Class this morning was small again (gotta love small classes with a black belt instructor); myself, Ed and Maya (blue belts), Tony, Jeremy and Chris (all purples). We started with triangle reminders, and spent most of the class working triangle escapes. Doing the triangles, I asked Klit about something I saw Ryan Hall explaining about triangles: get as close to a perpendicular angle to the person you're choking as possible. That way, squeezing your legs isn't using your adductors (the tiny wimpy ones on the inside of your legs); instead, you use your hamstring and quads, squeezing up with one leg and down with the other instead of squeezing in with both. Hall also says that using that perpendicular angle means that you don't have to worry about getting the arm across the body. I'm not entirely sure I buy that part, but I also haven't played with it. Nor am I Ryan Hall, triangle king. Here's the video.
50/50s in class were active. Ed got to my half guard, but didn't get past it. More than once I thought I was going to get back to full guard (I'm very comfortable with Ed in my guard) and I would have been happy. But I think he hates it in there, and worked hard to stay where he was. Next came Jeremy, who worked me pretty hard. I did use the move of the day, though (triangle escape--the painful one that Chael Sonnen couldn't pull off), and that's always nice. Then Ed again. I don't even remember what happened that time, only that I was getting frustrated and that looking back, I was using far too much muscle.
After class, I worked with Ed a bit. I started in his closed guard and tried to open his legs and pass. To say that I had any degree of success would be a lie. I picked the position because I have been having trouble there and don't feel comfortable prying open guys' legs, so I end up waiting for them to move and trying to pounce on their mistakes. That means that I'm moving second, and I'm necessarily a step behind. That's not good. So I wanted to work on it. I ended up getting swept a lot and, at the very end, realizing that I haven't been engaging my hips at all when in someone's guard. So I have that to work too.
As a treat, a few women from our academy went to a tournament in Toronto. The only two videos I've been able to find are the matches they lost. But I'll post them, both out of pride and because I know Georgette will enjoy them.
Gina--she's the smaller brown belt in the black gi fighting the Canadian judo team member black belt. No one else was in her weight class, so she had to fight only absolute. Her opponent had about 60 pounds on her. Also, the rules stated that pulling guard resulted in giving your opponent one point. It sucks losing a fight that you clearly won.
This is Maya, one of our blue belts. Not her best showing (it's the one fight out of six she lost the whole weekend), but a good fight.
That's all for today. I might take Monday off, let the rib heal an extra day and make up for it on Tuesday. That would be smart. But I've never been accused of an excess of either smarts or caution where my health is the main concern.
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