Cross collar chokes from mount

The road to hell is paved with adverbs. To put it another way, they're like dandelions. If you have one on your lawn, it looks pretty and unique. If you fail to root it out, however, you find five the next day... fifty the day after that… and then, my brothers and sisters, your lawn is TOTALLY, COMPLETELY and PROFLIGATELY covered with dandelions. -Stephen King


My ineffectual rolls on Friday night were interspered with enough frustrated fruitless straining that I twinged not only my old right-upper-rear rib injury, but a twin on the other side. It's not that bad, just a dull ache, and it's difficult to find a comfy sleeping position. That right upper rear thing is going to be with me till death, I think. There must be a big honkin' knot of scar tissue in there. It feels like lying on a lead tennis ball at night.

Lunchtime BJJ, GB Belle.  Many of our teachers and coaches are away for Pans all week, so Aussie Dave was coaching.

Cross collar choke from mount. It is easier to take a low lapel grip and then slide it up. Sauleh suggests a Leopard Fist (he didn't call it that, but that's what it was) lying on the guy's ribs, the sliding up under the lapel. If you're having trouble getting it all the way up there, brace your elbow on your belly and lean forward to use your weight to force it in there. (Sauleh is a small guy... these little tricks are part of the reason I'm totally annoyed that he won't work with me. But I guess verbal instruction is better than nothing.) Press your elbow to the opponent's breastbone. Post with your other hand, on the same side of the guy's head. Slowly crawl your posting hand to the other side, watching your balance. Use your elbow to press the opponent's face so that s/he's looking at your first grip. Now you have room to insert the second grip. The second hand goes in thumb inside, palm down. If you can't get it in there, you may still be able to finish by grabbing a handful of gi at hir shoulder (my most high-percentage choke), or even just the shoulder itself- If you can keep hir head and shoulder pinned, you can make it happen with the pressure from the first grip hand.

More options: try to slide your knee up so that it's under the shoulder blade on the side that you have the first grip. Leave the second leg where it is, or use S mount. Now, if s/he tries to bridge away from you, s/he is handing you the armbar. If s/he tries to bridge into you, s/he is exposing more neck for you to slide that 2nd choke grip in.

I was drilling with Donkey Kong. He has 4 stripes now. Still having a little trouble being a good partner. He said all the right things, went too gentle at first, then when I reassured him, he overcorrected and started going too hard. 

The higher my rank climbs, the more I find myself feeling some kind of responsibility to attempt to retrain people who don't know how to be a good partner. When I was a stale white and fresh blue, I just said to myelf, "I'm simply going to avoid working with white belts below three stripes, and also this list of rough guys above that rank," Now I think, "What if this guy ends up rolling with Crisanne or Lindsey and injuring one of them.... I ought to roll with him and try to get him housebroken before he kills somebody who is more fragile than me." 

I'm also finding that the brand-newbies are usually easier to train. Once they get three or four stripes on their white belts, they think they know everything. If a guy makes it to blue and is still being an asshole partner, it's very hard to fix him after that point (witness Hostility Boy).

There is a cadre of high whites/low blues at Bellevue that were working with me almost from their first week, and they really know how to drill and roll appropriately with a smaller person without being buttholes. The better partner you are, the better for your own progress as well as the safety and progress of everyone around you.

King Of the hill from front mount. Sucking on the bottom, although I can fend off the choke for a while. A bit better on top, although still can't reliably finish the choke, and armbar is worse (the guys bicep-curl right out of it). Still getting reversed too easily and too often, although having some limited sporatic success with S-mount.