some muscle imbalances that need taken care of. 

Since there was only 3 of us, Mike was nice to me and we did some different warm-ups and skipped doing stand-up stuff.  We did a few minutes of front and side planks. 

Mike had a few details that he mentioned when teaching the back mount escape.  The major one was I was staying flat on my back after scooting my butt off to the side.  He pointed out the turning into them at that point was stronger which I now agree with. 

We had some time so we worked on Bow & Arrow and armbar from back mount.  I liked the addition of making a kimura grip before stepping over their head to get the armbar.

Rolling: Back Mount Position, Free Rolling
Rolled With: Frank, Mike

We had the same person defend for 4 minutes while the attackers switched out every two minutes.  I'm feeling better than I did previously about my control from back mount but it still needs some work and I need to review Greg's drill to recover the back. 

We had a discussion about choking with the gi or with the wrist and he's pretty much pro-wrist every time where a lot of what Zac does is collar most of the time.  I see room for both, but need to nail down when each one is appropriate for me. 

Did a free roll with Frank and my back held up fine.  I worked pretty hard to setup a spiral armbar and lost it once but was able to finally finish it the second time.  Most of that was because I just went for it instead of waiting until everything was perfect.  I think sometimes I miss my window with this technique because I try so hard to make it perfect.

Office Hours Partner: Mike

Mike and I had a little workshop where I showed him some deep half stuff I've been experimenting with and he showed me a really slick double under pass defense.  I'm pretty stoked about my resurgence of this position.  I think I may look into leg drag next because some of these deep half sweeps are ending up in this position.

We discussed being a fighter and what that means to Mike.  It made me want to go back to the aggressive mindset that I was working on before the last tournament.  Ultimately the desire to be on top and win the wrestling matches.  Something else that Mike mentioned was that I give up sometimes when I'm being overwhelmed by a stronger opponent when I need to keep fighting and overcome this adversity.  I know those moments of course and I'm working to make them occur less often.