Class 56...

A tough class today but a very good one as it mainly involved exercises and drills about passing the guard.

We spent a lot of time on an exercise where the bottom man had to get a standing opponent into his guard or sweep him, while the standing man had to pass the man on the bottom's open guard then get into side control or full mount. The standing man's job was to bypass the man on the bottom's legs and, even though I knew to do this I needed leg control and I needed to make sure I operated at a safe distance, I found it quite tough trapping the opponent's legs together and passing without getting caught. When I was on the bottom I found it even harder to trap my opponents and get any form of grips or control.

This is a very basic thing and I really struggled today but it's something I obviously need to work at because if I end up in the guard of an opponent who is in any way more experienced than me then I'm in trouble as I can't stabilise my base for long enough and I invariably get swept. So avoiding the guard is something I now need to work on alongside sometimes accepting guard then working my way out of it.

Sparring was quite relaxed and I did OK against more experienced people and I managed to sweep then get into side control against a decent white belt. I'm also starting to connect my elbow and knee and getting up onto one hip to try to sweep and recover guard when I'm in trouble, but it was essentially a day of limited success and heavy toil. But that's OK. Some days will be like this and I'll have worse days than this. But I just need to keep turning up...

LESSON FROM TODAY: Practise, practise and practise again basic guard breaks and basic guard passes.