It was just as hot and humid as any other day in the past week. Mike and I had a little warm-up slow rolling which was pretty fun. After the regular warm-up we worked on the basic reversal from mount and regaining guard from side control as precursors to the 8 minute drill. I was having a bit of a problem with the side mount but after being told to bridge more and use my arms a little more it came together a lot better.
Mike was my partner for the 8 minute drill. 2 minutes in each position doesn't seem as tough as it once did. I probably am worst at attacking Mike from the mount. I don't feel like I can get low enough to take up the space between us. Side control I did a little better staying close although it was still difficult. We had quite a battle from back mount where I struggled to get an armbar for quite a while, we rolled around a bit and just when I was straightening his arm the timer went off. I also rolled with Adam and Stanley.
I think my body is ready for a couple days of rest. I held together pretty well for this long week despite it being so hot and two classes in a row was both mentally and physically tough. I iced my knees after every practice and while I did have some discomfort and pain occasionally I never was worried about injuring myself. One take away is that I'm going to try to up my pace during class. Knowing that I can somewhat make it through a second class makes me think I can give a little more in a single class. Greg and I talked about some things I need to improve on and he made that comment that I need to fight for every inch. I think I get what he means, there are times when I give up when things start to go south and I accept a bad position and reset before I start fighting again. I need to fight back sooner.
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
June 24th 2013 - Gi (Bachweek #6)
Last night was my final double class of my week without the wife and kids. They're coming home tomorrow and I'll be very happy to see them. It's been a long, fun, informative, tough week but I'm ready for things to be back to normal.
Last night ended up being a big guy class with Ray, Adam, Fuji, and Chris. After our warm-up Greg had us do a few half guard techniques. The first one was done from the guy on top having the under hook and smashing you. You reach over their shoulder grab their gi then go for a butterfly hook with the outside leg then pull them back on top squared up. I can't remember what the other hand does but from there the inside foot bases and bridge and kick them up and switch to full guard. It was pretty slick. The second technique was from a better position with the underhook but the guy on top is trying to complete a darce. From there we grab their sleeve and by their knee with the other hand and then roll under them to a nice sweep.
We trained from half guard after that just rolling with 3 minute rounds and switching top and bottom and then partners. I rolled with everyone but Ray I think.
I brought an extra gi top again but considered not staying for a second class. Since Jerad was the only one I decided to stay and Greg was nice enough to take it easy on me. We worked a self defense technique from a standing guillotine first. It consisted of monkey pawing the wrist, grabbing the back of their gi over their shoulder and then circling around their legs to the opposite side and then clipping the back of their knee with our thigh for a takedown. We then did a similar defense from within the guard but we applied downward pressure with the shoulder to make them release.
We talked a little bit about the curriculum and some of the techniques that would be on the blue belt test. The cross choke came up and I mentioned that I had some problems with it. So Greg went over that from the guard and I think I have a better understanding of it now. I would get a good deep grip but I was not bringing them into me and putting my elbow on their chest before securing the other grip. We then trained guard passing and Jerad smoked me in every possible way from top and bottom.
Last night ended up being a big guy class with Ray, Adam, Fuji, and Chris. After our warm-up Greg had us do a few half guard techniques. The first one was done from the guy on top having the under hook and smashing you. You reach over their shoulder grab their gi then go for a butterfly hook with the outside leg then pull them back on top squared up. I can't remember what the other hand does but from there the inside foot bases and bridge and kick them up and switch to full guard. It was pretty slick. The second technique was from a better position with the underhook but the guy on top is trying to complete a darce. From there we grab their sleeve and by their knee with the other hand and then roll under them to a nice sweep.
We trained from half guard after that just rolling with 3 minute rounds and switching top and bottom and then partners. I rolled with everyone but Ray I think.
I brought an extra gi top again but considered not staying for a second class. Since Jerad was the only one I decided to stay and Greg was nice enough to take it easy on me. We worked a self defense technique from a standing guillotine first. It consisted of monkey pawing the wrist, grabbing the back of their gi over their shoulder and then circling around their legs to the opposite side and then clipping the back of their knee with our thigh for a takedown. We then did a similar defense from within the guard but we applied downward pressure with the shoulder to make them release.
We talked a little bit about the curriculum and some of the techniques that would be on the blue belt test. The cross choke came up and I mentioned that I had some problems with it. So Greg went over that from the guard and I think I have a better understanding of it now. I would get a good deep grip but I was not bringing them into me and putting my elbow on their chest before securing the other grip. We then trained guard passing and Jerad smoked me in every possible way from top and bottom.
Sunday, June 23, 2013
June 22nd 2013 - Open Mat (Batchweek #5)
I'm still bachen it up until Wednesday. It's been a great experience so far and has given me great respect for people that are able to train several hours a day.
I rolled with the two Jerads, Bryan, and Bauer. Greg was there too but we didn't get the opportunity to go. I went no-gi the whole session.
My rolls with the roommates Jerad and Bryan were very similar. I mostly played guard and swept when I could but they were both pretty slippery at getting out of my positions. I should have probably put more pressure on in side control. I did however switch sides a lot which was working well for me. I was also able to implement the kimura to help improve my position a few times. I ended up stalemating quite a bit with both of them but did end up with some armbars eventually.
Bauer and I had our usual battle. He smashed me well from half guard for quite a while and set up a pretty nice armbar during one of my escape attempts. Jerad took it to me as usual and setup a really nice darce by tricking me into going to my knees and then locking up his hands. I've been avoiding that choke from him for a long time, maybe he's picking up some new tricks to set it up.
I rolled with the two Jerads, Bryan, and Bauer. Greg was there too but we didn't get the opportunity to go. I went no-gi the whole session.
My rolls with the roommates Jerad and Bryan were very similar. I mostly played guard and swept when I could but they were both pretty slippery at getting out of my positions. I should have probably put more pressure on in side control. I did however switch sides a lot which was working well for me. I was also able to implement the kimura to help improve my position a few times. I ended up stalemating quite a bit with both of them but did end up with some armbars eventually.
Bauer and I had our usual battle. He smashed me well from half guard for quite a while and set up a pretty nice armbar during one of my escape attempts. Jerad took it to me as usual and setup a really nice darce by tricking me into going to my knees and then locking up his hands. I've been avoiding that choke from him for a long time, maybe he's picking up some new tricks to set it up.
Friday, June 21, 2013
June 20th - Gi/No-Gi (Bachweek #4)
I did it. Survived 4 days in a row of BJJ for a total of 9 grueling hours on the mats. I think the training finally caught up to me because this night, although not as hard as the previous nights, kicked my ass.
The beginner gi class started off as usual with the warm-up. I found out really quick that my back was raw from gi burn and it hurt every time I bridged. So I jumped into the locker room and threw a rash guard on under my gi and felt better but it got a lot hotter. We worked on escaping side control using the under hook and moving into a single leg. We took it in chunks again and drilled bridging to tripod individually. We then partnered up and worked it a little further into the single leg grab. After several reps of that we completed the take down by either going to the back or sweeping by posting their knee. We then trained escaping from side control with 2 minute rounds top and bottom.
Adam was the only addition to the no-gi class and Jerad and Patrick stuck around. We went through the warm-up again and even though I changed my clothes I still left a snail trail down the floor as I did my shrimps. We practiced taking the back from the opponent turning away in side control. This actually wasn't to bad even though I was exhausted. We added on to the technique by the opponent trying to escape and we would use a butterfly hook and keep the seat belt and then reset to our original back take position.
We trained from the back and partnered up with everyone for 2 minute rounds from top and bottom. This killed me and there were a few times I felt like I was going to hurl. Greg allowed me to sit out a bit and cool off in front of our new fan (thank you Jerad!). Our next drill I'll call the freeze and switch. We started rolling and then after a minute and a half Greg would call out freeze and one of the people would get out and the next guy would go in and claim whatever position they wanted based on where the previous person was frozen. After everyone taking the back Greg made the rule that you couldn't copy the previous positions. Then it got a little more interesting. I used deep half and crucifix on my turns.
It was a rough night once I got home. My stomach was freaking out but I didn't feel like I could hold anything down for a while. I had to drink water slowly because I was so nauseous. Laid there and did nothing for quite a while until I felt okay and finally had dinner around 11 pm. Woke up feeling pretty good though and I've been pounding water all day. Hopefully resting today will prepare me for tomorrow.
The beginner gi class started off as usual with the warm-up. I found out really quick that my back was raw from gi burn and it hurt every time I bridged. So I jumped into the locker room and threw a rash guard on under my gi and felt better but it got a lot hotter. We worked on escaping side control using the under hook and moving into a single leg. We took it in chunks again and drilled bridging to tripod individually. We then partnered up and worked it a little further into the single leg grab. After several reps of that we completed the take down by either going to the back or sweeping by posting their knee. We then trained escaping from side control with 2 minute rounds top and bottom.
Adam was the only addition to the no-gi class and Jerad and Patrick stuck around. We went through the warm-up again and even though I changed my clothes I still left a snail trail down the floor as I did my shrimps. We practiced taking the back from the opponent turning away in side control. This actually wasn't to bad even though I was exhausted. We added on to the technique by the opponent trying to escape and we would use a butterfly hook and keep the seat belt and then reset to our original back take position.
We trained from the back and partnered up with everyone for 2 minute rounds from top and bottom. This killed me and there were a few times I felt like I was going to hurl. Greg allowed me to sit out a bit and cool off in front of our new fan (thank you Jerad!). Our next drill I'll call the freeze and switch. We started rolling and then after a minute and a half Greg would call out freeze and one of the people would get out and the next guy would go in and claim whatever position they wanted based on where the previous person was frozen. After everyone taking the back Greg made the rule that you couldn't copy the previous positions. Then it got a little more interesting. I used deep half and crucifix on my turns.
It was a rough night once I got home. My stomach was freaking out but I didn't feel like I could hold anything down for a while. I had to drink water slowly because I was so nauseous. Laid there and did nothing for quite a while until I felt okay and finally had dinner around 11 pm. Woke up feeling pretty good though and I've been pounding water all day. Hopefully resting today will prepare me for tomorrow.
Thursday, June 20, 2013
June 19th - Gi (BachWeek #3)
What an interesting night. Greg warned us from the beginning that it was going to be a rough night; it was no lie. It was good to see Ken in class as it's been a while, although we didn't get the opportunity to train together. Warm-up and stretching went as usual. Greg must have still been recovering from being sick because he didn't participate.
Greg had us think of a personal technique to work on during the warm-up and then we drilled it with a partner for 10 minutes. I chose the cross-grip to omaplata that I've had some success with and chose Jordan as a partner. It ended up being quite an ab workout to constantly shoot my hips and legs up into position. My main focus was getting my arm out from the underhook on their leg to around their waist, so I had Jordan try to step over my head after several reps to make it more difficult. One thing I learned was if I shrimp away before trying to free my arm it puts the weight on the underhooked leg, this allowed me to free the arm. So I'd say it was a successful exercise. Jordan trained kimura from guard and did a couple of setups from hip heist to me just putting my hand on the mat. He appeared to improve.
Next Greg had us in 2 lines across from each other starting with 5 on each side. He dropped the bomb of 9 minute rounds of rolling. We did 3 rounds of 9 minutes then 2 more rounds of 7 minutes. So 41 minutes of grueling rolling. I won't go into the specifics of my rolls because I don't remember much. I rolled with Jordan, Fuji, Patrick twice, and Robert R. I did my best to pace myself and probably got submitted 2 times.
There were 2 unfortunate accidents that occurred during the class. Gina and Ken collided heads during a roll and both shed some blood. Gina had to get some stitches and you can see a picture and read the rest in her blog post. They were both out for the remainder of the class. Then during our 3rd round I believe Mike's head ran into Fuji's knee and he also sustained a cut and black eye. It's very odd for us to have this many injuries in one class.
It's pretty amazing to see the responses to the injuries on Facebook. The uninitiated friends of Mike and Gina are posting things like "OMG, why do you do jiu jitsu again?" or "Oh Michael smh" (which means "shaking my head", had to look that up). It sucks that this is there impression of BJJ. If only they knew what a positive thing this is.
I seriously considered skipping the beginner class. I was dead tired, but Jerad threw down the challenge and said that he was going to stay. Then me deciding to stay guilted Adam into staying. Greg was nice to those that did both classes and let us skip the warm-up, so Brian did the floor stuff by himself. The class consisted of the basics of X-guard. We started off by getting there from a defended butterfly sweep and drilled the entry for quite a while. I had no concept of time and had to struggle to get off the floor for each technique. My left knee bothered me a little bit in X so I tried my best to keep it to my good side. My knees and the rest of my body were bothering me a little bit in general. I was glad that I brought an extra gi top as it did make a difference in class #2. We trained butterfly guard with 2 minute rounds and switched top and bottom.
When I got home I was dead to the world and it took me a while to get something to eat but I felt better after that. I considered not going to class today, but I woke up feeling great and refreshed so I'm going to see the week through with both classes tonight. I welcome a day off Friday though.
Greg had us think of a personal technique to work on during the warm-up and then we drilled it with a partner for 10 minutes. I chose the cross-grip to omaplata that I've had some success with and chose Jordan as a partner. It ended up being quite an ab workout to constantly shoot my hips and legs up into position. My main focus was getting my arm out from the underhook on their leg to around their waist, so I had Jordan try to step over my head after several reps to make it more difficult. One thing I learned was if I shrimp away before trying to free my arm it puts the weight on the underhooked leg, this allowed me to free the arm. So I'd say it was a successful exercise. Jordan trained kimura from guard and did a couple of setups from hip heist to me just putting my hand on the mat. He appeared to improve.
Next Greg had us in 2 lines across from each other starting with 5 on each side. He dropped the bomb of 9 minute rounds of rolling. We did 3 rounds of 9 minutes then 2 more rounds of 7 minutes. So 41 minutes of grueling rolling. I won't go into the specifics of my rolls because I don't remember much. I rolled with Jordan, Fuji, Patrick twice, and Robert R. I did my best to pace myself and probably got submitted 2 times.
There were 2 unfortunate accidents that occurred during the class. Gina and Ken collided heads during a roll and both shed some blood. Gina had to get some stitches and you can see a picture and read the rest in her blog post. They were both out for the remainder of the class. Then during our 3rd round I believe Mike's head ran into Fuji's knee and he also sustained a cut and black eye. It's very odd for us to have this many injuries in one class.
It's pretty amazing to see the responses to the injuries on Facebook. The uninitiated friends of Mike and Gina are posting things like "OMG, why do you do jiu jitsu again?" or "Oh Michael smh" (which means "shaking my head", had to look that up). It sucks that this is there impression of BJJ. If only they knew what a positive thing this is.
I seriously considered skipping the beginner class. I was dead tired, but Jerad threw down the challenge and said that he was going to stay. Then me deciding to stay guilted Adam into staying. Greg was nice to those that did both classes and let us skip the warm-up, so Brian did the floor stuff by himself. The class consisted of the basics of X-guard. We started off by getting there from a defended butterfly sweep and drilled the entry for quite a while. I had no concept of time and had to struggle to get off the floor for each technique. My left knee bothered me a little bit in X so I tried my best to keep it to my good side. My knees and the rest of my body were bothering me a little bit in general. I was glad that I brought an extra gi top as it did make a difference in class #2. We trained butterfly guard with 2 minute rounds and switched top and bottom.
When I got home I was dead to the world and it took me a while to get something to eat but I felt better after that. I considered not going to class today, but I woke up feeling great and refreshed so I'm going to see the week through with both classes tonight. I welcome a day off Friday though.
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
June 18th - Gi (Bachweek #2)
Another hot and humid day at Lincoln BJJ. It turned out that Greg had gotten violently sick the night before so he had Jerad teach class last night.
Jerad had us focus on the standing guard break to bullfighter pass that we recently worked on. We took the pass in small chunks which is perfect for learning/perfecting a technique. We worked on the grab and push the sleeve first with the stand-up to posture. Next we added in the break and getting good position, and finally we added the pass. We also isolated the pass by itself for some extra work on the bullfighter. Bauer was my partner for this exercise.
We moved on to king of the mat starting from closed guard. I did pretty well against most people, but Mike is an animal from closed guard. At least against me he seemed to have an answer for everything I tried. My goto has been to do the armpit grab and sit way back and low, he took complete advantage of that where most would allow me to stand-up and work the knee in he took a higher guard than I would have liked and armbarred me. I'll have to figure out what I did wrong.
We did a couple rounds of free rolling and I ended up with Bauer first. He must have been wiped out because he allowed me to do a lot of things he doesn't normally. Kudos to him for sticking it out instead of quitting but I'm not going to count any of those submissions against our vendetta. I rolled with new guy Brian next and he caught me in a pretty good triangle. That shouldn't happen. I kept calm and defended it properly and eventually he let it go, but good on him for going for it. Other than that I took it pretty easy and tried to work on things I'm not good at.
With 2 days in the books I'm looking forward to 2 classes tonight. I'm prepared with 2 gi tops, one for each class. Water consumption is going well, and I'm actually not bothered by drinking so much. I do need to take care of my fingers tonight, as they are a little sore from gi grabs. I'm going to have to tape them up a little better.
Jerad had us focus on the standing guard break to bullfighter pass that we recently worked on. We took the pass in small chunks which is perfect for learning/perfecting a technique. We worked on the grab and push the sleeve first with the stand-up to posture. Next we added in the break and getting good position, and finally we added the pass. We also isolated the pass by itself for some extra work on the bullfighter. Bauer was my partner for this exercise.
We moved on to king of the mat starting from closed guard. I did pretty well against most people, but Mike is an animal from closed guard. At least against me he seemed to have an answer for everything I tried. My goto has been to do the armpit grab and sit way back and low, he took complete advantage of that where most would allow me to stand-up and work the knee in he took a higher guard than I would have liked and armbarred me. I'll have to figure out what I did wrong.
We did a couple rounds of free rolling and I ended up with Bauer first. He must have been wiped out because he allowed me to do a lot of things he doesn't normally. Kudos to him for sticking it out instead of quitting but I'm not going to count any of those submissions against our vendetta. I rolled with new guy Brian next and he caught me in a pretty good triangle. That shouldn't happen. I kept calm and defended it properly and eventually he let it go, but good on him for going for it. Other than that I took it pretty easy and tried to work on things I'm not good at.
With 2 days in the books I'm looking forward to 2 classes tonight. I'm prepared with 2 gi tops, one for each class. Water consumption is going well, and I'm actually not bothered by drinking so much. I do need to take care of my fingers tonight, as they are a little sore from gi grabs. I'm going to have to tape them up a little better.
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
June 17th - Gi (Bachweek #1)
My wife took off with the kids and left me. Don't worry she just took them to her dad's for a little vacation. So, I'm bachen it up for the week and plan to train Jiu-Jitsu as much as possible. It started off with a double header of advanced and beginner classes.
Advanced: 10 or 11 people showed up for class including Robert Rojas who I haven't seen in a while. We did a regular warm-up with the addition of the Homer shoulder walk. Hand stand walking is getting easier and my wrists didn't hurt afterwards like usual. Neck exercises also seem to be getting easier to handle.
The technique of the day was the over/under pass. Probably considered my goto pass from kneeling. It can be deceptive to someone unfamiliar with it as they often think that they are setting up for a triangle until I'm in side control. Of course I have a problem passing my betters with this pass. Mike helped quite a bit tightening the technique up. He's so small and low to the ground that it was difficult to get good position on him sometimes, but I felt more confident in the pass at the end of drilling. Greg added a contingency leg drag if the pass wasn't a success which I think will be a great addition to my game if I can remember to do it.
During king of the mat I spent was able to pass a couple of times and had some really close calls. I was even able to setup my cross grab to omaplata on Ray but ended up not being able to sweep or submit and getting passed. I may need some brush up instruction on this technique. After each round I felt like a hot mess. Humidity was getting to me again but I think my increased water intake might have helped a little bit.
Beginner: I was pretty out of it for this class. The warm-up was especially difficult; I could barely shrimp down the floor due to sweating so much and not being able to get traction in my sweat trail. We trained some hip throws and then taking mount from reverse kesa side control. I worked with Adam for pretty much the whole class. Then we did a few rounds of position rolling starting from side control. For sure on Wednesday I'm going to bring an extra gi as it was pretty gross once it was soaked.
Advanced: 10 or 11 people showed up for class including Robert Rojas who I haven't seen in a while. We did a regular warm-up with the addition of the Homer shoulder walk. Hand stand walking is getting easier and my wrists didn't hurt afterwards like usual. Neck exercises also seem to be getting easier to handle.
The technique of the day was the over/under pass. Probably considered my goto pass from kneeling. It can be deceptive to someone unfamiliar with it as they often think that they are setting up for a triangle until I'm in side control. Of course I have a problem passing my betters with this pass. Mike helped quite a bit tightening the technique up. He's so small and low to the ground that it was difficult to get good position on him sometimes, but I felt more confident in the pass at the end of drilling. Greg added a contingency leg drag if the pass wasn't a success which I think will be a great addition to my game if I can remember to do it.
During king of the mat I spent was able to pass a couple of times and had some really close calls. I was even able to setup my cross grab to omaplata on Ray but ended up not being able to sweep or submit and getting passed. I may need some brush up instruction on this technique. After each round I felt like a hot mess. Humidity was getting to me again but I think my increased water intake might have helped a little bit.
Beginner: I was pretty out of it for this class. The warm-up was especially difficult; I could barely shrimp down the floor due to sweating so much and not being able to get traction in my sweat trail. We trained some hip throws and then taking mount from reverse kesa side control. I worked with Adam for pretty much the whole class. Then we did a few rounds of position rolling starting from side control. For sure on Wednesday I'm going to bring an extra gi as it was pretty gross once it was soaked.
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