More DLR work

Couple of things going on. I realized I'm walking around at the top of the 151 weight class by being 144-146, so I'm just going to stay where I am. No need for a cut. Second thing is that I'm retuning my Tomoe Nage to give me a better entry and more control over the sweep and the followup. Previously I was coming straight in and sweeping my opponent straight over my head. I ran into problems when my opponent was very agile (Like at Newbreed), and in loosing contact after completing the sweep and diving right into triangle chokes while trying to lock down side control.

I did some chatting with some of my Judo homies and was told that I need to be coming in at an angle, so that my foot is parallel with my opponents belt, not perpendicular. Some further discussion determined that it's also possible to fake Tomoe Nage into X-guard from this execution, and it's easier to drop your opponent into an armbar, AND post sweep you are tighter and already past the legs. Happily we got to drill takedowns today so I got in about 50 reps with the new version and it felt really good.

After that was work on the same DLR sweeps. The sitdown sweep when your opponent goes to one knee to avoid your normal DLR shenanigans and you just make them fall over with your body rotation.
From there you can follow up with the berimbolo, or you can slide across to take mount.

After that we did some 'Fun Friday' cardio work which involved tug-of war, then some crazy game involving trying to pile all of the boxing gloves in the middle of the mats, or in the corners. My team lost, we did sprawls, I was sad.

Next more work from DLR, I didn't feel as fluid with my DLR sweeps this time. I felt like I was not being as aggressive about inverting and not as forceful with the DLR hook as I was on Monday. I need to really dig the hook deep and MAKE my opponent fall over. I also got outscrambled a few times, I need to work on that as well. And finally, I'm still having trouble finishing submissions right now. I need to pick a couple and really zero in on them. Probably the nearside armbar since it combos with my takedown, and then work on transitioning into the single collar choke from more places.

I'm improving for sure, but I still have a lot more work to do.

I'm still hitting the non-BJJ gym a few times a week and running and lifting. My strength should be starting to improve over the next couple of months, but not soon enough to make a real difference for the Atl Open.