June 9th 2016 - Gi All Levels (My Class)

Theme & Techniques: Kesa Getami Leg Over Head to Armbar, Turtle Turnover to Side and Back Control
Students: Will, Bob, Tyler, Ian

Moving forward Thursday noon has become my class, along with Mike teaching no-gi Tuesdays and Jerad teaching 10 am Wednesdays.  It's nice to have a class that I can think of as my own.  I'm not going to take it off the rails or anything because I still have to teach the techniques of the week, but I like to do some different things with the warm-up and rolling.  Like today I had everyone work on the best case scenario drill.

One additional thing I taught for the techniques today was my trick of getting the lapel on the near side and then jumping to the other side, because it's much easier to get that grip.  Another tip on turtle is to have your elbows on the outside of your knees in the bottom of turtle.  Blocks the top guys hooks a lot better. 

Rolling: Turtle, Free Rolling
Rolled With: Will, Ian, Tyler

Will and I had a good round of turtle.  At one point I was close to the back take but my gi grip wasn't that great so there was some space that he tried to escape with.  At the same time he tried to get away I was flipping my hook in and kind of kicked him in the face.  Not too hard I don't think because we both laughed it off after that.

Went over a couple basic escapes with Ian and showed him the granby or guard pull since he missed last week.  He did a little better from top and came close to putting me into side control.

I'm always surprised by Tyler's guard.  He's great with spider and inverting and I have to stay on my toes.  I'm also wary of putting too much weight on him.  He keeps me on my toes and I feel like I have to think a lot as I defend his attacks. 

After class we discussed someone defending turtle by grabbing the near knee.  We pretty much decided that squaring up and sprawl at this point.  I wonder if there is a more eloquent solution.