I have pointy knees and bad aim.

Krav Maga:

First half of class was working on lunging elbow strikes, knees, and front kicks. All lunging because, hell, I think that's what krav does is lunge forward. No reason to back out, right? :)

Elbow strikes - I'm okay if the target is the right height (my shoulders-to-head level) - but I'm short - working with a taller partner I wasn't able to get enough power behind the strike when hitting higher. Will have to work on targetting and striking to higher targets - one day.  This time, I just had them lower it. I'm much stronger on my right side, though, so I focused on striking from the left. 

Straight in front of me is often my attacker's chest....

Knees - figured out a big thing with kneeing.  I've been doing it much as I would any technique in karate - pull my knee straight upwards as I lunge.  As if I were loading for a front kick.  Today I played with it (couldn't figure out why I didn't have any power) and realized that if I come from the hip more - angle my leg as if I were a dog lifting to piss while I lunge, instead of straight in front of me - I'm able to have more power. Plus, I end up deeper into them, and so am more able to clinch and continue for combatives.  Was really nice to figure that out. 

Front kicks - I can't figure out how to krav-kick.  I'm kicking a karate kick - a snap kick.  I'm trying to make that a thrust kick, but it's a funny transition.  Just started to play with it when we moved to something else.  I just need to make it more of a push without leaning away from it, as I would in karate.  Need to pay attention to how the instructor does it.

Combatives (the second half of class) was all defense to a blow from above with a blunt object.  Everyone ended up with the wrong end of a bat on their head at least once (they were padded bats, but everyone ended up getting whacked by the hard part at the end). Which left everyone a bit grumpy.  But the drill was fairly simple - lunging into the opening at their shoulder, straight-armed, while punching, trap the arm, knee - if they don't drop the bat, pull back the arm and pop the hips (hard to describe) to get the bat away.  It was actually one of the more instinctive ones , for me - except that I was leaving out the whole punch thing and just going for the clinch.  :-/  But... I'm super conscious of the fact that I don't want wounded training partners, or no one will want to train with me.  So I'm wary of any kind of strike.

Grappling:

Meh.  Not the most intensive class - almost everyone was a beginner - which is fine, except they were working as a group on basic throws and break-falls. There were only three of us not-quite-beginners, so we rotated out.  And both of them seemed pretty wiped from krav and pretty bonked from the bats.  Am not used to being the one with all the energy.  Ah, wait - no, I lie.  I am.  Not sure where my energy comes from, but I've rarely been too tired to continue.  I wonder sometimes if that means I'm not working as hard as the others, or if it just has something to do with the fact that I'm superman and don't feel pain & fatigue like others tend to.  Or just my personality? Because I'm absolutely exhausted all the time - but that doesn't stop me from having enough energy for class[es] and then some.

But anyway - moping aside.  We worked on a few throws - whatever we wanted to.  And then some sweeps - had trouble with a (I'm bad with names so I give descriptions) switch-up inside hooking reap against someone much taller than me.  He'd just pull up his leg and stand on one leg like a bird - while I tried with all my strength to hook him, drive him down, whatever.  I couldn't get enough momentum to push him to the ground - whenever I went to reap, I'd lose what momentum I had.  What I ended up having to do was reap the leg really high up (too high and I was wrapping my leg around his - which also didn't work).  I tried to do it as a sweep to the ankle, but also wasn't having enough oomph to get him to the ground.  I don't like that reap, cause I land in his guard.

Actually, I probably don't like it because its hard, which is why I don't like most of them.  Honesty.

Tried to practice a variation of it and landed knee-to-groin on my poor partner.  Ugh.  I'm leaving a trail of those behind - do not want to get a reputation for taking out folks via pointy knees to sensitive-groin.  Need to learn to control my momentum as I land (unless I'm fighting to maimkill) and keep aware of where my pointy bits - knees & elbows - are. Because I've hit folks pretty badly in the groin a handful of times now - not always my fault, mind - and it feels awful. On my end too. At least this partner was female, so the groin strike hurt, but it didn't take her out for the day/week/month.

Ground work was mostly playing around with the armbar that Ronda Rousey won with last week against Liz Carmouche. Mostly because everyone had watched it together and had been itching to try it. :) I see why she likes it.  I like arm bars - and I'd like to get better at getting them.  I've got pretty powerful legs [relatively speaking] - that's the only advantage I really have - so arm-bars make the most sense.  I have trouble Americana-ing anyone, so simple, straight-arm arm-bars are kind of my focus right now.  Not to mention that Ronda Rousey is a pretty epic motivator - and demonstrator - of their effectiveness.  But I'm still on the basics.  I'm a long time away from moving onto anything else.

Americana
Sarah cannot get this on anyone who isn't patiently letting her...

We didn't do any free-rolling, though.  Too many beginners, maybe? *sadface*  I was hoping to roll with the tall fellow I couldn't reap - mostly because he's deadly, and its good to roll with folks who are deadly.

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu:

Classes. Start. Wednesday. *insert exited jumps and girly squeals*  I'm looking forward to this. I'm not sure how different it'll be from judo or grappling - particularly since our school isn't too rule-focused (with regard to This is Judo vs That is JuJitsu) - but I'll be interested to see. And curious about how the new BJJ instructor teaches.  He's given me advice in class before, and I can tell he's a good teacher and knows a lot, so I'm excited. Mostly excited because that means 2 extra hours of mat time a week.
Perfect timing - my Wednesday karate class is shutting down, which left my Wednesday evenings distressingly free.No more - its a Jiu-Jitsu Partaaay!

Funny - I've been feeling like a bit of a plunker, because I've been spending lots of time reading BJJ blogs - and I don't study BJJ (until now). But I study judo and grappling, and there is a lot of overlap.  And I couldn't find any good judo blogs - and the judo blogs weren't about the ground game either.  So BJJ has been my reading pleasure.  There are lots of great BJJ bloggers out there. Who've given me lots to think about. Unfortunately, the terminology is a little different in BJJ (not that I'm good with terminology anyway) so I've been using my imagination half the time when they're talking about chokes or submissions I've never heard of.  It'll be nice to know what they're talking about.