Blue and Purple Belt Class Tonight

Went to the 6:30 blue belt and 7:30 purple belt classes tonight. Did some guard passing drills with a guy named Shayne (WB2S) and jacked up my back, basically being stubborn and letting him stack me up and just take it. I don't think it's a bad tweak, but it's sure sore tonight, I can barely bend over. Finnie said I should work on pushing my shoulders out of it when that happens and believe me, I won't forget. :)

Before that, I was working on the knee-on-stomach position. I've never really been shown what do to from there (Nick said that's something they teach in the purple belt class), but it's a really stable position and Shayne was having a tough time getting me out of it. Finnie kinda had a grin on when he told me that if I got to there, we could reset because that was good enough (we were technically told to be working on passing someone's guard, so I was assuming I had to get to mount or side control).

Purple belt class was cool. Worked with Colin (BlueB) a bit on guard passes and learned a good 'go to' stand-up guard pass that would probably work pretty well about 90-percent of the time, so long as I can keep good posture doing it. Not spending much time standing before going to pass would be a good way to up the percentages a bit, but that will require some practice.

Then played a bit of 'up, down, and back' for about 30 minutes. It's a passing the guard drill where you start out in someone's guard, then try to pass while basically they try to sub you or sweep you. No matter who wins, the guy who started in the guard (in the 'up' position), goes to having the next guy in line in his guard ('down'), then no matter who wins or looses, that guy rotates out (or 'back' to the wall.) Up. Down. Back. Kinda cool. One cool thing about it is that you always get a break, even if you do well. In King of the Hill drills, you keep rolling only if you win...so basically the better you do, the harder it gets. :)

Spent all the drills in the purple belt class today working on a technique I read about last night, the "rubber guard". Details here:
http://www.grapplearts.com/Rubber-Guard-Setup-1.htm

Just wanted to see if I could break someone's posture and while they were down there put that leg up there to keep them down and set up a triangle choke like that. Worked twice and I got it stuffed a few times, once with Collin (who just barely made it out...I basically gave up because my back was hurting), and Ben stuffed it twice but the third time we rolled, I got him with it too. It's definitely going into my toolbox. Wanted to try a cool choke I learned from side mount, but didn't get the chance.

Oh, one cool thing I actually got to work today was a wrist lock. Now, in class, they aren't really frowned on, but they are like 'dude, you have to be careful with them'. I got Ben with one and he was just like dumbfounded. He was like, "What was -that-? Is that 'legal'?"

Heh heh. It sure is. Helio Soneca actually taught me a wrist lock from the closed guard that I've tried a couple of times to use when rolling, but haven't been able to make it work just right yet. Still, I felt a little bad, like I was pulling something that was frowned on in BJJ or something, so I was talking with Nick about it and he was like
"Oh yeah, it's a totally legit move. It's a good one, but just do it carefully in here...*a pause* Did he tap?"
"Yeah"
"Nice".