So This Happened Last Night

Last night at Jitsu was leg lock wall drills.

Two (then three) people started out lying on the mat with everyone else lined up on the wall. Then two (later three) people came off the wall to face those on the mats.

When lying down you had your legs up in open guard and had to first let the attacker get your leg and begin a leg lock. 

Then you had to defend it.

If you defended it, you stayed on the mat and then next person came off the wall at you.

If you got submitted, it was the attackers turn to be on the mat defending.

To say this gets exhausting very quickly is an understatement.

I started out on the mat.

I successfully defended against the first two blue belt attackers off the wall.

Then I got toyed with by a purple belt and got caught in a fancy heel hook pretty darn quickly. I learned from this. 

The Main Lesson - do not meddle in the affairs of Purple Belts for you are squishy and can be folded into various uncomfortable positions rather effortlessly.

Then, I got to get to the wall and then rotate in as an attacker.

Sometimes I was back on the wall, sometimes I got to stay out on the mat defending.

Much more learning occurred.

This went on for an hour and was one heckuva workout.

After that, one of the purple belts was promoted to 4 stripes, and he's already so good that he's a brown belt in all but passing the test - which won't be hard for him.

My name got called and I was taken by surprise as I wasn't expecting it.

This happened:

 

It is amazing how a little piece of tape can both mean so much, and mean nothing at all at the same time.  Even as I didn't feel I was adequately ready to be a three-striper, my instructors determined that I was.  Feels rather good, and is  a sign of how incredibly much more I need to learn.

Another blue belt also was surprised by getting their first stripe.

After we were awarded the stripes we had a celebratory roll.

In this roll, the newly promoted blue belt 1-striper did his best to kill me, and I successfully defended his attacks, made it difficult for him to do so, and made some fun problems for him on the way. We ended in a draw.

Quite a great end to the evening.