Mizblog

Jumped on the mat late after KM51. Got chastised to go take off my gi top for weight exercises. Mark said “Don’t be that little kid in the gym lifting weights with his gi on.” So we started with the same plate exercises we did before.

Then we learned the running man sweep. It starts from full guard. Get grips on both arms, double up on one, pull it across the body while transferring the near grip to the triceps seam. Then pull them down with your legs as you release the crossed sleeve grip and transfer that grip up to the collar, as far behind the neck as you can get. Once you’ve got them there, they’ll probably be trying to get up, so you just open your guard and hip WAY out, getting sideways with one leg on the mat next to their leg, and the other leg up and across their body. Pull them forward by moving your head to the 12-o’clock position, and that lets you scissor them over with your legs pretty easily. Well, not really easily. I kept twisting my knee doing this. Ouch. Anyway, you end up on top in “rodeo mount” as you maintain that collar grip.

Mark then refined the way we hold mount. You don’t sit on the hips – you make an A-frame with your legs and squeeze their sides with your knees. Also, don’t come up on your toes – keep your insteps flat on the mat. It makes the position much more stable. We tried it a few times and that made us believers.

Finally we went on to learn a submission from rodeo mount. Reach your free hand across to the collar, and then dive your face over that side to press your collar-grip wrist into their neck. Mark showed it on me, and the weight of his arm on my cheek was almost enough to make me tap.

We practiced that a little, and then we rolled. I started with Brandon (Saranya’s KMX teacher) and he was brutal. He tapped me twice – once from crushing my head off from INSIDE MY GUARD! Next time I got him in kesa-gatame and he trapped my head between his legs and squeezed until my eye bled. Now I’ve got crazy eye bruises.

After that was Cosmo. I swept him a couple times with a hip sweep. I shot for a triangle once and he stacked and cracked me. I need to secure guys better if I’m going for triangles. Ray was stacking me pretty easily too a few weeks back. Anyway, I ended up on top and he was gassed. I just kept crushing him under side control. I might still have some hidden resentment for all the times he cranked my neck.

After that I rolled with TJ. He got me in some deep waters. Much improved.

Finally I rolled with Christian, who noticed that my fighting for underhooks had improved. I was also focused on keeping my elbows tight to my body.

When class was over, I was beat up and moving very slowly, but nothing major seems broken.