Tap, tap, tap...

Yesterday, Kevin facilitated the class. After some light stretching, we proceeded to pummelling drills. Again, Kevin emphasises this drill to promote sensitivity and increased tactile ability. He then taught us another variation of the bodylock takedown, which entailed taking down your partner forward. This transitions into side control. Important thing to be aware of is not to get caught up in a half guard after the takedown.

This nicely segued into half guard escapes. Kevin demonstrated the concept of head control using your shoulder. This is a very important concept, because where the head goes, so does the body. You achieve this by getting your arm under your partner's neck and grabbing the gi cloth on his shoulder. Make sure that your partner's head is cradled in the crook of your elbow. Only then you can drive your shoulder against the side of his face to force him to face the opposite direction. You can then drop your bum/hips on the mat,your chst toward the ceiling toprevent you partner to control your posture. Once you have this, you can the concentrate on getting your leg out of the guard.This could mean using your hand, other knee, foot,etc. to ease that leg out. Kevin enthuses doing this in stages, rather than using one move,as it would more than likely be a power move than a technical move.

After that, another drilling on the butterfly guard and sweep to improve "feeling your opponent". A new concept of what I call "deception" was introduced. This is about moving your partner onto one side, and as you sense a change in his centre of gravity to compensate for this action, you then sweep him onto the other side. Wicked.

We had 4 rounds of 5-minute sparring. Jack, Keith, Little Steve, and Mammoth Steve became my rolling buddies. Mammoth Steve clearly had at least 50 kilos on me! I caught him once in an over-under but he was so big that I couldn't shift his weight. We just laughed.

In a nutshell, I was trying to survive for 20-odd minutes. I did try some submissions - I like Ezekiel best, but I was getting caught so much in chokes that my neck was sore and bruised. Not that it mattered, I just kept on getting back for more. It didn't matter that I was tapping, I was more concerned on surviving longer than the last time. And I was having fun.