Friday & Saturday

Friday evening's class was mostly just wrestling.

It was good, I had lengthy rolls with a couple of the senior guys. I managed a couple of hooking sweeps and had the opportunity to hunt for things. I spent a lot of time escaping and defending, but at least it was mostly successful. I feel that I am making progress.

I fared less well with a very large white belt guy (he's nearly blue). He hasn't been in for a while, and it was good to see him back for a change. With him, my game is defense only. However, he had to work longer and harder to catch me than what I remember from earlier days. He said that, too. So that is progress as well.

Saturday's class was very small. There were four of us on the mat only, and one guy watching from the sidelines with an injured thumb. I took the warm up. I amused the guys with asking for more complicated hip movements than simple circles. And then confused/amused them further with arm exercises that move all the joints, with to them looked like crazy dancing moves :-). I find they do my shoulders and neck good and lubricate the joints before activity.

We worked on chokes again: the cross lapel choke from mount and guard and the lapel half nelson from side mount. Also, the RNC. For something different, we practiced the RNC from standing, and then letting our partner down slowly and gently. Like you would if they really went out and you didn't want them to fall forward and hurt themselves.

After that, we looked at some takedowns from clinch. Starting position: he has his hands on my lapels, I have my left hand cupping his right bicep (or grabbing his gi behind his elbow), and my right hand is cupping his neck. From there, I push his right elbow across his centreline and push his neck to his right (my left). I step back and to my left and this breaks his posture and makes him fall to his right. Ideally, I hold on to his right arm and can go straigth to knee on belly position. An alternative, if he resists having his elbow pushed across, and he pulls away from my trying to posture up: I hold on to his right elbow and move my right hand off his neck to his left shoulder, palm out. I shove on his shoulder while pulling on his right arm. This also off balances him and he falls the same way as in the first type of takedown.

We drilled that a few times, including going to kneeride and straight to a submission. My partner (largish new whitebelt) didn't know armbar from knee ride so he did the lapel half nelson from side mount. I alternated between the choke and the armbar.