Three classes in three days, then 3 days off. Felt a little strange.

Another small class tonight, But heavily experienced. 4 purple belts, and 3 blue belts. Only Mongoose, Tim, and I as the whites.

We warmed up with BJJ 101, and I was paired up with Tim…who apparently has never done it before. It quickly became apparent that our lesson of the night was going to be some portion of the basic routine. Which I think is pretty cool…that the same lesson (with varying degrees of detail) can be applied to a group of 8 white belts…or to a group of 5 purple belts. We all can get something out of it.

We focused on the upa and roll escape from mount to start with, and then moved into a new mount escape, one that I don’t think I’ve seen before. It may be on the Roy Dean Blue Belt DVD, but I didn’t have time to check. If you upa, and your opponents hands are posted too wide to reach for, you can fall on your side (a elbow escape component that I had forgotten), and try to elbow escape…but if he’s on you tight, you might not be able to. But if you continue to block his knee, you can do some magic with your feet to get to half guard, then switch your hips, repeat, and you’re back in guard. Took some getting used to, but we drilled it alot.

After class, Purple belt Matt paired up with me. Obviously going slow, but it was a good couple of rolls for me. I head pushed him a couple of times, I screwed up the head push a couple of times (staying flat when he had my knees, duh), but escaped side control to half guard. I got the underhook once, but couldn’t roll him. I did pull off a hook sweep, but as I was transitioning to being on top he grabbed my leg and drove back into me. He arm barred me, but allowed me to practice the escape, and then transitioned into an omaplata.

Tim I went a couple of times too, a little quicker and harder this time. I almost push swept him, which stopped his pass attempt cold. He mounted, but was loose on me, and I squeezed out the back, and reversed him into his guard. He started to armlock me, I defended, and he transitioned into a omaplata. Weird to get nailed with a relatively rare submission twice in one night!

I did accomplish my two mental goals of the night: sweep and avoid/escape the mount.

Went home and watched the first half of UFC 102. Everyone’s talking about what a great display of jiu-jitsu Nog used against Randy, but I didn’t get that far in the show. Poor Damian Maia. Why do all the jits guys suddenly think that they’re boxers or muy thai guys? Stick with what you know.