All three drills involved gripping the opponent's gi pants and knees to secure leg control and moving swiftly around to bypass the legs and avoid getting stuck in the guard of your opponent... so you end up in a position where you can drop down into side control. These had to be done at speed and needed to be in a regular rhythm and your feet needed to operate in unison. I found this really tough.
We then went into a sparring drill where the person on the bottom had to catch his standing opponent in half-guard while the standing man had to pass and drop into side control. We worked our way though a line of opponents, then when we came back to our original opponent it was time to swap... so the person on the bottom then became the person standing and had to work his way down the line again. I did OK at passing but I sucked when it came to defending from a seated position. These drills need much more work.
When paired up for sparring we had different goals: in the first five-minute round I had to submit my much better white belt opponent while he had to score a certain number of points. I held on and just managed to deprive him of the number of points he needed. In reality he battered me and passed and swept me far too easily but when I was about to lose I really kicked in and got some stubborn defence in. A victory of sorts.
In the next five-minute round I got utterly booted by a very good white belt whose hip and general mobility was superb, then a spar with a very big purple belt saw me gently but comprehensively out-classed. I did manage to nearly sink an arm triangle in at one point but he saw the danger coming and it quickly passed as he escaped. On the plus side I am now trying to hip escape and recover guard much more than I used to but I'm still not fluid enough at it.
I also had a roll with a new white belt and just relaxed and got into the positions. I did gently try a few single legs from the knees and these came off. I even remembered to put my head in the correct position and grab the opponent's seated leg and pull it through to help establish side control. It was a nice end to a very demanding but excellent class.
But here are some things I had underlined today:
i) I'm still not connecting the knee and elbow enough when I'm defending myself on my back but I'm now aware of this and I am at least fighting to get onto a hip when mounted so I can start the process of recovering guard.
ii) The very friendly and very good visiting brown belt encouraged me to keep knee and leg control when I'm passing guard. Again, this is something I should know but it's tough to remember when you're really tired.
iii) The purple belt gave me a good tip on defending when the kimura is locked in and that is to bury your elbow in your hip so it makes it much harder for the opponent to yank your attacked arm out and complete the submission.
LESSON FROM TODAY: Remember to use your knee and arm to create a defensive frame against an opponent on top; controlling the knees and legs of the opponent makes guard passing much easier.
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