Lily and Sevs went back and forth for about three minutes. During which Lily had only gotten up one more time; by the time they were done, they were both covered in sweat. Sevs hair was dripping into his eyes; it stung as his eyebrows were over-saturated. They could not hold back the liquid anymore. After the timer went off, they both sat there panting.

“Good job, everyone! rest for a minute, then switch positions.” Susan called out.

“You seem to be enjoying this more than you thought you would,” Sevs said as he cocked an eyebrow at Lily. She just laughed, too out of breath to respond. Sevs flopped down onto his back. What felt like a second later, Susan signaled them to start. The sweat on their bodies had just begun to cool down. So when Lily got in the position, it was accompanied by a cold, wet sticking of the shirt that made it a whole new level of uncomfortable.

“Ready when you are.” Lily declared. Sevs tried to sit up, but nothing happened. He braced his feet against the ground and bridged his hips. As he bucked, he also pushed with his arms. Lily simply went up on her toes, putting even more pressure on him. She performed a twisting motion that made it significantly harder to press than a barbell. The few inches he had managed to get with his arms collapsed as Lily crashed back into his chest. He thrashed around some more. Eventually, Sevs got onto his side and thrust out with his arms and knees. This slid him far enough away that he could rise to his knees. Sevs stood, panting with his hands on his hips, trying to get as much air as possible.

Now that they were both warm again, getting back down on the ground was nearly as uncomfortable. Sevs managed to get to his feet two more times during the next couple of minutes. When the timer went off, they all stopped struggling on the floor. Susan called them all to order and circled up again.

She spent a few minutes explaining a fundamental escape for side control. How to press with your elbow and use the shoulder as a lever. How to make space so you can get on your side and slide hips out from under your opponent. This time there were no distracted children. The competition had won the attention of these kids. No one wanted to feel trapped, each was excited to learn how to get out of it.

Instead of repeating the previous drill, Susan had them go through the moves slowly. Lily and Sevs took turns going through the motions; the person on top was compliant and let the others do whatever they wanted. After Lily had managed to brace her knee off Sevs hips and use it as leverage to get out from under him a few times, they switched again. "I'm not going to just let you do it this time. I want to see if this works against resistance."

With that declaration, Lily resisted his movements this try. She didn't switch to other positions, probably because they didn't know any other ones yet. However, only static pressure made each step of the escape many times harder. On the first try, he was incapable of getting his knee into the joint of her hip as she kept it pressed against him, so there was not enough space for it to fit. As he struggled with it, Susan stopped by, "Lily, you should still be taking it easy to ensure we all have the steps down first."

"But why isn't it working? If she can stop it so easily, how will it work in a more active situation?" Sevs asked.

"You need to use your elbow for leverage a little better. Move your hand further down her shoulder a bit... yeah right there. Now use your shoulder to pivot on that point and drive your elbow end of your forearm against the side of her neck... You see how she moves up a little, and you have less pressure on you? So now you can roll a little bit on your hips, on the other side. There, see that little gap between her hip and yours? That's where your knee goes.”

Sevs was able to get his knee in there and push, getting free. Susan continued, "There is a process to this. We need to learn the steps then we can add some resistance. But just because a move works against resistance doesn't mean it is good. Why is that?"

Lily piped up, "There is something better you can do?"

"Maybe anything else?"

Sevs thought for a second. "A move could get you out of the situation and leave you open to something worse? Maybe I could roll over on my back, then Lily would just be sitting on me, and there would be nothing I can do?"

"Good, both of those are true. So we don't train with just resistance very much. Once you know more positions and some attacks, we will do this more, but that is where rolling comes in. We can start you in a position, and then you go at it until the timer runs out or one of you gives up. That way, when you make moves that put you in a worse position, you will know." With that Susan went to help another group struggling to get it right.

Lily and Sevs continued taking turns, each time they got a little more serious about resisting the escape attempt. When Lily wasn't able to get her hand on his shoulder, they stopped and talked about it. "Maybe you can go from the other direction? Instead of grabbing my shoulder and sliding your arm under my head, you can work your hand under my chin, then when you grab my shoulder, your arm will already be in position."

"Yeah, when I am trying that, what if you were to grab my arm?" Lily asked. Sevs tried it.

"See, I think if I do that, you now have enough space to work your knee into my hips without the whole arm thing." Sevs rebutted. They went back and forth with the person on top, finding a new way to resist, and then they both worked on finding a counter. This continued until Susan called the group back to order.