Shoulderlocks and sweeps..

Class is shrinking back to a more normal size I think. You almost have enough room around on on the mat that you can stretch your arms out to the sides without poking someone in the eye. Or poking someone in the neck as would most likely happen if you're as short as me.

Warmups! No Dale again. It's a John warmup. Running in circles, touching the floor, sprawls and burpees. I do not like sprawls or burpees. Far too much like exercise, and I keep telling people that exercise is definitely bad for you. Hip escapes and switchouts down the mat just like every class.

Intro to the side control escape we did Monday. No Dale. Demonstration dummy of choice this week is a blue belt (in blue gi) called Tim. I'm getting good at this remembering names thing.

Drilling the side control escape, which I'm doing very nicely with not much resistance. Now just have to work out how to make it work when the other guy doesn't want to let me. Lee is the other guy again tonight.

After drilling that for a while we get the 'escape your own guard' demo again. John insists this should be your go-to move when you're on your back and the other guy is in your guard. Really? Ok, if you say so.

Drilling escape your own guard. For all of about 30 seconds before John apparently gets bored with drilling and decides we're going to do it competitively in 1 minute rounds. It's still amusing, especially when you're the top guy and the best way to stay in there is to do roughly everything wrong. Oh well. It's good exercise. By definition that means it's bad for you right?

Breaking posture drill. For about 30 seconds each. Zipping through things tonight.

One minute rounds from side control. Guy on top is allowed to mount and go for submissions. Guy on the bottom has to escape to guard. I started on the bottom. Bridging and onto my side. Around in circles scramble. Somehow end up sitting up with him pretty much on my legs. Ended up pretty much tackling him onto his back from there. Weird, but I'll take it. Re-set and manage to get to something like half guard briefly before we run out of time.

On top. Managing to keep him flat for the most part. Once he got up onto his side while I was trying to nab his top arm for a figure 4 and I scooted around and took his back while has was being confused about what the next step of the escape is. Reset and go again. Ended up with my hips switched over in a position which I don't know what to do with. Fun fun.

Drilling Kimuras just like Monday. Nice tip from John on getting myself more side-on as I roll back to finish, and also on the angle needed for the arm (parallel with his back, not twisting up behind it).

New stuff time. A sweep to do if he decides to be difficult and tuck his arm in / sit back instead of nicely letting us submit him. Let go with the hand that's on his wrist while keeping hold of the overhook. Plant that hand back to post (not on your elbow, all the way up). Bump up with your hip and then over to the side where you have his arm trapped. I don't think we gave it a name.

Drilling the Kimura and the sweep at the same time, one after the other.

Finishing up with one minute rounds from guard, but starting with the bottom guy already holding the Kimura grip. That's genuinely not a good start for the guy on top hey. I'm the guy on top for starters.

Trying to come up with a way to get my arm out, which I wasn't able to do. Always keeping my arm tucked in tight, and alternating between sitting up while he's trying for the Kimura. Got swept right near the end of the round, but I guess that's better than getting tapped.

On the bottom to finish. Immediately went for the Kimura when he gave me a little too much space to work on his arm. He sounded surprised as he tapped. We did just drill this you know, you should be expecting that... He kept his arm tucked nicely after that. Worked for the Kimura again, then when he rocked backwards did the sweep. Well. That's just like magic. It works! Anybody would almost think they teach us those two moves together for a reason!

Good class. Fun. Learning things.

I can escape my own guard...

Monday night hooray! Rain and thunderstorms hooray! Rain coming in the windows. Hooray?

There's a girl in class. How unusual. That'd be the first time for fundamentals, although I believe there's been 2 or 3 different girls lined up for the big kids class afterwards a few times. My first impression is that this girl is not new. Turns out that I'm right, because she knows some of the guys from the big kids class who are hanging around.

Warmups. No Dale. Who stole Dale? John runs his own warmup, which is actually mildly like exercise tonight. Running around the mat. Running around the mat while touching the mat with your hands. My back disapproves. Running on the spot, with sprawls. Burpee-sprawls. Whoo. It's hot in here with all the windows closed and 90% humidity. Hip escapes and switchouts down the mat to finish warming up.

John has a 4-stripe white belt in a purple gi as a grappling dummy tonight. His name is Liam. I don't know why I remember that, I usually forget names instantly. It could be because he's a 4-stripe white belt in a purple gi. We don't exactly have many of those in fundamentals.

To side control, where we drill Figure 4s, Up-and-crush Kimuras and the other-Kimura-that-I-suck-at. Paired up with Lee, who still had a dodgy shoulder. Did I mention I suck at that other Kimura? Really. Got a 'good' from John while doing the up-and-crush version though. I'm sure I remember being crap at that one last week, but it worked great this week.

I've worked out the terminology too. There's no such thing as an Americana. An Americana is a figure 4. A Kimura is actually still a Kimura. It only took a couple of months....

Side control escape, same as last week. Seem to have this one working nicely in drills too. Lee messes his up a few times before working it out again.

1-minute rounds from side control. Underneath first, and I still don't think I'm getting my hips out far enough. Interrupted once by proximity to a wall while I was reasonably close to getting a leg through. Half-managed the escape and ended up in a weird semi-scramble position which most definitely wasn't me under side control because I was sitting up. Re-set and the round ends.

On top. The exposed arm is Lee's dodgy shoulder, so no trying to rip it off, although I did try to get the set-up for the figure 4 just for entertainment value. Lee is getting coaching from John.. "bridge!".. and at one stage I end up with my foot on the wall using it for bonus leverage. Amusing. Lee gets up on his side near the end of the round, and I zip around to north-south, which he doesn't react to, so I got the rest of the way around to his back. Time.


Drinks break, and then we're doing more drills. Side-control escape to guard, then the escape-your-own-guard drill. Amusing. We only do this for about 2 minutes before John decides we're going to do 1 minute rounds of escape-your-own-guard drill. This is particularly silly for the guy on top, because having just been told that it's ideal to posture up when you're in guard, the only option to prevent your partner escaping his own guard is to keep your head jammed onto his chest. Clever. Still good exercise though.

Drills from guard on how to break your partners posture, assuming that they're up straight with their hands high on your chest. Basically scoop your arms under theirs and scoop them off your chest to the side while pulling them forwards with your legs. End up ideally with one hand on the back of the neck, and the other over their arm and gripping at just above the elbow. Lee kept ending up with his arm under mine, and I actually have no idea how.


Time for a new technique. A technique from guard.....? Hooray! How excitement! The technique in question is another Kimura. Starting with opponent postured up in your closed guard, break their posture. Use your legs to push them lower down your body, then open your guard and wriggle backwards until you can sit up a bit. Turn a little bit onto your side towards the side where you're gripping their arm, while sliding your arm down to their wrist. Sit up more while reaching over with your other arm, shove their head the other way as you reach over to get the normal Kimura grip. Roll back onto your other hip, bring your top leg (same side as the arm you're attacking) up onto their back as you roll them forward while bending their arm back.

That's a relatively crap description, but I know what I mean and it actually felt pretty natural. No time for anything else tonight after we finished drilling. Class seemed really short, and definitely nowhere near as strenuous as Wednesday last week, but damn is it warm with the windows closed!

More guard stuff on Wednesday. Sweet.

Wednesday. And learning new things.

Far smaller class than Monday. Maybe 16? 18? not sure, didn't bother to count. My back is bothering me tonight, which isn't altogether unusual, but it's worse than normal. Feels like a line of muscles down the right side of my spine is all bunched up being difficult. Grr.

Very abbreviated warmup. We didn't do any stretches, so I scoot to the front of the line for hip escapes down the mat so that I can stretch my legs and my back while everybody finishes theirs.

Pairing up. No small guys. Gah. End up with a guy called Tynan (spelling? oh well) who is pretty much the image of the type of person I've been doing my best to avoid. Hair chopped to stubble, only a few inches taller than me, but probably 15kgs heavier (in muscle), loads of tattoos. Some of them are actually pretty cool. I've been avoiding guys like this, because stereotypically they just seem more likely to be gung-ho about it, and more likely to hurt me as a result. Oh well. We shall see if I die.

Drilling the same three moves from Side control that we did on Monday while John and Dale teach them to the new guys. First shoulderlock Tynan does on me is cranked rather quickly. Ow. My shoulder sounds like bubble-wrap, which isn't entirely unusual, but it was reasonably loud. It's gonna be a long night huh? I'm really not looking forward to doing sparring stuff with this guy.

When it's my turn to do techniques, I'm having a little difficulty getting enough pressure to finish them, as he's resisting fairly solidly, and my back is limiting how much I can turn my body to finish the twisty ones, specifically the one that comes after 'up and crush'. Oh well.

Sparring rounds! ... huh what? It's only been about 25 minutes? Well, OK. 1 minute rounds of side control. Didn't I mention that I wasn't looking forward to that? Starting underneath.

First round: My goal for this round is to not die. Immediately up onto my side, and he flattens me back out. Then up onto my side again and there is absolutely all kinds of space for me to sneak a leg through. Half guard. Re-set. He learns, nowhere near as much space, but he can't keep me flat enough to try anything. Round in circles. That went rather better than I expected.

On top. He's really pretty strong, and pretty much just disposes of me with upper body strength. 3 times. Meh.

I kind of feel like we did another two rounds here, but if we did they really weren't very interesting.

Ok. Time to learn something new. Like how to escape from under side control. I like that. Make a frame with your forearms to get partner as low down your body as you can, then bridge. Use space underneath you to get onto your side facing your partner as you drop back to the mat. Hip escape out backwards. Bring near-side knee up to your elbow, so it now should be underneath your partner. Pivot your body to line back up, get that leg the rest of the way through and secure your guard.

Neato. Drilling. We both seemed to be ending up with one arm in and one arm out when our partner did the escape. Wasn't sure whether this was a problem or not, but after a little bit of thinking it's pretty obvious that this is more because of the guy on top leaving his arm there. It's probably also bad for the guy on top, because I see triangles floating around there. I don't know HOW to do a triangle, but I'm fairly sure that one arm in and one arm out is triangle land.

More 1 minute drills, this time with the goal of actually accomplishing the escape. Which I didn't actually manage to do right. I believe my problem was not getting my hips out far enough, and constantly finding my hip / leg / knee blocked off when I tried to scoot it through. Once again never really threatened, but disappointed I couldn't manage the escape.

On top, and credit Tynan, because even though he knows he can throw me away, he actually tries to work the escape. Which he didn't make work either. Better pressure this time on top and I only lose top spot once, although we did have to stop a couple of times for crashing into other pairs.

John says we're adding something to it for after you get back to guard. That'd be a technique from guard. Woo hoo! Lets see what it is? A sweep right.... wrong. It's an escape. That you do while the other guy is in your guard. Well OK. Basically, you're in guard with one hand on the back of his neck and the other on his other arm. His head will be roughly on your chest. Use your legs to push him lower down your body, then open your guard up and wriggle backwards further. Now he should be right down near your stomach. Straighten your leg on the side where you have his arm, bring the other one up as high as possible, then post back with the hand that was on his arm. Scoot backwards and get to your feet / knees / whatever. Just like the stand up drill we do in warmup.

Drilling that a bit. Then a one minute drill that was vaguely amusing. Start on one side of the mat, in guard. Person on the bottom has to try to do the escape (why are we escaping our own guard again?) while the other person has to stay in guard (why are we trying to stay in our opponents guard again?). If you get to the other side of the mat, go back to the other side and start again. Amusing stuff. Basically laps across the mat with the person on the bottom wriggling backwards and the guy on top staying there. Good exercise, but not a whole lot of escaping going on.

Drink break, then more side control sparring to finish up. I'm really tired you know. First time that's happened for a fair few weeks. Hard work being underneath, but I'm spending most of my time on my side, so the pressure isn't too bad. He hasn't seemed to work out how to flatten me effectively. Definitely not getting my hips out far enough and finding myself blocked off as a result.

On top. He's getting a little tired, and a whole lot less explosive as a result. I think I managed to not lose the position at all this round, but we did have to reset about 3 times due to finding ourselves off the mat / in a wall / in another pair. Kinda scary ending to the round, because we ran into another pair and one of them rolled onto the back of my neck, which also did an imitation of bubble-wrap popping. Apparently no serious damage.

One more time, but this time you're allowed to try to mount (although you just reset if someone gets mount).

Underneath again, and I'm really pretty wrecked now. He suddenly feels a whole lot heavier. He immediately gets mount. Oh, yeah gotta stop him doing that. Still doing a reasonable job staying on my side, but never really looked like getting out. He tried for mount again, but this time my legs were in the way. Ha. I learn. He tried to isolate my arm right near the end, but he didn't have anywhere near good enough position, and even the size difference wasn't enough for him to get it.

On top one more time, and we're absolutely all over the mat as he tries to wriggle out and I just try to stay on top. Crashing into people, crashing off the mats. I think we re-set 4 times just because of obstacles. Amusing.

Really tired. My back hurts. My shoulders hurt (from drilling). Great class, really happy. I think we might have done 10 minutes worth of sparring stuff spread out over the last half hour of class, and considering I was with a guy as solid as he was, I'm pretty happy with how it went.

Great success. Hope my back isn't too bad in the morning. Heat packs tonight, as that's what my physio says should be good for it.

Oh. Just for entertainment value, while we were drilling the basics, Dale and another 4 stripe white belt were drilling flying armbars in the middle of the mat. Because that's what you do in the middle of a class full of beginners right?

Monday night means... Side control!

Holy massive class Batman. 34 peoples. I think this mat has room for roughly 20 to roll about without fear of running into your neighbours. It's VERY crowded. No running around the mat for warmups. Instead we do pushups / situps / squats, bridging, hip escapes, switchouts, then rows of hip escapes and switchouts down the mat. Just like every week. Slow progress with this many people, and especially with another collection of new people.

Standard side control intro. I'm tempted to write out the speech, but that's just too much effort. Grab a partner for circle drills. Side control > North / South > Side control on the other side > mount > dismount off the other side. Paired up with the small guy from some of my earlier classes who I thought had quit. Instead he's got himself a natty-looking black gi and has been attending the big kids class. He's doing a double tonight. Finding it very difficult to get all the way around without kicking someone nearby. Wow it's crowded.

After a few minutes of that, we get to see an Americana (Kimura? Figure 4? Whatever..) from side control. And then drill that. About 25 times each while the new people learn it.

Then we go to the other option for if you lose their arm over your low-side shoulder (The one furthest away from their head). I was actually looking forward to getting to practice this because I was fairly gumby at it last week. Apparently we're calling the movement an "up and crush" to figure 4. Basically underhook the arm you're attacking with your low-side arm, plant your other hand and pull up, then pull their arm tight to your body and jam your forearm into their ribs (this would be the crush). Step over their head into North South and basically sit on their head, use your legs to trap their upper body. Switch arms while keeping their arm pinned to your chest, find their wrist, get your figure-4 grip and bend it backwards for the tap.

I did them much better tonight. Not entirely sure what I was doing differently, but the final part of the motion felt more natural. Good.

Then we (shock horror) got to see something new. Basically it's an option for if that far-side arm is across their stomach instead of tucked in up near their chin. Apparently to get their arm to be available, you want to be square on to it so you can shove it off their body. This we achieve by scooting around towards North south, but stopping half way (like North-west / South-east? heh), then jackhammering their arm off like you normally would for. This leaves their arm exactly the other way up to how it would normally be. Get your figure-4 grip, scoot back towards normal side control, then switch your legs out towards their head. Swing your other leg over their head, to hold it down then crank the arm for the tap. Must hold their head down else they just sit up with the pressure.

Drilling these. Feeling like I'm better at one side than the other, and having a little problem getting my leg in the proper position, but not bad for a first time.

Then it's time for one minute rounds of side control specific sparring. I guess technically this is my first time rolling with one of the 'big kids'. Even though he's actually only my size, he's not really in the fundamentals class anymore, that makes him one of the big kids. So that means I get my ass kicked right?

Underneath first. Immediately up onto my side and generally making myself difficult. Nearly straight away snuck a leg through and got half guard. Success! Re-set, and he's doing a far better job of blocking off my hip this time. We basically go around in circles to end the round, although the last ten seconds were pretty hilarious, as 4 pairs all managed to collide. Damn it's crowded.

On top next. Immediately noticed that he likes to shove up with his forearms under side control. While that made him a little bit of space, I'm not entirely sure whether it's a great idea, as it seems to expose his arms a bit. About halfway through I spotted a good look at the up-and-crush, which I promptly screwed up, getting way too much up and not nearly enough crush and allowing him an easy escape. Boo. Re-set and nothing much happens for the rest of the round.

Hopefully someone who knows more than me can provide insight on whether shoving up with your arms under side control is sensible!?

Swap positions again. We're getting 4 rounds tonight. How excitement. I don't really think anything interesting happened in this round. I think I almost got out a couple of times, but he managed to scramble around, resulting in us going in circles a whole lot more. No real looks at subs for him either.

One more round with me on top. Lots more going around in circles to start with, then he locks his arms around me from underneath. Settled down and had a little think about how I could pop that far arm loose, and then tried, but missed. Around a little more until I got trapped with nowhere to go to with my legs by another pair. Didn't block his legs off enough and he got through to guard. Boo.

That's it, class finished. Quite pleased. Picked up a new technique for the first time in a few weeks, refined one I was screwing up and spotted a good chance to try one in live sparring, although I did screw it up when I tried. No problem, it was there, so knowing is worth something. Also got (a tiny bit) of sparring time with someone who knows more than me, which is a nice change for fundamentals.

Wednesday should be exciting. Apparently we're learning escapes from side control. Defence? In fundamentals? Whee!

Randomness...

I just randomly recalled that there was a guy in class last Wednesday who trained in jeans. I'm pretty sure it was his first night, and I'm also pretty sure he's a guy who spends too much time on the internet (Shut up, I build websites, I HAVE to spend too much time on the internet), but seriously.. jeans? Especially ones that don't fit so your boxershorts are hanging out the top? This just doesn't seem like sensible planning for going to your first martial arts class!?

I don't understand people.

10 lessons in! Musings!

So I have reached a miniature milestone, with that being 10 lessons of BJJ in the fundamentals class. I must admit to feeling a tiny bit frustrated just at the moment, mostly because I feel like I'm doing the same thing every week. This is partly due to the structure of the class, and also related to the bit where I missed a few weeks getting the flu and tonsillitis and missed an entire 'section' of the fundamentals program, where the basics of guard were taught. The fact that fundamentals has gone back to the 'start' of the three month program is bad too, because it means the class is designed for people to be starting now, which means the physical difficulty level is lower.

With that said, when I stop to think about it, I've actually learned a fair bit about mount and side control, and I'm reasonably comfortable holding those positions now against someone who isn't capable of throwing me across the room (and someone who doesn't really know how to escape from those positions). I might even find a submission somewhere if I stay there long enough. I'm also fairly confident that if someone is going to give me their back, I'm going to do a reasonable job of taking advantage of that too. I've also noticed that my fitness levels have improved greatly, which is good because as a programmer sitting at a computer all day, I really don't get a whole lot of exercise. I've even gained weight (which is probably a little surprising) mostly from gaining a bit of muscle instead of being a skinny weedy little IT guy.

I must admit I'm not a massive fan of the fundamentals class setup. Any BJJ class where you can go 10 lessons and not learn a single technique from guard has to have problems right? Yes I know it's my own fault, but still!?

Fundamentals seems to focus almost entirely on the guy doing the attacking. We've not learned escapes from mount or side control at all, nor how to defend the various submissions we know. I guess this is for a reason, specifically people are going to find attacking more fun than defending. The good thing about that is that it's forced me to think about it, look stuff up and try to apply it by myself, which has met with mild success.

The worst thing I've found about fundamentals is the complete lack of rolling. The extent of the sparring in recent classes has been 4-6 rounds of 1 minute staying in a specific position. That's useful, but it's not likely to be challenging my fitness all that much at this point. It also doesn't let me learn anything about transitions between various positions, which I'm guessing is actually important, and it's really not a whole lot of time to actually work on creating an opportunity to make someone tap. I have not been tapped out in these miniature rolls in the last 5 classes I don't think. I can come up with a few possible reasons for this:

1. A minute is really not very long.
2. My training partners are beginners just like me.
3. I've actually paid a little attention to learning some defence and some escapes.
4. I am the greatest.

1 and 2 are clearly the important ones here and I'm quite willing to admit that number 4 is actually very very unlikely, but it brings me to my other point.

In most cases when you start BJJ, you're the new person and you know nothing, so everyone in the room can kick your butt if they want to. Especially if you're a little guy like me and you can't make up for being useless by being a big strong gorilla of the type that nobody actually wants to train with. So you start out by getting whupped, and you learn from there.

This doesn't happen in fundamentals class because nobody knows anything that you don't know and you only roll for a minute at a time. So I'm 10 lessons in, and I haven't rolled at all, let alone with someone who knows stuff. For some of the guys getting to the end of fundamentals I suspect it suddenly comes as a bit of a culture shock when you find out that the big kids in the 'normal' classs can still kill you whenever they like. Luckily I'm sensible enough to realise that just because a beginner can't tap me out quickly doesn't mean that everyone else won't be able to. I'm actually looking forward to it.

I'm guessing fundamentals will hit guard in roughly 2 weeks. After that I'm definitely going to move up and train with the big kids. And even buy a gi and stuff. Excitement! Then work will move offices and class will be far far away from work (and further away from home) and I don't know what I'm going to do then, because I'll be on public transport. Bleah.

Enough random ramblings. Better go study.

Oh the pain! (and class)

My 8 year old pair of shoes died. I have new shoes. My new shoes do not like my feet. My feet do not like my new shoes. There is much pain.

Enough whining. I got to go to class! And we learnt... side control.

Warmups! Same old stuff, with additional running around the mats and sprawls. My calves disapprove today. I think I blame the shoes.

Immediately back to mount for drilling armbars, shoulderlocks and rear naked chokes. Did my best to do them on my weaker side more, and to actually think about it a bit. It worked much better tonight. Then I found myself laying on the mat slightly dazed and confused. Apparently the guys next to me didn't quite get the concept of 'drilling' and decided to get into a full on wrestling match, which ended up in one of them headbutting me. Ouch. Luckily I have a hard head.

Off to side side control, where we learn Shoulderlocks of various types (2 types) that I already know. More drilling is good. Managed to pick up a tip on the north/south Kimura thing on how to use the legs a little more effectively to hold your partner down and in place.

Finished with 4 x 1 minute rounds of side-control sparring. Pretty evenly matched with my partner, and neither of us managed to escape or even really threaten a submission, although I think I did almost manage to sneak through to guard near the end of the round both times.

My head hurts.

Sickness!

I missed class on Monday night through being sick. Very sad! Will be even more sad when someone inevitably tells me that we learned guard. Wednesday class here I come!

Wedneday night ... More mount.

If you read the Monday post you probably don't really need to read the start of this one.

Warmup -> Intro to mount -> Armbars from mount.

I noticed that I'm really good at armbars on my partners right arm and absolutely horrible at doing them the other way. Mental note, practice armbars the other way!

Rear naked chokes, then how to get your opponents back if they roll when you're in mount. More Rear naked chokes. Focused sparring from the back. Fun fun. I'm paired up with Lee again, starting out attacking. Managed to somehow lose the position once, but ended up in mount, so that's not so bad. Re-set and I was working my arm under his chin when he tapped. That's kind of annoying. Heh.

Defending.. He was way way more difficult this time around. I couldn't get my legs out at all, and really had to work to not get choked. I do know that he had his ankles crossed at one stage, but I don't know what to do with that anyway. Points for knowing it's there?

Shoulderlocks from mount. Lee really does have a dodgy shoulder. He got me to try it on that arm and then tapped before I actually did anything. Anyway. Drilling these is kind of fun.

Focused sparring from mount. I elected not to worry too much about submissions the first time - I need practice at staying on mount anyway. Stayed there for a minute, and was getting comfortable enough to try a shoulderlock on the non-dodgy arm before time ran out.

Defending from under mount. Wasn't trying too hard to escape because apparently this is for the guy on top more than the guy on the bottom. Still couldn't help it. Had to try a knee-elbow sort of thing and popped out to half guard. Nothing else of note happened.

We still have time left! Hooray! Another round each from mount. Attacking first.. And Lee gives me his back after about 25 seconds. Couldn't get him finished off but he wasn't getting away anyway.

Defending! No real threat, and I couldn't help but wriggle out once, and 'upa' out the other way once.

I really want to learn guard basics so I can step up and roll about in the big kids class soon...

Monday night. (more) Mount.

I Wasn't really revved up for class today. Work was generally no fun because the websites were fighting back. Websites are not supposed to fight back.

Arrived at the gym about 20 minutes early. I was expecting a relatively small class this week because they threw a 'grading' night last week which I didn't attend, but presumably had a fair few people moving up from fundamentals to play with the big kids. Nobody in sight when I arrived, although there was a kids MMA class going on.

The kids are fun to watch. Two of them in particular amuse me greatly. There's a tiny little girl (8 maybe? I'm horrible at guessing kids ages) who absolutely terrorizes the boys and generally should be named "little miss Armbar". The other one is a boy who appears to be made completely of rubber. His arms seem to bend to completely cringe-worthy angles with no apparent discomfort. I hope I'm not there the first day one of them breaks.

On to class. My mood was way better by the time we got started, and people seemed to appear from nowhere right at start time. 24 people? Where the.. what the... ? We're going to need a bigger gym. We also have a 3-stripe white belt (Dale.. I figured he knew what he was talking about a bit) and a 4-stripe white belt who are apparently using the class as a warmup.

Standard warmup. Not even remotely tired this time. Cool! I'm not completely wimpy anymore. Intro to class. Seems this is now the 'start' of the 3 month fundamentals cycle. Guess what that means? We start with... mount. Yay. I bet we learn armbars and shoulderlocks and how to take your partners back and apply a RNC if they roll.

Site note. Apparently what we've been calling a "Kimura" is really an "Americana". In class today it was referred to as a "Figure 4" so I guess we'll stick with that for now. It probably doesn't matter what you call it, it still hurts.

Paired up with Lee for drills again. Armbars from mount. All on one arm because Lee says he has a dodgy left shoulder. Sloppy, horrible, dreadful, decent, decent, decent, good. I guess I need practice on this mount stuff.

Rear naked chokes, first with opponent sitting up, then starting from mount and getting them to roll. I like these. Lee does not like these. Drilling goes for a very long time. I don't think we're getting to the ... Figure 4 shoulderlock (That's painful to type) tonight.

10 minutes left. Positional sparring time (Hooray). 1 minute rounds (boo!). First one is interesting because I've only done it once. One person starts sitting down, the other person starts on his back with hooks in and a "Seatbelt" grip. One person has to defend / escape, the other has to stay on / submit them. Good fun.

Starting out attacking. Plans? Actually it's not very complicated. Keep hooks, stay on his back, work for choke if I can manage it. This plan actually worked very well. Lee doesn't know how to defend from this position (neither do I. Apparently defending still isn't fundamental around here) and I was able to stay in place rather handily. Sunk a quite decent choke about 20 seconds in for a tap. Yay. Reset, start again. Was working to try and get my arm in under his chin again when he tapped. I guess my bony forearm against your throat isn't very comfortable. No time for a third go.

Defending! Plans... well.. don't let him choke me? Try to figure out how to get rid of his legs? I actually felt rather comfortable in defending my neck from here. Lee never really got his arm around my neck. Couldn't work out of the hooks very well though, he has pretty long legs. I did manage to pop one leg free just as we finished up.

Next up.. focussed sparring from mount! Also 1 minute rounds. Attacking first. So what am I working on? Get a nice high mount, stay there and see what I can get Lee to give me. Oh and don't shoulderlock his sore arm. That'd be mean.

This was the first time I've felt really comfortable on mount. I was up nice and high under his arms and he wasn't really going anywhere fast. After about 30 seconds he actually rolled to his right.

Brain and body have a little conversation:
Brain: Wait.. wait we know this one!
Body: Shut up, we've already got one hook, leave us alone.

I'm doing things without thinking. I like it. Managed to get my second hook in and was working towards a choke when time ran out. I want 2 minute rounds at least dammit!

Defending? Well this mat is really really crowded and we don't have much room, so I'm just going to work on an escape the kids were drilling before class (roll onto your side a little, straighten out your bottom leg and wriggle backwards until you can get it through). Started out quite well. Almost had a leg out when my head came into contact with a wall. Ow. Reset. Restart. Manage to wiggle a leg free for half guard almost immediately. Fun! Reset. Time!

Not tired! I want more class! Class is over. Sad. I wish I knew guard so I could train with the big kids. I might just do it anyway next week. I pay my money, they're not going to kick me out right?