Del a Heevas, redux

The moment in which you know the real measure of your power, you don’t have to put on a show to prove your worth. -Daniele Bolelli, On The Warrior’s Path

Class #2: basics
"Fireman's carry" takedown. I did not do very well with this one today. Even with Ritchie- who is the shortest and lightest person in the class aside from me- it worked better when I just squatted instead of knelt. 

Head and arm choke from sprawling on N/S on turtled opponent. We did it with going neck-to-armpit first, then armpit-to-neck. Grab your own bicep. Sometimes you can finish the choke right there, sometimes you can pull hir into your lap and finish it there, sometimes you do an alligator roll and then run your legs around to catch hir legs- that is very unpleasant.

Note that getting the opponent's shoulder collapsed in and getting your first arm in DEEP are the keys.

We have done this in Cindy's class before; it is more challenging in gi because there is a lot of extra bulk. I could barely reach my own bicep doing it on Ritchie, and only with a lot of shifting around and adjusting while he held still for me. I don't know if this is going to be practical for me to use on anyone bigger than an eight-year-old in a live roll.

Rotating spars with three or four different people.

Class #3: competition

All spars.  Again I was able to spend a decent amount of time on top, but only managed to finish one sub.

The prof put me down hard several times in succession, and informed me that he is going to keep doing it until I start pulling guard and working off my back.

After that, I had Adrian, and I was afraid to do anything *but* pull guard and try to work off my back, in case Carlos saw me and chewed me out for not listening.  I didn't get anywhere, of course, but I didn't spend quite as much time lying helplessly as I had feared I would.

I don't know what to do with this instruction. I suck so badly on the bottom that I really do not want to be there. I know that I'll never get any better at it unless I embrace it, but geez.... I'd be happier about going back and working on my worst aspects if only my BEST aspects were more adequate than they are.

Note, though- when I roll with Carlos, pull guard and try to work off my back. Sigh.

Class #3: I wasn't sure about this- I hadn't eaten much today, but for some reason I felt like I had the energy to do a fourth class. I started pooping out in warmups, though, so during the water break I drank half of a SlimFast.

"Del a Heevas" again: You have spider guard, feet on opponent's hips. Move your butt to the outside of hir left foot. Grab the heel and hook your rt leg around the outside of hir leg, with your toe on the inside of hir thigh. Use your other foot to  push on opponent's rt thigh just above the knee. You can also switch that sleeve cuff to your opposite hand (so that you're pulling opponent's arm between hir own legs) and get a lapel grip with the first hand.

My most common sin continues to be forgetting to grab the heel. Theer are just a lot of steps in this sucker to remember.

Note that a good lapel grip and pull twists the opponent around to make it even more difficult for hir to catch hirself. This is a very unpleasant takedown.  Done correctly, it results in a face-plant from standing- and a fairly vigorous one. If you do manage to stick part of an arm out to try to catch yourself (It's really hard to resist the urge), it's a good way to break a wrist, elbow or shoulder. I was not very happy to be doing this on my trick wrist, and I got fairly battered, but I lived through it. We were finishing in side control, and my partner was heavy enough to make me scramble to get my elbows framed up firmly on my tender ribs. My partner was groaning every time he hit the mat. As time went on, he started groaning as I braced myself to topple him- just to get a head start on the groaning.

We did a Brazillion reps of this, to exhaustion.... and I was just as glad to not have to do any additional sparring after that- as the capoeira folks were waiting to get on the mat.