No-gi evening

Despair is an indulgence.   –Karani


No-gi in Bellevue. Fortunately Kelly and I had coordinated to both be there. Apparently she has gotten stuck with some rough partners in the no-gi class to the point where she is going less often. It was good that she was there for me to work with, because the only other people there were Luis and Tagir. Both are on my "safe partner" list, but the size/strength disparity is considerable.

Pummeling. Then Single-leg setup drills.

You have side control. Foe turns into you and sticks lower knee in. You move the arm closest to hir head OVER, then turn your hips toward hir feet and use your hip to move the knee. Grab hir far knee/thigh and pull it toward you as you mount.

Same entry, but when you turn toward the feet, your opponent brings hir elbow to the mat. Turn BACK toward hir head, grab the bicep and yank that puppy outta there. Close your arm over it so that you are in a modified scarf. Take a moment to make sure 1) the inside of opponent's elbow is toward the ceiling, and 2)shove hir head so that it is lying on your thigh. Now step your other leg over hir head and armbar.

A roll with Tagir and one with Kelly.

Spent quite a bit of time on my butt while Tagir tried to come in on me. Normally I'd get up and work standup as soon as we detangled enough; but I wasn't feeling up to getting thrown by Tagir tonight. As we handfought, oddly enough I found myself falling into Snake hand guard positions. That hasn't happened in a long time.

Note that Tagir is working on guillotines. He tried one on me and I managed to squirt out, but he got one on Kelly and kept it clamped on her for a few minutes before she finally had to tap.

I seem to be doing better against Kelly than I have done in the past. A year ago, she dominated me every roll and tapped me sometimes. Then there was a several-months-long period where I didn't work with her, and now- while I'm not tapping her very often, she's not tapping me hardly at all and she's not on top of me the entire time. I'm starting to wonder if she's coming up against that wall- the one that people tend to hit when they are gifted and start out doing very very well in their first couple of years.