What’s the opposite of fishing? Catching.

I had a good open mat on Saturday. Opened with a double round with Renato. He tried some new things, amongst them a couple of wrist locks. I got him in a triangle choke near the end of our first round, and he got me with an armlock in our second. It was a good, hard way to kick off the day.

Next up was a double round with Purple Belt Matt. He’s been on a foot/ankle lock streak lately. Sometimes I can defend or escape, sometimes I can’t. No one else plays this type of game right now, so it’s always interesting with him. I did get off a nice step over half guard pass that I haven’t hit before. Promptly got Rickson rolled though. Matt said I was being too tight in side control.

I took a break, then grabbed James. I thought I was moving well, and Tim was coaching me from the sideline. I ended up getting an inverted triangle, but didn’t finish it. Instead I tried to roll him over, failed, then posted up and rolled him the other way. Tim was yelling something at me, as I was deciding how to proceed. He said it again, and it sounded to me like “He’s tapping”. Thinking that I was triangled, and sitting on James’s face, and not noticing him tapping, I immediately let go and got off of him. James was wondering what was going on, as he was fine. Obviously a mistake on my part. We restarted, and I got a nice sweep right away, most of the way into a pass, and then got a barbo choke from half guard. Again, I thought I was moving well, but Tim kept telling me I was super loose and gave James way too much space through the whole round.

JR was next. It felt like he was going hard, so I matched his intensity. He got an armlock, and I defended, but due to the angle, couldn’t escape. But neither could he finish it. He let go to transition to something else. After the round, he mentioned that he wanted to test my defense. Damian has mentioned a couple of times how good it is, and apparently JR agrees. I never really considered it, I’m just trying to survive and keep up.

Damian was free, and I wanted to follow up with a question about the “black magic” he showed me last weekend. Brandon was handy, so I drilled it a few times with him. Reverse lasso guard into an armlock, or into the clamp arm crush.

Word on the street is Gabriel is going to be here next week, teaching classes and doing a seminar. Bring on the Circle of Death!