More Thursday

Happiness is being high on the food chain.

4:30 Basics at GBBell.
Opponent is high front-mounted on you. You form your hands into L's and stick them in hir armpits while popping your chest to force hir to post above your head. Fold at the waist and try to stick your feet in hir armpits. Grab the belt. Try to roll over your shoulder out the back.  This was a little tricky on a huge white belt guy. The key was that belt grip- if I got sloppy with that, there was no getting out. Once I made a little room, I could worm out the back, although it wasn't pretty.

Opponent in turtle. Sprawl on hir shoulders N/S. Wrap your arms around opponent over one shoulder and under the other like a Miss America sash. The over-the-shoulder: Get a collar grip, fingers in. The under-the-shoulder: Stick this one in deep and try to lay your hand on the back of the opponent's head. (I had to drop to my knee beside the guy's shoulder to accomplish this). Put your head in the hole between hir elbow and knee. Roll to the outside. The guy will have to roll with you. (NOTE: do not be in such a hurry here that you neglect to carefully place your face- if you do not put it right in that opening, you wind up pulling the guy bodily right over your own face and maybe breaking your nose.)  You may be able to finish the choke from here, but to make it tighter, run your feet around and curl toward the opponent till hir head is lying on your thigh and finish there.

Short matches- but the huge white belt I was drilling with, it was his very first day. So I showed him what closed guard is, and what you do when you're in it, and had him work on passing my guard a few times. Then I had him put me in his closed guard and I tried to pass while he tried to hold me there or knock me over. Try to get to side control, hold for 3 seconds, try to front mount, hold for three seconds.

I told him to not use weight or strength on me, and I think he was trying, but man was he ever heavy, and a bit spazzy.

Competition class: it was just me and Ben, so we just rolled. He really dominated me- as easily as Hostility Boy had this morning, but Ben at least wasn't a total dick about it. I feel discouraged about my performance today (except for my teaching- I like teaching brand-newbies, and I think I'm good at it... this is part of what it means to be a Team Player, so up yours, H.B.), but one just keeps walking in the door, right?

Ben showed me a "crossface" from top side control that seems interesting- it did not appear from my perspective to be pushing the head far enough to be effective, but when he did it to me, I could see that it was- and that particular version didn't have me overbalancing my weight, which had been a problem several times during my rolls with him. I will need to try that on some other people.

After we'd been working for about 40min, I folded my right big toe in half and had to quit. Icing it now. I don't think it's sprained, but it hurts. Hate toe injuries. We'll see what it feels like tomorrow. It would be nice to be able to hit one of the morning classes.