No Gi Week

Since it was so hot last week, Damian declared that this week would be all no gi.  And whada know..it cooled off.

We did our warm up as usual.  Doing the Sidecontrol 101 was a little weird because I only know 2 sweeps that work for no-gi, but we dealt with it.   To start class, Damian wanted us to attempt to pass guard, anyway we could.  3 minutes per side.  Just to kinda see where we were at.   Well, I didn’t need 6 minutes to tell him that I don’t know anything.   When on top, I got submitted 4 times.  When on bottom, I got passed 5 times.   So, no where to go but up.

We worked a new pass.  Break the closed guard, pop your OUTSIDE leg in (which is opposite of what I’ve been doing to gi), and use that leg to hook/pin his down.  Esgrima (windshield wiper leg switch) your legs, and sit into side control.  We did a variation where the bottom guy hooks your leg, you just switch your head to the other side, underhook, tripod up and slide you leg out.   And one where you wishbone the bottom guy’s legs and go directly to mount.   Cool stuff.  I was a little anxious about doing no-gi…just because I never have.

After class, Russ-the-former-spaz was there for the fundamentals, and wanted to do some sweeps and stuff.  So we fooled around some.  Now Russ is ~220, and wrestled for a long time, so no stranger to the no-gi realm.  He got me a couple of times, but I did manage to reverse him once and recover guard a couple of times..  And we ended up in a turtle guard like position, but he had hooked my arm, so the peek out wouldn’t work.  We were both curious about it, so we asked Damian what was proper to do here.  I could shoot my knee in and regain guard.   We finished up me me showing him the armbar double arm trap from mount we did last week.  He defended, and being alot stronger than I…defended it for a long time, but I wasn’t going anywhere and eventually got it.   Damian said I need to buy a weight set!