Starting with the most recent

Last night, we worked the handstand sweep. It took me a couple tries at first but I started to really get it down.

1. When opp stands up while in your guard, post with right hand (like a handstand DOH!) and wrap around their ankle with left hand
2. Push opp with your legs to the left while pulling their ankle towards you
3. Come up with them as they go down, taking the mount

A little extra pop with the 'handstand' hand is helpful. After drilling, we worked a counter.

1. Drive right knee into opp, while grabbing their belt
2. Reach under their leg and grab their right side lapel
3. Drive all your weight down and gain side control

I was able to work this sweep once while rolling with Brian. I've been working my half guard really well and I can tell that I have been frustrating bigger guys. I'm putting up a hell of a fight to pass my guard now! :)

Monday night was very constructive during open mat. We relearned the triangle choke during class beforehand. It's nice to work the basics again. I find that every time we go over "obvious" moves that I see different aspects which I once missed.

I rolled with a few blue belts. The first one significantly out weighed me (at least 60 pounds) but he let me work a little bit. I was usually on the bottom but I worked my half guard game a lot. He also showed me a sweep from half guard that I hope to use sometime. The next blue belt I worked with still out weighed me but decided to flow with me even more than the last one. We flowed from position to position and he let me work the arm triangle from the mount. I remembered everything (even hopping off to the side) except I didn't put my head to the ground. He reminded me of that. All in all, pretty good rolls.

During MMA, we did a lot of ground work. We went over a position called the Pyramid. I believe it's an Eddie Bravo thing. All you have to do is control an arm (wrapping around the outside) and open the guard. Throw one leg over so that it is around the back of the opp head. Bring your other knee up so that your legs are touching. You can get a triangle from here, gogoplata,or an omaplata. We played with it for a little while and it was pretty enlightening. I wanted to try some rubber guard things due to my flexibility but held back because I was never formally taught anything. I hope to work it in a little more now.



It's a little different on the video but same concepts.

We also did a cool little variation of the triangle choke called the tipee. Bascially, you have both legs straight up and crossed. You sit up and grab behind the legs while squeezing your knees together. It's a VERY affective blood choke.

Aggression is my new best friend.

We worked a few different moves last night and finally strung them together. Starting from standing...

1. Take double underhooks and widen your base, sit and bring the opp into your guard
2. When opp goes for choke and stands to apply pressure, redirect arm across their body and gable grip behind their head
3. Open guard, sweep the knee and get a hook
4. Grab opp lat and gain back mount

That was really about it and now that I typed it out, it doesn't seem like we did much.

I was really happy with my rolling last night. I was able to work what we learned in class a couple times and I also worked the triangle choke from the mount that we learned Sunday. I rolled with sensei and he told me in order to get my next belt, I need to be more aggressive so I will definitely work on that! I'm looking for that next belt.

Friday
We worked a few different gi chokes .

1. Grab the v of the gi
2. Bring it around the opp arm and switch grips
3. Grab the top of the gi on the other side for the choke

I can't remember what else we did! That's what I get for blogging so late.

Saturday
We did a lot of fancy things on Saturday again too. Thanks Scott. The first was getting the opp out of the turtle position. It's the same way to take the back as rolling them to their side but instead flipping over them and carrying them with you. The next thing was a shoulder lock from when the opp takes a failed shot on your leg. Scoot to the side with their arm in between your legs, chances are, opp will straighten it. Keep it, roll (opp should roll with you or it will hurt their arm), hold them down, and take the omaplata. We also did some weird calf lock. I don't really remember it so I will have to research it. I rolled afterwards and I tweaked my neck really bad.

Sunday
We worked a lot of drills from the mount during this class. All the escapes we know and all the submissions followed by some live drilling. We also learned the triangle choke from the mount and the "gangsta" lean. I had Brittany adjust my neck so that helped me a little bit.

Hopefully, I get the blue Gameness Pearl I ordered today. I need a clean gi for class tonight! I also ordered some new Combat sparring gloves (sale for $24.99!!!) so I will not longer be hurting my partners with padless gloves.

Slacker!!!

I'm not a slacker when it comes to training or working out but I am a slacker when it comes to writing all the things down that I learn!

Let's see... picking up from my last post and the class I went to right after, the 9th during the day. We did a lot of drilling today and did not go over any new techniques. Actually, we barely even did a warm up. We just focused on rolling and flowing with each other for a while. Afterwards, we worked some basic escapes from under the mount.

On Friday, we definitely made up for the lack of warm up. We had to carry our partner across the gym a number of times (in a number of different ways) and it was freakin' exhausting. Joe taught us a couple basic collar chokes so we drilled that for a while. We also did a umpa/bridge drill to scissor sweep with our partners.

Saturday was no gi jiu jitsu and open mat. We worked a lot of open guard stuff and a couple chokes afterwards. I rolled with a blue belt and was able to submit him with my triangle choke but he really let me work it. It still felt good to finish though.

Sunday, we did a couple chokes and worked all the submissions we know from the mount.

I can't go to class today as I have work and traded it off so I could go to friday Jiu Jitsu and wrestling/take downs. I'm going tomorrow though, twice!!