the end of last week roundup

I was busy doing bookwork and preparing stuff for tax returns, so I couldn't be motivated to update my blogs. I still went to training, and I still wrote up my training diary, but writing something witty or relevant here was too much of an ask :-)

Anyway, after all the general insights of last wee, the Friday and Saturday I tried to put all that into action.

I was lucky in that we spent a lot of time on working from guard last Friday night, so I had lots of practice at beaking down postures and setting up angles with a view to armbars or triangle. On Saturday, we did sweeps: the simple sweep and the leg grab rollover sweep.

Wrestling on Friday was ok and I felt I did a few things right. A good long roll with one of the purple belts allowed me to again work on my guard attacks. I managed a tight mission control and attempted the omoplata from there, but first he blocked my bottom foot and then he postured out of it. But I went for the triangle and that worked. It's nice to see that I can now consistently think of alternatives.

Wrestling on Saturday wasn't so much of a success. I new white belt had a grip in my collar I couldn't dislodge, until someone showed me a different way. Then I nearly passed his guard and wasted time fighting a grip of his which was irrelevant, because it wasn't a threat. I felt disappointed that I needed such basic pointers. The good thing that came out of it was I learned a new pass. I started off low in his opened guard and had managed to secure his right arm to the floor, with my left knee pinning his right knee to the floor. His left hand was in my collar, but my right arm was free to reach across him. So the guard pass is to jam his right hand against his hip and attempt to feed it underneath him to my right hand, while keeping my hips low and facing down, and left elbow needs to be against the left side of his head, to stop him rotating with me.

I was a bit disappointed leaving on Saturday, but I think the resolutions I made earlier in the week are working. The disappointment faded and I concentrated on thinking about the new bits learned.