Cracking the Shell

Lately our warm ups have been a little lax. Monday, we didn’t do one, we just jumped right into drilling.

Not so last night. It wasn’t quite a smackdown of old, but it felt like it. We’d run 2 minutes. Then do 20 reps of two different exercises. Then run. Then exercise, etc. We did partner lifts, arm drags, round the worlds, arm drags again, knee on belly, knee on belly with a duck under, and other stuff. Good hard conditioning.

The lesson of the night was attacking a turtle opponent. We started with the machete back take, then did a back take where we start from the side. Push their arms up and away, get a lapel grip and bait the turtle roll, post with your hand to stop the roll and secure the back. We also did a version where the roll is successful. Secure the seat belt grip and we can proceed.

We rounded class out with two rounds of rolling, starting in turtle. Restart after a submission, establishment of guard, or a reversal. JR and I had two good rounds together.

After class, both JR and I had a question for Damian. And that led to a long discussion about techniques to finish the armlock. Damian must of run through 20 different ways to break the defense and finish it, each a little different, and applicable to a different defense.