Usually the week before a tournament, we slow things down, heal up, and prepare. Not so much thing week.

Tim led the class again. We skipped the warm up and dove right into drilling. We did a open guard pass, where our opponent has one foot on our bicep. We shuck off the foot on our hip, step towards tho side with the foot on our bicep, use our knee to force his leg down, and circle our hand around his leg to break his grip. We then assumed he’d defend by leg lassoing on the other side. We’d counter by switching to a leg drag and passing.

For the rest of class, we played winners and losers. First guy to 7 points wins and pairs up with another winner.

I started with Scott, a white belt. Didn’t take long for me to arm drag to his back and get a choke. I had Long next, and it didn’t take much for him to pass and mount to win. Corey did pretty much the same thing. Back to Long, same thing. He did sweep me at one point, right onto my face. Well, not quite RIGHT onto my face, my fist was in the way. Nice shiner because of that. Then I had Wade. Started off good with a sweep to mount (2 + 4 points), but damn if it didn’t take me 10 more minutes to get that last point. He tried a sweep at one point and I posted out to stop it, and jammed my pinky finger pretty good. I grimaced and bit down on my mouth guard and gutted it out until I got a sweep to finish.

Last up was Big Rob. I frustrated him for a bit in closed guard, then in half guard. I tried an arm drag, but he powered out of it. I had an underhook and was working to get to a better position when he overhooked me. I tried the duck under sweep, but he pulled out of that too, and I ended up flat and squished at the buzzer. I asked Tim about it later, and I didn’t quite do it right. Plus he showed me how instead of sweeping, I could punch his arm straight and arm drag that way.

Chicago Open on Saturday. Lots of people going. All of them ready.