Category: Jiu-Jitsu (Page 4 of 6)

Last Roll of 2016

January 1, 2017 / Scott / 0 Comments

Ended up with 132 hours of BJJ training in 2016, which is infinitely more than I trained the year before–hoping for at least 300 hours in 2017.

Pretty good turnout for open mat. I rolled several rounds with Ana, being super gentle. She wasn’t going to roll at all, just a week out from the broken nose, but decided she’d roll if we were extra careful. I’m getting better at going technique-only. I’m trying to be aware of when I’m using excessive strength to avoid submissions. For example, she went for a kimura, and my first thought was “Pshaw–you can’t get that on me!” But the next thought was, “What if I only weighed 115 pounds–would she get it then? What if she weighed 190?”

So, yeah–tap.

Ended up getting in a bunch of rounds with Norm, Joe, Ed, and Justice. At least two 5 minute rounds with each of them. All rounds went about as expected.

I think the most productive rounds were with Ana though. We really need to get some mats at home so we can do a ton of easy flow rounds at home whenever we like. These rounds are probably better for me than they are for her. I’m much more of a plodding and deliberate grinder, and she’s all over the place. “Slowing down” for her is a little faster than I’m used to, but taking the strength out of it allows me to look at where I am and try to figure out a technical play without having to worry about being muscled into a submission. Hopefully what I’ll get out of this is the ability to analyze a situation faster and jump to a technique.

Lots of Black Belts

December 28, 2016 / Scott / 0 Comments

Lots of visitors from Ireland, Texas, and Tampa tonight. Two black belts, one brown belt, two purple belts, and two blue belts.

A normal warmup, and we were then treated to three techniques by the three black belts!

Frank’s Technique — review of the knuckle pushup KoB, shoot hand through (PALM UP), step over head (PULLING IN NECK AND PUSHING OUT STERNUM) to the Down Bar (I DREAM OF GENIE), americana, kimura, roll to the scissor choke.

Andy’s Technique – Kimura and Armbar from guard

Over/Under on opponent’s shoulders with controlled posture
Trap the arm on the “under” side straight
Push knees out (keeping guard closed) to straighten the arm
Grip the triceps with opposite hand to lock in kimura
Roll bicep towards ceiling to go for americana

Key concepts–keep trapped arm elbow tight. Keep guard closed and high. For americana, push knees out the door. Helps to bring elbow inside the head.

Christine Technique – Side control arm bars

Instead of cross-face, get into a smother.
Inch knee under the arm you have
Post hands on mat next to shoulder and hip
Hope to a KoB, shooting the arm up and grabbing it
Throw leg over the head, ok to keep other leg inside ribs

For Spinning Arm Bar

Smother hard and wait for them to give the arm
Depending on which side of your head they shoot it, trap with your gi
Pull them up and step over head, using other arm as a brake
or if other direction post hand to hip, click into north south,
Position lower foot, then step over, again using the other arm as a brake.

Sixteen people in the gym, so no chance to roll every round. Still, got four 4-minute rounds in.

My first was against one of the visiting black belts. 260+ lbs of Irish squash. He’d gone two consecutive rounds before me and seemed content to smash the crap out of me from several different positions. I considered it a “win” when I could breath. He started on his back, just giving me side control. I regret that I didn’t try to lay into him harder with the shoulder now, but at the time I was completely confused. “Is this some sort of trick?” Nah…he just wanted to lie down. He tapped me with his legs without even moving.

Next up for me was two rounds with Jonathan. Much more scrambly than usual. I did get a chance to trap the arm using the technique Christine showed us. I wasn’t able to finish all the way to the spinning arm bar, but I took what she said during the demonstration to heart–“even if you can’t get the technique all the way to finish, you still have the arm, so don’t let go of it.” Ended up getting an americana, then played the remainder of that roll and the next round from guard.

Last roll was with visiting Irish blue belt. He was young and maybe 15-20 pounds lighter than me. Really fun. I fought off a triangle pretty early, and later a sitting triangle and an arm bar. So yeah–no attacking, but I feel like I may be getting better at defending. I went for his back once and got one hook in, but he ended up tapping me with a kimura.

Scissor Choke Setup From Side Control

December 22, 2016 / Scott / 0 Comments

Two visiting purple belts–Ohio John (about my size) and Tampa Rachel (Ana’s height, and built a little sturdier). We went through the warmup pretty quickly with some running, minimal up-and-down drills, some solo drills (sit throughs and knee-ups), followed by guard retention and KoB rotations with partners.

For technique, we built off of the KoB work we did a couple of weeks ago, adding a scissor choke to the end. To execute, we get to the point of setting up the legs for the omoplata. Instead of the omoplata, we grip for the kimura. If the opponent posts out his far arm, we reach out with our leg and hook it, then rotate and get other leg across his belt, applying pressure for the kimura again. Their natural defense will be to roll out of the kimura, allowing us to cross our feet and extend for the scissor choke.

Rolled with John, Norm, Dr. Dan, and Ed

Was pretty happy with my roll with John. He was on the attack for the entire roll, but I was able to defend through the whole thing. Not so lucky with Norm on the next roll, but I think I’m getting a little better. Or he was hurt. Started with Dr. Dan in my guard and got a scissor sweep to get on top. My knee was caught and I spent a lot of time fighting to get that to the mat for full mount. Got set up for an Ezekiel, but couldn’t finish–Ana explained to me later that I wasn’t lifting my elbows. He swept again–back to my guard and was looking for a cross choke and an arm bar as time ran out.

A round with Ed where I focused on half guard and half guard sweeps. Getting a little more comfortable with it. Tried it again on another roll with him, but had a tough time escaping. He ended up finishing me with an arm bar. Ouch.

Best Training Partner Ever

December 20, 2016 / Scott / 0 Comments

I got a Twitter DM from a great and old friend one morning last week. “I’ll be in Orlando Jan 9-13. When are we rolling?” I immediately sent him back a message letting him know what our class schedule is.

Dedicated readers of this blog (basically, just me) are aware that I’m currently obsessed with BJJ. Dedicated followers of @svandyke will know that he’s a newly minted blue belt who was a couple of years ahead of me in discovering how awsum BJJ is.

When I started playing rugby in college, Shawn was already there. Going forward, he was there a lot more than I was. My dedication was a roller coaster, but he was one of the most dedicated attendees at our Tuesday/Thursday training sessions. He never let his rigorous school schedule, faith-based objections to our general behavior, or the fact that he was an understudy to an All-American for much of his career stop him from being a loyal and reliable part of the team. We suffered a lot together during those days (“YOU’RE NOT TIRED! YOU JUST THINK YOU ARE!”), although it may not be fair to say we were “partners” since he never had to carry my big boo-hind up the hill at Fulton Bottoms.

After college I started taking rugby a lot more seriously while Shawn eased off the rugby gas a little. He moved away for a while, but when he came back and started being involved in the men’s club more, he was my preferred choice as a weight lifting partner. I’d had intermittent stints with other partners who would either flake out routinely (Space Monkey) or try to convince me that the Shoney’s Breakfast Bar was a better idea than the squat rack (BFR).

Shawn showed up. Every morning. And he showed up to work. We rotated who led each session, and when his turn landed on a shoulder day there was hell to pay. We even made it to yoga classes together. We were among the first dudes to figure out that everyone else in the class was going to be female, and would crack each other up by doing pushups as punishment conditioning opportunities for falling out of balance poses. Our yoga teacher was the first to use, “this is not a competition” in that setting.

Almost everything was a competition. Competition–pissing contest–whatever. And when it wasn’t, it wasn’t.

I don’t remember the last day Shawn and I lifted, but I do remember the day after that. Both of us showed up to the gym on time and sat on the couch to enjoy our first cup of coffee. We ended up talking for about an hour instead of working out, then decided that we were done. We weren’t going to do this any more. I haven’t lifted with any real dedication since.

Not long after we stopped lifting, I decided I was going to run a marathon. The problem with running a marathon is that it takes a lot of discipline and dedication early in the morning. I’ve gotten much better since, but at the time I was standing on shaky ground with both discipline and dedication. But I’m smart about this kind of stuff, so I called Shawn and floated the idea to him. Getting him on board to do the race was the key for me to train and finish. I knew he’d be there to meet me every single day to run. No doubt about this guy. And I didn’t want to let him down, so I was always there too.

I don’t think he missed a single run until he got hurt. He had to bail on the last half of the training program because of an injury, but still showed up and did the race. When he was training, we were on the same pace, but there was no way he was going to be able to do that pace on race day, so we didn’t get to run together. I remember seeing an ambulance go by during the race and thinking of him, hoping they weren’t going to pick him up. I knew he wouldn’t quit. He’d either finish or they would carry him off for medical care.

As expected, he finished.

I can’t wait to train with Shawn. Seriously…I can’t wait! This is one more in a long line of things I get to train with Shawn. One more way we get to grow together. When I look back on the majority of my athletic endeavors since the Fall of 1993, Shawn has been an almost constant staple.

10 Day Hiatus

December 16, 2016 / Scott / 0 Comments

I will be back to long-form blogging again soon. You know–more time to read the analysis about BJJ training than I spent actually training.

I’m nursing a minor self-diagnosed MCL tear, so I’m taking a little time off to heal. Silver lining is that I’ve also had a sinus infection for the past few days, which makes it easy to not go and train. I’ve just stayed away from the gym completely.

In the meantime, here’s a picture of me choking Mr. Norm, which will probably never happen in real life.

New Gis

December 7, 2016 / Scott / 0 Comments

Warmup was a little different–and I liked. We started with some running, then went straight to 2 minutes of KoB rotations followed by 2 minutes of arm bar from guard. That’s exactly what I need to get in a bunch of arm bar reps. Bonus for me was that I had Norm as a partner and he’s able to pick up on little details that can help me be more effective. Last night it was concentrating on getting the crook of my knee to the back of the neck, which should allow me to finish while still on my back. Good stuff.

Moved on to King of the Mat. I started and lost my position on the first round, although I’m not really sure what technically constitutes a sweep. I thought I got a sweep early on. If I’m on bottom with my opponent in full guard and end up on top in the other guy’s half guard, is that a sweep? Got the other spot on the mat back and held it for a while, all with sweeps, but almost had an Ezekiel at one point. Again, I’m missing the finer points that allow me to finish effectively.

Everyone was training in our brand new Off The Grid gis, so technique for the night was some chokes using the opponent’s gi from side control.

Pull out lapel and take out slack
Hand it off under the shoulder–overhand grip on receiving hand
Push up to KoB
Hand off again, knuckles up
Reach across with knife of forearm

Instead of second handoff reach down for baseball bat choke

Rolled with Ed, Ed, and Norm. First roll with Ed I started on the bottom in half guard and worked my way back up. He was focusing on going for a kimura, and I was focused on getting the underhook and shrimping out to the top. Started another round with me on top, and as I went to pass I pinned his leg down with my shin, forgetting he was having a problem with his leg, so we had to stop. I felt really bad.

Roll with Norm was a little bit different. After the first time he tapped me out I found myself in his half guard. Was applying pressure and trying to stop whatever it was he was trying to do. Attempted to sneak in the Ezekiel and that got shut down pretty quickly. He was extending my trapped leg the entire time and eventually got me in the beginning of a banana split. Basically we stopped at the point where he “checks your flexibility”. LOL

Open Mat Thoughts from December 3

December 5, 2016 / Scott / 0 Comments

Did some stretching and a few movement drills Ana and I found on Ginastica Natural‘s Instagram feed. Need to do these every day, especially stuff that works on my hips.

Ed showed up and we started what ended up being a 31 minute submission-only match. I had his back for a big chunk of time, and the thought crossed my mind as my arms fatigued in failed RNC attempts that I was leaving myself open to an arm attack later. I wasn’t going to have anything left to fight it off. Of course, that made me double-down on the RNC finish because I didn’t want to see what would happen once I lost position.

Turns out, I lost position and had to tap to the kimura. Self-fulfilling prophecy? I was able to escape a couple of them using the technique Gerry helped us with last week though.

Went on a roll with Frank and got dominated, of course. At one point I grabbed his leg and he stood up, so I jumped up too and attempted a single leg. Failed. I then realized that standing and wrestling was not where I wanted to be with him. How to get back to the ground and maintain guard? I knew he would really be wanting to double leg me or throw me, and I wasn’t looking to let either of those things happen. Yeah, the landing would hurt, but even worse would be the position I’d be in afterwards.

He ended up tapping me a kimura (surprise!). The actual surprise was that he got it from the bottom of side control. Wh-wh-what?!?! Man I was beat.

Ed and I took a little break and strategized on how we should be doing these open mats. We both really like the submission-only marathons we’ve been doing, but in a real fight or in a tournament there are some bad things that doing this format all the time encourages.

For me, the good thing about going without a time limit is that I feel like I can try anything during the roll. For instance, I feel perfectly comfortable going for a new arm bar setup that we learned, even though I know that he knows it too and will defend it. I probably won’t get it, and I’ll probably end up in a bad position because of it, but that’s ok. It gives me a chance to work on the bad position and spend a lot of time getting comfortable with being uncomfortable, defending, and escaping. Once I regain dominance, I can take a chance and work something else.

The bad part of these rolls is that there’s no sense of urgency. You can actually rest in the middle of them. I caught myself doing this a couple of times when I had him in half guard. I didn’t have to deal with pressure or many threats, and I use it to recover, build up energy, and then try to escape. I also tend to start on the bottom for these rolls and ease my way in to them. I don’t mind being on bottom knowing I have infinite time to work, and I use it as a warm up instead of attacking from the bell. Not that any of this is really bad, and not that we want to never go long again, but it isn’t conducive to all situations.

So we decided to do a couple of five minute rounds to get some urgency into the fight. I think I did a little better in this format. So close on a triangle once, but this dude is just crazy tough. He ain’t tapping to anything that isn’t 100% sunk. The big difference I’ve noticed with using defined, short rounds is that I am much less likely to give up top position, and I fight really hard to get it back when I’m on bottom. I’m more comfortable on top in the gym, and that’s definitely where I would want to be in a real situation.

Feeling Good Again

December 2, 2016 / Scott / 0 Comments

A pretty typical warm up and partner drills with a new KoB transition variation of windshield wiper sliding across.

Went over the KoB to omoplata we did on Tuesday and then worked on an option for a toe hold for the guy in danger of the omoplata:

Reach for the foot
Head under
“Bend the rebar”

Rolling: Norm, Dan, Justice, Frank, Jonathan
Had a really good roll with Norm. Saw an arm and went after it. I know he was still giving me a lot and maybe trying to see what I would do and let me attack it for a while before armbaring me. Good roll for me though.

Dan (always favorite roll) was really fun. Tried to pass into side control and he was pulling my gi over my head–didn’t like where that was headed so backed out and tried to figure out a way to break his grips on my sleeves. We ended up in a crazy leg fight over half-guard. The result was me in his guard, and I tried to bait him into going for the triangle again so I could test out the last-ditch escape we learned from Gerry. Worst case I just tap, and I don’t care about that. But Dan The Man didn’t take the bait, so I’ll have to try to get him to do it again next time.

Dang…Justice is big. And heavy. I was expecting 30 seconds of hell. I got it and weathered it and ended up in side control, but he just pushed me off and I got full guard on him. Went for the classic arm bar but couldn’t get my leg all the way over in time. He stacked me up and as I tried to roll him down for the omoplata he just crashed on me. Ouch. Luckily he was gassed and I was able to wiggle out and mount him. Ended it with Americana. We went again and I tried for a long time to get the take down and establish top position. DID NOT want to be on bottom with him for another second.

With Frank, I actually got side control and held it for a little bit with kesa gatame. But, yeah, same result as always.

Jonathan–I’m really liking rolling with him as well. He does a great job of taking the techniques we’re learning in class and applying them. I get to work on my sweeps a lot with him as well. I see arm bars everywhere when we roll, and that’s what I got him with. He grabbed a toe hold for a bit and was close to having it. I was able to get out, but I think it may have done a little damage on my knee. Lesson here for me is that I’m just not going to be grabbing people’s feet and legs until I know what’s up with feet and legs. At the 30 second mark I rolled over to guard to see if I could quickly get an arm bar with the intent of getting one last sweep if I wasn’t successful. I was trying to put some pressure on myself to make something happen. Wasn’t able to arm bar, but with 6 seconds left I started setting up a scissor sweep and got it.

Big Guy Night — BJJ Training 11.29.2016

November 30, 2016 / Scott / 0 Comments

There was a new student at the gym–big guy who trained as a kid and has taken 12 years off. Since I was the smallest student tonight (besides Ana), Coach Frank threw us some stuff we can use effectively with an omaplata option at the end for the squirmy types to finish with.

After warmups we did some knee on belly drills which flowed directly into technique.

Side Control -> KoB -> Arm Attacks

Thumb in shallow collar grip (elbow tight)
Belt knot grip (elbow tight)
Push up to Knee On Belly
Opponent’s natural tendency is to push the knee
Shoot arm through the hole and c-cup the shoulder
Roll opponent toward you and step over head, shooting other foot deep underneath
Pop elbow up to move arm between shoulder and neck (crook of the elbow to elbow)
Slide up the arm and “I-Dream-Of-Genie” to finish the down bar

Option

If defense reaches across your face, grab the wrist and modified Americana
If defense reaches low, swap grips and kimura
If defense is jump to the knees, swing legs to set up the omoplata

Rolling
Twice with Jonathan, once with Frank, twice with Norm. I was plumb tuckered. Caught a few armbars against Jonathan but couldn’t get anything at all (typical) with Frank and Norm. They both tapped me out multiple times (again). By the end of my last roll with Norm, I was just showing up out of respect for him and doing what I could to defend, but I was completely out of energy. I had to put my bag down and change hands walking from the door to the car.

Jiu Jitsu Time With Gerry

November 28, 2016 / Scott / 0 Comments

We had a chance to train for an hour or so with Gerry over the weekend. He’s a big purple belt, and it was so good to see some different views on things, get some different ideas, and some personal attention to questions and problems. Not going to lie…it will be fun to take some of this stuff back to the gym and try it out on some unsuspecting opponents. Of course, can’t wait to share what I learned as well.

I’m probably only remembering about half of what we went over, but here are some of the hightlights.

Cross choke angle scoot for better tightness

Deep grip to start (same)
Cock hips away from grip
Thumb in opposite collar
Move hips back
Pull down, elbows up

Arm bar trickery with collar grip for rotation

Pistol grip on gi at elbow
Cross collar grip with other hand to control posture
Pull and pull to rotate around and get leg up
Finish

Clock choke against opponent from turtle

Thumb in across collar
Elbow up
Slide through
Circle

Triangle defense (last resort)

Drop to knees
Ball up
Move leg over head

Mount escape

Grab gi at foot
Straighten leg
Pick up foot and put them into quarter guard
Push knee to half guard

Kimura defense (instead of hiding arm)

Hand on opponent’s elbow to push
Roll toward’s trapped arm and shrimp

Roll from half guard to create scramble, take back. Like this…

Rear Naked Choke Tune Up – BJJ Training 11.22.2016

November 23, 2016 / Scott / 0 Comments

Coach Frank was out of town, so Norm was leading the class. Pretty good turnout, and we got a lot of good stuff done.

Warmup was some drills (partnered with Jonathan), then we worked on taking the back from guard, details of the RNC, and an optional arm bar from guard.

Rolled for 5 minute rounds with Dan, Joe, Norm, Jonathan, Joe, Norm.

Dan got me with the triangle, and I was actually pretty happy for him. I’ve gotten out of it the last few times he’s attempted it, and he was straining hard to hang on to it. Joe ran right through me–he’s so much faster than I am, and I just can’t get around his guard. Then he sweeps me and chokes me. Norm sat on my chest for about 4 minutes and let me fight out of mount. That really sucked, but there’s no way I would have quit on it after he’d basically given up his roll to give me that opportunity. Fun roll with Jonathan with a couple of sweeps and ultimately an arm bar. He was pretty close to a guillotine on me, but I was able to fight out. Another roll with Joe, and he almost got the guillotine too, but I fought out–can’t remember what he ultimately got me with.

I stayed for one extra roll with Norm after everyone else headed home. As we slapped hands and fist bumped I realized (and said out loud), “Oh no…it just occurred to me that you could easily kill me right now if you wanted, and there’s nobody here to stop it.”

Luckily, he still respected my multiple taps.

Gi Choke Sunk! BJJ Training 11.17.2016

November 19, 2016 / Scott / 0 Comments

Big turnout for class last night with a couple of visitors. One is Coach Frank’s friend John from New York, and another was a Polish guy (“Peter”), a monster of a blue belt who was in town for a couple of days after attending a conference in Orlando. He trains with a Globetroters gym there–it is so cool to be a part of a gym where visitors are not only welcomed, but we’re all actually excited to have them. I’m learning more about the culture in different jiu jitsu gyms and in different parts of the world, and I’m hearing that it’s not always as welcoming of an environment as what we have at our gym.

We did a review of the smash pass from passing headquarters, the drop step and hip turn to pass to the other side when trapped in quarter guard, and a choke from quarter guard when the final step of the pass fails. It was steamy and sweaty in there!

Rolling for me was Dr. Dan, Norm, Visiting John, Louis, and Jonathan.

I was on top for most of the roll with Dr. Dan, but the take down and pass took a while. I tried to go for the pass-the-gi choke, but when I finally got the lapel handed off I realized it was HIS gi I’d passed. DOH!!! A very boring bout for any spectators, but we were working our arses off!

Norm was more of the same. I’m looking for any little victories I can get with him. The only real positive out of this one was that I was able to break his spider guard (after making stupid mistakes that let him get spider guard of course). Got triangled again, even though I was defending it hard for a long time before he actually got it sunk in. Defended a couple of sweeps, and got swept by twice that many. These rolls are making me a lot better, as was evident by the next roll.

Visiting John and I are pretty well matched, so this one was really fun. He’s a lot more experienced than me–4 stripe white belt with 1.5 years training–but he’s taken some time off, so he’s still rusty from that. It’s funny how my thinking is going–“He’s going for a kimura. When I defend it, he’s going to know to go for that sweep. I know that, but does he know that I know that he knows that?” When he attempted his triangle it was much easier to defend than it was against Norm. That’s what I mean about rolling with Norm so much. It’s unlikely I’ll face anyone at my skill level who can smash me like that after him becoming my Norm-al. Horrible pun.

Easy roll with Louis to be careful with his back and neck. I focused on sweeping and working his collar, staying away from his head, neck, and back. I got a scissor sweep to my offside, but when I tried one on my strong side later he defended it easily. That was weird. Really fun roll.

This was Jonathan’s third night training, and I can’t believe this guy. Strong, heavy, fit, and has a ton of heart. We rolled a couple of times on Tuesday and he was a wild man. I ended up just mounting and trying to control him. Submissions weren’t coming–it was like a real fight, just survive and control!!! That did give me a lot of confidence that if I ever am in that situation in real life again I’ll probably be fine. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t get hurt and wouldn’t have to hurt the other person either. I’d much rather walk away without having to throw punches (no broken hands) and the other guy knowing that I could have hurt him but didn’t.

Anyway, Jonathan was a lot more calm and technical than on Tuesday, which is also impressive. He was working technique and even recognized a couple of situations we’d been in during the previous rolls and reacted differently. He’ll pass me soon. I was able to work an arm bar patiently. Once I got it, I didn’t let go. I just focused on keeping my hips tight, keeping my head heavy on his chin, and patiently breaking the defending grip. We restarted and when I got to side control I went back to the gi pass choke I’d attempted on Dr. Dan earlier. Got it this time!!!!

Bow And Arrow Choke Review – BJJ Training 11.08.2016

November 9, 2016 / Scott / 0 Comments

Warmup was pretty similar to the usual. Up and down drills along with KoB, side control pummeling for underhooks, and guard retention.

Technique for the night was working on the bow and arrow when opponent is in Turtle. A review, but one I needed because I’d forgotten some of the finer points:

Don’t get your arm trapped on the initial turtle shell cracking
Grab the leg at the butt as you step over pre-roll
Straighten legs to intensify finish

We also worked on taking an arm bar from a failed bow and arrow. I preferred keeping the collar grip and looping my arm over opponent’s head before moving my leg.

Rolled with Ed, Frank, Dan, and Ed. I was pretty tired already from my morning workout, and Ed got me pretty gassed. A lot of the stuff I’ve been working on without the gi wouldn’t fly here because there was so much friction. I wasn’t able to get my legs into the same positions for sweeps that I can when they are bare and sweaty. I definitely scored some points though, and got close to an Ezekiel finish.

Frank just took the rest of my gas. He decided he was going to get kimuras, and I spent a ton of time defending (and losing). Roll with Dan resulted in him having my back for quite a while and me defending a barrage of chokes. I was ultimately able to get into his full guard, but there was no way I was passing. Just too dang tired. Last roll with Ed was just survival and trying to get to a place to attack. Lots of side control, but I couldn’t do anything with it.

No Gi Grappling 11.5.2016

November 5, 2016 / Scott / 0 Comments

A really fun day today–I felt like I had something of a breakthrough. I saw a whole bunch of stuff happening, attempted a whole bunch of stuff, and finished with a submission I’ve never attempted in a live roll.

Of course, it was with Ed. And of course, it was another ultra-long marathon of a roll. We went for about 45 minutes straight today. Again, theme of the week, I was focusing on executing sweeps, but did notice that was a little more difficult without the gi. I got a couple of scissor sweeps in and attempted a few more, but by then he’d caught on and was defending.

Spent a good deal of time in mount, moving from grapevining to high mount, and had a few of decent attempts from that position–arm bars, bicep crusher, seated triangle, multiple Ezekiel chokes. I had his back for a good spell and actually got the RNC sunk. SUNK!!! I was taking my time making sure I had it set up right when I felt his chin tuck. Need to tighten that up.

From guard I worked on two triangle and a kimura. I actually went into the kimura thinking, “If I don’t get this, I’ll at least get the kimura sweep.” When it came time for the sweep, I couldn’t remember the first step (reviewed it after the roll).

I also tried to focus on pressure. Not just pushing-my-weight pressure, but keeping the pressure on in situations when I was threatening and Ed was able to escape. I tried to make sure I didn’t give him an opportunity to recover when he escaped–trying to control posture at all times and immediate try another sweep.

I’m not going to get any more of my favorite mount escapes on him, that’s for sure. But I did get to try out the oopa mount escape we’ve worked on. Nailed it!

Anyway, ended up getting a d’arce choke at the end. I actually had an opportunity to get one earlier, but I had the wrong arm in. The next time around I saw the situation coming and got set up for it.

White Belt Party! BJJ Training 11.3.2016

November 4, 2016 / Scott / 0 Comments

Low turnout for class, and everyone who was there was a white belt. It gave us a great opportunity to go back and break down some basic guard passing. The warmup was light–the only downside to a seminar-type class. Even the things we did didn’t help me to get much of a lather going because I was paired with Ana-conda. So things like KoB weren’t that strenuous since I had to be mindful of my weight and where I placed it. Still, a good exercise for me in becoming aware of my weight and balance.

Full Guard Pass:

Fists in lower ribs (my preference) and elbows in thighs
Base out and place other leg into center of enemy’s butt
Posture up (always) and maintain hand contact
Turn based out hip, and sprawl out if necessary to break closed guard
Keep pressure with elbow, trap with knee, slide through

Standing Full Guard Pass:

Thumbs in armpit and push back, lower into guard
Posture up and stand (ankles are now out of reach)
Down to one knee for passing headquarters
Passing headquarter option (smash) or double under legs and dump

Also learned a Kimura from side control:

Trap body side arm with leg
Windshield wiper to kesa gatame
C-cup shoulder and roll them toward you to their side
Step over head and establish kimura grip
Out-Up-Over to finish
If they defend by grabbing belt and you can’t break, open up pants and grip 4 fingers in, palm up to trap arm
- Congratulate them on their excellent defense by keeping that arm for the rest of your life
- Thumb-in to opposite collar, elbow to the ground for choke

Rolled two 6:00 rounds with Ed. I’ve noticed that when I roll with Norm he tends to always start on his butt, pulling me into his guard and setting up a sweep, then working his inevitable submission from the top. I decided to play that for these rolls since the duration was longer and I’d have more time to work on some other stuff. So glad I did this–started down and got sweeps in both times. First one was scissor-ish, and the second was the reverse de la riva sweep we learned a couple of weeks ago. So fun to deliberately apply something we learned in class and see it work! Went through a bunch of positions during this roll and was surprised at how much energy I was able to conserve. Low heart rate and easy breathing.

Next was 6:00 with Coach Frank. He not only beats me, he forces me to lose at his pace.Fast. He attacks from so many places and transitions between attacks so quickly. It’s like riding The Zipper without being strapped in and trying to maintain a vertical stance the entire time. He got me with two arm bars and a kimura.

6:00 with Dr. Dan. I tried to work guard and sweep with him as well and ended up spending a lot of time on bottom. Survived mount and got to his full guard where I was able to work on what we drilled earlier. I’d wager his ribs are sore this morning, but I could not get out. He has really long legs, and I couldn’t break him using the basic method. When the hip twist didn’t break I sprawled for a second, but I felt him going to sweep because my balance was off, so I ditched that idea. Something I need to work on. Standing was not an option–his arms are long too, and I couldn’t get my ankles out of his reach. He did a great job of controlling my posture too.

Went another 6:00 with Ed and was on bottom a lot more. He’s been catching the americana on me, so I worked on escaping that. Got out of one, got caught in another. Still plenty of opportunity for improvement! My biggest memory from this roll was thinking, “Ok, you’re stuck, and this sucks. But you can breathe, right? So just breathe. Breathe. You’re breathing, right? Now, keep doing that and try to find a way out.”

I got out.

Gettin’ After It!