How to tap someone out with your butt

…Their minds are always hyperactive, too caught up in the unstoppable flow of thoughts to pay any attention to the ecstasy dancing in front of their noses. They don’t know what it means to live in a body that doesn’t just serve as a machine carrying the mind from one place to another. -Daniele Bolelli, On The Warrior’s Path

Lunchtime BJJ at GB Seattle.

Saw the new prof for the first time. Note that he wants me to not put my palms on the mat while I'm shrimping- and also to get my butt up far enough that I am horizontal after the push. Carlos has told me that (the butt part) too, and I have been trying to be better about it- I don't mind the extra effort so much as I get impatient with the extra TIME it takes to get down the mat. But they're right.

I attacked Vince before class, and we rolled around for a while. Me trapped in bottom half guard again.  Good point- he was utterly unable to escape it, and on the few occasions he did, I almost immediately clapped him back into it. If there was a comp where you get a lot of points for lying on the mat like roadkill holding bottom half guard till we all die of old age, I'd be a lock. I tried several chokes on him, but didn't quite finish any.

Same spider guard stuff we did yesterday, so it was good to get another chance to refine that. I remembered all my Improvement Opportunities from yesterday, and tried to employ them.  I asked Steve to drill with me, and he hadn't been there yesterday, so I was able to tweak his technique. That was even more helpful to me.

Positional sparring a la spider guard. I was not doing too well on either end of this today. Once I can get the damn feet off my biceps- if I can- I can usually at least pose a challenge to my opponent. Angela tends to get one foot cemented to my bicep and her same side hand cemented to my sleeve in a death grip that cannot be budged- then she hauls on it with her considerable strength till it hurts so much that sometimes I have to resort to giving up the sweep.  As for HOLDING spider guard, once my feet are dislodged from the biceps it's all over. It depends on how skilled the opponent is at that. If it is not a strength for them, I can often hold it for a good long time by continually moving my hips around and switching the tension from one side to the other.  It seems that once I let one leg drop below the hip and try to do anything with the opponent's legs, they immediately pass. I need more working options for a sitting Kitsune vs a standing opponent.

One roll with Bryan. He steamrollered me of course. One helpful thing he noted was that when I'm trying for my favorite choke  (my rt hand deep in opponent's rt collar, my lft hand gripping handful of opponent's gi on top of hir left shoulder), it will simply not work if I am failing to adequately control the opponent's bottom half. He noted that when I have closed guard and I'm trying to choke, I often open my guard and start shifting around- trying to get a (perceived) better angle, I guess- and I should try to keep closed guard and pull the guy forward with my legs while I'm trying to choke.

Also notable- Bryan tapped me out with his butt today. He was trying to armbar me, and my face was wedged right under his ass with his right buttock (which is sparsely padded) just about crushing my cheekbone. I held out for a bit but then had to tap. He let go and asked me "Was that a crank?" (he always asks me that...) I said, "No, you actually tapped me out with your buttock. I think that's the first time anyone's done that to me." His response; "Well, I'm glad it was me."