Wow. Where’d the week go? I was so busy this past week, I didn’t even realize I hadn’t been writing here until Thursday night. I made it to class on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. Let’s see what I can still recall. I’m just going to throw my bits of memory out there, I have no idea what happened on what day.
We worked an interesting drill this week. A student lays on his back, with his partner standing in his open guard. The one on the ground places one foot on the same-side hip, the other foot hooked behind the same-side knee. The student standing shuffles in a circle around the one on the ground. The one on his back uses his hook to turn with the one standing. Whenever the student standing changes direction, the one on the ground must switch his feet in order to follow with his opponent.
I said an interesting drill, but that’s mostly for the person on the ground. Once I got my chance at being the one standing up, I realized how tiring it was dragging the person around in a circle for even just a few minutes. While on my back, after I got used to the motions I started doing it with my eyes closed so I could react to the feeling of my partner’s momentum changing rather than what my eyes perceived.
Following this drill we used the fact that the feet were already set up in the right position to work on the spider guard sweep mentioned in this post.
On Saturday (this one I remember) we went over the scissor sweep again. The instructor emphasized I need to pull the collar and scissor my legs at the same time, but despite trying to focus on this, I couldn’t seem to get it right. Need to practice this technique more. Also, when performing the sweep, I was told to ensure that my leg across the chest has the ankle buried in the opponent’s armpit, not on the hip as I believed previously. Will have to try this some more and concentrate on retraining the muscle memory that keeps trying to put my ankle on the hip.
Submissions for the week: My trusty Anaconda choke. An armbar or two (one definitely from mount).
I had a great triangle attempt that I was sure was good to go, but I lost it. In the process, I learned a good escape for the submission, though. Maybe it was due in part to my not angling my body far enough, but my opponent managed to get his leg over my leg that was locking down the triangle. Keeping his hips low and circling in the direction opposite the leg he pinned, he forced my body to twist on the mat as the pressure increased on my foot, loosening the submission and allowing him to escape. Put this on the list of moves to explore.
I also bought a nice new gi this past week — it came in on Friday. Will have pictures up ASAP. And I will also get my post regarding the Grapplers Quest competition from June 18th up, promise.