class would have been great had I been into it. i just felt a bit off and as a result class was only ok. Worked on some more combos: ko ouchi gari, o ouchi gari, o soto gari or uchi mata.

My o soto gari is coming along well. my form is getting better in uchi komi, but it's still an issue to be able to execute it on a resisting opponent in randori.

the trick for the transition to uchi mata is after you finish o ouchi gari to pull uke forward right before he has a chance to place his leg back on the ground behind him.

I did one round of ne waza and was able to use sankaku jime that we learned last week with some success. I was also able to sink in an okuri eri jime. I have found that a trick to make this choke more effective: make sure you're up high on uke - higher than you would be for a rear naked choke. ideally you'd want uke's neck to be around your elbows so you still retain good strength and leverage in your arms to apply the choke. This also allows you to look over uke's shoulder and see what uke is doing to defend against your okuri eri jime.

good god i didn't know that my fingers could ever get this sore. On the plus side, i managed to execute okuri eri jime successfully. unfortunately it was the only successful technique of the evening. Some of the cob webs are working themselves out. I still felt rusty last night, but better than last week. A big help was that we spent a good deal of time practicing combinations.

Class was good last night. It would have been much better had my back been cooperating, but i did what i could and didn't push myself. We did a lot of uchikomi and i had a chance to practice a lot of combinations with one of the brown belts. I'm getting more comfortable with the foot sweeps and am starting to get the ko ouchi - ouchi - osoto gari combination a bit smoother.

I finally treated myself to a Mizuno Eurocomp gi. I can't wait to get it. I wore my Fushida Tournament gi (size 5) last night and it is definately too small for me. it seems to shrink a little bit more every time i wash it (and it's not because i'm getting bigger... i've LOST quite a bit in the mid section over the last few months.) My Toraki BJJ (size A4) is getting to be too big for me, now. Such is the cost of losing weight, i guess. I'll probably have to retire the Fushida and Toraki gis before the end of the year and get a Toraki Personal Gold or another Mizuno Eurocomp.

Class rocked last night. We got a chance to learn some combinations on how to set someone up for an osoto gari (or other technique). We then did about 30 minutes of randori: ground and standing. I'm finally getting the hang of it a bit more and I'm actually able to hold my own now - at least against other white and yellow belts.

We first started off reviewing kicks: shin, knee, and roundhouse. I then went over some combinations with Trevor: jab, cross, roundhouse. jab, cross, knee. i wanted him to go thru the punching and kicking together *slowly* to start to develop some coordination between the brain, hands, and feet.

After we worked on hip and body drop throws with afterthrows from any rear attack. we reviewed all of the afterthrows at yellow and orange and I showed him a counter to the supine arm bar (turn your arm so the thumb is pointing as if you were hitchhiking. if needed, use your free arm to push tori's leg that is closest to your waist away to gain some space. then, twist your body 180 degrees so your feet are where your head was. from here, you escape from the arm bar and end up in tori's guard.)

We finished off the class with some prone and supine figure-4 type leg locks.