And the winnner is...

So tonight we started out with a tough warm-up consisting of jogging, 90 jumping jacks, 90 scissor kicks, 50 side sit ups on each side, and somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 push-ups. We finished the warm up by practicing take-downs and eventually went straight to rolling.

We had a brief lesson on knee on belly chokes. Start out with your left hand (closest to his head) and go thumb in behind his collar. Your other hand should be on his belt so that you can use your elbow to stop his knee from preventing you from popping to knee on belly. With those two in place you pop to knee on belly. You take the hand that was on his belt and grip the far side collar fingers first. They called this the baseball choke because your hands grip like a baseball bat. come down from KOB and turn toward their head. There was another variation that acts like a clock choke but I didn't really do that one too well and it didn't feel natural for me ergo, I have forgotten it.

There were two new people tonight. Both of them seem to be in some shape or form related to Donny. They were young kids. One was much bigger than me and the other was Ashley's size. I missed the class before this one due to obligations but ashely went and rolled with these guys. She said she walked all over them. It's to be expected from someone who's been rolling for 8 months but due to the size difference it was rather impressive. I had no problem tearing through them in both take downs and while rolling.

After what seemed like only a few minutes but was actually an hour donny called class and we bowed out. Everyone was still pretty pumped and we decided to hold an in house tournament. I started off with the bigger of the new guys. It pretty much went like this...we started on our knees, I pulled guard and I arm barred him. Ashley's first match was with the smaller new guy. He seemed to be keeping really tight on her. For some reason she freaked out, forgot her positioning and started trying to muscle him around. She quickly gassed out and ended up tapping from cardio. After that the continued to freak out and just generally come unglued. We assessed the situation and we determined she underestimated him and when he caught her by surprise she blanked. She's still, a day later, really pissed. I think it hurt her ego. She's going to have to keep that in check to progress in this sport.

So back to the tournament. I was paired up with the other guy, the one who beat ashley. He was pretty full of himself and was even commenting that he's only been training for four days. We started out on the knees I attempted an arm bar and it missed (he wasn't wearing a gi but that's still no excuse) I turtled up and waited. He attempted to take my back but couldn't get his hooks in. I tried to bump him off my back and he finally got his hooks. I rolled him over and turned around to be in his guard. I passed his guard very simply, took side, took mount, then subsequently arm barred him. I can say I was proud of beating two new people but hey a W is a W.

The next round it was me and scott. I'm about 180 lbs, Scott is about 280 and is built like Robocop. We started on the knees, I knew right away I didn't want to be under him so I hopped to my feet. Unfortunately for me being on my feet, I was still looking him in the eye ( a testament to his huge size). I attempted a lame version of a flying arm bar but he pulled out of it, he attempted to go to side but i got half guard. I felt him going for a cross collar choke and managed to pull full guard. He was choking me in my own guard but his arms were straight. I shot up for the arm bar and the winner is...

Scott. It turns out it wasn't a cross collar choke it was an Ezequiel. I couldn't get him far enough off me with my hips and I tapped. It was cool though. Next time the Possum will be ready!