Last night's class

Techniques-
1. guard posture/guard break-

hand pinning hip, hand pinning sternum (not too high, not too low) with gi grip joined and twisted. shift to centered knee, shift hips N/S switch hands, step back and break guard. 101 pass out, secure underhook and lift nearside elbow.

2. guard breakdown/collar choke

break down posture from #1- reverse kimura grip from cross side arm, bring behind head, secure strong overhook. open gi with other hand, pull down slack, cinch up collar(jammmed sewing machine style), get as deep as possible. grab other shoulder, drop wrist, get blade of wrist in throat and flare elbows out and up.

Extending Rolling session

first day as a blue belt.

did well against lower belts, but eventually got worked by purples and a brown.

lower belts- continued the guard pass/smash game with great results. getting solid base and figuring out opponent's reactions. main issues- grabbing crossface arm, fighting for underhook back, lock down arms over head/neck or entire back.

higher belts- one main thing- if i don't free up my pants legs and let them control the hips, my guard will likely get passed. gotta fight the grips like a maniac. gotta sit up and not get put flat on my back.

i kept passing the guard on a brown belt, only to get reversed once i got to side control. very frustrating, but he has a lot more exp. on me. one thing he told me was that i wasn't tucking my arms enough once i'm side controlled. i'm always out of posture, especially against more powerful opponents. gotta work on this.

another thing to clean up- cross choke block. if i do the "comb the hair" counter and leave the elbow there for a prolonged amount of time, i can get my back taken. i should try to block with the opposite hand and explosively free my collar with the other hand, if at all.

one thing that i can probably add to my game- trapping the arm across the face (and grabbing the wrist on the other side) in either half guard or side control. this would up my control a lot.