GREGO SMASH!

Tonight was an exceedingly good night at class.

All week I've felt like shit. I've been exhausted all week, and tuesday I didn't even go to class. Today at work, I was nearly catatonic, and decided that I probably wouldn't make it in. However, when I was driving home, I told myself to not be a whiny bitch and MAN THE FUCK UP.

So I did, and I"m glad.

I got to class, still feeling like hammered shit and got winded on our normal warm ups. I was thinking right away that I'd have a bad night. However, once we got into class, focusing on the techniques allowed me to put my fatigue and self-doubt out of my mind.

We started off doing a takedown (I don't know what its called) where you basically just grab the guy's arm from the clinch and fall back. We continued that into an arm bar, and then we started working and turtle chokes from the scramble.

When we started rolling, I was completely in the mood for jiu jitsu. I started off with Curtis, the big guy. We are fairly evenly matched, because his size and strength far outstrip my own, but I defend well. He couldn't get anything on me, and I was able to lock him down in half guard indefinitely.  My next round was with Rodney, an experienced white belt who used to do cage fighting.

Apparently, he's double jointed. I caught him in an omoplata. A DEEP omoplata that I couldn't finish as a submission, so I just rolled him over and took his arm. At this point his right arm is trapped under his back and I have his left in Americana. He wouldn't tap. He said "yeah it hurt, but I'm double jointed."

He didn't get me in anything though.

My next round was with Ken, who just got made a three stripe blue belt. He's good, and he complimented my "awareness" because I attacked his arm on a transition. He fought out, but he was still happy with my performance.

I rolled with Curtis again, and we had a really good match with a lot of back and forth. He mounted me, and I couldn't get him off. So I just waited and defended. He want to transition to an armbar and I escaped. Again, we couldn't tap each other.

My last roll was with Paul, who's probably our best competitor and very, very good. I like rolling with him because when he catches me with something, he lets me fight and try to escape, then he walks me through what I did. He submitted me twice. However, the second time we rolled, I got him in an omoplata from guard! I'm starting to love omoplata . He told me that he though he could escape it, so he let me continue on with it...but I caught it too deep. I've found that the key is to shoot the hips up and get my crotch as deep in their armpit as I can. Then I rotate my hips back and pull down. After that, its just a matter of keeping them flat.

I'm very proud of my performance tonight. I think its the first time I've ever gotten a remotely resisted tap against somebody as good as Paul. Nights like tonight keep my motivation up and keep me going.