05/06/2018 - Tuesday Daytime

Class #991
Artemis BJJ (MYGYM Bristol), Can Sönmez, Bristol, UK - 05/06/2018

Unusually small turnout today, with just Rob popping down. Possibly the nice weather we've been having? Either way, I did what I normally do when that happens, which is to effectively give them a private lesson. Rob didn't have anything in particular he wanted to work on, so I ran through a bunch of half guard stuff. We covered off guard recovery (both the standard and the sitting guard style I've been practicing), a toe grab sweep and finally went through a pass.

I annoyingly still can't spar safely due to the knee injury, though I have been able to do it with a few people I know I can trust to keep things slow and steady. Sam arrived later for open mat, but again it was just me, as Rob had to head back to work. So I couldn't spar, but was able to do a bit of drilling. Sam generally likes to do mostly sparring, but I was able to pick his brain a bit regarding knee shield, as that's a part of the sitting guard style I've been testing.

The other thing I wanted to practice was the loop choke from there. I keep finding this ends up as a windpipe choke, which isn't what I want. While that will get a tap, I stick with 'clean' blood chokes. Crushing your training partner's windpipe is not a tactic I'm interested in, I like to keep training friendly and with no lasting damage! ;)

For the loop choke, it's easy for the pressure to end up sliding in front of their neck. I'm therefore trying to get it angled around so it is pressing into the sides. I ended up with something a bit like an ezequiel that didn't feel quite right. I know Oli Geddes did some vids on the half guard loop choke, I shall double check those. Or perhaps I'm out of luck and it is normally windpipe heavy, in which case I'll just switch to something else. :)