More Friday

Restricting our horizons is encouraged in order to seek perfect efficiency in only one activity, avoid dispersing our energies, and dedicate ourselves to a well-defined career. This is how experts are born and life dies. -Daniele Bolelli, On The Warrior’s Path



Friday evening no-gi at Sleeper. I was tired, but nothing on Heaven or Earth was going to stop me from getting to this class tonight.

I haven't done no-gi in so long- it felt so strange. The familiar: getting thoroughly plowed by Cindy in the sparring portion of class. I still feel about as effectual with her as I did my very first day, and the kicker is that she's going probably 25% on me (if that). It was nice to see that she's healing up from her car crash injuries, though. She said her back is still stiff, but she seemed to perform really well on the mat.

With opponent in your guard: Cup behind neck with one arm and bicep with the other. "crawl" your legs up hir back without opening your guard (this was the hardest part for me), and end up wrapped around hir neck with one shoulder trapped. Clasp hir forearm against your chest with hir elbow slightly bent. Curl your body to the side like a Cheeto to armbar. Note that curling only the top half of the body does not work nearly as well.

From there, Push the head to the side and flip the leg around to place knee on back of neck, armbar again. My form is nice on this, my crotch is pressed right into the armpit, but I continue to have to think a moment about which side I need to go to. It's worse under pressure.

Opponent wraps arm around your neck and stacks you. You cling to hir other wrist as s/he tries to pull it out, then let it go and use the momentum to triangle hir. Tuck the protruding arm under your armpit and armbar again. From there, my partner had a kimura and an additional armbar to add; I decided that I had enough material to challenge me for the time being.

Cindy has a thousand and one armbar variations; I wish I felt more confident about trying them in gi- but I just have a sense of not really knowing where the elbow is and how the arm is twisted, while it's hiding in that baggy sleeve.

Next: opponent is in your guard, you pull one arm crossways across your chest (this works especially well if s/he's trying to press a forearm into your neck). Hug the head to your chest. If you can wrap hir own arm around her neck and hold it on the other side, that's a bonus. Underhook the knee with your other arm, bring the ankle right to your ear. (If you can't underhook the leg because s/hes sinking the base down, yank hir torso forward with your legs. Another detail- it is possible to finish this step with your hands gable-gripped and the opponent in a painful curled ball. Apparently a little squeeze at this point is fairly evil.) Flail the far leg to work yourself into a 90 degree angle to the opponent. Scissor your legs as you sweep. Land in mount.

I worked with Jalen, who is my size and great to work with- he's about 12 but very focussed, and his BJJ is fantastic. We got about a jillion reps. I repped everything on both sides.

Poor Jalen got to be the demo dummy tonight- she made him yelp a few times. Then she would demo on me so that he could see, and I said, "You better not squeeze me that hard!"