Category: Doing (Page 6 of 28)

Valentines Day Chokings – BJJ Training 2.14.2017

February 15, 2017 / Scott / 0 Comments

I have the best, most perfect girl in the world. At least for me. There was never a consideration about us doing anything for Valentine’s Day except going to training and grinding it out–just like every other Tuesday.

I was actually impressed that we had so many people at training, especially with lots of regulars missing. True, we had a couple of visitors to the gym, but nine people on a (fake) holiday isn’t bad at all! Four ladies training, and I was the smallest of the big guys by 25 pounds or so, so I got mentally prepared for what sparring was going to be like on this day.

Lasso Guard Sweep:

Four fingers into the cuff of the sleeve on both sides
Shrimp to get shin to crook of the elbow
Shrimp to get the other crook of the elbow
Push butt up to tighten that hold
Turn to opposite hip to punch leg out and loop for lasso
Bait the pass, reach under other leg and load them up
Push/pull for the sweep

If they push the knee through, follow their hand with yours and grip the lat, grab with the other hand and pull down while figure-4 locking the legs for a bicep crusher.

Roll with Abraham–submitted once with an arm bar and got a couple of scissor sweeps.

Roll with Matt — close on a triangle, but couldn’t finish. That wore me out, and he was on top for the rest of the time. He almost finished an Ezekiel

Roll with Shawn–tapped me with an arm bar and got close with some sort of weird choke from the top. Thought I had a guillotine, and I held on to it for a long time but he was able to escape.

Roll with Django, who is much improved over last week.

More Lapel Play From Guard – BJJ Training 2.9.2017

February 10, 2017 / Scott / 0 Comments

After warmups, we continued the same theme from Tuesday, working on using using the opponent’s lapel to assist with the arm bar and the flower sweep.

For the arm bar, set it up with the wrist and triceps from guard, then…

Use wrist hand to get bottom of lapel to triceps hand
Elbow in and hold tight
Finish arm bar

For the flower sweep…

Pull tight with legs for over/under
Hand lapel to over hand using under hand, trapping arm
Hand lapel to under hand behind head
Reach under the leg, rotate hips out and pull
Finish with arm bar or fist into artery

Rolled with Abraham, and did what I have been avoiding with him from the get-go…got smothered. That is a big strong dude. Still, tried to work as much as possible on my back. Rolled with Django after that, and moved through as many things as I could, only finishing the arm bar and the bow and arrow.

Fun roll with Ana–she’s crazy strong for her size, and I can’t keep up with her movement. Got some sort of electric chairish thing that would have submitted most guys for sure, but it wasn’t a problem for her.

Next up was Ed, and I decided I don’t want to be on bottom. Got really close with the bow and arrow, and forgot the last step (SHRIMP AWAY!) from finishing the swim-through-grab-gi stuff we learned last week to get the down bar.

Norm–destroyed me. I had nothing left in the tank at this point. Not that it would have mattered, but I got destroyed more quickly than usual.

Scissor Sweep Using Lapel — BJJ Training 2.7.2017

February 8, 2017 / Scott / 0 Comments

It’s been a while since I’ve written up my class notes. I’m still training, and I do have a ton of notes, but I’ve been recording them immediately after class with a voice recorder app. The idea is that I could speak my notes while they are fresh in my mind, then go back later and type them up. Great in theory, and it actually works provided I have the time to go back and type. The good news is that stuff isn’t lost–I hope to go back and write them all up and publish.

So hopefully some back-dated notes are coming soon. They really help me to review–so much new information comes in with every class!

Small class last night with a new blue belt (Shawn). We did a pretty typical warmup with some solo drills involved, and then moved into working on the scissor sweep using the opponent’s lapel for some extra leverage. Beginning from full guard…

Break posture and hold down with an overhook and an underhook.
Use underhook hand to hand the bottom of opponent’s lapel to overhook hand
Push legs away for some space, and move underhook hand across face. Hand gi back to this hand
Use overhook hand to grip the sleeve at the wrist
Shrimp out extend sleeve grip side leg wide, other knee to the chest with foot on hip
Pull-Pull-Chop-Lift
Land in mount and keep that lapel. High mount, and come up to foot on non-lapel grip side
Thumb in opposite lapel and drop head for choke

A few rounds of rolling, starting with Ed. I’ve been starting on bottom a lot, but Ed’s kung-fu is surging, and I think it’s time I start challenging for the top again. He’s consistently baiting a triangle, and I’m consistently going for it, but he’s getting better about using that as a pass. I need to come up with an answer for that, because he’s getting really good at finishing arm bars with it.

Next was Abraham. This dude is heavy and strong. I made sure I started on top, but it was tough just to stay there. Took me a while, but I ended up getting the hand-up gi choke.

Then Dan, who I haven’t rolled with in a month. Man–he’s really gotten better in that time. He was a millimeter away from finishing a bow and arrow choke, but I held on and was able to at least defend until the bell.

Frank was a little distracted I think, plus a little tired too. I was able to execute the quarter guard escape, which he at least pretended to be surprised with. Had one nice pressure pass, but he’s still Frank and I’m still me at the end of the day. #Submitted

Went another round with Abraham and spent time on the bottom. Lots of pressure, and it wasn’t fun. I was a few seconds away from finishing a triangle using my new appreciation for the details when the bell went off.

Shrimpin’ Ain’t Easy

January 20, 2017 / Scott / 0 Comments

But it’s necessary.

BJJ Training Log for 1.19.2017

For warmups, we did Circles, then KOTM. I could tell I was still a little rundown, but much better than yesterday. People were able to pass my guard a little easier than I felt like that should be able to–felt like I was still sort of moving in slow motion, maybe 70% speed.

Technique was mount escapes. One thing we really focused on was setting up the proper frame. I try to do this in every drill from mount, and this was a good reminder on the right way to do it.
Set up frame–side escaping to goes on bottom. I think I may be doing this one backwards.

Frame-Shrimp-Step-Trap-Peel-Switch-Underhook-Switch-Thrust

Frame out and shrimp, grabbing their foot and holding tight to quarter guard
Switch hips to open the window
Forearm along side and underhook the leg. If they haven’t based out, just sweep.
Switching again and thrust overhead

Also worked on the classic arm trap, rotate head, foot outside, bridge and roll.

Was working with Justice during technique, and that dude is heavy. Took a lot of my energy out of me as he increased the resistance.

Rolled with Ed, and he got his fair share of time on top. No submission. Took the opportunity to work lockdown from half guard, and I want to learn some stuff I can set up off of that (sweeps and submissions).

Rolled with Jonathan, and tried to get the lockdown on him because his legs are shorter and he was able to get out of it pretty easily. Escaped an armbar, but had to tap when he latched onto the sore elbow. That thing just isn’t getting better, and it has me longing for some no gi days so that the sleeve won’t put pressure on it.

Rolled with Ed again and was able to work the mount escape from tonight’s class.

Felt like everyone maybe was a little low on energy.

Plumb Wore Out

January 19, 2017 / Scott / 0 Comments

BJJ Training Log 1.18.2017

Yesterday was the worst training session I’ve ever had. I’ve had a couple that weren’t great because I was on the verge of illness or tired from a really hard couple of days leading up to it, but this was just a bad day. It didn’t help that I was having trouble getting stretched out from last week (5 training sessions). I’d been having trouble getting around on Saturday and Sunday. My lower back felt like I’d played rugby for a complete week before. My attempts to stretch it out were pretty weak; I had trouble even getting to a position that would allow me to stretch.

I went on a really slow and easy run on Tuesday to try and get my blood moving and get loosened up a little, but the foam roller probably did more to help than anything. At least I was walking pretty normal by Wednesday morning.

The problem with the Wednesday class is that we don’t do any kind of structured warm up. It’s get there whenever you want and stretch on your own, then straight to technique. I can’t really get there too early because of work, and with the limited time I had I just couldn’t get loose. By the time technique started I wasn’t even mentally there yet. My back was so stiff I was having trouble getting my legs into the positions to even work the technique, which sucks, because we learned some good stuff.

Finishing a defended Kimura

Shrimp knee out and foot on hip
Shin under arm where kimura is being defended
Slide hand in and roll hips back.
Another option is to get a cuff grip to break the hold on the leg, then swim under with the other arm
Take the back or do the thumb in choke

It’s almost as if I didn’t learn the technique at all. Just felt like crap. Only rolled one round, which was a disaster for me, and drove home with a towel on my head. I started thinking about this in the perspective of a tough running week or a week of rugby after a tournament.

Sometimes you just need an easier lighter week to recover from a couple of hard weeks, and that’s probably where I am for this week.

I’m glad I’ve kept a blog for so long. I was able to go back and read some thoughts about times when I’ve bonked runs (and finished them) or just had an inexplicably bad day and then PR’d a distance I wasn’t even training for on the next day. I know it’s not apples to apples, and I know I’m so knew to BJJ that I’m probably too ignorant to understand whether or not it applies at all, but at least there was some piece of mind to be gained in knowing that I’ve gone through something similar before.

Some days just suck. You can definitely do stuff to make things suck more. But sometimes it just sucks and you don’t know why. This is the first day like that I’ve had in BJJ.

It puts my mind at ease a little to know that this happens sometimes in other sports too with no real explanation.

So I got the crap beat out of me. Nothing new there actually, just a different person doing it. Ed tapped me out twice in 5 minutes. Silver lining is that I defended the arm bar by lazily using the least amount of energy possible. “What’s the easiest way out of this?” I had to evaluate the situation and find the easy escape.

For the rest of the roll, I just survived as long as I could.

At lunch today I went to the gym to get some time in the whirlpool and stretching in the sauna to get my back as loose as I can.

Choking A Good Friend

January 13, 2017 / Scott / 0 Comments

Circles, up and downs, single drills with sit-through (all three steps) and neck rolls. We partnered up and did KoB rotations, then straight to technique.

Technique was passing a review of Wednesday’s lunch class from headquarters:

Same side grip on lapel/knee
Knee to sturnim
Slice
Swap lapel grip
Knee grip moves to wrist, pull up and slide through

and

Same side grip lapel/knee
Knee to sturnim
Swap grips grips
Hip bump to move leg and side control

Roll with Shawn–he swept me a bunch of times and got really close on a choke. Ended with him having my back, I went to attack arm bar, which is something Ed does with me a lot. It’s not really something you are likely to finish, but it does make the other guy forget about the choke and defend his arm.

Roll with Jonathan, worked on retaining guard. Went to mount almost back. No submission either way.

Roll with Dr. Dan–worked on retaining open guard, got him to full guard and attempted arm bars, kimuras, sweeps, but nothing happening. He is tough to move once he’s locked down a position.

Roll with Matt–new guy, and really fun to roll with. Got closer to a Bow and Arrow than I’ve been with anyone else.

Again with Shawn–hand up the gi choke and got an arm bar.

I like choking my friends.

Knee On Belly Escapes

January 6, 2017 / Scott / 0 Comments

Circle run, partner drills with Dan instead of Norm. We did 10 armbars, 10 kimuras, 10 kimura sweeps each. I really like taking the time to get reps on these techniques, and did 5 of each on each side. Doing them in volume makes me feel like I’m not wasting reps on my off side.

Technique of the day was two escapes from knee on belly. We’ve been working knee on belly offensively for a few weeks, and it’s cool to start looking at the flip side.
1) Don’t push off the knee!

Grab belt and anchor forearm against thigh, pant leg with other hand. Make sure elbows are tight on both arms
Rotate hips and use leg to stiff arm away with the belt arm
Scisoor legs down to belly–keeping the hand on belt the whole
Switch hand from pants to other ankle
Up to one knee, step around and push, pull ankle
Land in reverse KoB and rotate around. That’s still a little awkward for me, especially on my off side.

2) Reach over like kimura to grab arm

Hand on side of body to cup their leg and roll them.
This gives you some options once the sweep is complete. Scissor choke seemed to be there for me most of the time.

Rolls from bad positions
Jonathan had me in side control, then Dan, then Ana

Next up was a regular roll with Norm. I tried the second kneed on belly escape described above and didn’t get it, which gave him an opportunity to try for a head and arm choke. Later in the roll he tried to cartwheel over my guard and got hurt. Hope he’s ok.

Had a good roll with Rudy, and I think the only thing that saved me was that he thought the end of round bell was the 30 seconds remaining bell. 😛

Two rounds with Jonathan. Tried Norm’s head and arm trick, but he caught me in half guard. I need to work on the transition from mount to side control. I feel like I have more control and more weapons in side control anyway. I’d like to continue to work on finishing from mount and improve there, but in a pinch I’d also like to be able to get to my preferred spot.

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.

BJJ Training Log for 1.19.2017

BJJ Training Log 1.18.2017

Gettin’ After It!