BJJ Class 117
This class was a week ago. School has kept me busy so I haven’t really been able to blog a bit. I wasn’t able to make the early afternoon classes, so I went to the evening classes instead. It was nice to get to a 6pm class before the class actually started, a pleasant change from never making it on time!
Did some stretching and light warm-ups before the class started. There were some warm-ups when we started, but I don’t remember now. There were some sprawls in there somewhere.
Drills and techniques learned were all stand-up. Throw was the judo move where, after getting your grips, you go up beside your opponent and do a hook kick on the near side leg of your opponent to bring it up in the air and you use your arms to slam their upper body down on the mat so that your opponent lands on his back or on their head. That was proceeded by the same technique followed-up on with an armbar. Then we did some drills where you get a collar and elbow sleeve grip and manipulate your partner so that they move forward, back, to the sides, and directions in between. That was proceeded by a drill that used the stand-up manipulation to set-up throws or takedowns.
Then some rolling followed. The guy I rolled with is a former wrestler and used to give me loads of trouble. The last time we rolled, close to a month ago, I wasn’t able to do a thing I wanted. I was I was swept, reversed, submitted like crazy. This class was different, it was the reverse. I never controlled and rolled that well against someone that I knew was a former wrestler. I passed guard, did reversals and sweeps, and had a few submission attempts. At one point I was going for an omoplata on his right arm, I usually go for the left arm so I had difficulty getting off my back to finish it and at the same time he also grabbed his belt and I didn’t know how to get his grip free. Anyway, he kept trying to roll out and I kept stopping him. After he had attempted to roll out a few times and I struggled to finish the omoplata, I let him roll and I quickly did a forward roll as he was finishing his roll. I was hoping we would end up in the same omoplata position, but somehow we ended with him on his knees and me on my back in the armbar position. How cool was that? I thought it was.
What I did right:
Constantly worked on removing my opponents base and looking for submissions. I did a scissor sweep and a cool Eddie Bravo-esque half-guard sweep. Guard was good too, I think. Overall, I did well considering he used to wrestle and dominate me.
What I did wrong:
I couldn’t finish my submission attempts. I need to know how to counter an omoplata belt grab counter. Also since this guy was taller and heavier than me I couldn’t finish my armbar from the bottom sub and I couldn’t finish a guard sweep (I dunno what it’s called, but you put both opponents arms to the same side, climb up their shoulder a little, roll back to your back and bring them over and roll them so that you land in mount. Actually, the sweep and omoplata were done on the other side of the body different from the one I’m more experienced using. So yeah, I need to work on finishing techniques on both sides.
Now, about my face injury. I managed to pass his guard and as I was establishing side control, he turned and gave his back. Wrestling habits die hard. I grabbed his back and he struggled a bit before he stood up and bent his upper body forward. I thought he was going to try to shake me off the way Renzo Gracie tried to shake off Marcelo Garcia in the ADCC. Before I could even think of how to avoid slipping off, he did a forward roll. His entire body weight landed on my face.
I laid on the mat for several seconds thinking I’d be ready again in a few. I think I heard someone say “oh that’s bad” or something, so I took a look at the mirror and saw that it was indeed bad. I laid down on the sides for a while icing my face and recovering.
Anyway, face is much better now. Red marks are almost gone from the nose and I just have some black, blue, and red by my eyes. Nose is still tender though. AG is going for a quick three day conference in Boston, I’ll go up there to accompany her and relax a bit in the hotel and see some sights. Hopefully by the time time we get back my nose is back to normal, otherwise I’ll just go to BJJ and not roll.
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