Black belt professor Kevin Smith from GB South Sound taught the class insofar as Rodrigo was a little under the weather. I've taken classes Kevin has led before and they've always been top notch. He has his own way of encouraging us that is a little different from Rodrigo's approach, but the endgoal of getting us to work harder, better and faster is the same.
The main self-defense technique included the breakfall (squat first) and then using the technical lift to kick at the attacker's leg and get back to standing. There was a variation that had us kick twice: an initial kick on the back leg, then another push kick to the abdomen to get additional space for a double leg takedown or clinch. But both Bryan and I had a tricky time feeling comfortable with the second variation.
The technique of the day was the pendulum sweep. Kevin had us work the basic sweep, focusing on getting over to the side, perpendicular, with your ear on the knee of the leg you underhook. Kevin also added an armlock to this move, as well as a reverse to the top, ending up on mount, if you weren't able to fully pull the armlock off.
Not a bad start to the week. Clay and I reviewed some of the Renzo material and I'm hoping I can get a hold of guys like Clay and Glen to start working on drills for a few minutes - ideally immediately after class before everyone separates into sparring pairs - to help us all get ready for the Revolution.
This DRILL BABY DRILL mantra is something I've wanted to encourage for sometime, and maybe this time I'll pull it off. I never, ever, ever see guys matched up saying, "hey, I'm going to do alternating armlocks from the guard for 60 seconds" or "Can I work this sweep on your a few times?" Stephen Wanderer was probably the one guy I used to see doing drills with anybody he could grab. But most guys will only do the move once, twice maybe three times and then call it a night. Even here, we are looking usually at new moves that a guy wants to try out, not basic moves that someone is more focused on trying to perfect.
Anyway, that's all that. Worked a little with Benny also who wanted some more tips on the Flat Pass. It definitely felt good to share- that pass is one that I feel more and more comfortable with and I'd love to see some GB guys pull it off in competition over the next several weeks.
160.2 on the scale post-train. This far out, I have no complaints about that.
