A good early session today.
I overheard that the Saturday session was incredible, with 10-11 black belts showing up. I just couldn't make it, having promised some home/errand time this weekend. There was also the issue of my bad knee, which was giving me a little trouble on Friday. All things considered, it was probably for the best to skip this past Saturday's event - though hopefully there will be video.
Today's training started off with some self defense: the guillotine choke off the shot. One of the details here was to bring your second arm way back and then drive it between you and the attacker as you go for the guillotine. This will help prevent your arm from getting hung up on the guy's shoulder.
The Fundamental this week is all about the back - though we did do some back/rear mount work late last week, if I remember correctly. Here, we focused on staying low on the hips from rear mount - not high up on the back or shoulder - and getting an under-the-arm grip on the lapel for body control. Be careful here of getting your elbow trapped, which will make it possible for the guy on the bottom to initiate a counter.
We worked on control using a sitting position and the squeezing the knees against the hips. To get to the back from the rear mount + turtle position, you slide the knee up at the guy's elbow/knee defense, let your other leg slide flat behind you, and then pulling on the lapel, roll over to the side.
The lapel hand is the one that will feed the gi to your choking hand. If the guy rolls all the way beyond the side, then here is where you want to use the knees to maintain control. Sit up, and with bent legs squeeze your knees together, trapping the guy's hips.
From here we worked on the choke series: necktie, behind the head and the bow and arrow. Rodrigo pointed out that you can attack with the bow and arrow, for example, even if you don't have a hook. What you do is continue turning the guy with the choke grip and use your knee to drive the guy over on to his side. There are other good choke options as you move in this direction.
Tatame was good. I felt good both in rear mount and escape during the Specific, and was able to work both by Eagle and Tiger grip series from the guard during the Live Training. I was also able to effectively play some deep half - ironically still doing the walk/turn sweep more than the others that involve the hook.
Conditioning wasn't too bad for a Monday. I skipped my session on Saturday, so I wasn't exactly sure what I'd see today. But while I was pretty beat, I felt good and energized and probably could have trained another round if I had been able to stay longer.
