tap, tap, tap, ha! .. doh! tap!

So that's what this 'rolling' thing is all about?! I like it! Now I just gotta learn to not get my ass kicked!

Turns out I missed three different techniques from guard while I was doing way too much work. One armbar, how to take your opponents back and also another sweep. It doesn't work to well being taught how to do these by a training partner who also isn't clear on the details. I did however get one decent look at all of them. And completely don't remember a single thing about them. I could probably replicate the armbar if it was waved around in front of me for roughly half an hour.

We spent a while doing pummeling drills and a little bit of competitive pummeling with the goal of getting double underhooks. Fun stuff. Then we drilled lots of double leg takedowns. For something like 15 minutes. That's a lot of double legs.

Then, we got to do some rolling. 3 minute rounds. First up is Lee and the first round is no submissions. Lee wants to play guard first, but after we start he gives absolutely no resistance as I pass. Amusing. I point out that he's supposed to fight back, then mount while he's still puzzling out this rolling thing. Hang around on mount for a little bit and then let him Upa me off. Then spent the rest of the round generally being a pain in the butt and not letting him pass my guard. I really did want a sweep, but every time I had one looking like it might work there was a wall in the way. Funny how that works.

Round 2 we're allowed submissions too. We actually started on our knees this time and the resulting scramble (neither of us know what we're doing) ended up with me almost taking his back, then ending up in top half guard. That's just great seeing as neither of us know anything about half guard. And there we stayed. I had a nice tight crossface and I'm pretty sure that couldn't have been comfortable, but I couldn't find an arm to do anything to and also couldn't find a way to get my leg out. Bummer

Next up was a guy far far bigger than me. Naturally this didn't go entirely to plan. I don't know exactly how but I ended up under side control, then under mount. There we stayed for a fair while. I had a perfect Upa set up, but there was a wall in the way, so I didn't go for it. Situational awareness hooray. I know I eventually escaped when he tried to armbar me (by grabbing my arm, yanking it up off my chest, then trying for the armbar.. guess what, I might have seen that coming) and I did some kind of stack / give me my arm back thing and got to side control. Where I stayed for all of 5 seconds before he did a really nice hip escape back to guard. He swept me more by just tackling me than doing anything specific and eventually tapped me out with a Kimura from side control. Good fun.

Round 3 and I'm already mostly dead. I find a guy roughly my own size who's also far far better. I did find out his name briefly, but it escapes me now. He trains with the big kids class, and while he only wears one stripe on his belt, I suspect he possibly deserves at least one more. Obviously this didn't go well either, although I did have a couple of moments.

I really quite clearly need to learn how to do the bit where we get from our knees to the mat without me ending up in a bad spot. I do know I go guillotined almost immediately. I also know I probably should have tapped around 2 seconds quicker. Dizzy. Rematch! Tried to get to the ground in decent shape this time. Ended up in his guard and he tried to triangle me. While both my arms were still in. I managed to do a reasonable job of that not working for a little while, then while trying to work out what to do I made the genius move of taking my other arm out. Well done me.

Again! He pulls guard and tries to guillotine me again and I achieve something by popping my head out immediately. Yay me! Guy says "nice" and then promptly armbars me 5 seconds later. Gah. One more time. He grabs the back of my head and drags me forwards into what I guess amounts to turtle. And I can just feel that he's going to try to take my back. He tries to take my back, and I roll and manage to get him into half guard. Woo hoo. I achieved something. Sadly I know no half guard and promptly get choked in what I gather is an arm triangle. Crap!

I couldn't go again. My head was absolutely spinning. I'm not sure if this is a result of being really unfit still or whether all the getting choked was messing with my head. Probably both. Class wrapped up 30 seconds later anyway.

Great fun! I wanna go again! Gah. Must study. Exam tomorrow. Joy.