April 7th 2017 - Gi All Levels

Theme & Techniques: Week# 9 Koshi Guruma, Standing Guard Break, Torreando Pass
Partner: Quinn

Had a good group this morning and Conan had us do a couple of cool things for class today.  We walked down the floor to generate the kazushi to setup the throw.  We played with the torreando and responding to someone trying to prevent the pass a little bit.  We also did the stiff arm on the sleeve to regain guard.  This may have been an eye opener for some of the guys.

Rolling: Closed Guard, Open Guard, Free Rolling
Rolled With: Quinn, Jesus, Jeff

Had good rolls with everyone.  I think Quinn felt a little dejected after our roll but I tried to assure him that I have years of training on him.  We talked a bit about having confidence in your frame and when it's best or okay to stand especially if they're hand is occupied.  

Open guard was fun with Jesus, he attempted to grab my ankles a few times to flip me to my back but wasn't getting off to the side to pass quick enough.  I used the single half guard a few times to help sweep.

As an experiment I decided to try to get sweeps as quickly as I could on Jeff and go a little competition intensity from the bottom.  I wasn't trying to force anything but move quickly and directly.  I felt pretty good about it and got a few butterfly sweeps out of it. 

Office Hours Partner: Jeff, Conan

Craig asked me to help Jeff with smash pass so I showed him a few setups and some of the things that I think are important for the technique.  First being keeping the hips down.  It seems pretty common that people want to raise their hips to get over the legs but it just gives the bottom person space to get some leverage back.  We covered windshield wiping the legs after that.

Had 2 great rolls with Conan.  At the end he made the comment "sometimes you're the hammer and sometimes you're the nail."  Today I felt like the hammer while most other days he does.  The main takeaway was that I felt pretty strong attacking his turtle setting up the crucifix or taking the back.  I'm really glad I decided to focus on that recently.