The new person who came to try the class out in the last few weeks signed on for 2 months tonight. He said that he was a bit wary to try a jitsu style since he had a background in many different do arts like judo and karate-do. He said he really likes the classes.

We went through the medicine ball warmup, breakfalls, and then reviewed takedowns; ankle-knee, step on foot push shoulder, and crab takedown to the rear individually, and then mixed it up where we practiced transitioning from one takedown to the next (1st attempt fails, switch to alternate, etc). We also covered bear hug from the rear.

We had two people drop by (unannounced) to try the class out.

I took the new people, Dan and Beth, while Sensei Mariedke took the rest of the adults and juniors.

After chatting for a bit, I started going through breakfalls with them: 1, 2, 3, and 7 and explaining why we do breakfalls.

After that I went over defensive stance, moving in defensive stance, and some basic open hand strikes.

Then I moved onto some wrist grabs. I went over the commonality of technique philosophy and the 3-minute rule. After that, I showed them some bear hug escapes and worked in two takedowns: ankle-knee and step on foot, push shoulder. After we finished that, I had them go back and review the wrist escapes and they were able to perform them with little-to-no prompting from me.

I spent some time chatting and answering their questions about jiu jitsu, the club, what we do, etc. They had a chance to watch Trevor and Colby on the other mat so they could get a glimpse of some of the other stuff that we do.

I hope we see them again next week.

Small class tonight so I worked with Colby one-on-one.

we reviewed roundhouse kicks, side kicks, shin kicks, front kicks, and knee kicks.

Then we progressed onto reviewing takedowns. we reviewed the ankle-knee takedown and then did two more than were new to Colby: step on foot push shoulder and a standing crab (takedown to the rear). He picked up on all of these takedowns very quickly.

we then worked these takedowns into the hold escapes: 2 hands on throat and bearhugs from the rear.

I also ordered some books: Mastering Jiu Jitsu and Modern Judo: The Complete Ju-Jutsu Library

They should be here by the end of the month and I'm really looking forward to reading them.

We're trying to change the format of the classes to streamline things.

Tonight we tried having the adults and juniors start off together doing breakfalls 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7. It seemed to work well. We probably spent about 20-30 minutes going over all of the breakfalls and teaching them to the new students.

I then worked with the adults reviewing three take-downs: knee-ankle, step on foot push shoulder, and takedown to the rear. We worked both sides.

After the take-down refresher, I did bear hugs from the front and rear, over and under the arms. Emphasized commonality of techniques: drop body weight, distraction, gain release, and takedown.

I'm also still trying to work out the details for teaching a one or two session self-protection course at work. More info on this as it becomes available.