Weds 11/2 Weight this morning: 278.5 Muay Thai today. Did 1.75 hours (I had to leave a bit early). I drank more water before class than I did last time (85oz vs 50oz). No headache today. Class was hard but being run by an advanced student. It wasn't quite as hard as normal I feel like (though maybe that is cause I left right before the finishers & ab reps, and have had more hydration today than usual before class). Warmup started with jump-rope as usual. I was actively jumping for maybe 1/6th or 1/5th of the time, swinging the rope around & marching the rest. I still broke a good sweat pretty quickly, but saved enough cardio to mostly keep up for the rest of class. Usual situps/pushups/etc for the 1 minute in between 3 minute jump-rope rounds, though no plank afterwards (for the rest of the minute). We worked on taking hits--partner throws jab + cross at your head (you have your guard up and take it on your gloves, but still has some impact to head), then a body shot (we weren't to block it, absorb the blow), then they kick & you check it and counter-kick to the body (which they absorb, no check). We were hitting pretty softly though--I feel like I could have gone with much higher intensity and still be ok (at least on the body shot & body kick). We worked a few other similar combinations (guard up against head shots, absorb body shots, some kicks). In between 3 minute rounds of drilling we did various exercises (situps, burpees, jump-squats, lunges, pushups, etc). After drilling was done the class did 100 situps, 100 pushups, 100 squats (however we wanted to break them down). On the squats especially people were not using very good form (very shallow). I did 40 of each, tried to keep at least semi-decent form for it all. (Pushups on knees still.) I did them in sets of 10 (so 10 pushups, 10 situps, 10 squats, repeated 4x). We did some wallsits (thighs at 90 degree angle to calves, back against wall, hold for however long), then did bagwork for ~5 rounds (with 20 reps of various exercises in between rounds). I found the bagwork pretty exhausting--it was hard to keep my guard up the whole time. I didn't quite manage it, got called out and told to keep my guard up once when I had my arms down at my sides and was panting (for a little under 10 seconds til I got called out). I still dropped my guard for a few seconds here & there in later rounds, unable to keep it up with my shoulder muscles burning. We rotated around to different bags (there were some other stations too, such as tire flipping, speed bag, etc, but I didn't get to them). There was one bag that was very much harder/solid than the other bags--kicking it was not pleasant at all on my shins. (I only kicked it a few times.) The other bags were only very mildly unpleasant to kick (due to the continuous bruising of my shins, presumably). After the bagwork we geared up for sparring. I sparred 2 rounds, taking a couple medium-force kicks that were harder than I had been exposed to before, but it wasn't bad at all, didn't really hurt just vibrated me a bit. (The kicks were to my torso & shoulder areas.) I didn't have a partner for the 3rd round of sparring (we had an odd # of people in the class today) and had to leave early anyway, so left it there. Won't be training again til next week as I'm out of town (so missing 1 Muay Thai & 1 weight training). I will try to get some exercise in while I'm gone, but I always say that and almost never actually do exercise while out of town. I bet going up & down flights of stairs + pushups/situps/etc would give me a good workout... the hotel also has a gym so I could weight train.
Haven't trained since last Weds. I strained a back muscle over the weekend while out of town and any sort of twisting motion, or moving my head, is causing pain. It doesn't feel super damaged to me though, I'm hoping it will heal up in a few more days. I see an injury/rehab specialist tomorrow for several other issues anyway, so maybe he can take a look.
Resting still today. My back is much better today than it has been the past couple days--I'm hoping I'll be able to get back to training tomorrow. I could probably go back tonight but my back still feels a little weak and I don't want to push it too early.
Yeah, but I have a problem. The longer I am on a disrupted schedule, the more likely I am to just slip completely off the rails. I almost talked myself out of going today, but my back is about 97% good now. A trainer friend of mine likes to say, "Showing up is the hard part". This is definitely true for me--I'm ok when I'm on a regular schedule, but any time that gets disrupted I get really lazy and its much harder to get myself to go. I'm glad I went. So: Weds 11/9. 2 hours Muay Thai. We started with 30 minutes of warmup/conditioning. Usual jump-rope & body weight exercises, then jogging with various other things (lateral movement, sprints, etc), then more body weight exercises. We shadow boxed for a bit, then threw on our gloves & mouthguards and sparred boxing only for 4 rounds (no kicking, but in Muay Thai stance). The instructor had me work on keeping a good guard and absorbing shots on it instead of trying to parry so much (which seems to be my natural instinct). Then we tossed on our shinguards & cups and did some regular sparring for 4 rounds. I kept working on my guard & checking kicks, as well as playing around with various combos. I managed to smack my eyeball many times with the thumb portion of my gloves due to not tightening up my guard against jabs--I would have my gloves a few inches from my face and though I'd catch the shot on my glove, it would fly back into my eye. I'm working on keeping my gloves in contact with my head when absorbing strikes on them. (My eye feels fine, it was only mildly uncomfortable since we were going pretty light.) After that we ditched our gear & worked on the clinch for a bit with various partners. I mostly focused on staying relaxed and swimming for position while throwing side knees. I was shown a few little tricks/techniques to use from the clinch too. E.g., swim other arm in so both are inside theirs, then with a quick burst extend my arms out to create distance & follow with a straight knee to torso. We finished with only 400 ab reps--I managed to mostly do them all. (I missed a couple reps of a few cause my muscles gave out, especially on the 100 second plank.) I was pretty burnt out in my abs afterwards--if we were doing the more common 1000 reps I'd have to skip more reps of each exercise to have any hope of participating the whole time I think.
Thurs 11/10: Rest Fri 11/11: Rest Sat 11/12: Was gonna go to muay thai, but my knee is messed up. Looking back at my logs I didn't even mention it because it wasn't very bad. So on the 31st my knee started feeling odd all of a sudden while I was kicking the heavy bags on the leg that I was standing on (kicking with other leg). It wanted to buckle forward and the joint just felt weird, but not really painful. I think I didn't pivot on the foot and may have over-rotated the knee joint. I told sparring partners later that day to go easy on that leg with the kicks, then was out for a week due to travel. The knee still felt odd occasionally for that week off, but not too bad. After class on the 9th my knee felt relatively ok, but I found a place where it hurts: Its a tendon from the thigh right around where it connects to the knee. When I push on it with my palm in the right place, or manipulate it with my finger, it hurts similarly to a really deep tissue massage, but a bit different (more painful). The other side doesn't hurt at all when I do the same. I see my weight trainer tomorrow and he may be able to tell me more. I have an appt on Monday anyway with a guy who specializes in joint & connective tissue injuries/pain/etc. My weight trainer, when I told him about the knee & the tendon, told me not to jump or kick on it and that he would have me just work upper body tomorrow. I may need to skip class til this heals up more, but am worried about losing what little conditioning I've managed to gain. :-/ Maybe I'll go into class on Sunday after weight training or on Monday and just work on boxing strikes & footwork. I think its kicking/jumping on it that makes it worse.
Sun 11/13 Saw my weight trainer today. We discussed my knee and did a mix of upper body strength work and various things with my hamstrings. I have an issue where my hamstrings are much weaker than my other leg muscles--I compensate by overworking my other leg muscles. This increases my chance of injury and is likely a contributor to some issues in both legs, including knee pain. He suggested laying off the Muay Thai for a while while we strengthen the hamstrings... this may be a good time anyway as I'm having a small surgery on my arm which will require a suture or two and they don't want me doing martial arts for a few weeks while it heals. I'm traveling more next week anyway, so it lines up pretty well. I'll try to look for ways to maybe up my conditioning a bit that won't aggravate my knee or arm... maybe swimming would work. Pretty sure there is a pool near the hotel I'll be at that lets guests in for a nominal fee.
Muay Thai 11/14 - 11/26: Traveling/recovering from surgery. When the wound was still open I was told not to raise my heart rate too much or it might start bleeding again through the stitches, so no exercise at all for the first few weeks (surgery was mid November). 11/27: Saw weight trainer. Still mostly corrective stuff. Squats with resistance bands providing various angled force, a single-leg hamstring curl machine, quadruped dumbbell rows, various stretches & myofascial work (e.g., foam roller, lacrosse ball, softball), etc. (This was 10 days since the surgery, didn't do a hard workout at all, barely broke a sweat by the end of the hour. No issues with the wound, though my energy level wasn't great.) 11/28-12/4: Still holding off on training (other than that light weight session on the 27th) on doctors orders due to the arm recovering still. If the doctor had his way I wouldn't be training at all in December. The issue is the skin there is still weak and may split back open if it gets hit. However, that part of my arm isn't really in the path of most attacks. The only time I could see it taking a hard hit would be if I was cover blocking with that arm and their aim was off (most attacks wouldn't hit that part of the arm even if I were cover blocking with it). So anyway, he cleared for training though no sparring yet. While he would prefer I wait until the new year, he said its probably fine. The wound is healing up nicely and I'm guessing I'll be ok to spar again this Saturday; will play it by ear. 12/5: First Muay Thai session since 11/9... My cardio was more capable than I was expecting; I was anticipating a brutal session. But it wasn't so bad. We worked on combinations around shovel punches, first without any gear on (so not making much/any contact), then with gear on (adding kicks as well). The instructor had me do bagwork for the 5 rounds of sparring we had towards the end, then told me I should leave it at that since I was pushing pretty hard for almost 2 hours already. The others had to do a kick/knee/burpee ladder (6 kicks, 6 knees, 6 burpees, then 4 of each, then 2, then back up to 6 or 8 I think) and the usual ab exercises at the end. I did get an exertion headache towards the end of class, but pushed through. It got a bit worse on the way home, but not too bad. I took some advil since that type of headache seems to hit me hard a couple hours after I stop exercising. Feel fine right now (advil has kicked in by now). Glad I got myself back to class, and glad that the dreadful session I anticipated wasn't so bad after all.
First BJJ class 12/6 Weight this morning: ~284. Spent a solid two weeks eating lots of pie around Thanksgiving... oops. First BJJ class today. I had my gi all packed and everything. Turns out today is no-gi day though, so I just wore the gi bottoms & the shirt I usually wear under my gi. We started with some flow rolling--slow, not competing for position, just getting moving around. Told to try for ~50% offense, 50% defense. I was paired with another person who was new to BJJ, but had some prior martial arts experience. We drilled the fireman's carry takedown to start. Then we moved onto the topic of the day: how to deal with someone turtling up, with a focus on moves leading into the crucifix. We drilled several different ways to break into someone who is turtling, with the final drills transitioning into crucifix and finishing with an arm bar or shoulder lock depending on their arm positioning. We also drilled a few side paths that lead to you taking their back instead. My partner & I often had to get clarification. My partner asked if we could be paired with more experienced people so we didn't keep not knowing how to proceed, but the instructor said they try to keep people paired around their skill level in the all-ranks classes. The school suggests doing a fundamentals cycle first--6 weeks of fundamentals class that cover all the basics. There he says they pair you with more experienced people. Unfortunately the fundamentals class is at a time that doesn't work well for me and would require stopping Muay Thai for those 6 weeks and shuffling my work schedule around. I think I'll be ok without it; I was able to follow along today relatively well. We did 4 5-minute rounds of rolling at the end. I was pretty bad but not completely terrible I think. Against the guy who I was paired with most of class I submitted him a couple times and we got to a stalemate position once (where neither of us knew any ways to proceed and agreed to reset). (I also outweigh him by I'm guessing around 100lb, so...) The other rolls were interesting. The 2nd one the guy seemed very experienced and we went light. He gave me a few things; when he defended something it shut me down pretty well. His positioning was very hard for me to do anything with--I could barely get past his guard with him playing along a bit. The 3rd roll was with the main instructor. He got a really good guillotine on me and I foolishly kept driving forward and choked myself out pretty good. He said he wouldn't be putting it on me that fast, that he didn't expect me to drive into it. He let me get past a few positions too. I ended up gassing out pretty bad towards the end; his main comment was that I was attacking almost 100% of the time and pushing too hard for stuff, which will gas me out. The 4th roll was good too. Overall I worked up a good sweat. I did get an exertion headache towards the end, but not as bad as it was from Muay Thai yesterday. I'm guessing once I settle back into regular training my head will calm down. My knee was a bit problematic, especially when sitting back on my heels. Its been about a month since I injured it, it was doing a lot better before Muay Thai. It was inflamed last night & I iced it, icing it again tonight. I'm thinking the knee wasn't worked much tonight though; the issue was mostly inflamation from yesterday I think. My next class will be with gi. I asked the instructor if as a relative beginner I should not attend no-gi (which would have necessitated changing up my schedule), and he said that it is essentially the same material, just slightly different options and execution on a few things (paraphrasing), and that it should be fine. So I'll stick with one no-gi and one gi class per week for now, in addition to my 2 muay thai classes per week and weight training 1/week.
12/7: Rest day I just wanted to note for myself: - I feel more banged up/bruised/battered after the BJJ class than I do after Muay Thai (even when we do a lot of sparring). i'm guessing this will be less of an issue after I've been doing it for a while. Nothing major, not causing any issues, just noticed my hands, shoulders, arms, knees, and elbows are a bit bruised up. My left elbow feels like I irritated the joint a bit. - But my injured knee didn't seem to get any worse (which it does with Muay Thai). (It got a lot better, in fact, but it usually does that on its own anyway.) I'm definitely going to ask the BJJ instructor about the Saturday fundamentals class. I'm thinking I'll replace Saturday Muay Thai with BJJ fundamentals for the 6 week class cycle (though the holidays are in the middle of it so may take a bit longer). That way I'll get the extra foundation that is probably beneficial to me, and also give my knee more time to heal up. I'll keep doing Muay Thai, but just once a week for a while. Hopefully after 6ish weeks my knee will have healed up enough to go back to 2-per-week Muay Thai without an issue.
BJJ, injured hand a bit 12/8 Class started with some takedown drills. Instructor said any wrestling or judo takedowns, back and forth 1 for 1. I used both Osoto Gari and some other throw I learned in one of the judo classes I was at but didn't learn the name of (you step one foot between their legs, turn to face basically the same direction they are, slide my same side arm (e.g., my right under their right) under their arm near the bicep and trap it, then hip throw forward. After that we moved into the main topic. I wasn't able to follow along as well today as the topic was a continuation of discussing butterfly guard, which I wasn't familiar with. They had covered the main flows in a prior class and today went off a side path where the person in butterfly guard can only get an overhook ("wizzer"). They also assume you know the basics of the position from their fundamentals class. Anyway, I learned a sweep and a way to get most of the way up (can transition into all sorts of positions from there, including taking their back). I mostly worked the sweep. I injured my hand somehow. I forget what exactly did it, but this area was already a little irritated from spraining the thumb a few months ago. This was during drilling butterfly things, I think the instructor was showing me a sweep and maybe his elbow went into it? I felt a sharp pain there. It doesn't hurt just sitting, but its pretty swollen. It hurts to push on the meaty area just above the wristbone on the palm, just slightly towards the thumb. Rolling was pretty rough. I think I haven't had as good sleep this week as I need (only ~7 hours). I was panting mid-way through match 2, and then with my hand hurting more took it real light on the last 2. Though nothing I was doing seemed to irritate it during the activity, the spot I found that hurts got worse. I was pushing on it/massaging the area during the break between things. I spoke to the instructor about fundamentals class and will be attending that for half a dozen weeks, and also continuing to go to the all ranks class. I am icing my hand as well as my knee now.
12/9 (Friday) Rest day. Just wanted to note a few things: - Pretty battered again today, but not as much muscle tightness as there was after BJJ on Tuesday. I.e., my back is a little stiff, but not as bad as it was on Weds. I'm thinking that as my body gets used to grappling regularly my back stiffness will stop happening. - Tons of bruises, mostly centered around the upper biceps & hands. A few in my chest area. None of them are particularly painful, just a lot more of them than I was expecting. - My hand injury isn't too bad. Pushing on that spot that hurt a lot yesterday doesn't hurt nearly as much today. - Got less than 7 hours of sleep again last night, but am feeling pretty decent today anyway. The exercise seems to be helping with my energy levels; now all I gotta do is get a bit more sleep. Weight this morning: 279.8
BJJ 12/10 BJJ fundamentals class. Started with 15 minutes of warmup--jogging (with various things like high knees, grapevines, side shuffles, etc mixed in), then various drills: front rolls, forward break falls, pushups while doing a crawl-like thing, etc. We then worked on some standing stuff: how to proceed when your opponent gets a collar grip before you get any grip. We drilled that for a while. We then moved on to escapes from mount bottom. We focused on getting onto our side a bit, then with our lower leg feeding their leg/foot forward so we can hook it with our top leg. When combined with various shrimping movements, this gets you into half guard. Then more shrimping movements and some repositioning to get into closed guard. There seem to be several stages where you swap which side you shrimp to, kind of S-like motions almost. After class there was open mat. I spent the first part of that watching the fundamentals instructor (I think he was a blue belt, but had a bunch of stripes on the belt too) answer questions and demonstrate some things. I then rolled with a blue belt and got destroyed pretty fast. I ended up taking his leg on my nose at some point and had to stop due to my nose starting to bleed. Nothing too bad, but I decided I wouldn't roll more today. The class format didn't include any free rolling, as the all-ranks class does. It also had a longer warmup with the jogging & drills. The all-ranks classes I've been going to warm up with maybe 5 minutes of flow rolling, then go right into drills. The actual time working techniques on the mat is shorter in this fundamentals class due to the longer warmup and more time spent on instruction (when we are all watching/listening). (The shorter class time doesn't really contribute though, as the extra 30 minutes in the all ranks class is generally spent rolling at the end.) That said, the warmup drills are probably useful for me to practice shrimping, rolls, etc.
12/11 - 12/17: Sick, no training. 12/18: Weight training. First time back in after being sick--it was harder than usual in terms of cardio. I don't generally get winded/too sweaty here as we are still mostly doing lighter weights and focusing on stabilit for right now. But today I got pretty sweaty and was mildly winded after some of the lower body stuff, especially the deadlifts. Still focusing on some hamstring stuff. Foam & softball rolling first, then warmed up with mini-squats (resistance band behind one knee at a time pulling forward), lateral resistance band walk, banded hip extension, and a few other things I'm not recalling now. My circuit was something like Mini-squats with band behind knee pulling forward (behind one knee at a time), Romanian deadlifts, bridging on val-slides & then leg extending out (using hamstrings to control pace), single-leg hamstring curls, single-arm quadrilateral rows (from basically a table-top position). Went through the circuit 4x. I'm not fully recovered yet from being sick--still pretty congested, but otherwise I'm feeling better. Still seem to be needing a bit more sleep than usual. Hoping Muay Thai tomorrow doesn't destroy me. I plan to go unless I feel worse tomorrow. EDIT 12/19: My knee is feeling stiff after the workout yesterday, and I am pretty tired today and still a bit congested. I'm going to skip Muay Thai and just plan to go to BJJ tomorrow.
12/20: No BJJ... I've had some stomach problems since last night and there was basically no way grappling would have been a good idea tonight. I'm gonna shuffle some stuff around and try to go tomorrow (when I normally have a rest day) and then continue from there.
BJJ 12/21: No BJJ, migraine/feeling unwell all day. 12/22: First BJJ since the 10th, as well as the first real cardio exercise since the 10th. I warmed up with some flow rolling against a guy I've rolled with before, who always starts in butterfly. So I tried one of the suggestions from my other thread--I half-stood (from kneeling) and very gently (warmup) pushed on his forehead. He laughed a bit but did roll back onto his back and I got into his guard. (The other thread asked how to initiate on someone waiting in butterfly.) The topic was going from being on top in side control when they are on their side with their back to you and you get an underhook. Specifically how to ride properly on your way to taking the back/prevent them from getting away or changing the position. A key point was the positioning of the underhook to allow you to control the initial position--wrist up tight near their armpit, bicep close to your wrist--this was apparently covered in more detail in the class I missed. This, when combined with the other stuff (torso positioning, grip in the other hand), leaves them with no way out if you defend properly when they try (apply the proper counter-pressure). We covered the grips in detail, including the no-gi grip which is the last fallback if you can't get any of the gi grips. Then how to posture yourself for taking the back (with single foot hook) if they try to escape by rolling to their knees, and the appropriate grips to keep them there. After drilling that for a few minutes, we covered an alternative, useful if your opponent is just lying there. It's a sort of high-back position where their head is basically in your lap, and your torso is above them. It requires pulling their whole body a bit (yanking them into position to get your hook). From that position you can get a triangle and then choke/armbar, or just go straight to a choke/armar (harder than the triangle ones). If they are a lot bigger it won't work, as I can attest since my training partner was unable to move me. I wasn't resisting. (I think I have about 150-170 lb on him.) We rolled with 2 minute rounds. One partner starts on top, the other on bottom (on their side back to you, as we've been drilling), and the partner on top has a seatbelt grip. The goal is for the top person to take the back. If you get into some other position (they escape, you end up in mount somehow, etc), reset and try again. Once you take the back work to keep them there while you attack and submit them. Switch after one round, then switch partners and do another 2 rounds, etc. After each set of drills I was a bit sweaty and tired, but not panting or out of breath. After the first round of rolling I was sweaty and moderately out of breath, and I was dripping & panting after the second. I sat out the next set of rounds (there was an odd guy out waiting to come in anyway), and then did a 3rd round which killed me even harder. In the past at this class I do all rounds and it is hard and makes me pant, but I recover from it afterwards faster than I did tonight. I didn't really stretch out as I took the whole time trying to get my breath under control. So pretty beat, glad I have a rest day tomorrow.
1/8 Phew, its been a while. I've not been to classes in a while, mostly due to travel. Weight training today. It was much harder than usual. Not to my muscles, but to my cardio. Usually I barely break a sweat and never get short of breath with the corrective stuff we are still mostly doing. Today I sweated a good bit and got short of breath a few times too. I imagine getting back to class is going to be rough for a couple days, but after that I should be ok again.
1/15 Weight training today. Still working on mostly corrective/stability type stuff: hip stability, hamstrings, core. My arm is mostly healed up and I'm thinking I can get back to JJ on Tuesday, and then Muay Thai next week.
BJJ Since the last update I've been to 2 more weight training sessions & 2 yoga classes. Seem to have overdone it at yoga as my back was messed up for a few days. This was to the point where standing up after being seated would feel like I was pulling the muscle--I'd have to go real slow. After a few seconds I could walk normally though. Repeated each time after being seated for a while, for a few days. 2/2 Its been 7 weeks or so since I've been to class regularly, though I did get a few BJJ classes in a few weeks ago. Travel, injuries, and laziness combined to keep me out for a while. Today I went to BJJ. It was rough but I made it. Hell of an exertion headache though. I did make sure to have plenty of water today. We worked on a combination of sweep attempts from bottom. All of it in half guard where they have a seatbelt lock on you. (I asked about other positions--the instructor said this was adaptable to most ground positions.) Sort of bridging to one side (and pushing on their hip with one hand, and trapping their thigh with your thighs), then if that doesn't work, flipping your hips the other way while clamping their thigh in your thighs and trapping their arm so they can't post out of it (timed right as they start to apply counter pressure to the first roll). And you are sort of rolling them in a direction they aren't able to defend as well (hard to explain with text). Then if that doesn't work (it should work better than the first one), another repetition of the opening bridge where instead of rolling them (assuming they are defending well since they defended your first attempt), you are sneaking your free leg's foot towards your butt as close as you can, and then when you bridge up & push on them, you try to sneak your foot in for a hook to get to quarter guard. It requires inching your foot up the mat to get it close enough, since most people won't naturally be able to bring their foot in far enough without the help of the mat. I wasn't able to execute it very well, which I was told is expected and that it will take a while. I only managed to get the quarter guard hook in once during all the drills (the other times I couldn't seem to get enough space). The sweep combo I was able to do, but I was working with another white belt and we weren't really resisting. I didn't really do all the elements of it for maybe 75% of the drills, and then I got some corrections and advice and was able to do it more accurately, though still not great. Rolling was tough; after the first round my head was pounding and I told the instructor I was gonna head out early; he urged me to stay and rest a round and see how I felt. So I did and recovered enough to flow roll 1 more (though I knew it was going to make me feel terrible after). After that 3rd round (I sat out the 2nd) another student grabbed me and told me to flow roll with him, not to rest, and I was too tired to argue with him much. Felt pretty terrible on the drive home, though I've recovered mostly since then. Hopefully after a week or two back in classes I'll be ok.
BJJ Fundamentals 2/4 BJJ Fundamentals class today (1 hour). Warmup was various solo drills (forward rolls across mat, shrimp across mat, pushup->jump feet to near hands->walk hands forward->repeat, breakfalls, technical standup/sit through/repeat letting hips touch mat, etc). The focus of class today was on transitioning from half guard to 3/4 mount and then to mount from there, and how to escape this/prevent it from the bottom. The underhook on the same side that your leg is trapped in their half guard is a key point--if you don't get it, you can't continue through this flow as there are easy ways for them to escape. You also want a cross-face with the other hand. The movement involves mostly hip switching towards the untrapped leg's side (from top) and getting your knee above the trap so you can then hip switch again and flatten them out a bit (forcing both their hips to mat, and uncurling them to be straighter with underhook + crossface). Knee is then touching the mat--you are in 3/4 mount (your foot is still trapped at the ankle by their legs). Then you can use your free leg's foot to hook the leg closest to it and open their trap slightly so you can slide your foot out. From the bottom you try to prevent the underhook & the cross face, curl into a ball around their trapped leg and then hip switch/shrimp to get out into guard. If they make it to 3/4 mount before you can do that, there was some way to get back into half guard, but I only got to rep it once (was working in a group of 3, odd # of students) and I forget what it was. We did a brief 30 second light roll in both top 3/4 mount (no grips) and in bottom. I managed to get to mount from top right at the end, and also got back to guard from bottom. But, this is because I was paired with the instructor and he didn't really try anything, he just coached me through the whole thing. (It was still pretty tiring; he wasn't just giving it to me, he just was being completely passive.) Edit: want to add that I feel like I was procrastinating going back to clasees, but have been feeling much more awake and energetic since going back Thursday.
