I suck at doing cartwheels. There, I said it.

Really, I’m terrible. It’s one of those things that I never learned how to do. And yet, when we do them as a warm up, I give it my best shot. And I’m getting less horrible at them.

The lessons of the day were a few options from half guard. Generally, being on the bottom in half guard isn’t ideal. There’s plenty of options, but it’s not a place you want to hang out. We drilled preventing head control, then two related ways to get back to full guard. One from when he had head control, and the other where he shifts his base and faces away from you. They’re the same: Escape you hip, insert your butterfly hook, elevate, and get back to guard. There’s a neat detail to insert your hook that I picked up, where you need to use both feet to lever his calf into position. We then did a back take option too.

Sparring were two 8 minute rounds. I had Renato and Joy. Renato was tough tonight. He passed and was being pretty heavy. He had an arm triangle from mount going for a bit, but I wasn’t in danger, as he never switched to side control to try to finish it. Joy was pretty tenacious with her guard and collar grips. Tough to break out of that once she broke me down. A quagmire best avoided all together, by preventing the grips in the first place.