Got a mop?

"It's not 'I get a turn and then you get a turn'... it's all my space and it's always my turn" - Greg Hamilton


Today's FOD is the Dance Of Life.

I have continued this week to play around with Bung Bo In the Mirror, Five Animals In the Mirror, Little Red Dragon In the Mirror, Leopard Three In the Mirror. Those four are approaching proficiency. There are only a couple of spots in each one where I have to think about what I'm doing- and even in those spots, It is usually not slowing me down perceptably. Today I also worked on Leopard Fist In the Mirror. I haven't done that one in a while, and was pleased to see that it is actually in pretty good shape. Not as comfortable as these other four, yet, but decent. Soon I need to revisit Five Points Of the Star In the Mirror.

Lunchtime BJJ at Gracie Seattle. Prof. Carlos came around shaking hands while I was standing there stretching my arms up; so instead of shaking my hand, he took it and pirouetted around me. "Your turn," So I then pirouetted around him. He is such a goofball.

You are in turtle, opponent side-by side with 2 lapel grips.

1)Grab a handful of pants at his far knee, hip out (That's important), then get full or half guard.

2)Grab a handful of pants at his far knee, Stand up with your NEAR leg, place the shin and hip of your FAR leg beside opponent's leg, sweep. I have seen this sweep before and liked it a lot, but haven't as of yet been able to fully internalize all the correct steps in the correct order.... so I often fumble around trying to do it in live rolling and never succeeding. Hopefully with this latest go-round, it will sink in. Carlos had to come over and correct me because it was taking me too many steps to get situated. ONE to put the near leg up, ONE to get the far leg in position, then sweep. No ditzing around.

Third drill: You are in opponent's guard, he goes for kimura sweep. You press his leg down, swing around him, and get his back. This was also useful because for the bonus practice of setting up the kimura sweep.

I wanted to do some sparring, but Carlos closed out the drill portion of class with one of those wicked cardio-blast thingies (with SPRAWLS!), and it knocked me out.



Evening BJJ at Sleeper. Same setup as the last few classes: closed guard, yank the elbows out, get a whizzer and a back-of-the-neck grip. This time, we did a few more complicated sub options... probably too complicated for me to try to integrate yet, but interesting and fun all the same. We also did some of the chokes where you get the second grip with a handful of the gi at the back of the shoulder. I really like those, so it was great to get a chance to work on them some more. Still having some trouble with the broken finger when it comes to grips, though- especially gi chokes.

Note that Cindy thinks one of the reasons I continue to struggle with triangles is that I might be hipping out too far when I go to get the angle and tighten it up. My leg is so short that when I hip out, the knee starts travelling down the side of the guy's neck. She wants me to try to rotate UNDER the opponent and try to keep the knee on the back of his neck, instead of hipping out too far to the side.

Also note that when I underhook a leg to sweep, it is usually advantageous to just hang onto that leg. For some reason I tend to want to let go as soon as I get the guy over.

Some positional sparring, then free sparring. I got to go a long time with Cindy, which is always educational. I tried to pay attention to when she repeatedly caught me with the same things, and not keep putting myself right back in those same positions repeatedly. I still was doing it to some degree.

At one point I had bottom half guard (surprise surprise) and she was digging her knee into my bladder. Eventually she paused and asked, "Doesn't that hurt?" "Yes." "Then open your half guard!" "Actually I was just thinking that I hope you have a mop in here."

As of tomorrow, I will again be an official student there, which is great. I think I'm going to really like having it in Bellevue.