Didn’t do my pushups on Wednesday…but I made them up on Thursday before class. W3D2b done. Again.

Even more turtle guard stuff today. Bob and I paired up and drilled away, amping up the intensity as we went. Nothing new the class, just focusing on committing it to muscle memory.

After class we rolled a couple of times. I was thinking the other day about some the take downs we’ve learned, and wondered if I could apply them to our rolling. We generally start from our knees, it’s just easier on bodies and takes up less mat space. Rather than pull guard, or push into his guard, I tried to angle for a kind of T-position. It kind of worked, because we ended in half guard, which I quickly passed to side control. I started working to control him with my own lapel, which leads to a choke, but it got tangled up in our arms. I switched to a regular cross choke from side control, and would have gotten it, but the wall was in the way, and I didn’t have enough room to sprawl out and really put my weight into it. And just like with Ed the other night, he did a one handed collar choke back. I tried to turn my head to relieve the pressure and gut it out, but no dice. I escaped, but had to release. I don’t remember what happened next, but he got me somehow. Our next round, all I remember was being mounted, escaping, him taking my back, me escaping, and then being mounted and americana’ed. I was pooped. Bob and I are pretty even I think.

Mongoose and I rolled too. I was going slow, and he was being his usual fast self. Fundamentals started before we finished.

Luke taught again. Three different mounting techniques, the usual folding of his knees, pulling on his ankle until he kicks, and holding your own foot and pulling it over. The second one I’ve never seen before, I liked it a lot. The third, I just don’t have the flexibility to pull off. We also did the americana from mount too.