10/18 BJJ Judo

Mon was a really good class for me, I had a long weekend and I have not had the opportunity to make as many classes as I would like to have made this month. I really needed Mon to blow off some stream.

John covered a pretty standard series of sweeps for when the opponent stands in your closed guard. I like all three and it was a good series for the experience level in the class.

Sets - All my sets were good sets and I felt like I got something out of each set so I was very pleased.

First set was with one of the bigger white belts. I have been playing with different places to put the knee when I do knee on belly. Mon showed me a flaw in what I have been doing. For the past few months I have been positioning my knee on Uke's far hip with my shin cutting directly over the opponents hips. I liked this placement b/c it made it difficult for my opponent to roll in either direction. Oddly enough no one ever bothered to just sit straight up until my white belt opponent last night. That is the great thing about rolling with white belts, since they dont always know the "correct answer" they come up with unusual answers to different situations. So anyway it was good b/c it showed me the old school knee on the ziphod processor(however you spell it) might be best but I am going to experiment with putting it on the floating rib a little before I make up my mind.

Second set ws with an even bigger white belt. He has better ground work than most give him credit for so I always like rolling with him. His size and strenght expose any little mistakes I might be making in positioning and I cannot get away with relying on my strength to make a position work against him. If I am even a little off balance he can throw me clear off of him :). Like I said it was a good set, I got my sweeps and held the positions I wanted.

Third set was with a blue belt. Also a good set, he managed to get behind me with a sit out and he put me on the defense a little when he tried to reverse my turtle. I always enjoy going with him and I see him trying the stuff we work on.

Forth set was with one of the other purple belts. This was a really great set. We really pushed the pace and I was really happy with my fitness level. I was able to keep a very high pace the whole match without allowing my technique to break down. That set alone made up for a whole weekend of wiping noises and sleepless nights.

Judo

We did a little work on Hari and using it when the person is driving forward. I had two sets on the feet and two on the ground.

Randori - My randori sets were with Ray and Yoni. The set with Ray was both fun and productive, the set with Yoni was good too. Yoni is a young and very promising Judoka. I think he is around 15 or 16ish but I am not good at guessing age. He has really really good techniques and he is fast. He will be a real handful once he puts on some size. As for now the 50 or 60 pounds I have on him served me well, but in 5 or 6years it will be a whole different ball game.