@Irishman92 I absolutely think this is a positive. My only real criticism with my school so far has been the (relative) lack of emphasis on self-defense. The gripe is minor for me, since the scope of the subject matter is so incredibly broad. We’ve been working on nothing but good stuff, all very practical. No donkey guard or any tournament-only techniques.
I never voiced any of my concerns to my instructor. I really liked what I heard in class today. I’m very excited to see what comes next.
Yeah, we are too. Keep up the good work.
@biker Thanks. I’ll give you a hint about what comes next… Me getting mangled!
Wednesday 9/13/17
BJJ 45 min
Got a few early morning rolls in at the four-stripe brown belt’s house. Spent a little time refining my Americana, working a friendly shin-across-the-face armbar if that fails and also working an escape from turtle called the fat man roll.
I’m definitely making life harder for my high-level training partner. I’m making more escapes, defending more attacks and working myself into good positions. I’m still getting tapped, but he’s working harder for it.
I also got a chance to roll with a blue belt from his school. I was proud to come with a warning of “He’s a handful”. It was a great roll with a lot of new challenges, lots of escapes and trading positions. I was close to an Americana on him but his defense was great. He eventually tapped me with a simple armbar while I was in his guard. Even though I got tapped it was reassuring to know that I could hang.
Friday 9/15/17
BJJ 60 min
Open mat Friday at my gym. In attendance were me, my instructor (who can’t really roll yet), our four-stripe brown friend, a white belt from his school and a blue belt from his school. White belt has black belts in Aikido and Karate. The blue belt was also a brown or black belt in Judo, 6’3", 240 pounds and has a 5-0 record as an amateur MMA fighter, been out of the game for a year or so.
I took on the white belt first. Won the takedown, took side control, went for Americana, defended, pressure pressure pressure, took mount, Americana attempt again, defended, defended, he rolled to his side, I took Russian Mount, went for an armbar, defended, went for choke, defended but the opening for the armbar was there, and I got it.
I had my chance at the blue belt next. He won the takedown and basically dominated me in mount, stopping all of my attempts to trap/roll and bump him off with my hips. He came REALLY close to getting me in an armbar, but I defended it and moved into his guard and hit the gas. Smash pass, side control, pressure pressure pressure, took mount, held mount for a bit, couldn’t get any attacks going. He made a good escape and ended up in my guard. He was working to pass and I had a sleeve and was playing open guard when he pointed out that I was gushing blood from my lip.
I guess we call that a draw.
Blue belt was mostly done at that point. He’s easing back into the game and on to the mats, and I don’t blame him. I got some more rolls in with the brown belt, all of which ended with me tapping. He gave me some stand-up lessons on defending the takedown he was putting on me all night and we worked on side control escapes some more. I had a real “aha” moment for making my frames and then keeping my elbow connected to my knee and using my frames to keep them in my guard.
Now to work on putting it into practice. Such a fun hour of hard training, and it was a real pleasure to roll with a blue belt who was so skilled and had great size and strength. I hope to get the chance to train with him more often.
Happy weekend, everyone!
Sunday 9/17/17
BJJ 90 min
My brown belt friend now has access to a sweet location for Sunday mornings. I resisted the urge to play with the wooden samurai swords, nun-chucks, foam swords, real swords, sai, foam armor sets and all kinds of cool shit, and instead directed my attention towards the two senior belts in front of me.
In addition to my four-stripe brown belt friend, we had a four-stripe purple belt show up from a different school. He was a stout lad.
We did a little technique work on, what else, side control escapes, building on our earlier work. Things are starting to click, hopefully I’ll be able to put some of that into practice on Monday night.
The only thing notable about my rolls were a few escapes I made to get out of the bottom and gain a more favorable position. Otherwise I just got tapped. A lot. By both of the senior belts. It was somewhat reassuring to see the brown belt do the exact same thing to the purple belt that he does to me!
Monday
BJJ 120 min
My instructor’s healing up well, and he was back on the mats to teach the whole class today. We began with takedowns. Single leg pick and the other one I forgot to note.
Ground technique was attacks from mount. Cross-collar choke, chainsaw choke and the Americana. All stuff I’ve seen before, and I like coming back around to it after several months. It keeps getting easier to do.
Rolling began with a friend of mine who has been coming for a few weeks now. Strong, athletic younger guy who is a pretty solid lifter but no background in martial arts. I let him have mount to start, and he went right for the choke he was taught today. Attaboy. I rolled him onto his back, passed his guard, gave him a taste of side control pressure, took mount, sunk the choke, he rolled me (attaboy!) and then I finished the choke from guard. I let him fuck around with chokes on me after that. He’ll do fantastic if he stays consistent.
I started on my back for the next five or six rolls with mostly senior belts, working my escapes from side control and mount. Nothing notable, just starting from my back, getting reps in and got tapped a few times. My knee-on-belly escapes kept leading to armbars, and I need to fix that.
Got a lot of rolls in last night. Great workout.
So good working those techniques against resistance, especially when it all falls into place!
@Irishman92 Absolutely. Monday night actually had two firsts for me during live rolls, my first time tapping someone with a choke and my first time tapping someone from inside my guard. The way I explained it to my buddy is that I’m a toddler, which seems pretty advanced to him, a newborn, but we’re still both children, easily managed by the adults.
Wednesday 9/20/17
BJJ 30 min
Got a few early morning rolls in at my brown belt friend’s house. I think the first one lasted close to 5 min, so I’m not giving him any easy attacks. Progress! He still tapped me a few times of course, but that’s a small price to pay for one-on-one instruction. Today’s technique was an escape from mount and a knee-on-belly escape, specifically addressing the problem of me getting repeatedly armbar’d on Monday when I was trying them on my gym’s senior purple belt.
Good way to start the day!
9/29/17
BJJ 120 min
I’ve been sick for the last week. It is extremely impolite to roll while sick, so I’ve been off the mats recovering. I should have done some lifting, some kettlebell stuff or just made an effort to get off my ass, but I just took it easy.
Tonight I trained as much as I could. I got a few rolls in with my brown belt friend at his house. My first rol’ I WON the takedown with a cross-side ankle pick. I had side control on him for a lot longer than he wanted before he got his guard back. I managed to pass his guard and re-take side control! He regained guard and then caught me in an armbar to tap me.
I’m learning to find the joy in crushing defeat, and this was a big win for me. Winning the takedown, holding side control AND fully passing his guard in the same roll is progress. For sure.
We rolled a few more times and they all went his way, but I’m overall making things much more difficult for him. Progress for sure.
Next we packed it up and headed to the gym, where my instructor awaited us both for open mat. Nobody else showed, so it was just me and both of my instructors. My black belt instructor is still not 100% in one of his knees, so he’s just limited with what he can do. But he still rolled, and he still tapped me each time but one. We called a draw because I had him in a side control position he couldn’t escape with his bad knee.
That’s also progress!
We rolled a lot with each other. Didn’t do any drilling tonight, just ROLL. I love this shit so much and I feel so fortunate to be able to train with high level guys so much.
Changes at work means I’m going to be training a lot more frequently in October. Maybe a LOT more frequently. I’m excited to see what comes next!
Happy weekend everyone!
Sunday 10/1/17
BJJ 120 min
Sunday morning open mat at my brown belt friend’s house. A white belt and a blue belt from his school showed up, and a good time was had.
The white belt didn’t roll too much today, and didn’t ask for a roll from me. We were rolling around a bit doing a knee-on-belly escape drill and he managed to elbow me in the eye. This is the second shiner this dude’s given me. I’m beginning to think he’s sour at me for some reason, but who knows.
I rolled with the brown belt several times. Highlights include gaining and holding side control and making a few escapes. Otherwise he tapped me a ton.
I got two rolls in with the blue belt from his school. First one he played very well and choked me in a way I’ve never been choked before after working his ass off to escape my guillotine.
Second one I won with an Americana after folding him up nice and neat with a technique I don’t remember the name of stemming from keza getami (unsure of spelling there). This guy is very very flexible and finds all kinds of ways to fill space. He’s much more skilled than me, but its not like the four years I spent lifting weights don’t count when you’re rolling.
I do love tapping upper belts though. Not going to lie!
I let the guys do a lot of drilling on me, as it is a good opportunity to practice on a brute who doesn’t really mind if the technique involves digging the knee into my solar plexus. The brown belt plays mount differently with me (or someone with similar attributes) to respect my hip strength, my circumference and my strong arms, and he shared this stuff with us all.
Other technique drills include the same knee-on-belly escape and a back take from side control.
Great way to spend a Sunday morning!
Monday 10/2/17
BJJ 120 min
Last night I went to go check out Maine’s largest BJJ school and take a white belt class. It was taught by the head instructor, which was a real treat. This is the guy who my four-stripe brown belt friend studies under.
I’m not sure of the terminology of what we worked on, but I’ll do my best. It was basically a sequence. First up was a grip break when someone is grabbing you around your waist from behind. Next was how you hook you leg behind theirs to prevent them from picking you up. Then we worked on breaking the grip, spinning around and pummeling for underhooks. Next we worked on breaking that same grip around the belly from the turtle position. One option was to roll over and spin your legs into guard, then slam your hand into their neck while using your other hand and your feet to get back up in base (standing). Another option was to go from turtle to standing and use the grip break and shoulder pressure to break the grips, then turn around and pummel for underhooks.
All very practical stuff.
This school does situational rolling before free rolling, so we did that next. 8 people line up on the mats, then we all take turns beginning from turtle and either trying to pull guard or stand up. Basically working everything we learned today against someone trying to submit you.
Then we free rolled. First roll was with a white belt who is also a 270 pound wrestling coach. I held my own on my feet for a while before he took me down with a single-leg. He got side control, kept it, and choked me with my gi. Very well done on his part, he was of a very similar build to me.
Next I rolled with a “white belt”. This was one of my stranger BJJ encounters on the mats so far. We started seated. He definitely got the better of me, but he also “tapped for me” once when he was trying to choke me but failing (he just patted me on the back and sat back down in front of me to start over). Then he tapped to moderate pressure while I was doing a back control escape. He played a lot of guard and I only passed it once. I was thinking that this guy was probably the best white belt I’ve ever rolled with, until I got more info.*
Next I rolled with a teenager. I let him take mount and go to work. I thought I was playing with him, but he caught me in an armbar I didn’t expect when I bucked him off. Otherwise I let him work chokes and tried to make it hard for him.
Finally I got to roll with a 6’3" senior brown belt who looked like Dolph Lundgren. This dude was super nice and absolutely butchered me over and over. I was so tired at that point I don’t think I could even put up much of a fight.
All in all it was a great experience. I loved how he runs the class I love how he thinks about BJJ and he’s definitely the top dog of BJJ in Maine. He’s got a lot of pro fighters and high level BJJ guys under him now and the mats were packed. No disrespect to my instructor, but this is where I’d train if it wasn’t a 45 min drive for me each way with $6 in tolls.
*This white belt was a curious individual. I asked him how long he’d been training and he said “5 or 6 years, I just don’t feel like testing”. At this school there is a curriculum and you need to test certain aspects of it to earn each stripe on your belt. You don’t go to the next color belt until you test for all four stripes. I see the wisdom in this, and it is reflected in the high-quality of all of this guy’s upper belts. However, this is also how you get white belts who would be purple belts in just about any other school that doesn’t test for promotion.
By simply refusing to take the test but continuing to train continuously, he is a zero-stripe white belt who can tap most blues. He is a very strange byproduct of that gym’s standards, and the first guy who has tapped when I’m doing a back control escape.
I’m living vicariously through your posts.
@biker Thanks! It is nice to know that people take delight in tales of me getting choked out over and over again.
Wednesday 10/4/17
BJJ 60 min
Early morning rolls with the brown belt at his house.
I gave blood yesterday and didn’t sleep much, so I wasn’t putting up my best fight at 6:30 am. I’m still defending and making him work to tap me, and I think our first roll lasted a good 3 or 4 min. This is a dramatic improvement to getting tapped in 3 or 4 seconds, which is what happened the first time I rolled with him.
We rolled a bit more and finished up with a flow roll with special rules. If you do the technique right, the person gives you the position. If you defend with good technique, you deny it. I’m starting to understand what good technique is to actually be able to play this game. It is a good tool to work without getting too banged up.
Drilling for the day was what he called tight passing. This is a good tool for a guy my size. It involves getting my elbows inside his guard, and using shin pressure against one of his thighs while keeping him as tight to me as possible. Grips can be on belt or pant legs, depending on how I want to pass. This also sets up a stack pass, which he gave me some great detail on. From the tight pass position, cycle my hands down around his legs, grabbing the belt if I can. From there he told me to power clean the body up into the stacked position, keeping both of my arms hooked under the legs to stop the triangle counter, and immediately get pressure on their hips to keep them in place.
From there it is just a game of pressure and misery until they beg me to pass into side control. This is a nasty guard pass that I am very well suited to. I’ve used it many times before but I’ve always been missing important details to do it better. I’m excited to see what I can put into practice.
Friday 10/6/17
BJJ 90 min
Open mat Fridays at the gym.
Tonight’s turn-out was my instructor, my brown belt friend, a purple belt and a new white belt. Lots of good rolls were had.
I started off with the purple belt from my gym, letting him have top. He’s half my weight, so I try to work technique and not smash the guy. That’s how I end up in a triangle choke, which he set up very well. I used a little bit of smash next, and I submitted him with an Americana.
Anyone who tells you that attributes don’t matter in BJJ is wrong. I’m not better at BJJ than this guy, not even close. I’m just twice his size with enough skill and awareness to stop his big guy killers and enough physical attributes to impose my slightly-developed skills on him. That’s all that’s going on with this white belt tapping a purple.
Next up was my instructor, who is still nursing a major knee surgery. I either started in guard or let him have top to work side control escapes. I actually made a side control escape on him, rolling him over and taking side control myself. This is progress. I also spent some time working on counters to him breaking down my posture in guard. He’s really good at that but there’s not reason I shouldn’t be an absolute monster to contain in someone else’s guard. Stuff for me to work on for sure.
More rolls with my brown belt friend, and the high point was winning another takedown. Otherwise he just used me to run drills on, as per usual. I enjoy making this guy work harder.
Our newest student and friend of mine joined us for the last half of open mat. This guy’s definitely caught the BJJ bug and I hope he sticks with it. He’s mid 20’s, about 5’10, about 175-180, very lean with a 455x3 deadlift. Out of all the younger guys I’ve lifted with over the years he was the best lifter by far, and he’s been asking me about BJJ for months now before finally taking the plunge.
I tapped him, but he’s a fucking handful already. He’s easily the best athlete we have at my gym, and he’s game. That’s real important. There’s a lot of guys who talk big but turn into great big pussies when someone plays the game for real with them. This guy soaks up the pressure and fights to the end.
He’s a great addition to the gym, and he’s totally digging his first steps on the mat. Really cool to be a part of that.
Happy weekend, everyone!
Sunday 10/8/17
BJJ 60 min
AM rolls at my brown belt friend’s house
A white belt from his school also showed up, so he ran a little class for us. We began with strategies for punch prevention from the mount. Keep your elbows stapled to the mat to prevent them from taking high mount. When they go to punch hip them out a little bit to make them post with their hands instead of landing a punch. Karate-chop the elbow you want to trap with the far-side hand, then trap the arm with the near side hand. Position your foot to trap the near side foot, then bridge and roll.
I’ve been doing this successfully for some time, but there are little details he’s helping me improve on. Getting these details right is the difference between the moves working on chumps and the moves working on people who know how to play the game. Trapping the arm more reliably and positioning my foot so they don’t necessarily know it is ready to trap them because there’s no contact. Rolling them with more hip strength too.
Next we drilled armbars from mount and from guard. I need to be a little less polite with these, and lose my bad feelings about stuffing someone’s face into the mat. This is partly why the senior blue belt at my school keeps defeating my armbars. The same face stuff is also important from guard.
Got a few rolls in. The brown belt and I spent a few minutes jockeying for the takedown, then he planted me on my ass, side control, took mount right away (because I didn’t get my knee up to stop him) then he took high mount right away (because I didn’t staple my elbows to the mat) then he pinned both of my arms with his feet and choked me with his bare hand. Not my best moment.
I rolled witht the white belt next and didn’t use any smash on him. We traded positions around a bit before I got him in mount and he served up his arm for an easy Americana. He defended my armbars very well though. I’m not particularly good at them yet, but he definitely did his part. He’s a squirrely dude, with black belts in Karate and Aikido.
After that we spent a little time on takedowns. My ankle pick is apparently quite good, and we worked on some single-leg takedown stuff that can stem right off of an ankle pick that doesn’t quite go as I planned. I’m good at putting people on the ground already, I want to get really good at it. I have no reason not to be.
It is an unseasonably warm 70 degrees today and extremely humid. One hour is enough of that shit for me today! Soaked!
Wednesday 10/11/17
BJJ 60 min
6:30 am rolls at my brown belt friend’s house. Four other dudes have an invite to this, but I’m the only one showing up for over a month now. We joked a bit about how everyone says they don’t have time to train, everyone said they could make 6:30 and nobody ever does.
It was in that moment that my regret for drinking 8 beers the night before turned to pride.
He’s teaching me the game of flow rolling, and I get it more and more each time. You’re doing the same thing, you just slow it down and dial back the force as much as you can. Flow rolling is also cool because a lot of times he’ll just freeze and point something out to me, or I’ll ask him a question and you can see it all right there in-context.
Best of all, you still end up getting choked, at least when you flow roll with a four-stripe brown belt.
Technique for the day was a simple side sweep from guard. I’ve done this before but only once, so revisiting the technique is needed. For the side sweep the key is to set it up. There’s four or five doors in the hallway he showed me, but there’s only one door into the hallway that you need to go through first.
Open the door. Threaten the choke. Get one hand deep in the collar and use your other arm to break down their posture if you can. Then you lift up your choke arm to give your other arm a way in. If you win that battle, just choke the motherfucker.
If they defend, and most guys will, you keep playing the game while they swim with their arms to stop you. Eventually they might decide to control your arm with pressure on your bicep. Once their weight shifts forward, the sweep becomes available.
Hip out big and get your top shin into their hips while you pull them forward with the collar grips, getting yourself into as much of a fetal position as you can, pulling them as far up on you as you can. Then you basically deadlift them. Grab the elbow with your free hand and pull it away from their knee while you extend your hips, just like a deadlift.
Magic.
Friday 10/13/17
BJJ 75 min
Open mat at the gym
3 different schools in attendance. My instructor, me and another new-ish white belt from my school. My four-stripe brown belt friend and a blue belt from his school came. Plus we had a blue belt from another local school that is on my list to drop in and train at.
I rolled with the black belt first. His leg is still injured so I gave him side control and told him to bring the pressure. He did. My goal for this roll was to endure, and I’m definitely miles ahead of where I started. He tapped me eventually, but I made him work to hold mount and I held out on his choke for as long as I could. I was complimented on my grit afterwards!
Next roll was with the visiting blue belt, and the only guy I’ve never rolled with out of the bunch. He was a big boy and he went to knee-on-belly, which forced me to tap. I didn’t tap to the pressure, a choke or a joint lock, I tapped because it stirred up my intestines and made me need to shit very urgently.
Rippetoe wisdom still applies. Don’t shit when you need to roll and don’t roll when you need to shit.
Next roll was with the blue belt from my brown belt friend’s school. He’s a wiry little dude and very, very skilled. I forgot how, but he tapped me. Next roll I got the better of him, passed guard, took mount and tormented him into giving me his arm and I submitted him with an Americana.
Next roll was with my school’s new white belt, the athletic 20-something with a very good deadlift. My first roll I tapped him with a guillotine that he served up to me during takedown. Got it locked in, pulled guard, extend the hips. Easy tap but the senior belts showed him how to defend that nonsense right afterwards.
Next roll with the white belt I forget who won the takedown, but I advanced to mount again and gave him a fair warning that he’s going to feel some pressure. I got my hooks in and put all of my weight on him, which isn’t fun. Not fun at all. I was trying to armbar him but he was so quick to pull his hands away that I never secured the arm. He is a very strong, very fit ball of youthful energy. This guy definitely has a good chance at pulling off attribute-based white belt magic, but I rode the wave of his energy until his energy ran out. Easy Americana for the win. No gas left in his tank.
Next I rolled with the smaller blue belt some more, and kept it playful. We worked on gift wrapping and taking the back. No real win or lose, just working on back takes and choking each other. I like training with this guy. He’s a lot smaller but so much more skilled than me, so I can learn a lot of technique from him. He learns how to fight big strong goons better by training with me. There’s almost always a win for both people if you train conscientiously.
I finally got to roll with the other visiting blue belt again. I think he might have thought I was soft, on account of me tapping to his knee-on-belly earlier. With my bowels fully evacuated, I was itching to roll again. He tried pulling guard but I got right around that and into side control. From there I took mount, lost it, regained it and then tried to choke him until this blue belt served me up an Americana, which I had to take.
I gave him side control to start the next roll, and made the escape, took side control, gift wrapped one arm, took mount, tried to keep the gift wrap but lost it. He forgot about his other arm while he was trying to unwrap the other arm, and I got him in an Americana again.
I just high-fived him and thanked him for the roll, but I was jumping up and down inside. This guy was a 20-something guy in the low 200 pounds with two and a half years of training and a blue belt. I tapped him twice in a row, even giving him the huge advantage of starting with side control.
The upper belts seem to be right. I am a handful.
I got a few obligatory rolls in with my brown belt friend. I tried jumping up and pulling mid-air guard on him, but this did not end well for me. He showed me a non-knucklehead move that can actually work. You still use your body to pull them towards you as you fall, but you shift perpendicular and get a leg out in front of them. I’ll work on this more with him I think I can use it.
Then he choked me really nicely with a triangle, but he did something a little different I’ll need to understand better. Add it to the already long, sure to get many times longer List Of Shit These Motherfuckers Can Do To Me.
Happy weekend everyone!
Sunday 10/15/17
BJJ 120 min
Open training at my brown belt friend’s house. The young blue belt from his school also showed up. We got right into rolling, and we rolled a LOT.
Highlights of the day include not tapping anyone, even though I’ve tapped this blue belt a few times before AND I’m twice his size. He’s a fucking warrior, with a blue belt from the baddest BJJ instructor in Maine. It is an honor to train with these dudes, and they honor me by insisting - INSISTING - that I use my physical attributes as much as I can.
My instructor tells me to do the same with a few people at my regular gym, but go easy on white belts and a few upper belts who are at a significant attribute disadvantage, and I absolutely respect that. I can understand why not everyone wants to sign up for the smash from a training partner who is so much bigger and stronger.
The rolls were fantastic today. Lots of escapes and position trading, which is really helpful for me right now. I even made a few escapes on my brown belt friend, including one from mount and a few from when he had my back.
These sessions always have drilling, but it always comes about spontaneously. We’ll get to talking about what just happened in the roll, and then we explore it in more detail. Today I was given a yooooge eye-opener on what to do after I’ve gift wrapped someone’s arm, which I have a few ways of doing now. Keep the arm controlled with pressure. Once the elbow is on the mat, get their forehead on the mat. Keep pressure on, then get your nipples below their shoulders and keep pushing until the back is yours.
From there we play a choking game. We also drilled choke escapes from the back over and over again, along with a counter to said escapes.
Starting with a sliding collar choke, you defend by grabbing the sleeve of the choke hand AND the shoulder, as far up as you can grip. You also trap the other hand with your arm against your side. When you feel the arm you’ve trapped free, you sword chop with both hands, push the choking arm back, swing your head around and then sword chop again down on the safe side of your head.
The counter to this is to use your free arm to shoot in for a rear-naked choke while both of your opponent’s arms are working to clear the choke hand.
We also went over arm bars from back-take. I’ll need more explanation on these, but mostly more drilling. I don’t remember the sequence, but it all stemmed off of attacking with a choke, then shifting grips to the wrists.
I can only absorb so much it seems.
Killing it mate. How heavy are you these days?
@Irishman92 I’ve been sitting at a carb’d up 285 for most of the last year or so. Haven’t really lost a pound doing BJJ, but I’m not exactly doing my part day-in, day-out to achieve that.
Monday 10/16/17
BJJ 90 min
I actually made it to my normal class this week for the first time in October. Back control month.
Takedown for the day was this little side-to-side foot sweep, I totally forgot the term.
Technique was a sequence that went… Takedown->side control->kesa getame->take mount->take back->choke/defend choke/make escape
We worked variations on this one over and over again. Very similar to what I worked on with my friends from the other school on Sunday.
Rolling was a lot of fun. First roll was with our smaller purple belt. I gave him side control and the rumble began. We traded just about every position in that roll and neither of us got the submission. Just lots of escapes and defenses, lots of fun.
Next roll was with my still-a-bit-injured black belt instructor. I also asked him to take side control. He slowly worked me into a north/south choke and got REALLY close to sinking it. I managed the best escape I’ve ever done on him, using his momentum to roll him over and take side control. I kept trying to advance to mount but he stopped me each time. I did manage to keep him in side control however, just couldn’t get anything going. This might be the first time I’ve gone a full 5 min without tapping to my instructor.
After that was our senior blue belt, and he tapped me with an armbar. This guy is probably the best blue belt I’ve rolled with from any school. We just flow rolled after that and he made me work. I was getting tired though.
Next roll was with our senior purple belt. He tapped me with an arbar too. I was pretty wiped out at that point and didn’t put up much of a fight, but I survived for the last half of the roll.
I’m pooped!