Gracie class, evening 11/11

Class tonight: two judo takedowns (a standard seoi-nage, the counter, and the re-counter, kouchi-gari.)

Then a scissor guard pass:

Then I opted to skip the womens' class-- no one comes regularly outside of the womens' class so they tend to be relatively soft, and I just didn't feel like messing with it much. I did practice guard passing and sweeps with Brandy for about 15 min because I think it's important to encourage women to get into jiu jitsu. But then I worked with Jordan on a few fun things.

2. The Pretzel: This can be an open or butterfly guard pass, or a takedown from the clinch. I lost track of exactly how to do it, but it starts with a cross-body armdrag, and you interlock your two arms around their one, then roll over your shoulder that started the armdrag.

3. A new choke that's making the rounds.. unfortunately the details escape me, but I've emailed for clarification.

Jordan is fun to roll with, he's very strong and doesn't take it easy on me when he's got dominant position, but he moves methodically and allows me to think about things as they're happening, plus he's patient about stopping in the middle to explain how something works. That Jordan Roll was great fun-- he did it to me and I was like a little kid after a roller coaster-- "do it again! do it again! show me!" And he has excellent control, even when he did the pretzel to me as a takedown from clinch, it barely hurt at all.

LOL... lately I notice how often during rolling (or normal existence) jits people have pops and clicks and grinding noises, which are dismissed as "normal"-- it seems we shouldn't have noises be normal! But inherent in the activity is the development of these constant minor injuries. Likewise, the concept of acceptable pain-- the pretzel as a throw definitely crimped my bicep, but I was fine with it.