Close Those Doors

Tonight was another open mat night, and it was a great one lemme tell ya. John, one of our black belts showed up and wanted to roll so that was really awesome. One of the great things about having John roll with me is he's not only a black belt, but he is a black belt that's MY SIZE!
After our rolls I asked John what he thought I could work on and he had some great advise. He told me that I was good at flowing with the person and transitioning, but sometimes I need to fight to stay in a position before flowing to another. This makes me impose my game on someone more, instead of just being ok with going to something else.

Rolls Recap-
John pretty much slaughtered me. I did attempt my old mounted triangle attack and ended up rolling to my back for the normal triangle. I had to switch it off to the armbar because he had wedged his hand in to protect his neck so it was clearly not getting blood. Once I changed to the armbar he stacked me correctly and I was not able to pull it off. I then went turtle and he proceeded to break dance on my back lol. I guess that's what I get for trying that.
Justin and I once again had some good rolls tonight. I noticed my game pretty much all starts from me getting the double sleeve control. So I told him not to let me set that up right from the start. It def seemed to make me work harder and took me out of my element more. I worked some pretty decent knee on belly in some of our rolls, and I was constantly looking for him to under hook my foot so that I could slide up for the mounted triangle.
Kevin has a lot longer frame then me and a few more pounds, so I have to play a totally different game with him then I do people my size. Normally I play open guard and roll off my shoulders a lot, but I find myself playing a tight closed guard game when we roll. I had some success with De La Riva guard tonight with Kevin, but not in the traditional way. I knew his legs are longer then mine and when I would go to that guard he would stand up to clear my foot. When he did this I would sit up and hug his knee and feed his opposite sleeve to my hand. Once I have this grip I would start to turn and sit on my side. This places my shoulder right into the back of his knee. From there all I had to do was drive my weight forward to collapse his leg and attempt taking the back. I did this several times tonight, but none of them ended up with me taking the back lol. I guess that's something I need to work on.