Best class of 2011!

Tonight was kind of awesome! Tim has had some nagging injuries over the last week so we have been doing some light drilling. I walked in tonight with the expectations to drill Monday's techniques. Instead we all warmed up and Tim told the class that he wanted a higher belt and white belt to pair up and for the white belt to learn from the blue. Ingenious!!!

I paired up with a blue belt and there was some awkward silence to begin with, but then we started talking about tournament strategies and game plans. I have never came up with a game plan, but he went over his with me a little bit. It was cool to get to see his thought process and how he worked his moves from different positions from higher percentage moves to moves where he would lose his advantageous position and his counters. He showed me a really cool arm triangle from half guard that I had never thought of. It works well if you have really long arms like he and I do.


We went back and forth talking techniques for awhile then we had open mat. I started rolling with one of the newer guys who has only been there about 3 months. We started rolling and I ended up in his guard.  He went for a flower sweep, but he made the same mistake I did in my tournament. He grabbed the wrong side arm and I was able to post out. I stopped and showed him how to grip the correct arm. Then I had the idea to just roll and end in positions, in his guard, to see what techniques he could remember. I was surprised, he remembered a couple of sweeps from guard and a couple of submission attempts.

Overall, I give tonight's class 4 stars!! I made it to class 2 times this week(thanks to my wonderful wife), I felt better tonight than I have felt in months, it was cool to see some of the newer guys progression, and I know a couple of new techniques. So yeh, 4 stars!!