Friday, November 28, 2008

Gracie open mat 11/28- shark in the water

A great open mat today. I rolled a bunch with John. He tried a lot more hip throws this time, and while my technique was sometimes appallingly bad, I survived. I tried to pull guard once, but he tried it at the same time, so I lucked out in mount. I did pillow choke him once, again with pretty bad form. I found myself occasionally in a good position, but not sure what to do from there-- it's as though I'm so used to not having any options, and only occasionally seeing one clear direction where to go, that when I can settle into mount or side control-- I get lost. I also stupidly gave him my back during a really inelegant takedown attempt-- and he almost choked me, but had my jaw, not my throat-- so I just endured, and endured, and endured, and he gave up. He's a nice guy with a good attitude so I look forward to training with him more.

There was a high school (?) dude there too... at the beginning of open mat before I'd done any rolling, he sees me come in and start chatting with people.. mind you, I'm wearing white gi pants and a tank top that has drawings of people doing triangles across the front. I'm barefoot, on the mats, and my hair is braided up-- and he looks at me (he's all of 15 or 16) and asks if I do jiu jitsu. I say yep-- he blinks and looks shocked, and says "whoa! that's weird!" So I give him a raised eyebrow and then John pipes up "dude, watch out, she has a vicious choke" and I felt awesome. :)

But it wasn't all fun and games, because then a brownbelt named Dan worked me over a little, and taught me his favorite open guard pass. He also gave me some hints on switching my hips when someone has feet on my hips, which became very useful later on.

Then Jordan completely dominated me-- taught me a new choke-- redid the Jordan Roll on me as well as the pretzel -- swept me a couple times-- tested my base-- generally just tossed me around in only the nicest ways. Got me in at least two armbars and one good choke, as well as fist in jaw, too.

Tomorrow the Rhalan Gracie seminar, my takedown lesson, and Ivelin's little get together.

I'll try to post some Thanksgiving pics soon. I gained 6 POUNDS in one day-- can you believe it?! 126 to 132! UNREAL... it's got to be water.

Cara's coming to give me a haircut at 5 and I think I may nap before class at Copa tonight.

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