December 31st 2016 - Open Mat

Open Mat
Rolled With: Henry, Patty, Conan, Jerad, Mike, Frank, Cat
Game Plan: Overcome Gassing Out

Had many tough rolls today. It was awesome to get to roll with 7 different people on the last day of 2016.  Since I had some gas tank problems on Wednesday, I wanted to find that point and work past it.  A lot of it is mental and I need to train myself to not just give up when the going gets tough.

Henry: It's always difficult to do a warm-up roll with someone so close in skill. It was a battle of kimuras and guillotines with a lot of position changes and back and forth. I was definitely warmed up by the end.

Patty: Our skill levels are also very close. I find these to be the toughest rolls for me as getting one small edge first can make a huge impact on the roll, while someone of greater skill can beat me without much effort on either of our parts and visa versa for someone of lesser skill.  I spend a lot of time in deep half with him and he does a good job of defending it.  He also seems to have a good wrestling base and is difficult to hold down.

Conan: I was worn out from my previous rolls but rolled anyway.  I was put on the defensive and tried to defend with minimal use of strength, which didn't work.  He was working on a modified Mir lock the whole day and caught me with it.

Jerad: Rolled with him in both gi and then at the end of open mat no gi.  Had some really good moments and was able to sweep from a deep half scramble.  I used the gi grips between the legs quite a bit.  We talked a bit about a variation on butterfly sweep where he didn't have a high underhook but as he went or the sweep he moved to the side and turned the corner a bit to make the underhook better before sweeping.

Mike: I had to let go a little bit and try to just act and not think so much.  He moves too fast and if I wait for my moments I will be too far behind when they come.  We had some really good interactions where I defended a lot of his attacks.  He was killing me with back mount though.  He said that my posture in butterfly was lacking and I was falling to my back too much.  I was surprised by this because I had just given others this advice in the past week. 

Frank: We went over defending the north/south choke, which may be a mile stone for several people that roll with me.  I've gladly given away secrets to defeat my good stuff to anyone that asks like NS choke, deep half, over/under pass, and cross guard.

Cat: She started off with some good hand fighting, I found it difficult to get my initial control.  Which comes back to Mike's comment about my butterfly guard posture and laying back.  I think I'm pretty used getting grips and getting my legs involved in gi.  Hard to do without grips.