New challenges

I did a double header (BJJ followed by Judo) last night and cardio wise I think I faired pretty well.  I got to role with quite a few different upper belts in Jiu-Jitsu, including BJJ instructor Dave Brocklehurst.  Dave handled me effortlessly thus reinforcing how many levels there are to the game of grappling.  When someone brand new with little grappling experience comes into a Judo class I usually have little trouble with them as they open themselves to all sorts of techniques.   I'm sure Dave felt exactly the same about me.  Right now I'd say my top game is my strongest suit and I get in more trouble once I end up on the bottom.  None the less because of my Judo background people usually pull guard and give me the opportunity to work from the top, so I want to refine that aspect of my game.  I got caught in a couple wrist locks I wasn't expecting.  I definitely need to look more at defending leg locks.  I also got surprised by a rib crushing submission that I wasn't expecting.  I thought I was safe and that my opponent was going to try to turn me over and I realized late that I was about to pop a rib.  Lesson learned.

In the BJJ hour we did a lot of drills.  This is great because I really need to commit my movements and techniques to muscle memory.  We started with passing the guard where the opponent has his feet on your hips and you are in the standing position.  We then progressed to shrimping out of that pass and regaining guard.  We did hip bump sweeps / Kimura combinations and then we worked on a defense of a turtle role over.  We also did a shrimp exercise up and down the mat where as someone passes your open guard you shrimp against his legs to reclaim it.  Then as mentioned above we did some free sparing.  I'm excited about this class as it is really going to improve my feel for groundwork and give me a lot of practice.  Who knows, perhaps a competition will be in store for me in the future.  Here is a video I found demonstrating a hip bump sweep.

In Judo we did our warm up drills and then started doing uchicomies.   I worked on Tsuri Goshi, Osoto Gari, Ashi Garuma and Hiza Garuma.

 We then worked on some combinations.  Our first combo was a grip pull setup to elicit a response of settling back on your heals or getting a firm base followed by a kouchi gaka style throw.  We also played with switching to the ouchi gari when they anticipate the kouchi.  The next combo we worked on was the osoto gari to ashi garuma.  I really like that combo and with ashi garuma I’m able to throw a much bigger man than myself.

Next we did ‘you throw, I throw’ where we alternate setting up and throwing each other with some resistance.  I worked on kouchi-ouchi-taiotoshi,  hiza to hari, and some tsuri goshi combos.  I also got in a few kouchi to drop seionagi combinations.

Here is a pretty good video of someone doing a hiza guruma.