Friday didn’t work out so well for training for me. No one else showed up for class at 6:30a. So coach showed me an inside de la riva sweep and told me to come back later and he would play with me a bit. Didn’t work out though because I got called in to work – so no roll time on Friday.

Today (Saturday), I usually don’t train at all – just work 2-9. But there is open mat sparring starting at 11:30 so I figured I may as well pop in and see if I could find some action.

I arrived early to warm up – then walked over to a guy I hadn’t met yet and asked him if he was up to roll. He said “sure!” Then went and put on his black belt. I instantly became very happy!

We rolled around pretty non-stop for about 20 mins. He showed me a ghost armbar setup that is pretty slick, and in general he kept me moving the whole time. He ended the roll with a kneebar and then told me I did really well.

I then got to play with two of the purple belts. One of them was actually my size! So we had fun working technique. He said that us little people have to be about speed and technique since we don’t have a whole ton of mass to throw around.

I think I’ll start going to roll on saturdays before work from now on. It looks like mainly upper level belts just coming in without a timer – just having fun. I think I could learn a lot from this – plus I like that it was about the fun.