I thought for sure we were going to switch themes last night…but more turtle guard techniques. I warmed up and partnered with a newer guy, henceforth known as wrestler-Mike. Felt weird teaching the 101 sequences, but he caught on fast. Strong guy too. He had a little trouble with some of the turtle guard sequences; his wrestling instincts were leading him astray. Since he was new, and I was still a little tender, it was nice to take it a little slow.

My lower back hasn’t given me ANY problems so far, which was one of my big fears. My back rib is still a little tender to pressure, but my front one wasn’t as bad as I feared last night.

Class wrapped up and people started pairing up to roll. I took a few minutes just to stretch and catch my breath. Tom was back, so we went a couple of times. He gave me a little trouble, but I tapped him twice. Afterwards he commented that he was afraid to have me in his half-guard. Guess those classes drilling the chokes from that position weren’t wasted! And to think that I though that they were a little silly. Ed was there, so we went a few times too. The first he pulled guard and did the world’s slowest armbar, I started to defend it, but missed hooking his leg and that was that. In the next, he was in my guard and a I had a pretty deep collar grip, and was working for a cross collar choke, but he had my other arm pinned. Afterward, he showed me how I could rotated it above my head to break the pin and finish the choke. Our last roll I had the cross collar choke going, but he was in side control over me, and I didn’t quite have the angle to finish it..and he started choking me. I balked first. Afterwards, he said it was close to finishing him.

Damian, some others, and I were chatting about the BJJ Mundials last weekend in California, the World Championship of gi BJJ. I had to comment that I felt it was pretty odd to have a white belt champion…I mean really. If you’re the best white belt in the world…aren’t you probably really a blue belt? Seems to me to be pretty open to sandbagging. Must of been some intresting flights from Rio to LA. No hijacker is going to take that plane over!

Mongoose Mike was rolling with Big Mike, Mongoose had him mounted for a while but wasn’t able to finish him.

Luke taught the fundamentals tonight. Maintaining mount. I’ve learned some of the ideas we reviewed, but some was new to me. I love the fundamental classes that way. Always some details I missed the last time around. Doubly good because I had trouble keeping mount on Tom earlier in the night. And now I know why…and how to stop him from doing it again!