I figured that Damian would be back teaching now that Benardo is done, but Gabriel led class instead. We did a quick warm up, and then some conditioning…which half way through I dubbed “The Circle of Death” Everyone forms a circle. Then, each person in turn picks an exercise and counts off twenty reps as we all do them. Then the next guy, and the next, etc. No repeating allowed. I wanted to kill the guys that picked sprawls and burpees.

The lesson was two variations of an odd seeming De La Riva sweep. The first involved transitioning from traditional De La Riva guard to barb wiring your hook foot between your opponent’s legs. Then you can pull, kick, and twist and sweep. The other variation is if that doesn’t work…you can switch grips, and pull him up and over yourself, doing a backwards somersault to finish.

Then we rolled 9 minute rounds tonight. I started off with Ron. I resolved to be more defensive, and try to avoid getting into trouble before I was REALLY in trouble. Yeah, it didn’t go nearly as planned. Mongoose was next, and that went very well. Likely partially due to his hurt rib.

Enrique was next, and we were both pooped, but he still whooped on me. Last up was Brandon. I had one near moment of success when I had 3/4 of the half guard sweep that Benardo taught during the seminar, but Brandon was attacking my arm at the same time. I could see Enrique watching and pointing, telling me to sweep, but I don’t think he saw that my grips weren’t right yet.

It was a particularly hard and exhausting night of rolling.