17/05/2019 - Friday daytime, more berimbolo drilling. Even though I hate berimbolos

Class #1147
Artemis BJJ (Easton Road), Can Sönmez, Bristol, UK - 17/05/2019

It was just Paulina today, but really good session, very fun rolling with her. She has improved so much: genuinely passed my guard twice, I wasn't taking it easy on her. Awesome! Nothing better than seeing your students get better, particularly small female students who have to overcome a lot (e.g., big white belts using too much strength, getting stuck defending all the time, technique often being negated by pure strength even when they're doing things right, that kind of thing).

That meant it became a private lesson. She wanted to continue working on berimbolos and lasso sweeps, so we kept that up. Sparring was super useful for me too, as I learned lots about my x guard and set ups. I was finding that if I was trying to grab a collar, always immediately shoot the other hand for the other collar if they block. They worked repeatedly. Once I can overhook the leg, x guard becomes much easier. Setting it up by pushing the far leg helps, disrupt their balance, then pull them back in once I've got the leg in place.

I was also using deep de la Riva x more to go for that same x guard sweep. It was a feature of the session, because Alvin (Mikal's student) had recommended a deep de la Riva x set up yesterday for the berimbolo. Useful stuff.