Squeezing in mat time as I can.

About a year or so ago, I was talking to JR about how there was an incoming wave of blue belts that were going to be promoted to purple belt. And looking around on as I was stretching, I was right. Purple as far as the eye could see. I talked to Tim about it a bit. He made a good point…that wave is going to be brown in a few years. In 3 or 4 years, we’ll have 20+ brown belts and 10-12 black belts in house. Hard work pays off.

Speaking of hard work, I put some in during my rounds. I was on Renato’s back for about 3/4 of our round. Couldn’t get any grips to choke though. I got the Rousimar style armlock transition, but he defended the finish and escaped as I started to counter. But I arm dragged right back to being on his back.

Moved well with Little Bob, passing and staying on top almost the whole time. Paul was tough but we had a very active round. JR and I had a good back and forth too.

Finished out my morning with a round with Tim and then with Casey. Nothing like two brown to put it on you after you’re tired. I felt like I did okay with Tim, but he’s so good at chaining things together, I only have to slip up once and I’m done, and I’m always on the defensive. Casey was slower paced, but had crushing top pressure. I held guard for a bit, and actually got an arm drag off. He rolled back to half guard, swept me, and then pressure passed while threatening a knee bar. And once in side control, he smashed and was super tight on top until he transitioned into a kimura. He did compliment my guard work. Danny was watching from the sidelines and said some nice things about it too.