Training When You Can't Train

Sometimes life makes it hard to train.  You get sick.  Your kid gets sick.  A major holiday comes along.  You lose your job and need to save money on training for a while.  You get injured.  You're traveling.  Your job schedule overlaps with your training schedule.  Whatever the reason, "life happens", as they say, and you can't get into the gym.  I tend to start jonesing for my jitsu fix after a couple of -days- without training, and I've had to deal with many times during my training when I've had to spend weeks without it.  There are a couple of approaches one can take when this happens.

First, you can try to simply forget BJJ exists.  This never really works, because in the back of your mind you know you're trying to forget something and though you can focus on other things, when thoughts inevitably DO return to BJJ, you feel worse than ever.

Another method of dealing with this problem is to practice in your mind.  I've been reading a lot about and playing with mental imagery training recently.  It's often called simply "visualization", but whatever you call it, the results are the same.  Time and time again, studies show that it doesn't seem to matter how you develop and reinforce the neural pathways created with perceptual learning, the results are very close to the same whether or not you physically perform a task, or just imagine yourself performing it.

In the mid-20th century, the USSR simply dominated the world gymnastics scene and nobody really understood how.  Other athletes undoubtedly practiced just as hard as their Soviet counterparts, but when the Soviets were on the mat, it was simply amazing.  Find any video of Larisa Latynina from that era (winner of over 18 Olympic medals including 9 gold...and even 1 silver while pregnant) and you'll see why she, Nikolai Andrianov, Boris Shakhin, and their teammates were so adored.  Their routines were perfect.  It wasn't until nearly 30 years later that we learned how they were doing it and the extent of the Soviet use of mental imagery training.  In the 1980s, psychologists began studying this phenomenon.

In one famous visualization study from the University of Chicago, three groups of basketball players each were tested on their free throw percentages and then told to practice (or not) in one of three ways: the first group would practice for one hour a day standing on the free throw line throwing basketballs, the second would go to the gym, but would simply visualize practicing free throws for an hour a day, and the third group (the control) would not practice free throws at all.  At the end of the study, they were tested again.  Of course, the group that didn't practice at all showed no improvement and those that physically practiced were now better at free throws (by 24%).   What was really surprising was that the group who had just visualized throwing free throws were also much better than they'd been before the study: 23% better in fact.  Take a moment to let that sink in.  The athletes who hadn't even attempted a real free throw showed almost as much improvement as the ones that actually practiced doing it for an hour a day.  Again, study after study confirms that the neural pathways related to perceptual learning can be created and reinforced by simply imagining the experience.  

How do you use this?  Well, here's what I do.  I spend about 10-20 minutes each night mentally practicing one BJJ technique.  I close my eyes and focus on every detail from hand and food placement to balance and stance and just imagine myself doing it perfectly every time.  I've only really been working on a few techniques up to this point, but I can tell already it definitely makes those techniques come to mind much easier during live rolling.   What's more, I can, as Steffan Kesting has recommended, "sharpen my blade in secret", meaning that I can work on a technique that I don't want to practice live with my peers until I've got it committed to memory and feel comfortable with it, rather than letting them get better at defending it in parallel to my learning it.


BJJ + Visualization = Success




Try it! :)

Private with The Dude

Had a great private with Professor Dudderar last Saturday.  It's been a couple of days, but I have lots of notes that I'll try to record here.  Professor Dude wanted me to work on a few holes in my game and a general change of pace (more on that later).

First, he said that I was missing a simple step in my guard replace that would help me tremendously.  I tend to keep my butterfly hook in when people start to pass, I have to stop that completely and keep my feet on their hips.  Indeed, if there was a theme to Saturday's lesson, it was about fine tuning my basics.

We worked a lot on the high guard.  Some notes:
* Flower sweep comes before pendulum because a flower keeps them from stepping up with their leg and blocking.  IF they step up and block, THEN resort to pendulum sweeps, but not until.
* If they trap my arm, we work on the ultra-high guard...the hips over position of the high guard, whatever you want to call it.  From here, you have the -triple- threat (triangle, armbar, collar choke) we practiced last week.
* This is hugely important: Attack with the inside grip.  This is grip is so solid its ridiculous.  I had a guy pick me up while I had this grip yesterday and I just came right up with him and put him an armbar while hanging there.
* The Inside Grip: Other hand goes on the elbow.  Foot on the hip, then push to middle of the stomach and go to old-school high guard if they sit back, high guard if they come forward.
* From the old school high guard, there is one really excellent hand grip that yields crazy amounts of Americana: just grab their hand with both of yours, covering the whole thing.  Push it toward their shoulder and back for the tap.  NOT just to the side, go toward them first

The Badger Sweep:
From the old-school high guard, it's so very predictable that when you're attacking the arm, they will go into super defense mode and cross up their arms.  Whoops, suddenly you can sweep them over easily.  Switch attacking hands, move the original attacking hand under their leg and pull up and scoop while taking them the other way.  Sort of like a flower sweep.  From the old school high guard.

Hulk out escape from technical mount:  I need to remember this.  I used to hit it all the time, but sometime over the summer, I forgot all about it and haven't done it in a long time.  Get back into the habit of hitting this!


And now for something completely different: Gotta work harder to attack...not just defend.  My M.O. is basically to go onto the defensive too early and give up on attacking when in a defensive position.  I need to do some experimenting to attack from what are my traditional defensive positions.  "You must turn the tide if you are to win."

The BJJ Continuum

This week has been a lesson in good habits for me.  Last week I was rolling with Professor Dudderar and when I got home and thought about our roll, I started to notice something.  Every time I would really screwed up on position was when I would give up on it and try for what -looked- like an obvious submission (esp. from the bottom).  I realized he was tricking me, the same way I trick lower belts, to bait me into allowing me committing my energy into a bad attack, while he worked to secure his position.  What's worse, I was getting subbed when I should have been keeping safe because I would give up on safety and work on position (or worse, and thankfully rarely so: submission). 

What I tell lower belts when this happens when they are rolling with me is something I've always heard, "Position before Submission".  Over the years, I've modified it (with some influence from Saulo Ribiero's philosophy) into this idea of a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Continuum.  The Continuum looks something like this:

Safety <--------------------- Position ------------------> Submission

I tell people to think about their game and rolls and reflect on where they are on this continuum, especially in relation to where to person they are rolling with is.  If they are in danger, they should be working in the "Safety" portion of the continuum.  Once "Safety" has been established, "Position" usually follows.  An armbar escape, for instance, often establishes you in a position to pass guard.  At the very least, once Safety is established, Position becomes a contestable.  But until Safety is established, working for Position is quite dangerous.  At the other end of the spectrum is the old axiom and it usually holds true; don't work on Submission until you've established Position and once your Position is solidified, Submission usually comes next.  There are exceptions to these rules (e.g., submissions from the bottom), but that's really just what they are, exceptions.  Generally speaking, if the guy you're rolling with is working on a submission, and you are working on establishing position, your safety is going to be compromised.

The funny thing was, this is exactly how I was rolling with Professor Dudderar; putting myself in danger by working submissions without any positional dominance.  Working for positions when I was in danger of being submitted.  Worse, he was baiting me to make these jumps.  From good positioning, he would offer up submissions, knowing that if I lost focus on the positional battle, he could advance up the continuum right into submissionland, while I would be -forced- back to trying to re-establish safety.  Going forward, I've resolved to forget about the submission portion of the continuum when rolling with higher belts and only even think about them when (if ever) I manage to secure some positional dominance.  My victory point has to be flexible if I want to learn from higher belts.  I have to move it back from it's ultimate resting spot at the submission end of the spectrum down into more realistic goals, like simply getting good position.  Getting any good position on a black belt isn't anything anyone will give me a high-five over, it doesn't sound as cool as a submission, it isn't a match-ending technique (if anything, it will just make it harder for me as the black belt starts to use their considerable escaping and positioning skills in earnest), but it is where I should be focusing on right now.


On Tuesday I went in to take Fundamentals class and then, as I was recovering from being ill over the weekend, to find some white belts to roll with during the advanced class.  That was working fine until my friend Evan showed up and wanted to roll about midway through the advanced class and we ended up rolling for about an hour at a pretty hard pace.

Evan's a blue belt who takes a lot of privates with Professor Jubera and he's quite good, probably nearly a purple belt really, and has a lot of great habits.  In fact, he caught me sleeping a couple of times and managed to get underhooks and head wraps on me and make me really work from the bottom more than once.  It again reinforced my notions of paying closer attention to good habits, BASIC habits, like fighting for underhooks and protecting against head wraps. 

Wednesday's advanced gi class was great.  Matt watched Evan and I roll and had some good advice for us both about working on these basic habits and Wednesday's class had a special section devoted to protecting against the underhook ("just for you Badger!" said Matt. :) 

Good habits.  On the mat, as in life, it's all about establishing them early and getting them programmed and automatic.  Every day is an opportunity to do just that.

 

Mauled by a Juberacuda

Had a private with Matt Jubera today.  Soooo much I need to record here before it slips away!  I'd try to organize it a bit as I go.

Basic tips:

• * For the cross sleeve grip on the top, one good way to strip it is to simply turn your hand upside down and strike their palm with your other hand.
• * In general, Matt says he's looking for a few ways around one basic theme: get his weitght on their hips.  Immobilizing their hips in this way seriously damages their ability to make enough space to defend passes.  He's identified a few ways to do this:

1. The half-guard hip-to-hip.  Passed one leg, but not the other?  Who cares, dive in and get pressure on their hips with your hips.  This flattens and immobilizes them.  Work your pass from there.
2. From the smash.  This is sort of ideal, but obviously this is a major part of the smash pass.
3. From the torreana pass.  Most people are taught the long way around on this pass; grab both legs, circle all the way around.  He does this a little differently...he just dives right at their hips.  Just grab both legs and dive around and at their hips...climb them from there.

Passes:

• Over-Under from Half-Guard.  Great alternative to the over-under pass Andrew shows.  Similar, but with interesting subtle differences. 

1. Start from half-guard...shield is fine. 
2. Shuck the outside leg over the shoulder, reach around it and four-fingers in grip their collar on the opposite side. 
3. Pull your elbow in tight. 
4. Try to position your shin over their leg. 
5. If they grab your off-side free hand, free it by tucking it behind you.  When it's free, reach up and pull their foot down past your head with your inside hand. 
6. Use this hand now to feed over their leg to grab the same collar as the other hand is holding. 
7. Use the elbow of the inside arm to put pressure on their top leg (to keep them from rolling back to guard). 
8. Release the original hand in the collar and loop it around for the cross-face as you...
9. Pass to their back and look for the cross collar choke, bow and arrow, take the back, etc.


Open guard pass: When opponent is pushing you away.
Lift their inside leg up and bring your hips down on their hips for the smash pass!


As soon as you stand up from closed guard: pass!!!
1. Step over the inside leg (the leg not on the side you have a collar grip on...you do have a collar grip right!? :).   From here, either cross knee pass, or if they push the other way, smash pass.
2. Step over the inside leg and smash it to the ground with your shin...do the Over-Under from half guard as above.


Side-control escape.
Running man goes the other way!.
If you can't running man away from them and circle them into your guard, turn into them with your top hand pushing on their shoulder to make space for you knee-to-elbow contact.  Scramble and recover guard.  If they move around you, SINGLE LEG!

Rolling With The White Belts

Had a great class on Saturday and stayed afterward to roll with some folks.  The fundamentals class was a repeat from earlier in the week about side control escapes and ended with a cool side-control sweep to use if they do manage to get a crossface on you (hooking their leg and bridging from underneath to reverse).  Lot of good rolling at the end of class with several blue belts in attendance.

After class I rolled for a while with our Muay Thai coach Dave, who is a talented blue belt, and managed to pull off that nice armbar from high guard that I've been trying to hit with more regularity recently.  Afterwards, with no one else to roll with for a while (other blues were busy), I took the chance to roll with a couple of white belts for a while. 

I think some of the blues in my school could do well to spend time rolling with the white belts like this, as they always have good questions and it's great to see them gaining confidence in exchanging positions, passing guard, etc.  Not only that, but really, both sides can benefit from this arrangement.  Basically, the way I roll with them is to just do positional exchanges and not hunt submissions, unless they just totally blow it and need to see why where they are is a really bad place to be.  For me, it's a great place to practice set-ups and sweeps.  I don't have to follow through with them, just threatening the sweeps or getting set up for a finish is enough, and I still end up with a lot of great interaction and the general lack of high pressure helps me practice the 'zero mind', as Professor Dudderar calls it.  For them, it's a chance to test their skills against a more-seasoned opponent and feel what it's like to make mistakes as well as feel what success is like when they advance position, etc.  I don't see them finish with subs a lot, but if they set anything up really well, I will go ahead and let them lock it in.  Generally, I figure they can practice subs with each other...what they can't get from each other is a sense of position exchanges that a long match is all about, which is what I try to give them. 

In my old school, not many purple belts would have stooped down to roll with the white belts, and I always felt that wasn't a good arrangement.  For one, there's a lot of benefit that can be gained for the purple/blue/brown/black that spends time with a lower-ranking BJJ player.  They can play around and not have to worry about practicing moves in a high-pressure environment.  They can drill and drill and drill the same sweeps they will use later against their peers, without worry of the other person capitalizing on minor mistakes.  For the lower-ranking belt, they get the experience of rolling with someone who has a much better notion of the possibilities and positions that are possible and, since the higher belt is not having to work hard to finish the fight, they get the benefit of rolling with someone who is not simply trying to finish them as quickly as possible.  I've gotten some odd looks from blue belts who were watching me roll with whites, but I think they'd do well to spend some time doing that themselves...they'd learn a lot more than they think about their own game.

Tired...short post!

Great classes today.  Worked on 'the chair' and more standing guard passes in the Intermediate/Advanced class and worked on side control escapes in the Fundamentals class.  

Notes to myself:

• On the X-pass, the hand on the hip is meant to keep them from turning into you.  Keep pressure on it.  
• There is a danger in 'the chair' if they fall off and you have your legs together, they can triangle them together easily.  Gotta remember this on top and bottom.

Rolled a bit after class, making it about a 2.5 hour day of BJJ.  This explains why I'm so tired! :)  Sleep now.

Relearning the Basics

Worked on the standing closed guard pass today at the Dark Horse.  I know that it must be a bit disappointing to the professors to see us flailing on basic passes like this, I know they have such an awesome progressive curriculum in mind for the Dark Horse that this all must seem very remedial, but I think it's probably good to keep these 'advanced fundamentals' classes going from time to time.  You can't just assume that people know all the same basics. 

Honestly, I think, if anything, some of this work on basics in the advanced classes is making a good case for introducing a true "intermediate" class (rather than a combined "Intermediate/Advanced" class), where we can focus on refinement of the basics and introduce the more progressive stuff in the advanced classes.  I was attending the fundamentals classes for a while, because it was good to see the fundamentals, but I never really felt challenged especially because as usually the only purple belt in the room, it invariably fell to me to work with the very least experienced person in the class.  Not that I mind helping others, I'm just saying that it's hard to be challenged to refine your fundamentals when your partner doesn't know enough to really push you on any technique.

I really do like polishing up the basics with some real resistance and today was a great day.  We worked on two basic standing passes, one was the same one I worked on Saturday with Professor Jubera.

Pass 1: Basic Standing Pass
A couple of points here. 

• Kickstands aren't to be used to get up with, they are protection against being broken down when you're standing.  Standing should be the same as if those arms weren't even there. 
• Always stand with your kickstand-side leg first.  I didn't make this mistake often, but moreso when I was standing with my kickstand arm on the left, I would still stand on the right first.  Gotta keep that in mind.
• Get up!  Professor Jubera said Saturday that he wants to start standing in the first 5 seconds of being in someone's closed guard.

Pass 2: Jump up double arm pass (I don't know wtf this pass is called either)
Basically here you just push into both arm pits with straight arms (and you do use them to get up) and sort of jump both legs up at the same time. 
Couple of points:

• Professor Dude likes the reach behind push down on the bottom foot opening from here.  In fact, I'm betting he likes it better from the other pass too.  Need to integrate this into my game, it's a very powerful way to break open the guard.
• Keep the hips forward when you jump up, same as any standing pass.  No ape man postures.

After class, I rolled with Dave and Chris for a while.  Great fun!  I tried to focus on lapel attacks from mount, which is something I'm working on, but honestly, I have a long way to go before I can be really dangerous with these.  I'm about 50X more effective with Ezekiel chokes than I am with lapel chokes on guys at my level.  I -was- able to sink in a lapel grips from the mount, but I just have to keep doing it if I'm going to get good.  I'm going to spend some time actually studying open guard passes; I felt that Chris' open guard was really tough to get around and it was hard to find a good answer to it...and he was doing that annoying thing I do where I just play with the open guard but never seem to find a good opening to sweep. :) 

Wins: Couple of good de la Riva guard sweeps.  I got deep half and swept and passed with it. 
Losses: couldn't finish my arm triangle from the mount (twice).  I was just exhausted.  got to do work on making this more efficient (esp. switching from my arm to my head)

Never too experienced to learn to do something right.

Great training today in the Fundamentals class at Dark Horse.  We went over some basic headlock escapes and then worked on mount attacks and drills.  Fun class and great to see friends there and see them improving.

In the open mat after class, though, I was rolling with one of the blue belts and got caught in his closed guard for a long time.  Matt got on me a bit about staying there so long and this led to a conversation about proper opening of the closed guard.  Man, I have some bad habits to get rid of...I think today was a bit of a wake-up call for me that I've been handling the closed guard just all wrong for a long time.

You see, after you've been rolling for a while with the same person, it's very typical to sort of have minor pauses, places where you stop and say 'hey good one' or just where you feel safe enough to catch your breath.  Inside a closed guard is one of those moments.  It's like, you've worked hard for a long time on techniques, and eventually blown your pass or otherwise screwed up and your opponent has settled in to their closed guard and often they give you a moment's breathing room here as well while they ponder their next move or attack, so it's very natural to just sort of say 'ah, nice one' and even to sort of stay tight to them and not work defensively or not work on -getting out- of this bad situation.  It's easy to stall from there and it's a difficult position to get out of, usually requiring a fair bit of effort, so psychologically it's natural to want to "take a moment" to compose yourself and concentrate on stalling.   This is all bad bad bad.

Nothing could be worse for your game than to fall into this kind of thinking.  I was chuckling at a blog post of someone the other day who said he'd made it his goal to just not get tapped.  I thought "if you aren't getting tapped, how can you be learning anything but stalling"!  Well, the above mentality is just the same thing.  How can you be learning to pass someone's closed guard, when you accept that it's hard and then just try the easiest things you can, hoping they will make a mistake. 

Passing the closed guard can be done a number of ways, but the very first thing one should be doing is working to stand up.  Work on this should begin even as the guard is closed.  There should be no 'settling in for a long battle' moment.  No composure moment.  No 'hey good job' time.  One needs to immediately begin working on the job at hand, which is to stand up.  The double lapel grip is a great one.  Standing up, switching to a single lapel and pushing the knee down works!!  Alternate grip can be same side sleeve (step up first on the side of the sleeve you cross/capture).  The important thing is, stand up!  I've been taught this since my white belt days.  I remember Eliot yelling at us "IF YOU WANT TO PASS YOU HAVE TO STAND UP!!"  I've heard it from every professor I've probably ever worked with for any length of time.  It's the single most common advice I've ever had about passing the closed guard.  Why then, have I been ignoring this advice and settling in for a nice long closed guard battle...a battle which I commonly lose against advanced players.

In another example, I was working with Professor Dudderar the other day after class on simple cross-collar chokes.  Turns out I've been doing them wrong for years, which explains why so many of my collar chokes haven't been working.  My technique wasn't too far off, but still, it was far enough off that fixing a couple of minor points is probably going to double my chances of finishing these chokes.

I guess, what happened today just resonated well with my experience with the cross-collar chokes on Wednesday night created a minor epiphany (btw, see Mike Rowe's comments on peripeteia and anagnorisis here)...I need to keep an open mind toward everything on the mat and in life.  Not just the new things, the old things too.  Not just the new kick-ass move from youtube.com, but the move you learned the first 3 months in your first BJJ class.  Not just the new latest thing in your life, but the thing you take for granted every day. 

I'm never too experienced to learn to do something right. 

I'll try to keep that in mind.

Defeating the Deep Half-Guard

Yesterday's class at the Dark Horse was all about defeating the half-guard and deep half-guard. 

Defeating the half-guard by pushing them flat:
The half-guard is a great position with lots of defensive possibilities, but it's also half-way toward setting up a nice smash pass (or X-Pass) for the guy on top.  Either can be set up easily, just straight arm the torso of the bottom player and grab their inside knee.  No gi, you'd just cup the hip and knee.  At this point, you want to step up with your inside leg and simultaneously pull their inside knee up while keeping pressure on the bottom player's torso to control his hips.  Literally, you are going to turn the bottom player onto his back, with knees in the air to set up the smash pass pressure.  To smash pass, simply keep going!  Alternate route: You already have your hands set up for a great X-Pass, leave the hands where they are and step around the inside leg to move to knee-on-belly.  Pretty slick!

Deep half guard:
Really, this comes down to two things: prevention, and unwinding. 

Prevention: The deep-half guard can be stopped before it's started.  As they leave their head up (when moving to close up the deep half-guard) or when they are just starting to set it up and are on the way in, a simple cross-face will do the trick nicely.  Grab the head and lock them out. 
Bonus: If they have their hand already buried trying to get in deep, just switch your hips to trap this arm.  Your cross face and switched hips create a really nasty position that is very similar to reverse kesa gatame (basically, you are just doing Xande's half-guard pass at this point).

Unwinding:  If they are in deep already and only controlling the leg (and not the belt), then you have the option of unwinding the position.  You basically just underhook their far arm to turn them into you, then switch hips to reverse kesa gatame again.  You end up sort of laying next to them.  Now you can drive your head to the other side of them and get up on that knee they are still holding onto and work your cross-knee pass.  OR...simply go for it and move right across them to 3/4 mount.  Either way: good for you, bad for them.


Good class!

Injuries

I was just thinking of all the injuries I've had doing this sport so far (in no particular order):

• Sprained my back (got stacked). Couldn't bend over for like two days.
  
• Fat lip (head butt)
• Hyper-extended all the fingers of my right hand simultaneously (guy fell on them passing my guard). Surprisingly, this was painful for a moment, but didn't hurt for more than a few minutes.
  
• Bursitis, right shoulder. Required cortisone injections.
  
• Strained rotator cuff, left shoulder. Required cortisone injections.
• Torn Anterior Cruciate Ligament (left knee). Required reconstructive surgery and 9 months rehabilitation.
• Iliotibial Band Syndrome (ITBS), left leg. Just getting over a bout of this. Required a cortisone injection.
  
• Hyper-extended right elbow. I fell into an armbar. Ouch. I felt and heard that first 'pop' and then had a sore elbow for like 6 weeks.
• Countless bruises.
• Neck injury from an Ezekiel choke (Finnie got me good one time. Took like 4 weeks before I stopped feeling like I had the flu. :)
  
• Numerous black eyes.
• Mat burns. Currently having the worst one of these I've ever had. Tore open a piece of my foot the size of a nickel that has been healing and scabbing for weeks. Had to buy wrestling shoes to wear to practice until it heals.
• Staff infection, right knee. Popped/pulled an infected hair off my knee before showering after practice. Got so infected I had a 107F fever and had to get numerous antibiotic injections.
• Probably lots more I am forgetting.

Believe it or not, I believe that this is at least -somewhat- typical. Everyone I've ever known in the sport has gotten hurt at -some- point doing this. I mean, this is fighting, and people want to win. I'm one of several at my school who've had ACL reconstructions done. I just saw a purple belt the other day who hyper-extended and possibly broke his thumb because it got caught in a gi. These things happen.

So...I guess if there's a moral, I guess it's just that I really really like jiu-jitsu. :) The last time I went to see my Orthopedic Surgeon (or "Bill" I call him, as we are on a first-name basis now) said "Do you compete in this? I mean, do you make money doing this or something?" I had to laugh. I had to admit that yeah, to him, the amount of shit I am willing to go through to keep going back to that mat probably seems a little absurd. Anyone who's ever done it could tell you differently; it's totally worth it.

Two Hours On The Mat

Today I went to a randori and muay thai class. Worked with a couple of new guys and rolled with a 4-stripe white in the randori. I finally noticed that all the guys I usually roll with on Friday afternoons were all sitting on the sides resting. Apparently the 'real' randori has been moved to 4pm now that there is an official 5pm randori. That's pretty early in the afternoon for me, but I'm going to have to play a little Friday afternoon hookey from time to time and get into that randori when I can; those are fun guys to roll with. Still, by the time I got to muay thai, I was pretty exhausted, but I haven't been to a MT class in a few weeks (really much too long) and I was excited to go. This was a class with lots of hand work, which was perfect for me because I find that a lot less tiring than kicking for an hour. I like that 5pm randori/6pm MT mix. It's a great workout.

Back to the Journal!

Hey, I re-found this today after two years of not posting. Wow. What a crappy journal.

Well, let's see if I can do better than that this time. :)


Let's see. Since my last posting, I've had an ACL surgery (torn in a BJJ class) and now have 3 stripes on my blue belt. My last stripe I got just 4 days ago on April 1, 2009. I got my second almost a year earlier, but I was out for about 8 months in 2008 recovering from my ACL surgery, so I lost a lot of time there. Anyway, I'm back now and enjoying training. This week I was in training a total of 6 hours...which is about the minimum I like to go for these days. Amazing how that's changed since I first started. I've been working out a lot and am holding steady at about 200lbs now. I'd like to get this down some more, but it takes time.

Okay, more later, just wanted to get this started again!

I'm Mr. Blue!

Got my blue belt after Wednesday's randori.

Awesome! :)

Amal asked me to roll for a few during the Wednesday randori (just to test me out a little bit I suppose), then at the end of class, he called Ross (a yellow belt) up. Ross got his orange belt and I got my blue. Not that getting a colored belt is why I'm training, but it -is- nice to feel like others feel like your knowledge and skill are progressing according to plan. It certainly made me reflect on how much training I've done and how far I've come.

It's been a long road so far and a lot of work. I started all this on April 19, 2006 (when I started I could barely do the warm-up); I guess it's been just under 1 year of spending about 5 hours a week (on average) training. Many times it was 6 hours a week, some weeks I've done 7, and I think one week when I had a lot of spare time and was between jobs where I went 9 hours. For the first 4 months, I probably only went about 2 hours a week. I started running almost every day and lost about 40 lbs., mainly motivated by a desire to really be in shape for BJJ and not be a tub when it came time to roll. After I got my 2nd stripe or so, it sort of started getting more and more addictive. When I got my third stripe, it stepped up again. I felt like I should go to at least to one blue belt class to continue to work on fundamentals (but often I went to both the A and B blue belt classes), both purple belt classes, and both weekly randoris. I bet I've spent over 200 hours of training in the last 11 months and could probably count on one hand the total number of weeks I've gone without training -at all- (most of those were weeks I was traveling outside of Colorado).

Anyway. What a great way to end a Wednesday!

Purple Belt and Gi Randori

Skipped the blue belt class today, just went straight to purple belt and randori.

Purple Belt Class
Stand-up work:
* Cross punching
* Cross/hook combos
* Cross/uppercut combos
Ground:
* Practiced butterfly guard sweep (side one and 'taking out the trash' one)
* Drilled butterfly guard
* Knee-on-stomach defense (wall blocking)
* Knee-on-stomach escapes (light foot/heavy foot)
* Drilled side control (up, down, and out).


Randori:
Did pretty good. I still have a sore shoulder. Will this thing ever get better? I got totally stalled with a guy about my size/skill. He was just stuck in my guard. I should have tried more sickle sweeps for practice, but he wasn't very good at holding posture and didn't seem to want to stand to pass guard, so I kept him down trying for armbars and triangles. Rolled with Nick a bit. Got stuck in half-guard with him for a while, but he went for a kata gatame and got it just right while I wasn't paying attention. After class Nick showed me and Ian how to do kata gatame right as well as some tips on the barabo choke. Think I'll schedule some privates with Nick.

Bllue Belt Class

Blue Belt class. Worked on punching drills. Headlock escape.
Side control. Side control hip escape. Side Control, switching sides.

Open Mat Sunday

	Just went in for a little open rolling today. Ian was there, as well as Robert and some other blue belt I didn't know. Did okay, but I'm nursing my injured shoulder a lot, so I don't feel like I can roll well right now. Still, it's good experience.

3 Hours of BJJ Tonight

Let's see...

Blue Belt Class:
* punch/block drills
* worked on headlock escapes.
- Standing headlock escape.
- From side-mount: pendulum sweep, throwing the football, pulling over when throwing the football doesn't work.

Nothing major. Just helped out a no-stripe whitebelt and used it as a warm-up.


Purple Belt Class:
* We did an arm-drag to single leg takedown that was interesting. Set up from an armdrag that they pulled back from. Weird part was that the far-side hand reached around the uke's waist (near side and head were same as normal double-leg), then blocked legs with legs to do the takedown. Started getting a stomach cramp doing this...shouldn't have had that pasta at 4:40.
* Worked on punching drills, but with cross going to hook with partner providing hand targets and moving around.
* Last, we worked on butterfly guard work. How do get pummel if the are riding low. How to undo a can-opener from butterfly guard and get double pummels (grab elbows, roll over, legs up, bearhug with head in the middle, then sit up), a side sweep to side-control and a counter roll to their posting with a leg to stop the side sweep.


Randori:
Worked with a couple guys about my level, a couple of younger guys, a brown belt, and a blue belt who was really good. blue belt had wrestling experience and went for the legs a lot, which kinda threw me off my game some...plus he was really good. Going to have to work on defending leg takedowns, even when kneeling. Got Keegen with a walkover guard pass to upside-down footlock...tried it on the brown belt and -almost- got it...he pulled me back. :) I like that one. As promised, I worked on side control escapes and got a lot more comfortable with them. Learned some basic form that helps out a lot. Last match during Randori, Professor Easton asked anyone who wanted some tips on being in guard to gather round and me and some other guys went over to get some wizdam. We defintely got some good tips on how to hold posture and what to worry about controling when inside someone else's guard.

Looked up my stats on their computer...I have 23 Randori's under my belt. I think they start thinking seriously about belt promotions after about 30. It would be neat to see how many total 1-hour classes and Randori (combined) that I've actually gone to, at -minimum-, its over 140...I would guess close to 170). That's crazy. I got my pilot's license in like 80 hours.


I'm totally drained. I need to start running more (now that I'm not sick) and eating smarter before classes like that.

New Book!

Just got Gracie Submission Essentials by Helio and Royler Gracie from a friend. Wow! Cool book! Going to study this a lot. :)

mats

Just made a deal for 18 sq. meters of 7/8" thick rubber matting. :) Hello garage jiu-jitsu studio!



Neil

Randori last week.

Wanted to post on my experiences in Randori last week (2/21) to get it put into words and really think about it. I hadn't been to any Randoris for 2.5 weeks prior to that one and, honestly, I was pretty apprehensive about it. I was feeling sick (still am really) and didn't want to go, but some part of me said 'you need to go' and I think I understand what that part of me was trying to say. Even after just 2.5 weeks, I'd started to feel out of practice with the details of the techniques. I'd begun to loose some confidence in my abilities in general too, so that the thought of going to Randori at all had sort of an intimidating air to it. I felt weakened from 2.5 weeks of being sick, the 12 shots of antibiotics (and days of oral antibiotics) I had from 2/5 to 2/10 for the staph infection on my leg (which I am still getting over), for the cough I had, from a shoulder injury I've been nursing since the end of January that still hurts, and in general, from not working out, not running, and from not thinking about BJJ for almost 3 weeks. Indeed I -was- weak...after the Randori on Wednesday, it took me a full 3 days to recover completely from the soreness, and it set back my flu recovery I'm sure. Still, I had to go. Some part of me was screaming at me to go, get back into this thing that I love. Amal is always saying to train when you are feeling your worst. Well, I couldn't do it when I was feeling my worst, but it was like the worse I felt, the louder that voice became inside my head.

So I went. I went and had a -blast-! I was playing with a lot of side control from the top, scarf holds, and in generally playing with knee-on-belly and other dominant position techniques that were -not- mount. I really am starting to feel like mount is somewhat overrated in a situation where you are not in a fist fight. Don't get me wrong, it's clearly a great position to work from, but if you are rolling for submissions rather than trying to get to a position to strike from, mount seems to me to give up a lot of options and leave you much more vulnerable to sweeps than side-mount positions. I can hold side-mount on almost any white belt and most blue belts in my class for a very long time, and if they start escaping, I switch to scarf hold, or if I run out of attack options because of their good side mount defense, I can switch to knee-on-belly. From knee, I can drop into side mount in an instant again, or drop to scarf, or even switch sides, depending on where they go. Also from knee-on-belly, I have a whole range of new attacks, if they roll towards me, it's easy to switch sides and either attack or maintain side control. Plus, my brain was really ready to attack and to switch from position to position quickly, and not just sit there.

So my take-away from all this was a few things:
1. Most people do not defend side control and scarf hold very well...this can be exploited.
2. I don't defend side control very well...need to work on this.
3. Stay on the move, don't get stagnant.

#3 is always hard, but it's getting easier now as I get more fluid with changing positions.
#2 is something I am going to work on. I have trouble recognizing when side control is coming and setting up escapes and starting them early enough to be really effective. I have devised a plan. :)

My plan is simple, start letting people take side control, whether they can or can't normally take it. Let everyone take side control on me and the whole time I'm rolling, try to get people to get side control on me. Then work on recognizing when side control is coming and start working on escapes before they have settled in, or, worst case, after they have settled in. Either way, basically the rule is going to be to make myself give up side control, a lot, and work on technique to a. keep the position from getting worse, and b. escape.

Anyway, I really felt like I had a good game last Wednesday and it just goes to show how much this stuff stays with you and why you should go train, even when you don't feel like it. I'm going to try to work on not just training when I feel strong more often.