Girls’ night; flying armbar vid

Here’s a video of me doing flying armbars. It’s not super high-quality—someone took it with a phone and we may record it in higher quality later—but you get the gist. (I’m lying on the floor in surprise that he tapped so soon; you can hear Sean say “She didn’t even have to take me down!”)

On Wednesday, I didn’t do any flying armbars. I got something better: girls’ night. Jonathan’s wife, Erin, came for class, and so did my friend the Gumby Ninja. Erin’s done a bit of stand-up and Gumby has some experience in Japanese jujitsu.

We worked on scissors sweeps and basic guard passes. All three of us rotated being uke and tori (whoops, my JJJ is showing). Erin’s about my size, which felt weird to me after working with the guys. But it was so nice to have other girls around. I think they had fun as well.

Class and rolling time was fairly short. I worked with David first. Got in a bit of a groove, remembered to relax and breathe, to keep my elbows in, and to bridge and shrimp more. At one point he stood up and I got to play spider guard. Not very well, mind you, and I couldn’t remember what to do after I grabbed his leg. (Remembered the technique much later, of course—you extend his far arm using your foot in his bicep and grip on his sleeve while lifting the leg up.) He hopped away but I kept hold of his leg so he couldn’t escape. We restarted. I didn’t get any submissions, but I was able to play around with positions and felt comfortable defending from my back. At the end of the roll he said I’d had good defense.

I convinced Erin to roll with me a bit. Had her pull guard and try a scissors sweep on me. We got cut short since the next portion of class was beginning.

On Wednesday nights, Sheldon’s started teachin a striking class. We did three-minute striking drills up and down the mats, switching gloves and pads after each drill. First we did jabs, then jab-cross, and then jab-cross-hook. Fun but exhausting. It’s been years since I’ve hit pads, so I was letting my strikes hang for too long and wasn’t getting my hips working at first. Then I overcompensated and pulled a lat. Thank goodness Gumby is an occupational therapist; she taped me up and I feel pretty good.

Flying armbars!

Tonight was loads of fun. Sean Sharp (Pedro Sauer purple belt) taught class. We mainly worked on some stack passes and baseball chokes, but near the end of class Sean asked me if I wanted to learn a flying armbar. I don’t remember what conversation had led up to this—Sean was working with me on some of the techniques and think he commented that I was a quick learner. The guys were laughing about teaching white belts flying armbars, but I’m game for anything.

Sean showed me the technique and started me out on my knees, pairing me with Jake (the tall guy who wears wrestling shoes). I realized early on that if I was going to do this technique from a standing position, I’d need to commit totally and be fearless. So I really got into it, holding onto his gi collar like my life depended on it even though the mat was only a few inches below me.

After a few tries Sean said I was ready to try it standing. I was a little nervous, but Jake was a rock; I knew could climb all over him and he wouldn’t move. Got the hang of the standing technique pretty quickly. The guys were all standing around watching and enjoying it. I was having a blast.

Sean decided to teach me a second flying armbar. Ended up balanced on his shoulder arm-barring him. The guys took video of me doing both techniques on Sean and he’s going to get me the clips at some point.

I probably won’t be able to pull those off in live rolling just yet, though the guys kept urging me to try them when we rolled later. I need to work basic armbars and a whole lot of other stuff before I focus on the fancy things. Still, I had a great time learning them and would love to pull one in competition some time.

Rolled with Sheldon, Chris, and Steven. Sheldon’s training for a tournament, so we all rolled with him gauntlet-style. I tried a flying armbar on him, but the set-up wasn’t ideal so it didn’t work. Did manage to pass to side control at some point, which is the only time I’ve managed to do so aside from one early roll with Jonathan a few months ago. So that was good. Tried to go for some armlocks but he wasn’t having any of it; I made the mistake of moving the hand that I’d posted at his hip, and he turned into me and got dominant position. At one point his shoulder was crushing my face—somehow my bottom lip got peeled back and scraped up by his gi. It kinda hurt, but I told myself I was not going to tap to a lip submission, if such a thing even existed.

Rolled with Steven next. Was able to posture up in his guard once. Resisted an armlock for quite a while, and I think resisted correctly. (Though perhaps for too long; my tricep is slightly strained…) But I spent a lot of time turtled and trying not to let him take my back. Sean showed me a technique for escaping that sort of thing.

My roll with Chris was the usual—he lets me pull guard straight off, but I always wind up squashed. He got me in a choke and I fought it until I felt my neck twinge. It still hurts; definitely icing it. My fault for being stubborn.

Got Sean’s info after class so I can get those videos from him and he said I did a good job. Yay! Now let’s see how Wednesday goes; knowing me, I’ll probably forget everything I ever knew about jits and be all flaily and n00bish.

Techniques below the cut.