Who attended a training session today for each thumb he has? This guy.
This morning was at Damian's, and we worked a drop seio-nage to armbar combination. Klint has worked the drop seio-nage with us before, but it still feels like I'm trying a technique without having the proper fundamentals---like footwork, balance, those basic things that keep you from spinning around and looking like the exact same lout you feel. Training afterwards went pretty OK. I worked with Matt #1, a blue belt with designs on going to the pan-ams this year and a decent game to take with him. We always started with me seated and him standing working to pass my open guard. Of course, this did not usually go well for me. But he did not submit me, so I have that going for me. He did, however, punch me in the nose, knee me under the chin, and drop his body weight on my shin going the wrong direction. So he was working. At one point, he was on my back and had me flattened, but I was able to defend and keep him from getting grips or getting under my neck. In the end, I found an armbar and ran with it. After Matt #1, I had a short roll with Marcos, a one stripe white who is pretty small. He has good pressure and solid fundamentals. I Was able to get to a high mount and armbar him from there, and then he went across the mat to train no-gi for a while.
Matt #2 came next. He's another blue, a bit heftier than Matt #1. Last week, he got me in a kimura from the bottom half-guard, and I resolved not to allow that this time. In that respect, I was successful. Though he did snag it from the top, and that was slightly embarrassing. Not actually embarrassing, just something that I knew was coming and saw coming and still was unable to avoid. One of those predictable and predicted and recognized attacks that somehow you just can't seem to get away from. Something more to work on. At one point, Jeremy was behind me and started calling to me to break Matt's grips on my knees. I turned around to look at him quizzically because Matt wasn't gripping my knees (I was actually keeping him from it), and that earned a sharp "Don't look at me! Listen to me and do it!" So that was funny. The second roll, though, went longer, and I got a pretty decent back-take out of it. From there, transitioned to the arm and didn't let his wiggling distract me. The guys in Edina are good. They have more higher belts to work them, and they have more people in the class in general than we do across town. More people stay after for longer. Hopefully we'll get that kind of school going in Woodbury soon, the next year or so.
Then, the afternoon went to showering, having lunch with lovely Wife and our friends, and a meeting with a professor to discuss DEADWOOD and literature. After those finished, Andy and I went to class tonight with Klint.
When we got there, he gave us a little shit for being slackers and blowing off life to double up on jiu jitsu for the day. But really, he was almost as happy as we were. I don't think he expected us to show up since we spent the morning training (I think he and Jeremy talked sometime this afternoon). But show we did. We worked a fifty-fifty sweep, and an x-guard sweep. I don't know how many white belt classes work on fifty-fifty and x-guard sweeps--I would guess it's a low percentage. But the class was full of people who should be able to do them safely---myself, Andy, Kyle, new Jon (who is off to basic training in Georgia for 6 months), and JD. I need to take some time to incorporate these moves; with my long and spindly legs, I should be able to either actually use them to sweep or threaten with them and create openings. Trained for a good long time after class, too. Started with JD, then Andy and I worked for a while.
I'm wondering about a few jiu jitsu-related topics, but I need to distill them a bit before discussing them at length. Also, I need to lay about and recover, figure out whether I can make class tomorrow night. More fifty-fifty and x-guard sweeps? Yes please.
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