“So we have about 20 minutes left. Normally we would take this time to roll. However, we don't really know enough yet. So I will explain what rolling is and give a little demonstration. Most martial arts would call it sparring, but we call it rolling. Don't ask me why. You can start from any position. When you are both ready, you do this handshake, Markus.” Markus came over from where he had been chatting with Father. Getting on his knees to face Susan. Once he was at her level, she held out her palm as if to shake his hand, and he imitated her. She smacked his palm and then offered a fist bump.

"So after you are both ready, you start by getting the fight to the ground." She grabbed one of Markus's arms and a shoulder and did something that caused him to flip onto his back, and he grunted when he hit the ground.

"Once the takedown is resolved, one of you is normally in a dominant position." Susan had taken side control on Markus. "The person on top will be looking for a submission. The other is either looking for a reversal or a way to escape and try the takedown again."

Markus tried to push her off. With her not being close to the same size, he had no trouble lifting her off with both hands on her shoulders. Just as it looked like she was about to be tossed to the side. She grabbed one of Markus's arms and swung her legs over him. One over his chest, the other smothering his face with the crook of her knee. She pinned his wrist to her chest and slowly leaned back until she had his arm extended all the way. "After you get a submission hold, go slow. You want to give your opponent plenty of time to tap before they get hurt. And if you are caught, once you can't escape, tap. You might not even feel pain, but best not to get hurt."

As she said that, she started to bridge her hips slowly. Very quickly, Markus was rapidly tapping her leg. Susan let go in an instant. Stood back up to her knees and offered Markus a hand up. "Once a side has tapped, you can go again after a second to recover. You signal the start with the same hand shake."

Markus shook his head at her offered hand. "Let me learn something first!" He laughed as he collapsed, panting onto his back.

"Notice the size difference between us," Susan continued as she stood over Markus. “He is probably 2 or 3 times my size. On top of that, he is much stronger. Not just knowing BJJ is not going to make up for the gap in strength. When you are at a disadvantage, it will give you tools that you can use to bridge the gap. You can learn to use your opponent's strength against him. Though the more experienced they are, the less that will be possible.”

Sevs looked over to Lily. Her eyes were shining. And a small smile slipped onto her face. Sevs saw her shoot a slightly predatory glance at her brother. He figured that her brother would have to learn to play a little more gently soon.

Susan had kept talking. She told them the names of the moves she had used. It was an arm drag into side control. Markus had done the escape wrong and left his arm hanging for an arm bar. "An armbar is one of the most basic attacks. However, we will not be learning them until we can learn a few more positions, escapes, and sweeps."

As the class ended, Susan told them they had done an excellent job and that she would see them next time. With the dismissal, the children ran off to their parents. They all started talking at once. The babble of the kids' voices echoed throughout the room as they told their parents what they had just done. Each kid had their own idea of what happened and how awesome they were, and good at fighting. They regaled their parents with stories of their exploits. Sevs shook his head as he walked over to Father. How could they have all forgotten that their parents were just a few meters away watching the whole time?

Father clasped him on the shoulder, keeping him at arm's length. "Good job Sevs. Next time we are going to need to bring you an extra shirt or something, 'cause you are soaked."

Father quickly pulled back his hand but not quite fast enough to prevent Sevs from wiping his hair off on it. Markus broke into the conversation with his usual aplomb. "Well, I certainly got my butt kicked! Ready to learn how to do that?"

Sevs laughed at the look on Father's face as he realized he wasn't talking to Sevs.

"But I am not dressed for it!" He protested. It was too late, as Markus was already dragging him to the center of the mats. As the kids' class had wrapped up. Several adults had shown up. They ranged in ages from late teens to some well past middle-aged. The adults behaved in some ways remarkably similarly to the kids. They jogged in a circle and then stretched and talked as they waited for the class to start. The only difference was the volume and energy level.

Susan finished talking to a parent about to leave, and went to go and get the adults started. Soon she had them summer saluting down the mats.

The last set of parents and kids left, leaving Sevs and one other kid sitting on the bench by the cubbies. As their parents were taking the adult class.

Sevs watched Father roll around on the floor; it was quite the sight. Not that Father was bad at it or even out of shape. Just that Father was a dignified figure in Sevs eyes and this was just a little odd. Like seeing your teacher at the grocery store as a little kid.

Susan started the adult onto the next warm-up exercise and came over to talk. "Hey you two, you are welcome to join in. It won't be extra. We are going to be learning the same things, for the most part, but it doesn't hurt to practice."

As the adults learned side control, Sevs and the other boy, who introduced himself as Hank, drilled the escape. Hank was an intriguing boy. First, Hank was quite the old-fashioned name. When Sevs asked about his name Hank just shrugged. Second, he was serious about learning BJJ.

That was odd because Hank had been one of the more rambunctious boys with the yelling and screaming at the beginning of the kids' session. But something had changed during the lesson. It seemed that he had been humbled by the feeling of powerlessness when someone had control over you on the ground. The determination he went about practicing was admirable. Sevs found that he actually quite liked Hank. When Hank failed, he reacted much better than most kids. There was frustration, yes, but no explosions of emotion. In fact, the only downside is that whenever Hank failed to get up, he wanted to just try again instead of swapping. Sevs maybe only got to practice the escape one in four or five times.

Honestly, that wasn't much of an issue. Sevs felt like he had the motion of the escape down at this point. What would help him the most was practice against someone who could punish his mistakes. That will help him improve more than repetition. Sevs was getting pretty good at stopping Hank's escapes though he remembered what Susan had said earlier. He hopefully wasn't building too bad of habits. To avoid that, Sevs kept trying to ensure they were doing something new each time. Eventually, he would run out of ideas. Long before that was even an issue, Sevs had another problem, many of the ideas that didn't work in the slightest.

Half the time, he tried a movement to prevent Hank from getting up, but Sevs ended up just helping him. After enough different tries, Sevs started to get a feel for what worked and what did not. Keeping tight to Hank made it hard to move, which was good in preventing Hank from getting up, but it was exhausting and didn't let Sevs move. Also, if Hank was pushing, putting more weight on that angle made it hard. There were dozens of observations that Sevs made throughout their roll. But, they got too tired to perform the motion effectively.

It was great timing, as that was when Susan called them to order. It had been almost thirty minutes since they had started. The adults had all learned the basics of the escape. Susan called over to them. "Sevs and Hank, why don't you come over and watch this."

They joined the edge of the circle. "So you all picked up on this escape really quickly," Susan remarked, "I think we have time to learn the next position."

Sevs could feel Hank getting excited next to him. Susan called Markus over so she could demonstrate. Hank wasn't satisfied with his view, so he stood up and started walking around the circle of adults so he could see all the new positions from all angles. At first, Sevs was a bit derisive. Could Hank not even sit still for a few minutes and listen to the explanation? It only took Sevs a second to realize his genius. Ordinarily, he would have just sat and listened. But really, Hank was right. He could not see nearly as well as he would like. Also, because they were kids, they could wander like that with no one really caring. Quickly Sevs joined Hank in standing over the adults.

With Markus on his back again in the center of the circle, Susan began to explain the position. "This is called mount. There are a few variations, but we can get to them later. For now, you can see that I am on my knees straddling Markus."

Susan was sitting on his hips with a leg on each side. She leaned down and put a hand on each of his shoulders. "This is perhaps the most dominant position you can have. It is difficult to escape from. However, there are also a lot of attacks I can do. For example, I can use my head to isolate one of his arms and kinda pin it in place. This then gives me both my arms and head to fight against one of his.

She caught his wrist and interlocked her arms such that when she started lifting one of her elbows off the mat, it had Markus tapping her shoulder with his free hand. Susan let go. "See, there are many other submissions that are possible from that position. Eventually, we will learn all of them, but for now, let's work on the mount."

They all broke out to do the first drill again. One person in mount and one trying to escape. As they were setting up, Sevs saw Hank grabbing his own wrist and what looked like trying to imitate the move that Susan used to make Markus tap just a few moments ago. Sevs gave a nervous chuckle. "Hey, no submissions until we actually learn them, right Hank?"

"Huh?" Hank looked up. "Uh yeah, for sure. I'll go first." With that, he flopped on his back, Sevs stepped over him, and they started.

After they each had a turn, they gathered back up. There was one group that was slow to join everyone, though. Sevs wasn't sure what to think when he saw it was Father and Markus. He wasn't sure if he was surprised or not. It was a rather funny sight. Father was on top and was not letting Markus up, but it didn't seem like he was honestly trying very hard to keep Markus down. On the other hand, Markus was thrashing and bucking all over the floor. They had actually slid almost the entire length of the mats. Father was just giving Markus enough room to move and putting pressure on him right as he was trying to get up. It was impressive that he was able to keep his balance.

As the group noticed them, it got quiet as everyone watched. Not even Susan seemed inclined to interrupt them. As the room quieted down, they could all hear Father taunting Markus. "So this is what all your lifting has got you, huh? Can't even knock little old me off. What is your five hundred pound deadlift worth now?"

Markus reached up with an arm, trying to grab the back of Father's neck, but Father just knocked it away. "With all that strength, you should have no problem throwing me off. At most, I'm half of your weight."

Markus roared in frustration and bucked with his hips so hard that Father flew a few feet in the air. Father had timed it perfectly, he gave a little hop and rode the momentum up to his feet. He was still standing astride Markus, but before Markus could take advantage of the space, Father dropped right back down, preventing Markus from getting up. "Nice try. I was sure that was going to work for you this time. Maybe if you give it just one more go..."

Sevs and the whole class watched them go on for a little while longer. Eventually, someone coughed. Father looked over his shoulder and suddenly realized that everyone else was watching. Taking advantage of Father's distraction, Markus managed to grab an arm and leg and toss Father off. He stood up, raising both fists, roaring in triumph, "Finally!"

"Next time, don't get distracted," Markus said to Father as he good-naturedly offered him a hand up. As Father took the hand and stood. They both looked over to the group. In unison, Father and Markus rubbed the back of their heads, looking slightly embarrassed.

Sevs busted out laughing.