Fishing

The holiday weekend and life responsibilities has thrown my schedule off, so I hit up class on Tuesday night.

Dumi led us in the Circle of Death warm up. Tim taught the lesson of the day, an open guard pass and choke. From standing, with their feet on our hips, and sleeve control, we pressure in, then straighten ourselves and shuck their feet to the side, so their calves are resting on the top of our thigh. We sit, slide, and start to establish side control. They’ll typically roll to either gramby back into guard, or turtle and work from there. As they roll, we block their roll by a kind of reverse seatbelt grip, then establish an Ezekiel grip and choke, either there, or if they continue to roll, take the back and do the same choke.

For rolling, we did 3 person groups, 10 minutes in, 5 out. I had Purple Belt James and Tim. Did okay with James, getting off both some sweeps and some passes, but each time he’d reestablish himself, and I couldn’t progress any further. In our last round, I thought I was going to get him. From guard, I used a two on one to break his grip on me, then put my left arm in the crook of that elbow, and used my right to bend his around mine, establishing a figure four grip. That was the bait. The hook was when he reached with his other hand to try to free his trapped one. I gripped that one, and swung for an armlock on that new hand. But, as before, he narrowly avoided it. I switched to a triangle choke, but he wisely kept his arm in just enough not to get choked. It was a narrow space between having his arm out, and getting choked, or having his arm in, and getting arm locked.

Tim…well, Tim smashed me, as usual. I did have one good moment where I got a reverse triangle on him. Couldn’t finish or sweep with it, as he was defending well.