Finally(!) jujitsu again. The kids were all over the mat and disorganized as Hell. Cat herding at it's finest.
The adult class had a new BJJ blue belt join us. Nice Atama gi, in his mid-40's and we were paired up together and fairly evenly matched in terms of size and strength. Good, because I don't get that opportunity often. He was just stiff as a board and watching him breakfall was like seeing a sequoia topple. No ability to release tension in his midsection at all, which translates into very hard falls. He's not very flexible and is a mechanic and so has a very strong grip. All the stengths and weaknesses I have enjoyed and struggled to overcome. Like me, except I came to this art from judo, he only understands "big technique" because that is all he has ever been exposed to. The subtleties of foot movement, wrist rotation, and hip rotation are largely terra incognita for him just now, but he seemed eager to learn more. Master Bellman also spent some more time with the two of us than usual I think as a means of winning him over to this art. He and I explained things like use of linear versus circular in countering attacks or movements, as well as use of elliptical movement to off balance an attacker. Good guy to work altogether, even though I suspect his brain is on overload trying to process all the new information he got showered with last night. We even did some ground technique, again I think for his benefit to contrast what he had been doing. One of which was the scarf hold as it's called in judo. It's a pinning technique in judo, but we do it in such a way that the ribs are compressed so as to prevent adequate breathing. Just lift the hips off the mat and drive into the rib cage by transmitting body weight, quad, and glute strength onto him. Suffocation becomes a real concern. Then he inadvertantly pushed one of my buttons when he talked about using an arm lock that he called a Kimura. A Japanese judoka with that name used it to defeat a Gracie. Horrors! So of course the BJJ crowd, being the cultists too many of them are started calling the technique by that name. It's called ude garami in Japanese and a figure 4 arm lock in English. I explained all that to him (patiently and non-confrontationally I hope) and we moved on. Great session last night.