Rodrigo was still out sick on Thursday, so Shawn led the gi class.
After a really vigorous warm-up, Shawn had us working on the half-guard passes some more. I think it might have been the third or fourth day in a row (for me) that we worked on these passes. But I'll be damned if I don't have them pretty well burned into my muscle memory.
What is especially nice about the two passes - the Royler and the Switch - is that they are very different from my current standby half-guard pass. This gives me three solid options - not including standing out of the half guard. The trick, of course, will be to integrate all three into my game so that I feel comfortable switching to whichever one looks most appropriate for the moment.
Cindy's no gi class was also a review of sorts - again, no complaints on my end. We worked the duck-under, the arm-stuff triangle and the omoplata. Doing the arm-stuff triangle, I actually started to have visions my myself actually being able to use the triangle choke in sparring.
Visions - or delusions, perhaps. I've been watching a lot of Ryan Hall stuff of late, looking for different set-ups: the chicken wing, the shin/chin smash ... But one thing I realized Thursday night was that if I just focus on getting the basic triangle leg lock in place and then grab my shin with my opposite hand and "fit" the triangle into position, I might actually be able to start pulling them off.
I have a pretty good sense of the mechanics of the triangle AFTER I've got that basic leg lock in place. I've just done a poor job of getting to that initial step. A large part of it, I know, is my perennial inability to break posture from the closed guard, which means that I'm really just throwing my legs up in a vain attempt to catch the guy.
In any event, I'm not going to make the triangle a big part of my game all of a sudden. But it is something I want to at least have as a credible threat.
A little sparring afterwards. Nothing too remarkable. I'm getting increasingly comfortable with north/south as a dominant position and the kimura as a finish. I need to start turning those kimuras into armlocks and those north/souths into take-the-back. But so far, so good.
