Lots of visitors from Ireland, Texas, and Tampa tonight. Two black belts, one brown belt, two purple belts, and two blue belts.

A normal warmup, and we were then treated to three techniques by the three black belts!

Frank’s Technique — review of the knuckle pushup KoB, shoot hand through (PALM UP), step over head (PULLING IN NECK AND PUSHING OUT STERNUM) to the Down Bar (I DREAM OF GENIE), americana, kimura, roll to the scissor choke.

Andy’s Technique – Kimura and Armbar from guard

  • Over/Under on opponent’s shoulders with controlled posture
  • Trap the arm on the “under” side straight
  • Push knees out (keeping guard closed) to straighten the arm
  • Grip the triceps with opposite hand to lock in kimura
  • Roll bicep towards ceiling to go for americana

Key concepts–keep trapped arm elbow tight. Keep guard closed and high. For americana, push knees out the door. Helps to bring elbow inside the head.

Christine Technique – Side control arm bars

  • Instead of cross-face, get into a smother.
  • Inch knee under the arm you have
  • Post hands on mat next to shoulder and hip
  • Hope to a KoB, shooting the arm up and grabbing it
  • Throw leg over the head, ok to keep other leg inside ribs

For Spinning Arm Bar

  • Smother hard and wait for them to give the arm
  • Depending on which side of your head they shoot it, trap with your gi
  • Pull them up and step over head, using other arm as a brake
  • or if other direction post hand to hip, click into north south,
  • Position lower foot, then step over, again using the other arm as a brake.

Sixteen people in the gym, so no chance to roll every round. Still, got four 4-minute rounds in.

My first was against one of the visiting black belts. 260+ lbs of Irish squash. He’d gone two consecutive rounds before me and seemed content to smash the crap out of me from several different positions. I considered it a “win” when I could breath. He started on his back, just giving me side control. I regret that I didn’t try to lay into him harder with the shoulder now, but at the time I was completely confused. “Is this some sort of trick?” Nah…he just wanted to lie down. He tapped me with his legs without even moving.

Next up for me was two rounds with Jonathan. Much more scrambly than usual. I did get a chance to trap the arm using the technique Christine showed us. I wasn’t able to finish all the way to the spinning arm bar, but I took what she said during the demonstration to heart–“even if you can’t get the technique all the way to finish, you still have the arm, so don’t let go of it.” Ended up getting an americana, then played the remainder of that roll and the next round from guard.

Last roll was with visiting Irish blue belt. He was young and maybe 15-20 pounds lighter than me. Really fun. I fought off a triangle pretty early, and later a sitting triangle and an arm bar. So yeah–no attacking, but I feel like I may be getting better at defending. I went for his back once and got one hook in, but he ended up tapping me with a kimura.