October 29th 2016 - Open Mat

Open Mat
Rolled With: Eric (Visitor), Henry, Greg, Tyler, Nick
Game Plan: Kimuras, Deep Half & Omoplatas

Eric: No easy rolls today and this was a great way to start.  Eric has visited are school a few times in the past when he was purple and now he's a brown belt.

Felt like I did pretty well, was able to sweep from deep half but had a difficult time passing.  He had a slick lasso sweep that had me defending the rest of the roll.

Toward the end of open mat we shared some cross guard omoplata stuff. I showed him my guard pull and he showed me his lasso setup to omoplata. I think I finally figured out what I've been doing wrong with this. I've been trying to bring my head to close to them as I rolled. We also talked about the lawn mower position which was the name he used for the sitting on the shoulder position after an omoplata sweep.

Henry: My major objective was to avoid guillotines and kimuras. Difficult task with Henry. We rolled for quite a while and I'm happy with my performance even if he did eventually get the guillotine. We had a good discussion about using kimuras for control and I think I'm beginning to understand. The major thing is to push into their body with straight arms while trying to get in position and sucking the arms in when submitting.

Greg: Felt like I had some good movement during our roll. He caught me with a few leg locks. The one setup that I'd like to work on is from when the bottom person gets an underhook and you step back to setup the inverted heel hook.  I was able to catch him in a kimura grip but he kept a good hold of my leg to keep me from using it.

Tyler: I respect how frustrating his guard can be. I'm not sure how he does it but every time I attempt to get close he's able to push me away or threaten a back take.

Nick: My rolls with Nick are always great and just like the other good guys I roll with he has techniques and attributes that make his game different.  He put me in a couple omoplatas that I had to work hard to defend, not many people put me there but I think being good at a position helps you be good at defending it.