Monday night means ... Guillotines?

My toe is still a little sore (especially because I'm clumsy and managed to kick a chair with it last night) but I'm not about to be missing two classes in a row. So I attempted a very elaborate tape job. Worked great. For about 20 minutes. Then it just came off. Bummer.

Warmups were John style again. Running in circles, Burpees, sprawls. It's really hard to do Burpees and sprawls when you're doing your level best not to land on your left foot. It's also far harder work. One legged-burpee-sprawls. Yay. Bridging exercises, hip escapes, switchouts. Lines down the mat. Looking after my toe. It's all good.

My partner for the night is an older guy called Randall. He's about my height, but probably a fair bit heavier. I've seen him around before but he's missed the last couple of weeks with dodgy ribs / sickness. Seems like a really nice guy. And I remembered his name. I'm getting a little worried about this... maybe I'm losing my ability to immediately forget any name?

We start with a little combination circuit type thing. One person starts under side control, escapes back to guard, escapes his own guard (sheesh) then shoots, does a single leg and gets to side control. Neato. Wait.. you're not going to show us how to actually do the single leg? Sweet! I'll just make it up! We went around in circles for about 5 minutes I think.

After that, John demonstrates a combination of three techniques from guard. Kimura, Sitting rollover sweep for when they defend the Kimura, then a Guillotine for if they jam forwards to defend the sweep. Fun.

Randall hasn't been around for two weeks and I missed the Guillotine on Wednesday last week, so we end up in the "new guys" end of the mat for a more detailed look at each technique.
I discovered (again) that I'm great at doing the Kimura one way, and absolutely suck at doing it the other way. How frustrating. Lots of practice on the bad side.

Then the sweep, which I can do either way, which is nice. Randall is amusing me. He talks to himself constantly when doing techniques, then talks to ME constantly when I'm doing them. If I do one well, he giggles. If I do one not so well he insists I do it again. Very funny.

We learned Guillotines from failing the sweep. Release the overhook you have on his arm (which you were also using to try for a Kimura at some stage) and wrap your arm over the back of his neck. Ideally it seems that you want to be as low down his neck as possible. Scoot your butt out on the opposite side to whichever arm you're holding his neck with to create space to get your other arm in, grab your own wrist. Make sure you go OVER his shoulder, not under it so that you don't trap his arm in there. Roll onto your hip towards his head, close your guard up and squeeze everything together to finish.

Randall complained this was hurting his neck. Whether that means I was doing it wrong or not I'm not sure. My neck didn't give me any dramas when he was doing them.

John also showed us a variation that he's recently picked up that he doesn't really understand. He didn't explain it very good and it definitely didn't make sense to me. Hopefully we get another look at it.

Time for some one minute rounds. Side control first up. Top guy has to just stay there, bottom guy has to escape to guard. Top to start with. This was quite fun. Randall is clearly stronger than me, but for the most part I was able to stay on top quite well. At one stage he just rolled me over. I have to think about how exactly he managed that, but it didn't matter because I pretty much managed to roll him back over.

Underneath I was a little squished to start with, but managed to get him low enough to bridge and hip escape. Got my leg right in under him but couldn't get all the way back through to guard. I probably needed to put my foot on his hip, but I was feeling a little protective of my no-longer-taped toe.

Immediately afterwards we go again, except this time the top guy is allowed to do submissions. Randall is clearly gassing out completely by now. We did the roll over thing a couple more times but I was able to roll him back much easier. Got a look at a figure 4 briefly but his arm was way too slippery to get a good grip on. Another look at the up-and-crush Kimura, but same deal. Brief intermission for a 3-way collision between groups. Colin kicked me in the chest. Damn you Colin, last week you break my toe, this week you kick me? heh. After we re-set Randall tapped just from being too tired. Bummer.

Started my round underneath a little late after giving him some time to recover. Very similar to round 1. Almost escaping the entire time. Randall muttered something about me giving him my back, but I'm 100% sure there was no time I was close to giving him my back. Got flattened out right near the end of the minute and right in the corner of the mat with walls in the way I had nowhere to go at all, but he didn't have access to my arms anyway. Oh well.

We're not finished! one minute drills from guard. Randall asks to sit out because he's wrecked. So we sit out for a little while before he decides he wants to go again. He starts in my guard. In theory we're supposed to start with an overhook but we didn't bother. Broke his posture down but couldn't do much more with it. Every time I grab his arm is just slides loose. Very amusing. Towards the end of this round he finally gets back upright and starts trying to break my guard with one hand.

My brain immediately yells "TRIANGLE!" ... (I don't know those. Shut up.) and soon after it yells "ARMBAR" ... (I don't know those from guard either dammit!). Then Randall decides that instead of breaking my guard he's just going to stand up. And lift me up with him. My brain got this one right picking something we know how to do (Let go and get down without hurting yourself).

Randall needs a break again but eventually we try with me in his guard. He actually started with the overhook, but I just slipped out no worries. It's humid, everybody is slippery-sweaty. I imagine that wearing a Gi makes it far easier to hold onto someone right? I didn't have any trouble keeping good posture in his guard. I was thinking vaguely about the one and only guard break / pass that I know, but the idea wasn't to be passing anyway.

That was the end of class. Good fun even if I missed a bit of time at the end. My toe survived, although it's pretty sore and has swelled up a little bit again. Fun class. I know guillotines. Kinda.