On the Mat Day 239: Spar till You Drop (with notes)

That's what I felt like doing last night during sparring. There were 2 other blue belts besides myself and K-sensei who took the class. We sparred with each other for 3 rounds which meant we did 9 rounds. That is the first time I have done so much sparring in one night. We rested for about 1 to 2 minutes between rounds and each round was 6 minutes. We didn't plan it this way, just everyone seemed to want to keep going. It was amazing. At the end all of us including K-sensei were completely drained. I was comforted to see Akira who is a young lad of 22 just as tired as I was. We had a couple of good sparring sessions. He is very good on the bottom, good at creating space. I use very tight passing with him because I cannot give him even an inch or he escapes to a sweep setup. My passing was sometimes successful but not always. He is good at fighting for the underhook.

I constantly went for single leg takedown. Most of the time they were unsuccessful but I still wanted to be sprawled on so that I could think about options to escape. So far I have success with sliding out under the arm that is under my armpit and taking the back. It works especially well if I do it before they can set in their grips and they have all their weight on me. The only other option I seem to have is to sit back into half-guard but this seems a poor man's choice to me. I also tried some other things successfully like reaping the leg or rotating around them. I will keep trying because I want to try the single leg in the competition soon. Perhaps I'm crazy for wanting to start in a weak area of my game but I want to give it a go.

I am constantly stumped with Fuji-san during sparring. It's like moving a rock. Short arms and legs, weight pressing forward, seldom extending his arms. I am successful in taking his back but he grips onto my choking arm and feeds it to the other side of his head and rotates into me to force me to drop into bottom half-guard. I think I need to constantly arm drag him then think deeper on how to chain some attack from rear mount.

Sparring time: 9 x 6 mins = 54 mins

Notable moments: Fighting successfully for the far-side underhook with Akira and continuing to pass


Breaking Grips for the Armbar -