Spoiled

I'm feeling pretty spoiled in Jiu-Jitsu right now.  Not only is Amy teaching a class just for me, but yesterday Conan let me decide what we were going to work on in class!  I chose taking the back from guard, because as Joe put it "You want to go from your comfort zone to their worst nightmare!".  Precisely! You can read the details on Josh's blog.

Cesar brought a couple of his students from York yesterday,
and we took a picture to commemorate the visit.

(Standing: Conan, idk, Cesar, Bauer, Will, Jerad, Josh
Kneeling: Jordan, idk, Mike, me)

I got a chance to try one of the things we practiced when I got the underhook setup while rolling with Conan, but of course he knew exactly what I was trying to do, and no matter how hard I tried, he wouldn't let me get my arm around his head.  However, at one point when I had him in guard, he sat back and allowed me to mount him.  I asked him why he reversed himself, and he said "I didn't want to be in your guard."  Ahahaha!   You know, you could have just passed, like a hot knife through butter.

Normally I have a hard time deciding what I want to work on when asked, but taking the back from guard is a skill I've recently been wanting to focus on.  There are some submission possibilities along the way, and Conan also showed us how to reverse if they defend the back take.  It was like lightbulbs were going off in my head yesterday.  I'm really starting to be able to see how things work together, and how you can use combinations to take advantage of whatever your opponent does to defend.  You can't always get from point A (closed guard) to point B (back mount) in one step, but it could open up other options. 

I don't know what I did to deserve the good Jiu-Jitsu karma that's been coming my way, but I am grateful. Our class might be small in comparison to some others, but that means we get the benefit of a personal touch.