two more classes

This week is different. I've started uni, so my head was full of other stuff, and I am not yet used to the new routine. Luckily, uni and the dojo are not far from one another. Unfortunately, I can no longer go to the Wednesday afternoon BJJ classes, as I have lecture on at that time. Still, at least I can get to the Wednesday evening class.

Monday night, we worked on closed guard, how to break grips and break posture to set stuff up. For example, if we can break their posture, get over and underhooks. Then some free guard passing to put it in practice.

Then we did a bit more on rubber guard and how to get there from closed guard. Then how to progress to New York (having done the zombie), and then to Jiu Claw (I hope I have the names right, hehe). At some point, i totally lost the plot with regard to where I should start with under or overhook, which leg goes where etc. Just lost it. It was like a puzzle in 3D gone bad due to lost instructions. I felt like such a klutz. My partner seemed to get it right. I got it right once and then couldn't repeat it for love or money, even with his help. So doh! |-)

Wednesday night, we quickly went through a sneaky way to a submission just as your opponent passes your guard. Say he comes around on your right, having opened your guard. Works best if he does a knee through pass, but it would probably work if he went under the leg, too. I need to graby his right sleeve with my left hand and rotate my left foot over his arm and hook the foot behind his armpit. To trap his arm, I triangle my legs above his elbow. Then I need to reach around with both arms and clasp over the back of his upper arm and pull down. Imagine his forearm against your belly, elbow bent around your left shin and your hands pulling down on his tricep. Lastly, a hip raise at the same time as pulling down will bring on a nasty little bicep crusher. This might be useful for me, as it's happened to me a lot lately that while being passed I managed to hold on to that far arm and I'd been wondering if there are methods to do something nasty to that arm. Now I have one, hehe.

We briefly looked at a sweep from a similar setup, but I'm pretty careful rolling people over their heads so it's not one I'd like to use.

Then we did guard passing fist and a fair amound of free wrestling. I had a good time, several long rolls with loads of position changes, I pulled off some subs and fell victim to several. I had the chance to encourage tries made by less experienced guys, and explain things. It was a really good class.