Tough night last night. I’m not sure what was with me, but I just felt sluggish and drained during the warm up. And got one of those killer headaches that I get from time to time. It didn’t last very long thankfully.

Lesson of the day was defending the double underhook pass. This is pretty much the first guard pass we’ve all learned. Break the guard, pop both arms under his legs, clasp your hands, stack and move to the side.

Defending it starts with intercepting the hands, drop your feet, shoot one foot across the belly, windmill the other foot back to the inside and to the same hip, escape your hip and windmill the other foot back to inside on the opposite hip. Sounds complicated, but really isn’t.

We drilled it for a while, then added in a sweep. If, after you regain open guard, your opponent is inexperienced enough to stand up, you can shoulder walk TOWARDS him, to get under his weight, drop your hips, pull on his arms and lift him in the air with your legs. A little shove, a yank on the arms so he can’t break his fall, and his weight will pull you over the top of him and you’ll land in mount.

Mongoose and I rolled some after class, I got him 2 out of 3. All good solid rolls, but the remains of that headache lingered, and so I headed home without doing the fundamentals class.