We had a packed house for Lucas’s seminar on Saturday. Made the warm ups challenging due to a lack of space! I’m starting to warm up (*rimshot*) to his style of warming up. Today it was very functionally based. We’d do twenty triangle setups, alternating sided. Then twenty omaplata setups, again alternating sides. Then twenty more omaplatas, with our partners rolling out and reestablishing top control, and then we’d omaplata again. Damian has done similar things in the past…it’s not so much a matter of warming or loosing up…it’s a matter of unconsciously learning how to move better and more smoothly.

Class was three techniques, each unrelated. I thought it was an odd structure for a seminar, as in the past the covered techniques have been related or a chained sequence.

The first was a De La Riva guard pass, which was easily the most complicated guard pass that I’ve seen. Brandon and I drilled it, but I’m not sure that I could reproduce it now. It’s certianly something I could use, but it’s going to require a lot of practice!

The second was a deep half guard pass. Deep half guard is a style of guard that’s new-ish in sport BJJ. Since it’s a newer development, none of use really know or use that style of guard in our game.

And since none of use really use it….we (as a team) have generally had problems when someone runs into it at a tournament. So this pass technique is probably a pretty welcome lesson to some.

The last was a super slick ezekiel choke attack against the turtle guard. JP was grinning ear to ear and pointing at me. He’s a big ezekiel fan, and he knows that I turtle up on a regular basis. I might have to watch out!

We rounded things off with a few rounds of sparring. I paired up with Tall Josh and did well. I used the half guard sequence Damian showed me during our private, and got on his back. He escaped and I transitioned right into an arm triangle. Second round was with Purple Belt Tim. I’ve been on a self imposed break from rolling with Tim for a couple of months now. He choked me twice, but it took him longer than usual.