Saturday’s open mat was interesting.

I started off with Sarah, moving and warming up. Next up was JP. I started off standing and passed to knee on belly. I ground it into him a bit, and he tried to bench press me off of him. And by doing so, his arm was sticking straight up in the air. Damian is sitting 10′ away, and starts yelling to the effect of “You better take that arm!”. I was already in the middle of sitting for the armlock when it happened. JP defended, and now Damian is shouting at me: “Break it! Tear it off!” and the like, in an uncharacteristic way. I know he’s not seriously telling me to break JP’s arm, but it was a bit jarring. Took a bit, but I did break JPs defense and finish the armlock. In another bit of unusualness, Damian showed JP where he went wrong in his knee on belly escape. That might have been the first time I wasn’t the one being corrected!

I also had rounds with Purple Belt Matt. More footlocks, though I did escape a few. Wade and Renato too.

Then Damian grabbed me for a round. It’s been a while since we rolled. It’s really mind boggling how helpless it feels going with him. I never have space to move, my arms and legs are always out of proper position, there’s no leverage to escape, move, or defend. It’s just a slow (if I’m lucky), or fast (usually) slide from neutral, to bad, to very bad, to tapping. He foot locked me twice, but a different one that Matt used, one that I don’t know the escape to. And he knee barred me twice, once from side control, once after I rolled to escape an omoplata. He showed Tim and I them after our round. Same attack, just two different entries. He told me he wanted me to start playing with footlocks and kneebars. I’ve tried footlocks here and there, but kneebars are illegal in most tournaments until brown belt level, so I’ve only ever drilled them.

He then paired me up with Paul for a double round. I was pretty tired at this point, so I spent most of that 18 minutes being squished and in bad positions. But not being submitted.

Went for a longish run on Sunday. Lungs felt good. Knees started to ache after a while. Could have kept going if they weren’t hurting. Mudder is 6 weeks out.