June 5th-6th - Judo & Morning Open

Went to Judo for my last class of my week chalk full of martial arts classes without my family around.  I didn't get to all of the classes I wanted to get to but it was a pretty successful week none the less.  I wasn't as good about my diet as I would have been if my wife had been here, but luckily I maintained at 195 lbs. 

Beggs taught Judo as usual with a couple of other blackbelts in attendance.  Nick (unfortunately I can't remember his last name) was who I worked with throughout the class.  He was very knowledgeable and smooth.  In fact I was downright impressed by his grasp of Judo.  He really knew how to apply the kazushi to get my body into the right position for whatever throw he wanted to do.  Although he seemed a little injury prone, the technique was really there and it was through minimal amounts of movements.

We started off with the bands and did some individual exercises and then up and down the floor pulling on the bands with a partner.  We chose a throw and then did fit-ins 20 times in a row with a partner.  Then we worked on a few throws that I don't remember the Japanese names of.  The one that I remember was when they grab both of your sleeves and then you do a type of a hip throw while lifting their arms up.  For the ground portion of the class we did the basic Judo pins and switched in between them. 

After class ended I worked with Nick again and he showed me tons of different things.  The thing that I took away from it most was that I might switch one of my grips to the back of my opponent's collar.  Then kind of reverse motorcycle grip the collar to get them on their toes and then throw.  There was also a very cool soto makacomi setup that I want to work on more.

It was only Claire and I this morning.  We treated it more like a class rather than open mat.  We worked on side control defense at her request.  I then tried to review as much of the x-guard stuff as I could which was a good review.  In the process I taught Claire the butterfly sweep and also a little x-guard.  We then went over north-south choke because Claire asked if there was anything to do from the north/south position.  We rolled a couple of times and while I can submit her pretty easily I see some improvement.

May 31st - Gi Jiu-Jitsu & Judo

Conan taught a good class yesterday on maintaining the guard and preventing passes.  With each technique he would have Ray start a pass and then show a way to prevent it or recover.  We did defenses against both knee over passes, double unders, smash pass and maybe a few others.  We then worked on the Conan sweep that is like getting into half butterfly and then putting your knee on the other side and then lifting them backwards.  I used to get caught with this all of the time.

For open mat I rolled with Ray.  I felt like my movements, defending, and positions were good.  I transitioned from half guard to full guard then back to half.  Apparently I still have a problem with affecting the leg and the upper body at the same time.  Ray told me later that controlling the leg is much more important than fighting for the underhook, I'm so confused.  Finally he got me into side control and smashed me a bit.  I can't remember what he tapped me out with, maybe an americana?

I rolled with Mike next.  We had quite a battle like usual.  I felt like I was passed his guard for a second but then he quickly regained it.  There were several scrambles and I tried a straight ankle lock but he defended sufficiently.  There were a couple of times I went for the over/under pass which would end up being my demise because he eventually setup a triangle.  I felt like if I put his leg to the floor I could get out of it but he switched it to a bolt lock and finally choked me out.  We had an hour to kill before Judo so Mike and I went and got a sandwich and discussed Jiu-Jitsu and existentialism.

Judo was a very active class.  I was partnered up with Ken for the majority of the class.  We used the blue bands in the beginning and did some individual exercises and went up and down the floor fitting in.  Now that I think about it I don't think we did any actual full throwing.  We did 50 fit ins in a row, which I feel like I did better at than usual.  I was stringing together throws and trips pretty quickly.  We did a guard pulling drill from the knees the second time we rolled into top position as quickly as we could. 

May 29th-30th - Judo and Morning Open (My Fingers Hurt)

I am on my once a year week alone without the family.  They took off yesterday for my wife's father's house.  My objective once again is to participate in as many martial arts classes as possible.  Yesterday to start it off I went to Judo.

Sensei Dave taught class and there were somewhere around 8 participants.  We started off with a warmup and then basic falls.  We did a lot of fitting in and then throwing.  In between some partner drills we did a leg workout with jumping onto mats.  I focused on shoulder throw (Ipon sienagi sp?), then a hip throw with the leg out (horiagoshi), and then soto makakomi.  I almost hurt Ken at one point when I switched from regular shoulder throw to a drop shoulder throw without telling him and made him faceplant a bit.  We did just a little bit of randori standing up, then finished with ground fighting.  I felt right at home rolling and seemed to be able to take everyone's back fairly easily.

Mike and I rolled afterward and worked on some various things like the bull fighter pass.  I need to learn this better.

This morning Robert was taking it a little easy but was trying to keep his sweat going.  He brought a couple of guys from Lincoln, MMA to roll as well.  It was a large group and I rolled with everyone at least once.  Some highlights:

Robert: I felt pretty smooth rolling with him and was able to attack more.  Maybe it was because I had the mindset that I was taking it easy that I relaxed a little more and didn't worry as much about losing.

David: Stupid triangles.  Still my nemesis. 

Fuji: I was only able to get top position on Fuji once and it wasn't for very long.  Otherwise he was destroying me with knee on belly.  I got to figure out how to get out of that.  He tapped me out a couple of times

Ken: Like usual it was a battle to pass his guard and then keep a good position after that.

Josh (wrestling coach): Obviously strong from the top and had good movement.  I was able to sweep him a couple of times with half guard and also a flower sweep.  I got him with a guillotine and he got me later with an arm triangle.

Other visitor: Just a relaxed roll, he had been recovering from a leg injury.  I was able to sweep him a couple of times.

James: Almost got him with a guillotine.  He said it was the best roll he had with me.  

Now I'm sitting here at work and my fingers are very sore from all of the judo gripping yesterday and rolling this morning.

Day 4

The soreness continues.  I made it to Saturday morning Judo at 11:00 AM.  Sensei Beggs was the instructor and there were a few other black belts.  Most of the class I worked with Kenji (sp?).  He’s a brown belt firefighter who is ripped and pretty intense with his Judo.  We did some falls and some band work to start the class.  Then we did some entries into throws up and down the mat.  Kenji had to leave and I ended up working with Ken and John on a throw that I don’t remember the Japanese name for.  Basically you grab their arm and biscep and then do an inside trip and land on their chest.  I kept wanting to get into side control as fast as I could but I was told that it took away from the throw.  We also worked on another throw, I wish I could remember Japanese names but they escape me.  When I’m told what the names translate to they all make sense and are descriptive of what the throw is doing.  I just can't remember them yet.

Ken runs a sparring class after that.  It was only the two of us but we still worked on quite a bit.  We started off with some punch and kick combinations in the air and then repeating them on pads.  We moved on to some counters from a Muay Thai round house.  Finally we worked on striking from guard and defending punches from guard.

We finished with a couple of rounds of light standup sparring.  Ken definitely has some skill in standup as well as ground fighting.  His long legs, flexibility, and boxing work well for him.  We both incorporated punching with high and low kicks.  We didn’t get close enough to do any clinching or takedowns until the end.  It was a pretty good class, injury free and I’m glad I stayed.

Later on last night I went to Craig’s for dinner and to watch TUF finale season 13.  A couple of the fights didn’t go the way I was hoping for but I always enjoy some free MMA.

Day 2 of Project Mayhem (formerly Project Freedom)

I finally figured it out with my work to leave early every Thursday so I can go to Jiu-Jitsu.  I was getting tired of having to ask every week.

Conan was there this week.  We started off with some tough partner drills of carrying each other, dragging each other, partner assisted situps, and four person pushups (just like in the Marines).  I'm usually okay with these since I seem to consistently be the heaviest at 210.  Then we did a drill where we made 2 rows facing each other and would pretty much crowd surf a person laying flat from one end to the other.  Pretty fun but tough.  I didn't have to surf though.

Focus of class started out as getting someone rolled over from the turtle position.  We worked on quite a few techniques from this position that I didn't know.  We eventually went into the twister.  I was having the same problems that I usually do with this technique.  When I try to triangle their leg I can never get above their knee.  I was told to wait to hook up the triangle until getting into the truck which helped.  The wrestlers seem to really do this technique well as it is also a wrestling technique but called the guillotine.

During open mat I started out with Sara.  I was really impressed by her mobility.  She always seemed to know the right way to escape and do it automatically and quickly.  I tried my best to not use strength and she tapped me out with an armbar.

I rolled with Conan next with the same results as usual.  He lets me get into side control.  He moves slow and methodical and for some reason I lose my balance and fall to my side on my butt.  How does he do that?  I'm in side control I shouldn't be falling over.  He does a few things and lets me know that he could be submitting me. He got me into half guard and I was able to pass back to side control.  Eventually he tapped me but I don't remember how.  It's not really important I guess.

After we bowed out I rolled with Ken and he was tough as usual.  There was a point when I felt fatigued and thought maybe I'll never be good at this.  I shook it off and continued but it bothered me a little bit.  He eventually got me to tap in an Americana.

Judo started soon after.  Sensei Beggs was the instructor.  It was me, Ken, a black belt named David (I think), and a couple of younger boys.  After a warm-up of falling and rolls we got some big rubber band type things and practiced the throw motion with the other person holding the band.

After that Sensei Beggs had me demonstrate some throws on Ken to see what I knew.  He corrected some habits that I had that were different than Judo and gave me some other pointers.  It was very interesting and I was happy to receive a few compliments on my throwing from Sensei Beggs.  It gave me some new perspectives on throwing.  There was some talk about Judo rules and the names of techniques in Japanese.  I also found this interesting but my primary reason for learning throws is for self defense and I'll probably never compete in a tournament so knowing what is legal or not is not too important to me.  Before we quit Ken threw me several times and then we worked on some kazushi (sp?).  All in all a good experience.

I was seriously wiped out when I got home last night.  My whole body ached.  I was thinking about not doing anything today but after a comment from Ken about my enthusiasm on my last post I suppose I'll go to TKD tonight.  However, I do need to mow my lawn within the next couple of days.