last week

I'm through most of my uni assignments now. Another one to go, but I have 9 days left, so I'm having a couple of days off :-) Which means I finally have time to do some updates, and I'll start with the round up from last week.

On Monday, I had a two hour no-gi session. We worked on a tight armbar which is set up from lockdown. The other move was called the Carney which is a neat submission if our opponent has managed to get over our leg and is on his way to pass. Only he gets caught with his shoulder pinned and in a figure four armlock... The rest of the session was some conditioning (lots of plyometric pushups, situps, squats, sprawls etc) and lots of rounds of rolling AFTER the conditioning. I had mixed success there. Or rather, not very much... But at least I seem to be making inroads in some areas, and I was attacking more often. I surprised myself with being able to keep up with the rolling although I felt shot after the conditioning. I must be fitter than what I think..

Wednesday's midday session was a surprise. Three blue belts only. We worked on the deep half guard game which we had worked on with John Will last week. How to get there and how to sweep to a low single. Wednesday evening was a big class with lots of new white belts, so it was basic drills with an emphasis on transitions. I think we drilled an escape from north/south. It's one I'm really useless at, and I'm sad to say that I'm still not much better... Right at the end, we did a few minutes worth of rolling and was fed a shiny, brand new guy. Smash, grab, push, strain! So I went into selfprotect mode and he wore himself out in my closed guard. So much so, he had to retire. Wow.

Thursday night's open mat was small, with just myself and about 5 white belts. I got together with my nemesis (oh, if he ever reads this blog, he'll kill me ;-) ), and we set to do do slow/flow rolling. Looking for positions and keeping moving. That worked really well. We warmed up that way but kept going along those same lines, stopping here and there to see where we could move on to or what subs were possible. Nothing against going hard some of the time, but we both got a lot out of that. We sniggered in a superior manner about the grunting and straining of the rest of the wrestlers on the mat. Well, the previous week one of the guys overdid it and made himself sick. But I noted he was going a bit easier. Good.

I had one good roll with a guy who only comes to class occasionally, but he moves very well. So as usual, we moved all over the place and after a while it ended when I caught him in an upside down armbar. Not sure exactly where that came from... But it was a fun roll. Then back to some more technique with my first partner. All in all, an excellent evening.

Friday night we basically rolled, except for the newer white belt guys who were taken aside by one of the blue belts and worked on some stuff. Don't really remember all that much. Tried for the evil armbar, but as before, I get to a certain point and then lose it. Still, must keep trying. Instead, I have more luck with armdrags and taking the back. Plodding along, having fun....

And that was it, as there was no class on Saturday. Which was probably not such a bad thing, as I think my body really could do with an extra day off.