life, kids, and brazilian jiu jitsu

Day 2 of the Leo Santos seminar at Martial Arts Planet.

Surprisingly, I feel better today than I did yesterday.  Today was the “no gi” day and we started on our feet hunting for opportunities to take our opponent down or to take their back.

Then we worked a short piece on an arm bar from guard with an Americana as back up (maybe more of an elbow crank).

The rest of the time was spent playing with different defence and offence involving butterfly guard.  Some chokes, one wicked neck crank, and some X-guard (at which, for now, I truly suck).

I am writing these down in my journal by hand for now and hope to summarize later.  The progressions are all logical but not always obvious in the execution.  Leo watched us all roll and his instructions were clear and simple.  He focused on key aspects of the particular move and went through the series in an expeditious fashion.

At the end we did a quick review and then rolled.  I went against my son at first and we both confirmed that we know each other’s game entirely too well.  He’s the only opponent who will poke me in the ribs with a finger if I lock him down.

Then I got to roll with Leo Santos for about 5 or 10 minutes.  He is very smooth and the thing I noticed the most was that he anticipated my every move.  And I mean EVERY move.  Very cool.

Then I wrestled Tyler, a blue belt who has been giving me a bit of help in the last few weeks.  With Tyler, what I notice is that I NEVER get in a position of advantage.  I am always defending.  He also lets me know if I am doing something suicidal (it hasn’t helped me yet).

I seemed to have a bit more gas than normal.  Maybe my fitness is improving.

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