summer has arrived

We are due to resume BJJ classes next Monday. I'm really looking forward to that, though I've been sneaking in some training this week.

The summer so far has been pretty cool and pleasant, but I think the hot weather has finally arrived. That's perfect timing for training, haha. But I shouldn't complain, our last summer was so hot and started early and lasted seemingly forever.

I was just thinking this morning that it's been about a month of not training in the gi. That's the longest ever since I started BJJ. It's been good, and yet I'm also looking forward to do a bit of gi training. I like both!

I managed to catch up with a few of our local guys for a Monday and Wednesday session. It was really mostly open mat, but we were shown some deep half guard sweeps and we went over the Japanes Necktie and d'Arce choke (which sort of go together). Also, we looked at a lockdown escape and a variation leading into a cartwheel pass. Wheee! But mostly, lots of wrestling. Fairly easy, as people were coming back from time off.

On Tuesday I went to Geelong where one of John's BBs took the advanced class. It was a much smaller class than usual, and there, too, we took it a bit easy.

We worked on takedowns, mainly single legs, and variations on how to get the opponent to the ground once we have hold of his leg. The most interesting was a duck under and roll takedown while we have his leg trapped between ours. We literally duck under and roll over taking him with us. Looked easy, but the first few tries felt awkward. But after a few reps it made good sense and it felt easy.

Then we looked at how to achieve a takedown if we step both legs around the front of his trapped one, or to the back. Repped these out until they felt pretty consistent. We also looked briefly at entries, and what to do to off balance our opponent and get near that leg. Finally, we did single leg takedowns in a bit more of a live scenario, with our partners resisting so we could feel for which was the most appropriate way to get him down. I saw some very interesting variations, and came up with a couple myself ;-)

Aside from that, we had some rolling. I really don't remember too many details. I do recall getting choked by one of the BBs though.

Then it was the intermediate class. The guys came in for a warm up roll. I scored a very big boy, resplendant with mohawk and Tapout shirt...  Clearly, he thought he'd have an easy time ;-) I wish I could say I kicked his butt, but that didn't happen. And I will say to his credit, he didn't muscle too much and didn't spazz at all. I had plenty of opportunity to switch from one guard to another and I managed to mostly stay out from under him. I attempted armbars from closed guard even. He finally pinned me after passing my guard and got a figure four. By this time, he was nicely warmed up for his class, and he said that I hadn't made it easy for him. Ah - that was as close to a compliment as I was likely to get. :-) I had him for a drilling partner later and found him to be good to work with.

What we worked on were a half guard escape and and escape from lockdown/grapevine.

Then more rolling, where again, I can't remember most details. I know I still spend too much time using closed guard. I did get the back a couple of times, as usual, from closed guard. My submissions tend to be front or back chokes. Time to get working on armbars and armlocks!

Oh yeah, funny moment of the night. I ended up with the huge guy for the last few rounds. My goal with him is NOT get on the bottom. Closed guard on him ends in disaster. Firstly I only just get my legs locked around him, so he can usually bust out, but worse of all is when he leans forward. You do not want to get stacked up under a mountain! So it's open guard and move, move, move! That was reasonably successful, as the fear of getting squashed sharpened my response times. We had to restart a couple of times because we were rolling into other people. From a kneeling start I managed a (sort-of) armdrag and scuttle to his back. Yeah, I thought, I'm in - a choke coming your way right now! Then he just sat back, leaning into me and laughed (!) as he pushed over the top of me. I will say that I converted my stanglehold to a push and my hooks went from around him to underneath him. Not fair, not fair!!!

As we both rolled on the floor laughing, it was time to line up.

So I managed some six hours of training the week before we go back to BJJ classes. Good stuff!