Mizblog

First time since June that I made it to two classes in the same week! This is a milestone in the ramping up process!

Coach Greggo taught the class. I got a bit winded after some very strenuous hip escapes across the mat, which was maybe a little bit surprising. I did well on the forward rolls, and tolerably well on the rolling breakfalls.

The first technique Greggo taught was the same technique as we learned last week, trapping the guarding arm when you’ve got someone’s back, and then putting them on the rack for the RNC. I felt a lot better doing that this time than I did the first time. It’s good practice. I have to remember to keep my head tucked into that side of their head, keeping them stuck in the elbow of the choking arm.

Next we learned the bow and arrow choke, using the back arm trap from the previous setup. It’s a collar grab, but after you trap their arm under your leg, you reach up and grab their pants just below the knee. Your opposite side leg then goes to their hip, and you lay them down on that side, but not on top of you! You can then lean back and pull them into a U shape to finish, or you can take your top leg and put it on the same side of the head as your other leg and your collar-gripping hand, so you’re trying to pull their collar around their neck and between your own legs.

We then proceeded to practice the hand grab from the side, pressing them onto their stomachs and pulling the hand around to encourage them and keep them from basing out with it to foil your roll. You can then back mount them and sink a RNC pretty easily.

Next we learned a technique from Coach Kevin. From the same setup of pushing them onto their front and having them defend by posting, you can sink your front arm under their chin and around their neck, grabbing it with your rear hand in an S-grip. Then you press their shoulders into the mat as you get up on your toes and walk your body away from them and toward their head, tightening the choke and putting more pressure on their shoulder and neck.

The last technique we learned was a side control escape that Kevin likes. It starts from framing their neck and cross facing arm, which allows your to shrimp out away from them, get your top side underhook, use your vertical elbow to clear their shoulder, then dive on their near side leg. You reach through their legs with your far hand and grab their ankle, lifting it off the mat to destabilize them and control them via their bent knee. From there you can dump them across, or if they’re based out across you can twist that knee and dump them back, ending up in side control.

Then we rolled. My first roll was against Carlo, who’s a handful. Very mobile and aggressive, and has some Krav Maga skills (he’s a KM instructor in the valley) so I was surprised and proud that I survived a roll with him last Tuesday. Well, I survived another roll with him, extending my streak to two! He again tried his omoplata on me, but I saw it coming and defended. He tried a collar choke on me from mount but I upa’d him and then defended the choke by pressing his elbows together until he gave up on it.

Second roll saw everyone else switch partners except for me and Carlo. I started in side control bottom. I realized that when framing his neck, I’m leaving my elbow sticking out, and that’s bad, but he never took advantage of that flaw in my technique. He ended my streak by tapping me out with a collar choke of some kind. I spent a lot of time on the bottom, but after the submission I got on top and it was so much easier. Good roll. We commiserated about our messed up toes.

My next roll was with Dave. I usually do pretty well against Dave, but today he was wrecking me. It was back and forth, but he was putting me in jeopardy a lot. It was a VERY entertaining roll.

After that I went against Colt. He wrestled me onto my back, proceeded to mount, and then smashed my head into the mat for a bit. I waited for him to get bored and move, and I upa’d him. I should have been more careful how I secured my position in his guard and then controlled his biceps to posture up, but I was lax. He didn’t capitalize, though. He went for an arm bar and I stuffed it. Rick was coaching him to go for the other arm. He tried again, and I was able to smash him and pass his guard before the roll ended. He told me I’m getting good.

Class ended with the best show of camaraderie I’ve seen. Handshakes and hugs with everybody. Good class.