December 20th 2016 - No Gi All Levels

Theme & Techniques: Closed Guard: Double Under Guard Pass, Hip Bump Sweep, Kimura
Partner: Bhuvana

Small class for a Tuesday.  We had Caleb returning from last week and he brought in his friend Mike who has some wrestling experience.  Greg showed the guard break that I usually go for if I can't open someone's guard in no gi.  Make enough space to fit both hands through to break the guard.  The bottom guard stuff wasn't much different than the gi class.  The biggest piece of advice I can give anyone on the hip bump/kimura is work on sitting up and putting your hand where your shoulder was for stability.  This is something you can work on by yourself and the faster you can get at getting that post the better.

Rolling: Closed Guard Up/Down/Out
Rolled With: John, Mike (Visitor), Caleb, Bhuvana

Some good rolls.  John was able to sweep me today so I will have to prevent that from happening again.  Mike was pretty strong and was good at pressure, but I don't think he understands how to pass the guard yet.  There were a couple of times that both Caleb and Mike got to double unders but I was able to widen out my knees enough to prevent the class.  I also ended up in some triangle situations but had a hard time completing them and moved on to something else.  Talked to Greg about it afterward, his advice was to grab my ankle and then push myself away with my foot on their hip.  I was doing that but I was trying to push them back instead of myself.

* Added later: Forgot that I got a bloody nose while rolling with Mike. Wasn't a big deal but it wouldn't stop bleeding. We also did some stand-up. He took me down the first 2 times but I was able to turn them into better positions for me. The last roll I went for an arm drag and turned into a drop shoulder throw. I guess it made Greg message Bob since he missed it.

Office Hours Partner: John

John helped me drill some 50/50 stuff from Ryan Hall's DVD.  We did a defensive drill where they attack straight ankle lock, heel hook, or Texas clover leaf (which we kept calling different names like Texas Flywheel, Texas Chainsaw, Texas Sharpshooter, etc).  We would then defend with the appropriate responses of RNC grip, pushing the bicep with the foot and triangling or crossing our feet.

We rolled a few times after that, and we had some back and forth.  He had my back for a while and was able to trap my arm with his leg.  I was impressed by how he set this up and we practiced it a few times after rolling.  I was able to setup my Shelving NS choke setup, some day I may have an instructional DVD on it.