Here a choke, there a choke

An armed man will kill an unarmed man with monotonous regularity.

Wednesday evening gi at Sleeper. I usually wear the "baby blanket pink" gi when I have a gi class here, because this is the only place I *can* wear it.... the patches are already fraying on my patched-out GB gi's (dammit), so I want to stretch as much life out of those as I possibly can. But the baby blanket gi- it is a definite handicap due to being too big. I feel like the lapels stretch all the way across the country and invite BJJ'ers from Connecticut to grab them and haul me around with them. The sleeves are a good length, though, so I daren't try to shrink it.

Opponent is in your guard. Grab cross sleeve cuff and work opponent's lapel tail out on that side (lucky Lamont, he had miles of fabric to work with!). Pull the cuff across your chest and yank the lapel tail BACK (this is a pushing motion). Switch grips, twist the lapel tail and pin your elbow to your side. Trap opponent's hand with your elbow as well.

Use your free hand to grab around hir head and pull head down to your chest. Opponent should be in the position of "whispering in your ear". Wrap lapel tail around the back of hir neck. Open guard and jump hips up to trap one shoulder. Turn and bring leg around. You can choke with the lapel tail, but it seems that the better subs are the four different armbars from that position (!)

Same setup, but opponent swims the arm back out as you try to trap it with your elbow. Let it go and lasso the neck with the lapel tail. Don't make it as tight as before- and as you wrap it, stick your hand in there so that as you pull, you can scissor (As in Snake Versus Five Animals) and get a choke that way. The only thing that could make this more awesome was that  if the opponent manages to duck out, you can wrap the opposite way and do the same thing. So we drilled with the opponent ducking out repeatedly... choke right, choke left, choke right, choke left, here a choke, there a choke, everywhere a choke-choke. This is the coolest choke ever. I could do it like a rock star right away because of the Kung-Fu-like scissoring motion, although I'm a bit concerned that the setup may elude me live on the field.

Rolls with Lamont, Terry, Cindy and Chord. I wasn't doing that great tonight, although I did (FINALLY!) get a tap with the baseball bat choke (with lapel) on Chord (upon which we had to pause and rhapsodize a bit on the beauty and lyricism of baseball bat chokes in general... he's the one who was putting the no-gi variation on me last week). I got some KOB, front mount, and several guard passes on Terry, but he kept tapping me repeatedly with leg attacks (which I am still completely inadequate at defending). Ended up doing a little standup with Cindy... that'll always get your heart revving, ha ha.  I was getting tired and less effective by the time I got to Chord. He did get a tap on me as well(I can't recall with what).

In general, I am feeling somewhat less helpless on the bottom- I am feeling more like I can reasonably expect to get out the majority of the time, and am also less dependant upon waiting for the opponent to set up a sub before I try. Yet I am still using a bit too much energy and muscling to accomplish it- and am still stalling out at times under side control, front mount, and (especially) scarf (God I HATE scarf!!!!!!).

 

Chokes tonight combined with chokes this morning left me feeling neck-sore and slightly vomitous. I had been fortunate to have good drill partners (this is really important when working chokes!) in Glenn and Lamont, but the downside is that when they choke you, you **KNOW** you have been choked. Had to ask housemate to Tiger Balm the back of my neck when I got home.