I’m still on track with my Project Gas Tank…now entering week 3. My knees ached a little bit after my last run, which I’m going to keep an eye on.

Big group tonight, I counted 14, including some faces I haven’t seen in a while. After warming up, John grabbed me to partner. More of the attacks from mount drills. Towards the end of class, Damian introduced a couple of new alternatives that were a little more advanced, the s-mount and going to the bow and arrow choke. Then he opened it up to questions, saying that tomorrow he’s starting something new. A couple of quickie questions later, and we were done.

I had just grabbed a drink, and was about to start looking to roll when Damian walked by. The Mongoose was standing next to me, and Damian commented that we must be “having a lover’s quarrel” because we didn’t partner up. Mike’s the smallest guy in class, and alot of the time I’m close to the second smallest, and we’re pretty close in abilities, so we do partner up alot. But Maya and Sam were both in class tonight, and they’re closer to his size. Damian also commented that I’ve gotta watch out, because Mike might get his third stripe soon, and then we’ll have a real rivalry going. He was just being funny, but the thought of getting a third stripe has crossed my mind.

So Mike and I rolled. My mental goal of the night was to work my top game. I pulled guard, broke him down, and nailed an over the shoulder sweep. He escaped pretty quick to half guard, so I started with the tripod pass. After thinking about it, I know I did it wrong, and I think that I know what I did wrong, but at the time, I was pretty surprised when he swung around and took my back! I escaped that, and the mount, and then swept him again…and ended up in half guard again. Not wanting to give up my back, I tried to position for an arm triangle, but as I was moving toward it, he switched up to his knees. I went for a clock choke, but he had my leg, so I just took his back. He escaped, but I stayed on top and I finished him off with an ezequiel choke.

Sam and John were just starting to roll, so we stopped them, and switched partners. John’s a newer zero stripe, but he’s coming along. I pulled guard, and worked an armlock and a triangle, both just to make sure he kept his hands where they were supposed to be. I stopped my over the shoulder sweep, and elevator sweep, but I got the scissor sweep off. I landed in side control rather than mount, so I started working from there. He eventually got back to guard, and I used the standing guard break, and was going to X-pass. But all of a sudden I got really light headed, so I called time. I felt better after a minute, must of been the humidity, and we were going at a pretty good pace. We were going to continue, but he had to leave anyways.