June 24

Another glorious nogi class.  For once, I showed up super early, so much so that the gym dude at the door was like “Yo, I don’t know if they’re having class today.  I mean, you usually show up 10 minutes after everone else, so if no one’s here, maybe its canceled.”  So it’s true; I’m that guy.

A cool thing that happened:  I was the lowest ranked and least experienced person in class tonight.  It was myself, Vaughn (4 stripe blue), Rick (purple), Steve (purple), Andy (brown) and Collin (brown).   So ,got to feel no pressure. 

Tonight Collin showed 2 wrestling takedowns and several submissions from sidemount.  My wrestling still sucks as bad as ever, but I do really enjoy training it and hopefully improving.  1^st was a crossover arm bar:  give up the under head grip and push on the bottom side of the guys chin.  Use far side underhook to grab guys elbow or tricep and rotate it.  Follow the guy's wrist with your head, so he can never bend it.  With the hand that grabbing the arm, the optimal position is your elbow on the guys stomach, holding his arm in place.  Once its straight over him, spin first leg over his head.  When second leg comes around, turn the first knee up and put it in the guys back.  Lay back for the arm bar.  Can also get a kimura from the initial postion if the guy forces his forearm into your throat by pushing forward with your chest to get his wrist to the ground.  If he breaks free of the kimura, switch back to the crossover armbar.

Rolls: First with Steve.  Tried to wrestle but chickened out, pulled guard, he got to half from a series of failed sweeps by me, and started throwing down the one arm guillotines.  It sucked.  Even tho he didn’t catch me, the control he had over my head is scary.  Like Wylian said the other day, he's a couple of adjustments away from being a monster with that one.  Scrambled back to full guard where a landed the worlds sorriest kimura sweep (hey it freaking worked gimme a break) and got to full mount. Had to fight as always to maintain the mount, his defense is so strong. Started threatening the triangle, bridged and I transitioned to technical mount, where I started on the armbar. Got the grips; he shoved his hand between his legs.  Somehow I finished the armbar by laying back close to his legs and fighting the arm out.  Don’t remember if I had the knee up or the leg across.  After the roll I told him to keep working that one handed guillotine, I just hope I didn’t sound like too big of a douche saying it.

Next was Rick.  He tossed me around all over the place, and I never felt like I had any good postion on him.  Nevertheless,  he reversed me once and I snatched up the guillotine and just kept turning with him till I got the tap.  Awesome.  This dude absolutely is one of my most dreaded matchups because not only is he bigger and stronger and WAY more technical, he has such good instinct for position that he doesn’t need the second or two that I need in a scramble to ask “Where should I go? “  He just freaking knows.  Anyway after this he turned it up a bit and tapped me twice.  Despite that, I had a couple of okay escapes, such as my first successful gramby roll from turtle.  Love rolling with this guy, hope to see more of him.

Last roll was with Collin. Fought him off okay at first, but once he passes guard that’s it.  His style feels so inexorable, like the tap is inevitably coming and theres nothing anyone can do to prevent it. I did escape his mount once though, using the infamous Tran super secret shrimping mount escape.  Bless you, Tran!  Collin's such a freak, he’s so good its like hes thinking of ten other things he COULD have done as he outmaneuvers  you like you were stopped. 

After class roll was with Andy.  So fun.  Never really got anywhere, but I do remember using a Marcelo Garcia sweep where you put your knees under his leg, grab his ankle, then go up and out with other knees. Pretty nifty.  Also escaped from his dreaded crucifix, which is a not too shabby feather in my cap this beautiful Friday evening. He had to stop cause his stomach hurt. Afterwards he showed us how to beat his famed butterfly half guard.   You under hook the opposite arm, the step up with the same side foot.  Then you smash his knees with your knee and step out with other foot .  It was more detailed than that, but that’s the basic idea.  We’ll see if I can actually do it soon…