Post Turkey BJJ Madness

We only had a Tuesday class this week due to the Thanksgiving holiday. To make up for it Mr. Hyde decided to have the Friday competition class on Saturday before regular class! Yes, you heard right. Two back to back classes. Heaven on earth.

Competition class was awesome as always. We did all no-gi, based on our recent NAGA performance where we realized many of our no-gi games were falling well behind our gi games. We played "king of the mat" by playing games with two people grappling, with the winner staying to go against a fresh opponenet. We started out playing for takedowns, which was very helpful with this smaller group as we don't get much chance to practice them in normal class due to the amount of people and mat space. We then switched to have the "winner" be the first to obtain the cross body (side control) position. I got a bunch of great rolls in taking turns winning and getting my ass handed to me. It is excellent conditioning to with fresh guys challenging you when you are exhausted after rolling 5 mins. Bliss.

After competition class, I was pretty tired but didn't have much time to think about it as Clint lined everyone up for regular class. We did a solid 45 minutes of cardio involving several partnered excercises. Clint then walked us through the closed guard game, explaining the concepts which both guys are looking for. He recommended watching high level BJJ videos from the pan-ams or mundials as most of the matches are 8 minutes of sitting in guard waiting for the opponent to make a mistake.

We then learned this slick armbar from guard when your opponent stands up. You start by holding the opponents gi on both sides right above their elbow. When they stand up, you open your guard and shift your hips to the side, throwing your left arm behind his left leg (the opposite leg from what most people grab). This helps swing your hips further to put you right into a nice armbar position. You then make sure to use typical armbar technique, with your knees together and curling your bottom legs down.

I got a real treat in live rolling when Clint told me to "come here a minute". I rolled 5 minutes with big dawg and only got tapped like 18 times! Its always a pleasure feeling that helpless feeling like there is literally nothing you can do. Despite my best effort, I spent most of the time pinned on the bottom being choked in several malicious ways. It was sweet!