My family flew home from DisneyWorld late on the 4th of July. While in theory, flying home on Independence Day is a bad idea. Turns out, it’s a great day. While the flights were still full, there were significantly fewer people travelling, so the crowds were controlled. After a week at DisneyWorld, shuffling through hour long lines with the sweaty masses, a break from large crowds was very, very welcome.
We landed in Houston at about 8pm and took off for Seattle about an hour later. On takeoff, the city was alive with fireworks. What a pleasant surprise. I’ve seen a lot of fireworks shows in my life and every one has been me on the ground and the fireworks in the sky. Very typical. Well, who know that when you’re in a plane, the fireworks are like little puffballs of color popping up all over the city? From the plane, you don’t just see the fireworks going up in your general vicinity; you see them all, city or county wide appearing like raindrops hitting a puddle of water. Another striking difference is the lack of sound. You don’t hear any concussion from the fireworks. The lack of sound adds a surreal sort of feeling to the entire event. You see all of these multicolored puffballs just appearing all over the city without warning. Landing in Seattle brought with it a very similar show.
Because we finally got home and to bed around 2 am, Saturday was a day of rest. We went to the grocery store, mowed the lawn and generally stayed around the house. All day, however, I was looking forward to class on Sunday. Sunday rolls around and I head down to the school, about a 20 minute drive, pull into the parking lot and immediately know something’s up. Closed for the holiday. All weekend long. CRAP!
But I did make it in yesterday. I don’t normally train on Tuesday’s, but this was serious! I was in full withdrawals.
Class itself was good. We drilled some open guard fundamentals, specifically foot placement. The drill was basically to start with sleeve grips, feet on my opponent’s hip. Then to move one foot up to the arm, then the other, then back to the hips (one at a time), then behind the knees. Once we did this for a while, we added some hip movement to the entire thing. In order to really generate leverage, you have to turn your hips accordingly. Flat on your back is bad.
I picked up a few details for foot placement. The big one is for spider guard. When I move my foot into my opponent’s arm, I need to place the blade of my foot right in the bend of his arm. Too high in his shoulder, or too low on his arm and I’m not going to get the right leverage, making it easier for him to break the grip.
I didn’t have any opportunities to work on the armbar/triangle combo in class yesterday, but I did work on some open guard stuff, although without immediate success. I’ll keep at it.
I should be able to make class tonight, so we’ll see what happens.
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