private and basics

I had the privilege of spending an hour on the mat 1:1 with Clint before class today. We continued where our last shortened private stopped. Big Dawg discussed some movement theory with me, and noticed that I need to work on my push/pull a lot with my arms and legs. He showed me a "drill" of putting your legs on the guys biceps, then shoulders, then hips, then behind the knees....going up and down the body. This is to get used to the foot placement in open guard, which is directly what I need help with.

One of my issues is when on my right hip, I correctly use my bottom (right) leg to press the opponent and thwart his passing. What I don't do is use my top (left) leg. It just kind of sits on the guys back. What I need to do is get it on the hip. This gives much more control, and makes it dramatically easier to move my hot girlish hips.

We finished up rolling for like 20 minutes or so which was truly awesome. We worked several positions but Clint kept putting me back in my open guard to work on the concepts we went over. This is most definitely helping me build my game!

After the private I went to basics class with Funk Master C. It was the first class in a 5-6 week series of guard passing, focusing in on the knee lead. The concept C presented was to not end up in someones closed guard, but to beat them to the transition and stick your knee lead in between you and the enemy. Although I have heard this before, this reminder struck a bell and I certainly need to practice this more.