Back to class!

Tuesday has become my long training day. I get to the club at 5 and do a small workout. Push ups with olympic rings, 10kg halo's, turkish get ups, 60kg dead lifts. Didnt do many reps but am feeling it as I right this. I then had a roll with one of the newer guys. An MMA fighter who trains at London pankrase. His a big and his built so his got some power to back himself up. We wrestle for abit and I stubbornly force him down, from their I pass and get mount. I sink in an ezekial, pretty tight I thought. But he has a good sense of how tight it needs to be and he resists and then escapes. From then Im on the back foot abit but get guard. And there we stale mate for ages. His got a great base and I cant sweep him, and is very wary so not much sub openings. I try a situp sweep kimura setup and get a lil close but he is wary and defends it easily. However his passing isnt great and Im wily enough to keep him in my guard. I decide to put him in half guard to see if I can catch him unaware. But his base is still to good, but he still cant pass. He ends up getting side and working a kimura from on top. We go again and we end up stale mating again for ages. Good training partner for me.

I am abit knackered but Andy like the good trainer he is, insists I also do the warm up for the beginner class. Nothing to bad but I am feeling abit hot. We drill the basic armbar then transitioning to triangle. We also do the cross collar choke and some variations of it. I need to break posture better and lift my hips more for the basic armbar.

We then do a drill where the person in guard just has to defend sub attempts from the guy on the bottom. Which was fun. Im partnered with Nick who is doing well, I purposively make it difficult for him to set them up. So that he would then chain the setups together, which he did and it worked really well. Didnt get me but got close a few times, so definite progress there.

We swap round. I go for the cross collar straight away and get it as I want to develop a fast and strong attack with it, so I can catch people offguard. Land a triangle which he goes to stack me with but I roll back and land in mounted triangle, do a similar thing with an armbar. Then I experiment with an omoplata, which I really want to develop. However Nick defends really well and I cant get his arm free from gripping his jacket.

Lesson ends and me and Nick try get in a very quick roll. We dont have enough time so I try and do a quick drill Ive been thinking about. Where he has to just defend sweep attempts from me. The idea being he see's the similarities in all the different sweeps and can work on his base and on keeping my hips pinned. And also to recognise the setups for the different sweeps, ones I used were: situp, scissor, pendelum, elavator, butterfly. However due to the time I rush abit to much, so hopefully we can do it properly next time.

Next lesson rolls on - no rest for me!. Warm up isnt to heavy but its focuses ALOT on the core. Andy teaches us a new sweep from when they stand up in your guard. It resembles a omoplata that you then convert into a sweep by rolling over your stomach and landing in side control. This vid shows that sweep at 3:00 but also some other sweeps so check it out.



As you can see it looks abit funny, but after drilling it for a while I started to really like it. As it was deceptively controlling. He then taught a variation where they posture fully and block the sweep by pushing out there hips. Instead of rolling over your stomach you roll backwards, so that they are falling backwards. We drilled both of these for quite a while as they were abit tricky.

Then onto some pass the guard type sparring. Went up against Adrian the MMA guy again and passed his guard without to much hassle. Then I got one of our big guys in my guard. Couldnt sweep him and he was doing very little to pass my guard. He stood up and I went for the sweep we had just drilled but as I hooked his foot it must of slipped or something as he then guard slammed me hard. He said sorry and gave me a little bit of time. Went at it again and I decided to go for half guard again. He resorted to using "crushing" as a guard pass, but theres no way Ill tap to that. Just on principle. He then tried some attacks within my guard but again Im not gonna let him do that. So abit of a stalemate, but eventually I get abit frustrated and go for a sub and he defends well and passes on that. Next time Ill try some open guard instead.

Next fight goes well and Im about to pass but the buzzer goes and we are then told to move on to full sparring. We restart and I go in to get top position, he lands a guillotine!. WE go again and he gets a triangle, then another guillotine, then a collar choke. WTF! the guy is good but he has never tapped me more than once. His even tired. Maybe he was on fire, maybe I was just off form. Props to him though, he obviously spotted a weakness somewhere I havnt addressed.

I was pleased with myself next though as instead of having a break and wallowing in what went wrong I got straight back on the mat and asked if anyone wanted a roll. Mike steps up to the plate. Mike is good and has given me plenty of trouble before once he sorted his armbar defense out. But now I feel like I am firing on all cylinders, getting a very pretty pendelum sweep. Sweeping from under side control with an americana roll and escaping bad positions. I try for a rolling clock choke but dont get it and end up getting an armlock, he makes abit of noise but I dont let go of the sub. Dont know why I didnt but I figured it was from the roll not the tap, so I keep abit of pressure and he taps. Andy scolds me for not letting go sooner, which I should of. Especially as Mike is a friend. We go again and I keep good movement on top eventually getting his backs with hooks in before the timer goes. Very happy with that roll.

Andy lines us up against the walls and begins to award stripes!. Been a long time since we last had stripes done. I was expecting them to be awarded in a few weeks, not today though. As its been such a long time virtually everyone deserves some. I get awarded 4 stripes! (I had none previously). So am very happy, as it means the blue belt isnt very far away if I keep training right. Note to the uninitiated - only 4 stripes per belt.

Mauricio Gomes should be visiting us in a month or 2, so I reckon there will be a few belts given out. Am just hoping Ill be in the country for it. Will be great and I know a few guys who definitely deserve it. Good for the club as well, as the newer guys then know what type of level they are aiming for. And once they start tapping the blue's then they are at that level!