Hey everyone! I’m publishing these instead of keeping them private as some of my mentors have demanded progress notes. Its easier to share and possibly even get comments/hints from fellow practitioners by doing it this way.

Takedown class: Backfalls, sidefall + technical standup, grip stripping, snapdown series, snapdown + hiza guruma, snapdown + double leg takedown, free gripfighting for 2 minutes and ate an accidental headbutt to the nose for my troubles.

Ground class: closed guard pass – opened guard by standing up, inserting a leg, then sitting down into combat base. Cut across the thigh with the knee, then passed. It went almost exactly like this. A little more digging revealed that its called “the logsplitter”

The second series began in closed guard against someone with good posture. It was very similar to this video from Draculino – use the knee to break the grip of one arm while maintaining control of the other with a same side grip at the elbow and a cross grip at the lapel near the collar bone. Establish a high guard with the gripped arm forward of the hips, bridge and adjust the arm for the triangle, then swivel and fiddle with leg position for the choke. If the triangle isn’t working, the next step in the series was unlock the locking leg on the triangle, bring it briefly to the floor to get some spring in order to get the leg over the head and the ankles crossed while rolling up on the shoulder opposite the trapped arm. Then its time to arch and arm bar, something like this.

This was the last move drilled – going for the triangle using the knee to break the grip and clear the arm, but the tricksy opponent pulls his arm out to defend against the triangle. Draculino demonstrates it very well here, and adds the additional tip to force the opponent’s head to the mat to break his posture. I’ll link to another Grapplearts video for an explanation of triangles and some funky variations.

My brain was fried by the end, so no rolling this time. Now that I feel like I’m starting to have some game and my cardio’s getting back on track, I’ll add that to the mix!