On the Mat Day 349: Chokes and Stuff

Just out of the shower and oh it felt good. I took a nap before training tonight and almost overslept. After waking up my neck felt a little better but it is still giving me the shitz from the pain on the right side. It's common that Murphy's Law comes into play when I have an injury. For example, I have a groin tear, we do tight half-guard passes that exacerbate the pain, I have sore ribs so we do knee on the belly attacks, and tonight I have neck pain so we do collar chokes this week. I did my drills with Tete-kun and mentioned it so he was very gently when finishing the technique - Appreciated!

There were lots of heavy guys tonight. I just concentrated on open guard, spider lasso hook. The first spar was with Asushi and towards the end as I passed his guard and reverse knee on belly his foot came up and his big toe went bang right into my mouth. It was a goddamn queasy moment. It also busted my lip open - it took a while to stop it bleeding too. I don't know how I am gonna go out and pick up chicks with my fat lips now. Shussei later on gave me some advice about the baseball bat choke from top and I also asked him about far side armbar from KoB and how to prevent them pummeling in. He told me to monkey grip around their shoulder rather than their elbow and keep my own shoulder tight to theirs.

Some things I need to work on are:

• A better defense to knee sliding pass instead of just knee shield
• My slide under side escape, I need to extend my arm more and get my head out onto their ribs
• Do not let go of grip after sweeping from standard spider guard

The last episode of BJJ Kumite was excellent. How those guys roll is very inspiring. I was particularly impressed with the guy from Ireland, Darragh O Conaill.

Sparring time: 8 x 6 mins = 48 mins