On Saturday night we went to a birthday party for Bonita and ended up rolling. Rob threw in a King of the Cage DVD that Ryan picked up for four bucks at Wal-Mart, and that eventually resulted in people discussing grappling in general, which moved on to demonstrating principles and techniques. Rob did an impromptu seminar to explain basic positions, transitions, and some submissions, and there were several rounds of free grappling.

Rob and I rolled three times. The first one, I got off an armbar pretty quickly and he tapped out. The second time we went back and forth for a long time with him trying for mostly leg and ankle locks, heel hooks, that sort of stuff, then going for arm and shoulder cranks. I was looking for an elbow or shoulder submission, but eventually he got me with a shoulder crank called an Americana. On the last match, it seemed like we were rolling forever. He ended up stacking me upside down and I forgot to control my breathing, so when I managed to slip it, I took a few seconds to clear my head. That was a dumb thing to do, though, because I gave him my back when I should have rolled and pulled a guard. He took the back and strapped me into a very clean rear choke, tapping me almost immediately.

I think my main mistake on the second and third matches was failing to establish a good position. No excuse for it, as Rob had just mentioned that to the folks who weren’t familiar with the ins and outs. It’s your bread and butter: position, then submission. It’s especially important for somebody as new to the style as I am. I only know a few submissions, and I only know how to work them in certain scenarios. I’m not experienced or knowledgeable enough to improvise, so I need to be sticking with basics, getting the fight into the places where I can work, then doing what I’m able to do. One high point, though, was trying to work a rear naked choke on Rob, realizing that he’d tucked his chin so that I couldn’t get my arm under it, then using my free hand to pull a textbook nose-lift that we learned last session in kung fu. I’m not sure if it was the lift, or Rob laughing when he realized what I was doing, but that chin came right up.

I think we managed to subvert a perfectly good Shotokan practitioner, though. Jason, a guy I just met at the party, was totally committed. He had very little groundfighting experience, but he learned fast and really threw himself into it, even hurling himself into the air to try out a crazy flying triangle choke as a defense against the standard judo/jiu-jitsu hip toss, just because I suggested it. He’d never even seen a triangle, but he was sure willing to try it.

There was talk about getting together again sometime to roll. I’m all about that, but I hope we can find someplace with some decent mats. I’m getting tired of carpetburns.