November 21st - Hapkido (Getting Fat)

It was just me and big Mike this morning.  My back was feeling so much better.  The topic of our rolling match from Saturday came up and he asked why a technique that he did didn't work.  He had attempted an americana within my guard which is considered a no-no.  There are very few submissions that will work from inside someone's full guard.  That's why the general rule is to get a dominant position before attempting a submission.  With ankle locks being a little bit of an exception. 

The class turned into an expansion on last Saturday's class.  I had him practice passing the guard to side mount and then go straight into the key lock or at least isolate my arm.  With his size you can really tell the difference between when he does movements with or without the proper pressure.  I had to bite the bullet and show him that he needs to apply constant chest pressure downward.  We moved to side mount escape and I showed Mike that with him applying the pressure in the wrong direction I could roll him over me with ease which seemed to surprise him.  Of course when I was on top and had him do the same to me it was immensely easier for him to roll me over him when I was pushing into him.

We ended the class with the north/south choke.  Mostly because we were half playing around rolling from side control and I went to the choke after he tried to bench press me.  I showed him the choke from regular side control and then knee on belly where I love to do it from.  It's pretty difficult to explain a choke to someone as they are trying to do it to you.  I felt more like tapping from my jaw cramping up than the actual choke.

I weighed myself afterward at the YMCA and found that I almost gained all of the weight back that I lost.  Not a good thing with Thanksgiving coming up.  I hate all of this inactivity and I know I'm also being lax on my diet.  I'm motivated to start turning things around. 

November 17th - Hapkido

I decided to make the ground fighting class theme to be breaking and passing the guard to be a counter balance the theme of sweeps from the guard from last week.  I followed the pattern that Conan or Jerad would use by teaching how to break the guard then start with the knee cut type passes.  One concept that was a little hard to teach was keep pressure into them with the hips while doing the baseball slide, it seemed like everyone wanted to put their weight down on the floor to their knees where I notice when I do it I would put pressure against their body as I slide across their thigh.  From there I showed the other types of passes starting with double under pass, one of my most effective passes. 

I talked about some other ways to break the guard like how to stand up in guard get an arm to crow bar their legs and then shake them off.  We ended with the vertical shin pass (or whatever it's called) that Greg taught a while back to break the guard or as a triangle defense.  As expected the students had a little trouble getting the shin and foot in the right place.  To finish up I had then partner up and work on which ever guard pass they wanted with a little resistance.  Below is a video from Jason Scully demonstrating a whole lot of guard passes.  I love his videos and find them very helpful.

 

During free rolling I didn't have problems with anyone until I went up against Mike from work.  Mike is a big dude so that is already one advantage in his favor.  I didn't play it too aggressively and ended up on bottom in half guard.  He picked some things up from the guard passing class and was able to use the double under pass kind of although I was able to go to turtle went to turtle.  I eventually inverted and got him in an inverted triangle which I thought I could do something with but it turned out Mike just kind of laid on my head as I tried to make the triangle tighter.  So we ended up being suck there for a little bit until I let it go.  I was able to regain guard but we quit soon after because he was gassed.  Unfortunately being smashed by him caused me some back strain that is still bothering me today.  Am I ever going to get back to 100% healthy?

During the Hapkido portion we worked on a succession of techniques from a distraction strike to a chicken wing lock.  Then if they straightened their arm we moved into a straight armlock.  If they were able to bend their elbow out of that we finished with a push over takedown.  To further explore that last technique we also did it as a defense from a clinch tie-up position.  Something that I've used a couple times in Jiu-Jitsu.

November 14th - Hapkido

Had an early morning class today with 2 other students (Anand and Greg).  Anand requested that we work on some striking of the pads today so I tried to work that into my plan as I drove to the Dojang.  For a warm-up I had them do some of the forward and backward rolls with a low profile that we've been doing in Jiu-Jitsu lately.  Then we did several rounds of the Bas Rutten workout where I call out numbers and say sprawl or back fall and they try to keep up.  I participated in some of this but kept my sprawling to a minimum. 

Our next exercise was to work on defense against multiple opponents.  I usually like to have at least 4 people for this but 3 will do.  I grabbed a kicking shield and a couple of hand pads and handed them out.  The person in the middle is the defender and it is their job to move around the room and strike the pads as they come into range.  The people with the pads are trying to touch the defender.  So it can be quite cardio intensive.  The best strategy is to try to move so the attackers get in each others' way.  So going in between is not always the best idea.

For the second round we removed the hand pads and had the attacker be a grappler instead.  This added a different dynamic as the grappler could tie up the defender and allow the attacker with the pads to get some shots in.  It seemed like some good lessons were learned by everyone and there was a short discussion about multiple attackers and what not to do. 

We ended the class with some roundhouse kick defenses.  I built off of the basic Hapkido kicking block to finally doing a throw spinning sweep kind of technique detailed in the video below that I made back in 2008.  I'm glad I've lost some weight since then.

November 10th - Hapkido (Some Improvement)

I figured I should make an update since I haven't been training lately.  I've decided to keep teaching Hapkido while I heal since I can control what we do in the class and if there are enough people I can sit out of some things if need be. 

I do a groundfighting class first on Saturday morning.  Usually I just review what we work on in Jiu-Jitsu so I can get some more reps in while it's fresh in my mind.  There were 3 other guys there besides myself and in this particular class I taught some sweeps from guard.  We went over flower sweep, omma plata as a sweep, scissor sweep, and hip heist.  I felt really good with everything except the scissor sweep.  It seemed like everyone else understood everything for the most part.  I probably had the most trouble teaching the hip heist because you kind of have to be explosive and strike the other person with your hips.  We did some free rolling and I rolled with everyone.  I took it easy and didn't have any problems with anyone.

During the Hapkido/self defense part of the class I taught techniques to break grips and regrabs.  We moved on to something more practical with some barrage punches leading into a jointlock when they cover up.  We finished the class with some escort and come along techniques.

My knees feel pretty good but I'm going to hold to my month off.  I still feel it when I go up and down the stairs, so for the long term I think it's best if I feel completely healed before I try to come back.  I've been talking with one of my coworkers about my Jiu-Jitsu experience and she's also been brave enough to read my blog.  She says it's too technical though and hard to read for a layman to Jiu-Jitsu.  It got me to thinking about why I write this thing and who it is for.  Mostly it's for me to review at a later date and check my progress.  I also get a kick out of knowing my teammates are reading it.  It's sparked some interesting exchanges in class especially with my nemeses.