Bad Rolls

I'm feeling the pressure to improve when things go live, and I have a short list of things that I need to begin to accomplish in rolls.

Today wasn't good, and it was a bad day in a bad week, so my the knowledge from breaking down my rolls begins now.

#1 I worked with big p, so he was my first roll.  He's about my same height, but much stronger than I.  He uses his size well, and I found myself out of position most of this match.  I go to bottom too much, though I can often sweep.  In this no-gi class, however, the big guy didn't move.  At one point, I turned into him.  He had good base and took my back and rode for a while.  I defended the rear-naked pretty well and shoulder escaped once.  From there, he took mount which turned into back mount.  After some hand fighting, I tapped to a less-than-perfect rear naked choke.  I'm taking nothing away from him.  I tapped, and even if I would have fought off longer, he had position on my almost the entire match.  I hated it.

#2  This one was against warrior jav.  I'm a little taller and bigger than he is, but this dude is intense, and he's a competitor with a tournament upcoming.  We started from sitting, and I wasn't going to go to my back, but he grabbed my heels and pushed me to my back.  This single, starting move took a lot of fight out of me because I did not want to be on my back.  Oh well.  I stayed calm against the smaller guy who is very good.  I gained half guard; he made it to mount.  I defended most of his attacks.  He moved from position to position on top.  I should have sat up, but I wasn't being threatened with a whole lot.  In one of his transitions, he hooked an arm and went for the armbar.  I was defending by holding my hand together.  I felt strong here.  Of course, he had the better position.  He was working hard and doing a lot right.  I unlocked my hands and tapped to his armbar.  It was a good get.  Fighting it longer would only take away more productive roll time.  At this point in the class, I'm feeling totally defeated, but we have time for one more roll.

#3  My purple belt bud and I rolled.  We are very even in size, and we keep similar pace (i.e. a bit slower and more technical than many).  I was seated; he was on his knees, until he ran around my legs and landed in side control, of course.  I'm on bottom again and against a guy who rarely gives up top position.  His side control turned into mount.  I threatened his posture and gave him a few things to think about with elbow/knee escape attempts.  I gave him too few things to think about apparently, because he locked up a top side kinda triangle thingie.  It wasn't perfect; one whole side of my neck was open, but I tapped to it eventually.

With that I was done.  I felt like a fish out of water, and I simply have to improve.  Strangely, putting those rolls into works (as opposed to leaving them on the matt as I normally do) is already starting to help. This may be a good move for me.