Post-tournament

I was still tired from the tournament on Monday but went to class anyway. Had a couple of new new guys, as well as a couple of sweaty newish guys who started coming last week. Don’t remember their names. We worked some basic escapes from side and mount during class.

Rusty and Tamra (Jake’s wife) came by. Rusty’s a long-time friend of the school who I somehow hadn’t managed to meet yet. He came out to support us at the tournament on Saturday and ended up reffing half the matches, as the original ref had wrenched his ankle on the terrible mats. He gave me some great tips and walked me through some techniques, and said I’d done really well in the tournament considering the weight and experience difference.

Rolled with Jonathan. Was pretty exhausted—hadn’t rested well even after the tournament—and I don’t remember much, except that we restarted three times.

Rusty rolled with me at the end. Again, more of a pause-and-teach than a full roll. He talked to me about takedowns first, because he’d seen how I hadn’t been able to deal with the other white belt in our matches.

Rolled a bit from there—got a spinning armbar. Pretty sure he gave it to me. Retaught me the armbar. Then Tamra taught me a butterfly sweep. Pretty sure Jonathan taught me this a while ago.

Chatted with Tamara a bit afterward. She and Jake train with Rusty twice a week, I think, at a local college where he’s an instructor for the fire department (I think). She showed me some bruises from a nasty roll and we talked about guys who don’t want to tap to girls. I mentioned that that’s one of the things I love about GCKC; the guys here are great about rolling with me, generally. But I try not to roll with the new guys straight off—I’ll watch how they roll with the other guys first and see if they have any modicum of control. At that point we realized one of the new guys (one of the returning ones) was sitting close enough to hear our conversation. Think we managed to pull off a “Oh, but this guy seems cool” save…oops. Well, if he overheard anything, maybe it’ll prove educational. So many guys aren’t used to doing sports with women.

Techniques below the cut.

Techniques

Top half-guard pass
First, flatten out uke with pressure and cross-face under head; get to side control-ish position. Don’t worry about trapped leg for now. Switch your cross-facing arm so you’re blocking the other side of their head with your elbow and pull their shoulder down with your other hand. (If uke gets an arm between your legs and tries to sweep, switch your base into scarf hold to clear the arm.) Walk your trapped foot up, heel-toe, and use your close arm to push their leg down. Mount.

Side control frame-and-bridge escape
The basic escape: bridge up and suck far elbow in under their stomach. Bridge up again to get near hand under their near armpit. (Rusty tip: cross-face them with the blade of my palm on their jaw and grip shoulder.) Bridge/shrimp out (Jonathan tip: get a knee in their hip to crowbar yourself away), then get to full or half-guard.

Drop heel takedown
Close with uke, make like you’re going for an underhook or something up top, then drop on your stomach. Cup around their heel and wedge your shoulder against it, driving forward to take them down. Keep on top of their leg; climb it up to mount.

Butterfly sweep
From butterfly guard, get hooks in and collar grip; lift with outside foot (their up leg) and roll backward on that shoulder.

Armbar
Tip: Grab at elbow, not wrist. Put your inside foot against his arm if he resists and push with your far foot against his neck.

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