Livin' la vida choka

Thursday night mayhem. I was 25 minutes late to class =( I missed a chunk of conditioning, but was told it was run by Hyde and was primarily strength training based (plank pushups? zomg!?) I luckily made it in time for pass the guard "ring of fire". This is where everyone lines up with their partner in a circle, and you do one minute of trying to pass the guys guard. After that, the top guy moves clockwise to the next guy in the circle. You do this until you have completed the entire circle, then trade and take your turn on the bottom.

Proudly, the Dutch Assassin didn't have his guard passed the entire time. I concentrated on using good hip movement, and breaking down the opponents posture. White belt, nor blue belt, nor purple belt passed this time around (although I told Hyde I was gonna wristlock his bad hand if he tried..hwahahaha).

Second time around it was my turn for the top, and I did pretty good. I am trying almost exclusively to work my standing pass, and it is actually evolving a little bit. I am getting more dynamic when the guy inevitably moves to open guard, and I can beat him to the punch.

For the technique portion of the class, Clint showed the ezekiel choke from full mount. This was good as I "know" the move, but haven't drilled it in a long time and forgot some details. Clint showed a cool way to pass from side control to full mount when the opponent does the "figure four your legs" defense by taking your outside foot with your hand and moving it acrossed his stomach to the other side. Despite my non nimble nature, I was able to do this pretty easily. I like it and need to work on this in the upcoming weeks. Once mounted you want to place one arm under the guys neck, and force his head to one direction using the SHOULDER OF PAAAIN. You then use your head to force his head back the other way, so it's like his head is in a vice between your shoulder and your head. This opens the neck for the choke. Grab your sleeve thats under his head and place your fist in the socket to the side of the adams apple. KEY POINT: Don't just muscle the fist in, but use your whole body weight to push your fist into his neck...pushing with your shoulder against the fist.

We finished up doing some with free rolling, followed by some interval sprints until we were forced off the mats by the wrestlers. Awesome class