Kirkland Open Mat

Five senses working together give birth to the sixth. -Daniele Bolelli, On The Warrior’s Path



Fri: 129

Open mat in Kirkland. Got to roll with Cindy (no gi), Shannon, a big blue belt guy who was sublime at not using strength, a new white belt guy and a less-new but out-of-practice white belt girl who were fun,  and Anh- a blue belt lady from Edmonds that I've never met before. Anh is exactly my weight and size. We rolled no-gi as well. Ron was also there, and he was the only one I didn't get to play with tonight. Oh well, we get to work a lot at Bellevue.

I tried a little of the DLR that we worked on yesterday. Trickier without the gi grips, of course- but Anh (unlike most of my training partners) is small enough that I can actually grab her wrist and keep hold of it. I noticed, though, that when you sweep someone into a face plant with DLR while in gi, the person can turn hir body a bit before hitting the foor. When you have someone's wrist in no-gi, they don't have that bit of wiggle room- it seems more likely to present a shoulder injury danger. I certainly didn't want to break my fun new toy the very first time I got to play with her! I tried sweeping her backward instead, but her balance was too good for that. Something else to work on.