Mizblog

Mark taught this Saturday morning class. He warmed us up with a flow roll. Shabar paired up with me and proceeded to SMASH ME freakin’ hard, shutting me down and holding me down, not letting me do ANYTHING! Ugh!

Anyway, then he opened the mat up to questions, and he called on me first. I asked about basic leg lock defense, because Cowboy has been getting me with them lately.

Mark gave a leg lock history lesson, and bragged that he’s good at avoiding leg locks. Then he taught us a basic leg lock defense, only to discover that NOBODY COULD DO A LEG LOCK! We were complete noobs with the leg locks, so he had to teach us how to do the leg lock before he could have us practice how to avoid them.

Basically, he taught Ashi Garami, with one shin between your opponent’s legs to keep them stretched out, and the outside leg planted with the foot on their hip (also to keep them stretched out). The ankle is gripped in a guillotine grip. Finishing involves falling to your side on top of their foot, and then stretching them out, so that their foot tries to bend too far forward.

Mark also showed the calf slicer, which is basically a guillotine on the calf-achilles junction.

Escaping the basic foot lock involves hooking the outside foot off of your hip, monkey gripping the central leg to sit up and post on their now-removed ankle, and scooting your butt outside that foot. The final escape is sausage rolling to your belly and ripping your foot loose of their grip.

Then we rolled. Mark had intended to let everybody ask a question, but my question took too long to address.

I rolled with Shabbar and he crushed me again. He’s another of these guys that I can’t let get into side control. I need to practice getting the hell out of there whenever they start passing! Anyway, I tried to knee shield from my back and he cut through it like a hot knife through a cliche. Once I was under his side control, I was just waiting for him to get knee on belly, and then I was done.

I don’t even want to talk about it anymore.