On the Mat Day 276: Slow Friday Night Class

Friday night started off slow. Just myself and a new white belt turned up. I talked to him after class and it turns out he is a brown belt 2kyu at judo, 25 years old. I envy the fact that people have a judo background. My life would have been so much easier going into BJJ if I had done the same. He was fairly strong, good at defending chokes and strong grips. He failed to throw me with kouchi-gari or osoto-gari combinations. I am far to used to that combination now after training with Kondo-san who is a 3rd dan at judo.

K-sensei took us through straight good old honest cross collar chokes (juji-shime). Two hands in, choke your enemy out. As I've mentioned before, I am not good at these basic chokes so this lesson was excellent for me to get it right. K-sensei had us start off sitting on our knees, Japanese style, and just going through the motion of correct chokes. Then we moved to closed guard attacks. I was much better at the technique on Friday than I was on Wednesday just by really focusing on curling my wrists the correct way. K-sensei mentioned that we must get used to having a strong grip by balling our hands into fists yet keep our wrist fairly loose. The normal reaction when gripping is to make the muscles of the wrist tight and thus loose freedom of motion in the joint. I'll keep that it mind.

During sparring, I tried twister side control against the new guy and held him down easily, despite his judo background. I waited for the leg and tumbled over him, he turtled so I had a high crotch hold on him but failed to turn him around to move to twister/back control. Later K-sensei showed me how I need to move to get the back from that position. I guess this is something I just need to keep trying. I also asked him about sitting guard sweeps because I keep messing them up.

Sparring time: 5 x 6 mins, 2 x 5 mins = 40 mins

Notable moments: Escaping north south from a big heavy opponent (Kawai)