I was pretty sore when I woke up this morning and it took some convincing of myself to get me to go. I feel very good that I went, as usual. It was great that we got to roll, and then Chung did coaching on some pretty cool techniques and defenses to those techniques. I don’t feel super happy with my strengths in particular, so that is something that I need to work on. And maybe something that I get back into with my hand grip, or I know will continue to increase as I continue to train.

Brian - Blue Belt 1
  • Brian wasn’t feeling 100%, so we only did a light roll. There was quite a bit of movement and transitioning.
  • I did not do well in the transitions, and gave up my position a few times when I easily could have kept it.
  • I feel at this point like I’m over thinking some moves, and decide to delay them halfway in execution. I do better when I roll and do not specifically think about moves and just let them happen. every time that I tried to throw up a triangle on him he was easily able to evade. I originally thought it was something wrong with my technique but when I asked him he was pretty clear that he could see coming from a mile away. Thinking through it more, if I see someone throwing up a triangle I am also able to evade.
  • I need to work better and just breaking down his posture and focusing on that before throwing up moves. That kind of stuff works on white belts, but not blue belts

Marco - White Belt 1
  • I don’t remember this guy being as strong in the hands as he was today. You must be working on his grip strength. He completely owned me in the hand fighting, which then transitioned into sweeps and passes.
  • He is also strong in the core so if I do not have 100% good posture, is able to pull his hips up and knock me off-base. I need to start doing that more when I’m fighting from guard. He does not do good at keeping my posture broken after he breaks it though, so I’m typically able to recover. This does cause me to use quite a bit of energy though.
  • Marco was totally able to out wrestle me through the entire match. He beat me and transitions, and got me into very bad positions. I felt the entire time that I was in survival mode, which is not what should have happened. If there is someone as a better wrestler, I need to play to my strengths and slow down. He left his arm open a number of times, but I was never able to capitalize.

White Belt 2
  • We had a pretty good roll, and I really need to get his name.
  • I caught him in a very good triangle during transition. This is why it I needed to do more with Brian; as we are rolling figure out where my position needs to be and just execute on it. Once we got through the scramble, I was set up for the triangle, hooked my legs, and locked it in. He did say it felt weird because I was lower on his stomach and chest. I still finished the submission so I think I was right in not resetting it before doing the choke

Chung - Brown Belt
  • Chung is much smaller than me so I really need to adjust for that. Up to now I’ve been just trying to push him onto the ground which really doesn’t work. I need to continue attacking the arms instead of just looking for a pin, as he is just going to escape my pins over and over again like he has been doing.
  • This was probably my biggest issue throughout the whole role. I had them in good position a couple of times but was not worried about attacking and just try to hold him there which did not work. I need to continue to attack in transition and when pinning.
  • I can’t believe I crossed my legs when I took his back and he got a foot lock on me.



Dan - Purple Belt
  • overall, I feel like I did pretty good in this role considering how tired I was. We didn’t get to go the full five minutes, and I should’ve asked to continue because he was really wearing down and I would’ve had more openings.
  • This goes back to me just trying to pin and not continuing trying to attack. I just tried to keep his back on the ground, and he was able to find a way to sweep me.
  • The sweet that he used was one I’ve seen before which is a half butterfly guard sweep. I did not realize that he had a half butterfly guard until I was already in the air. I need to make sure I realize what his legs are doing when he is in half guard and not just continuing to play the top half game
  • half guard butterfly sweep: in half guard, hook your outside leg into their thigh. when you feel them pushing you back on your back, traps are opposite arm and open the butterfly.