Had a feeling this was going to happen, though I’d sort of decided I didn’t want it to happen this week. Maybe that’s the secret: once you decide you don’t want something, you get it. Some variant of Murphy’s Law? I’ve decided: I don’t want to be a billionaire.
Right, anyway… Class today began with warm-ups, after which we drilled osoto-gari and double-leg takedowns. This was followed with guard-specific training. My partner was quite strong — He managed to brute-force me into a kimura lock for the sweep a couple of times. Uncomfortable, to say the least. Fortunately he kept using that same technique, so it became almost like drilling: I got to analyze what he was doing and counter it the next time he tried it — I got the guard pass. During my turn on bottom I managed a triangle choke.
The technique we went over today was again the upa. I showed my partner how to do the same move using the overhook. Then we drilled mount position. I used both the upa and the elbow escape with success. I almost landed the triangle setup from top where you let the guy on bottom sweep and roll into you, but time was called just as I was locking it in.
At the end of class we did our usual cool-downs. After this is usually when they give out promotions. It’s been a while since I’ve seen any, but today 5 lucky students got another stripe.
I was one of them. Sweeeeeeeeeeeeet.
I admit I’m pretty happy about this. It’s one step closer to the rank I really want right now: white belt, 3 stripes. At that point you’re allowed to attend the purple belt and no-gi classes. The advantage here is you can end up training with anyone. I saw a lucky female white belt get to train with Kyra Gracie tonight. On the other hand, I was starting to pray I wouldn’t get my stripe today. I’m competing at Grapplers Quest in Morristown, NJ on Saturday, and I was hoping that a single stripe might make my opponents overconfident. Oh well! Anyway, some of my classmates got their third stripe today. So I probably won’t see them in class as often anymore, though there are 2 days a week when the black belt class is at 6:00PM, and on those days the higher white belts have to come back to our class if they still want to train at that time.
At some point tonight I got caught in a bottom half-guard, and was doing okay defending it, but I couldn’t get out. It wasn’t till I was on my way home later that I realized what I was missing: the goddamn elbow. An integral part of the escape that I keep forgetting. Bring the elbow underneath you out behind you, post up, then rotate your arm so your hand is behind you to, and post up further. This is really important, and I need to stop forgetting about it.
Weight after class: 188.0 lbs.