Friday and Monday

I've been getting a little more consistent with training recently, and its shown a lot.

An yways, Friday was a decent night. We had a guest instructor, a brown belt from frankfort. He's a huge dude, but always passes on good information. He showed up a guard pass where you stand up into combat base to break. Good stuff.

We got into rolling, and I went with him. This dude is seriously build like the Thing from fantastic four. It was painful just to have him in side control. I couldn't fit my legs around him in guard. He's not fat at all.

He did bring an "ultra heavyweight" white belt with him. This dude is going to roll in the IBJJF Open in Chicago. He's really good, and wrestled in high school and college. Needless to say, he fucked me up the whole night.

Anyways, as a whole, the night was ok. I didn't do overly well, but I didn't do horrible.

Today, however, I felt really good. We drilled takedowns and a sweep. The sweep was actually really easy. We then got in a lot of good rolling.

My first roll was with Curt. I chose him to go with first because if I get tired out, I can't handle him. I got him in something really slick. I took his back, but he shook me off and landed in turtle. When we landed, I was able to isolate his arm away from him and caught him in a shoulder lock/arm bar thing. The point was, when he was in turtle, he didn't have his arm in. I was just shocked I could see it.

My next roll was with the beginner instructor, Paul. He's our purple belt. Anyways, he caught me with an arm bar...but I got one on him too (i'm sure he gave me the set up, because it was something we drilled a few weeks ago). I had him in side control, and then I was able to pummel my arm under his outside arm, then rotate into the arm bar. He defended, but I remember to use the grip break I learned when we drilled this move. DRILLS WORK.

I rolled with Heath, a strong blue belt. He took my back early, but I defended for a long time. He got me in an arm bar, but I got him in a choke that I would have finished if the timer hadn't buzzed right as I sunk it in. It was a baseball bat choke. Again, something I drilled recently.

My final roll was with Rodney, super flexible no-gi dude. He'll be a blue belt soon. Anyways, I got him in a kimura. I got him set up for it, but didn't really know how to finish, so she showed me the positioning.

I watched him roll with a blue belt that comes in, and he actually demolished the blue belt (3 stripe!) fairly easily. He's pretty good and highly flexible. They were rolling no-gi, which is definitely his strong suit. I know he was taking it easy on him.

Tonight I was definitely much better than I have been in a couple weeks. Its odd how I have off nights and on nights like that.