"Tool him!"

Beating up on myself was the only fight I knew I could win. –Elena Stowell


Wednesday lunchtime at Seattle.

So tired. Often when I start out tired, I'll forget about the tired once I get going. Not this time. Tired all the way through the class and even more tired by the end.

Upa.

Then: opponent tries to front mount you, you stuff the leg into your half guard, then replace full guard. I use this a lot, so it was flowing pretty well for me- but with the tired, I was noticing more than ever that you really have to get your moves started before the foe SETTLES.

One roll with Cindy. I tried to keep moving, and also tried to not go where she was baiting me to go- although sometimes I think this resulted in even worse positions for me. She never runs out of Plan B, C, D, E, F and beyond.
----------------------------------

Evening in Bothell.

Same two techniques from afternoon, plus a basic headlock escape- elbow to the mat, turn belly down, overturn opponent, pry opponent's arms off, armbar.

One roll with a huge white belt. He even *looks* like a sumo wrestler. I know this guy could have squished me like a cockroach, but he was being nice with his weight. I got one bow and arrow. I couldn't get his pantleg because we were jammed up against the wall, so I had to use little jerks to reposition us till I could get enough leverage to finish. When we were done with the entire roll, he sat up straight and went "Oh my GOD!!!!!!!!" (which was gratifying)

One roll with a brand new guy. He was lighter than the other, and also being nice about not using muscle. His buddies were all lined up by the mat good-naturedly urging me to tool him. I don't usually do that... but the guy was laughing and having fun, the mood was light, and it seemed like he wasn't going to be traumatized or anything if I did tool him. So I tooled him probably more than I've ever tooled anybody. This is something I just don't get to experience, EVER... it was so bizarre that I'm not even sure if I had fun or not.

Then, lest I get a swelled head- a roll with Will to keep me humble. He's not as good as Jalen (yet), but I have to bust my buns to keep up with him. He knocked out a couple of really nice technical tricks today. Always enjoyable. I hope he doesn't grow too fast.  ;)

With the white belts: I used some spider guard, as it seems to fairly reliably flummox white belts more than anything else does. I wish I was better at sweeps from spider guard. Something to continue to work on. Setting up triangles is starting to become easier from here. I did set up a triangle on the sumo wrestler and two triangles on the other guy. Didn't finish any- still striving for that part. I tried to transition to an armbar or omoplata from the failed triangles. That didn't quite work out. I'm happy at having been able to conceive and try for a plan B, though.

Nice to see a few little girls in the kids' class today.

White belts

I would rather get my ass kicked in BJJ than win at anything else. I love it that much.  - Parabellum


Ah, fresh white belts. Panting, straining, stiff-as-a-board white belts.

I still don't have enough technique to beat white belts who are bigger and stronger than I. Two years ago, I would have done my damndest to muscle back, and gotten frustrated when I couldn't prevent the manhandling. Today, I stayed relaxed and for the most part serene, with only a few momentary flashes of frustration.

Went to the Bothell pod for the first time. Got lost- late for two classes in the same day, that's a record. There's a girl there! Panting, straining, stiff as a board... but seems gung-ho and eager to learn.

Same comb-over escape from front mount to replacing full guard as this morning.

Upa escape from front mount- this time beginning with opponent gripping cross-collar. You clasp hir elbow to your chest.

Headlock escape on the ground. Turn slightly into opponent and pull that elbow down to ribs/mat. Hook top leg over hir top leg. Roll toward opponent and get on knees, driving forward to make hir headlock-gripping arm difficult to maintain. If you can keep the arm, armlock behind opponent's back. If s/he pulls arm under hir, sash-grip under one armpit and over one shoulder and hike your knee up so that it's pressed against hir back, high up. Pull hir into back mount.

Tonight I'm a dummy

In all athletic disciplines, it is the internal work that makes the physical mat time click, but it is easy to lose touch with this reality in the middle of the grind. - Josh Waitzkin, “The Art Of Learning”



Tuesday FOD: Leopard Three

Knee very sore in the morning. Decided to rest it and just go to evening class. My plan was to hit the women's class in Seattle, but traffic congestion took care of that great idea. Note to self- must leave earlier than 4:15 to make Seattle evening class. It's just not practical, unfortunately.

Having missed enough of the women's class to not feel okay barging in, and with a little time to kill before the evening roster, I found SIDE CONTROL lying on the floor wrestling imaginary opponents in the boxing ring. I asked him if he wanted a dummy to drill on, and we played with some half guard escapes. Then he ran through the techniques he was going to teach in the basics class. I asked him if he wanted to use me for a demo dummy in the class, and he said sure. I would have liked to go to Rodrigo's class, but frankly, after sitting in gridlock for nearly two hours, I'm tired and frustrated and not in the best mindset to try to learn complex things. So that worked out okay.

I jumped Z before class started. I did not tap him with my razzle-dazzle baseball bat choke, but I tore off half a fingernail trying. He put one on *ME* from the bottom- and had almost tapped me with it before people started lining up. I asked him to show it to me, but we ran out of time.

Upa's again. Always a good thing to keep working on.

Headlock escapes. Grab your own wrist and make a framed circle with your arms. Place the edge of your frame under opponent's jaw and use it to push hir head (and thus torso) up and back. Hip out away from hir back, and get on your side. Use your topmost leg to comb over opponent's head and bring hir down. As hir arm sides off your neck, keep it for an armlock.

I've never pulled off this escape live; I think I have not been hipping out enough or turning on my side enough. Dave made much of the fact that you have much more range of motion with the leg once you're on your side.

2nd headlock escape: Throw your topmost leg over opponent's posted knee-up leg. You now have 1 hook of a back mount. Now get your matward elbow down and punch upward with the other arm, as you turn onto your belly. Get to your knees and try to retain opponent's arm (which is now twisted behind hir).

One roll with one of the white belt ladies, Megan. She has done Muay Tai and hapkido in the past. She is only a few weeks old here, but she's pretty good. Long arms and legs, really strong, good base and body awareness/coordination, good idea of basically what she's trying to do in a roll. My knee hurt really bad at one point during this one, so I decided to not do any more tonight.

I had hoped that Rodrigo wouldn't think I was avoiding him or anything by not taking his class. I haven't seen him in a long time. But I got a hug, and he congratulated me on my promotion and said that I deserved it- which was really nice to hear.