Tonight was all about guard passing and working the open guard from the bottom. Prof Rodrigo had us do two passes: the basic toreano knee drop, and a pass I'm calling the pop 'n' drag that combines Prof Carlos's slap pass with a leg rope/leg lace and knee drop. I call it "drag" because even though you don't drag the leg across (you leg rope/leg lace instead), you end up in pinning the guy's legs to one side in that classic way that the leg drag pass does.
A really nice pass, and because it involves some handwork, there's a pretty good chance that I'll be inclined to keep trying it.
Again, it was great to essentially get to focus on just two related moves for tonight's session. Prof Rodrigo also spent more time than usual putting the passes into the context of overall movement and probing for opportunities and reactions. This was a flash of the sort of thing I was talking about that one time when Rodrigo was training with Abel: a sort of Unified Field Theory of passing the guard. Getting to hear that again - and see it again and try it during the focus training - couldn't be more welcome right now.
157.7 on the scale post-train. A very good midweek number (down two pounds from Monday). If I can take another pair off by the end of training on Friday, then I'll really consider it a winning week.
Lessons from Live Training ... A lot to like actually: +1 for the guard staging off the two-on-one ... good kimura attack from the back transition to armbar ... need to work on "Bullet Time" half guard pass defense, but some strong resilience from a bad spot all the same ... hooks hooks hooks!
