Successfully completed Week 4 Day 2 of the 100 Pushups routine. Once again, my body does what I didn’t believe it could. Day 3 will be the real test!

More drilling of the three chokes we learned on Tuesday. I partnered up with Matt and we drilled each of the three. The last part of class, we worked from the same half guard position to obtain any of the chokes with 50% effort and resistance. In one of my attempts, Matt spent over 3 minutes doing nothing but defending his neck. Stopped me from getting the choke, but I could have submitted him half a dozen times with other things. It was a little frustrating.

Speaking of frustrating…I think I’m going to have to mix it up and warm up and drill with other people. Matt’s technique is subpar, and I want to have someone that knows what they’re doing to practice on, so they can notice and correct my mistakes.

After class, we did have a chance to spar. I really wanted to try to thread the needle and take him down this time. We started as we usually do, with him powering into me. He passed pretty quick, and I did the thread, but he snagged a leg. I did regain guard, but he had one hand in my collar pretty deep, and tried to cross choke me. I don’t think that you can really do this from within guard. He didn’t have it on tight, and I had a grip on one of his wrists, so I wasn’t about to pass out. But with his weight on me, elbows digging into my chest, and the constant threat of him sinking in the choke deeper, I didn’t see any escape.

Fundamentals was the kimura shoulder lock. We got a brief history lesson on it first. Masahiko Kimura was a Japanese judo player who fought Heilo Gracie in 1955. Dispite having a 40 pound weight advantage, and being considered the greatest judo player of all time, Kimura took 13 minutes to beat Heilo, winning by Gyaku ude-garami, breaking Heilo’s arm in the process. The Brazilians renamed the move to kimura to honor Masahiko.

The kimura from guard wasn’t too hard. It starts with the over the shoulder sweep, but it’s just to gain momentum before falling back and isolating the arm. The rest is grip. Doesn’t take much pressure to cause it to hurt pretty bad!

We finished class up with learning to stand up to base. The correct way to get back to your feet with a guy standing above you. Including an option to destroy his knee and/or take him down.