Nap Time

I’ve had a lot of new techniques and ideas floating around my head, things I’ve been working on here and there. Today, my plan was to mainly roll with white belts and experiment with them. If I can’t get the technique to work with them, then it’s pointless to try it on someone higher ranked.

But first, there was JP. I spent a good portion of my daydreaming time this week visualizing rolling with him. Our roll started off, and I made sure to avoid the mistake that I got away with last week. Broke his grips and never let him setup his ambush choke. Passed and mounted. Started working on an arm, and I got him to move onto his side. Slid my knee up to to trap him on his side, secured my grips on him and used the Ryan Hall chair sit technique to get to his back. Got a collar grip and started working a wing choke. Everything was exactly as I had visualized. Except he wouldn’t tap. He was turning red and knew he was trapped, but didn’t give up. I have trouble believing that I could have it much tighter, but apparently I could have. After a minute of this, my grip tired, and I had to eventually give it up. We continued our roll, and I did well, but time ran out as I was working to finish an arm bar.

Onto the white belts. I grabbed Sarah, Wade and Otto. Got some things to work, some things didn’t. There’s always more to be done.

Damian grabbed me again. This week, I’d guess he was testing my defense, because I was in trouble from the start. His side control is unbelievable. He trapped my arm between his tricep and thigh and it was obvious that I wasn’t getting it back unless he wanted me to. I stayed calm, upa’d here and there just to try to keep him off balance. I felt him fishing around for my other arm and I guessed (correctly) that he was going to try to step over for a triangle. He did, and I was able to pop my legs up and get to half guard. He later triangled me anyways. Still a good roll.

Last roll of the day was with Paul. Things were going great until I made a silly mistake and gave up my back. I was working my defense, and waiting for him to move a bit so I could escape, but paused too long. He started choking, and I tried slipping my head out the back door. Felt like I was going to make it at first, then realized I wasn’t. I went to tap and then started daydreaming about something or the other. I took a little nap there, but came too quickly.