Today I went to open mat. I got some decent rolls in, and got gi burn all over my face. I rolled some with Andres, who’s a purple belt, and shorter than me, but massively muscular. One of the strongest guys I’ve ever rolled with. Even if I manage to pass his guard, I can’t break his grips haha. I almost got him in a sneaky choke, and I think he armbarred me once or twice and got me in a papercutter choke. He’s got great control from the top, but doesn’t play guard very often. I also rolled with Richard, and one of the other purple belts, whose name I can’t remember for the life of me. Rolling with Richard was fun because he wanted to work on his guard some. He’s probably 6’3 and 220-240 pounds, so that’s not his usual game. He’s improved a lot in the past few months since getting his blue belt. I had a lot of fun getting to work a different kind of pass than I’m used to, more of a fast paced, normal light guy passing style. I usually prefer pressure passing, and idolize Rodolfo Vieira and Gui Mendes’ passing, but with Richard I used more of a Rafa Mendes style. It’s fun, but I think pressure is more impressive. I think Richard cross choked me from top half guard, and I got him in a sneaky choke or two, and an armbar. That’s all I can remember, but it was fun, and I sweated off 4 or 5 pounds haha.
cutter
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Today was the last day of classes before Thanksgiving break. I ended up accidentally sleeping through my first class, and just went to my 3:00-4:15 one. My mom wanted me to come home today, but I wanted to go to the gym first before taking almost a week off, so I went to my gym, New World Academy tonight.
There was a fundamentals class at 6 and an advanced class at 7:30, so I decided to just go to both. In the fundamentals class we warmed up and stretched, then did some self defense stuff. It was all basic, starting with a headlock escape to side mount and an armbar. After that we did a defense to a bear hug, putting the forearm against the neck and your other hand on your wrist, then pushing away and stepping back with your same side leg. We followed it up with a shot for a double leg or into our own body lock takedown. Afterward we did some drilling transitioning from different side control positions, side, kesa gatame, reverse kesa gatame. That was the end of the fundamentals class, and luckily some more people showed up for the advanced class. We warmed up then Mike went over his setup for the paper cutter choke. You start in reverse kesa gatame, grabbing the belt or the pants on the far side. Your hand that would normally be on the knee to pass to mount goes to the ground on the side of the near hip, and you walk around to the other side, maintaining pressure. When you get to the other side, slide your bottom leg through for reverse kesa gatame on the other side. This leaves their arm under your body, by their hip. On the far side, reach your arm back under their arm and grab the back of their collar. Scoot back like when clearing the arm, and begin to play with their near arm. This causes them to grab material to defend a potential kimura or something along those lines. When they do, pin the arm to their body with your arm and head, and transition around to north south, then the other side. Stay on your knees, and grab the lapel with your free hand. You don’t need a deep grip on the collar. The collar can’t move because of your other grip, and it will cut off the artery on one side. You want the crook of your wrist to kind of cup the front of their neck, with your forearm cutting off the other artery. To finish, lift your elbow on the arm that has the back of the collar, flaring out the other elbow if necessary.
After the paper cutter, we went on to positional sparring from guard, only going for sweeps and passes. There was one other blue belt, a white belt, 3 or 4 purple belts, and a brown belt. I passed a few times and swept a few times, and got swept once or twice, and got passed once or twice. I got complimented on both my passing and guard from one of the purple belts, which was nice. At the end we got in two or three rolls, so I got to roll with everyone there except the brown belt. I think he was visiting from an affiliate, because I didn’t remember his name, but he knew mine.
On a different note, I talked to Mike today and told him I was considering going to the Pan Ams in California in March. He said it was a good idea and that everyone should go at least once. He also said that he was thinking about going this year, and would like to get a team together to go. I think he would’ve seemed less encouraging about it if he thought I was just going to get crushed, so hopefully we’ll see. Then I had to shower and drive home from college, three hours in the freezing rain, which was lovely.
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