Theme & Techniques: Drilling Open Mat
Students: Mike A, Ben, Tom, Tyler, Cassie, Morgan
Right at 10:00 there was only 2 students and Mike and I. I decided we should just have a drilling open mat class instead. After I said that everyone else showed up but since I already announced it I decided to go through with a drilling class. Unfortunately there were an odd number of partners and I ended up having to sit out while everyone else trained.
I ran it like a competition class with 5 minute rounds for each partner to work their technique. Each set of 2 rounds had a theme 1. guard pull or take down, 2. guard sweep or submit, 3. and guard pass. I went around and gave assistance where I could.
Rolling: Guard King of the Mat
Rolled With: Everyone
Had enough guys to do some king of the mat too. I had everyone pick their own guard as the king. I ended up playing some half and closed like usual, but also tried my hand at butterfly and spider which I rarely do exclusively. After one of my rolls I was heading back to the line when I heard, "Hey, Josh, Look!" Ben was in deep half guard and wanted me to see. It's very cool for a teacher to have an experience like this. It's immediate feedback that something that I taught is useful to someone else. What more could I ask for?
Mike and I had a couple of good rounds. He passed my spider guard immediately to leg drag but then gave me some pointers on it. He also complimented me on my back defense to which I say "it ain't easy." I saw some good things from Tyler today, I'm really impressed with how fast he's learning.
Office Hours Partner: Tom
Tom is becoming more of a challenge, I think he's figuring out how to defend my main stuff so I'll have to start being more creative. One thing that I'm still trying to figure out is the lasso roll to omoplata. I'm so close but always seem to get stuck or I'm too far away and I end up rolling back into closed guard. Have to probably drill this instead of keep expecting it just to work. I showed him some cross guard stuff before calling it a day.
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
December 29th 2015 - No Gi All Levels
Theme & Techniques: Deep Half Intro
Partner: Mike A, Jordan A, Dave M, Morgan, Tom, Ben, Tyler
Great turn out for our noon class today! I decided to try my hand at introducing a position that I feel competent in but many have no experience with. I've taught the position to a few people like Mo so I had down how I wanted to teach it.
I showed the basic way for using a knee shield to help get an underhook then bypassing the cross face to get your head close to their body. Next, and this is the tough part, you straighten their leg as you bring yourself under them. Finally the importance of hand positions with hugging onto their thigh tightly and burying your free hand under their knee. What I should have mentioned and will mention in the future when I teach this is that the top person also has to be a little active. All too often the top guys goes with the flow letting the bottom guy work and is swept way easier than they should by the bottom guy just trying to get into the deep half position. So we had to break for a little while and tell the top guys to base out with their hands a bit and try to stay up.
Everyone was having a little trouble getting underneath their opponent, so I thought I might simplify the entry and teach it as the mount escape. This is actually a pretty high percentage mount escape for me that I hit often. You start with getting quarter guard from the bottom of mount. From their you use a teeter totter motion to get them to raise their knee a little off the floor, this should provide enough space to work with. From here I put my opposite elbow to the floor and eventually reach around their leg and walk my feet out in a circle to straight their leg into the deep half. Teaching it this way seemed to help get people into the position quicker without a lot of extra movements.
Finally, I taught the Homer Simpson sweep. One of the things everyone had to get over was wanting to triangle their legs in some way to keep control of their opponents leg. You need your feet on the floor for the most mobility. The next big thing to focus on for this sweep is you want to get them to put their butt on the floor and making that a trigger for when you roll to the top to complete the sweep. Mike and I were both impressed that everyone was getting it by the end.
Rolling: Half Guard King of the Mat
Rolled With: Everyone
When I was on the bottom I made it a mission to try to get to deep half on everyone and try to show the position off. I succeeded quite a few times and was happy with my rolling. I also witnessed a few people attempt deep half and some complete the sweep, this really makes my day. I would also suspect that at least 1 of them is going to use the mount escape that I taught, can't wait to see that.
Office Hours Partner: Mike
Watched Mike and Morgan roll for a while and we are both impressed with his progress. He's one of the few that will hang out after class and is willing to ask questions and find answers to problems that he's running into while grappling. Then Mike and I rolled and we ended up in a leg lock battle a couple times. I mentioned afterward that I'm still having some trouble figuring out when to focus on defense and when to switch to offense. I am enjoying this process though and feel like I've already gotten my feet wet with foot locks but have so much to learn. The main tidbit today was finishing the heelhook in the 50/50. He told me to pinch my knees together right above his knee and then to stretch out his leg instead of trying to compress it all. Then I needed to sit up and turn to get the best position on the heel.
Partner: Mike A, Jordan A, Dave M, Morgan, Tom, Ben, Tyler
Great turn out for our noon class today! I decided to try my hand at introducing a position that I feel competent in but many have no experience with. I've taught the position to a few people like Mo so I had down how I wanted to teach it.
I showed the basic way for using a knee shield to help get an underhook then bypassing the cross face to get your head close to their body. Next, and this is the tough part, you straighten their leg as you bring yourself under them. Finally the importance of hand positions with hugging onto their thigh tightly and burying your free hand under their knee. What I should have mentioned and will mention in the future when I teach this is that the top person also has to be a little active. All too often the top guys goes with the flow letting the bottom guy work and is swept way easier than they should by the bottom guy just trying to get into the deep half position. So we had to break for a little while and tell the top guys to base out with their hands a bit and try to stay up.
Everyone was having a little trouble getting underneath their opponent, so I thought I might simplify the entry and teach it as the mount escape. This is actually a pretty high percentage mount escape for me that I hit often. You start with getting quarter guard from the bottom of mount. From their you use a teeter totter motion to get them to raise their knee a little off the floor, this should provide enough space to work with. From here I put my opposite elbow to the floor and eventually reach around their leg and walk my feet out in a circle to straight their leg into the deep half. Teaching it this way seemed to help get people into the position quicker without a lot of extra movements.
Finally, I taught the Homer Simpson sweep. One of the things everyone had to get over was wanting to triangle their legs in some way to keep control of their opponents leg. You need your feet on the floor for the most mobility. The next big thing to focus on for this sweep is you want to get them to put their butt on the floor and making that a trigger for when you roll to the top to complete the sweep. Mike and I were both impressed that everyone was getting it by the end.
Rolling: Half Guard King of the Mat
Rolled With: Everyone
When I was on the bottom I made it a mission to try to get to deep half on everyone and try to show the position off. I succeeded quite a few times and was happy with my rolling. I also witnessed a few people attempt deep half and some complete the sweep, this really makes my day. I would also suspect that at least 1 of them is going to use the mount escape that I taught, can't wait to see that.
Office Hours Partner: Mike
Watched Mike and Morgan roll for a while and we are both impressed with his progress. He's one of the few that will hang out after class and is willing to ask questions and find answers to problems that he's running into while grappling. Then Mike and I rolled and we ended up in a leg lock battle a couple times. I mentioned afterward that I'm still having some trouble figuring out when to focus on defense and when to switch to offense. I am enjoying this process though and feel like I've already gotten my feet wet with foot locks but have so much to learn. The main tidbit today was finishing the heelhook in the 50/50. He told me to pinch my knees together right above his knee and then to stretch out his leg instead of trying to compress it all. Then I needed to sit up and turn to get the best position on the heel.
Sunday, December 27, 2015
December 26th 2015 - Open Mat
Open Mat
Rolled With: James, Adam, Chris, Mo, Henry, Jerad
Game Plan: Hunt kimuras, Finishing from Mount
Had almost a 3 hour long session today and I needed it after Christmas festivities. A couple notable things happened. I was able to complete the half guard kimura with a step over that Mike covered Wednesday. I also submitted someone with the crucifix omoplata that I wasn't able to complete in the tournament and have been working on finishing.
James: We had about a 20 minute roll to start open mat off. I had a hard time sweeping him but was able to retain guard for the majority of our match. When I was able to take the back he was able to scramble out of it rather quickly.
Adam: I think confidence plays a big role in how I do against Adam, that or is amazing wrestling ability. Everytime I try to escape side control he puts the butcher on me and pulls me back down again. I was able to keep him from submitting me for a while but it's pretty miserable down there. In the future I need to fight harder to keep guard rather than waiting until side control to fight harder. I also need to trust my techniques and just go for them too often I think I'm going to fail at something so I only half ass it.
Chris: He just wanted to work on escaping mount so I was happy to oblige. At first I was catching him with ezekiels because he kept putting his arms down to push my hips. Then we went over some basic defense stuff and it continued in cycles from there. I'd attack something and succeed and then show him a defense or an opening and then when he understood it I would move on to something else. I respect him for willingly taking a crappy position in order to get better. Most guys who have trained as long as him would just want to roll during open mat.
Mo: We had kind of a interesting roll where we fought for position. Once he was close deep half guard I saw an opportunity for him so we stopped and worked on that position for a while. He's also having trouble with the sweep, so I showed some tricks to get around people attempting to triangle. people attempting to triangle. This was a part of deep half guard that I struggled with as well.
Henry: He was stalking me like a tiger after I finished rolling with Mo. It's been a while since we rolled and it was really challenging mentally and physically. We spent a lot of time and half guard and I was happy that I could keep him from standing up by using my knee shield on his hip bone. There was a point when he attacked me a lot from turtle and back mount and it to everything I had to defend all of the attacks he was throwing at me.
Jerad: I have been looking forward to rolling with Jerad. I don't think we've rolled for at least 2 months. I was curious to see how well I would do with all of the training that I've been doing. It started out well but we got to a point where he was shutting me down at every turn. He gave me some advice on turning my body instead of lifting my head to defend chokes from mount, as he is catching me with mounted triangle most of the time.
Rolled With: James, Adam, Chris, Mo, Henry, Jerad
Game Plan: Hunt kimuras, Finishing from Mount
Had almost a 3 hour long session today and I needed it after Christmas festivities. A couple notable things happened. I was able to complete the half guard kimura with a step over that Mike covered Wednesday. I also submitted someone with the crucifix omoplata that I wasn't able to complete in the tournament and have been working on finishing.
James: We had about a 20 minute roll to start open mat off. I had a hard time sweeping him but was able to retain guard for the majority of our match. When I was able to take the back he was able to scramble out of it rather quickly.
Adam: I think confidence plays a big role in how I do against Adam, that or is amazing wrestling ability. Everytime I try to escape side control he puts the butcher on me and pulls me back down again. I was able to keep him from submitting me for a while but it's pretty miserable down there. In the future I need to fight harder to keep guard rather than waiting until side control to fight harder. I also need to trust my techniques and just go for them too often I think I'm going to fail at something so I only half ass it.
Chris: He just wanted to work on escaping mount so I was happy to oblige. At first I was catching him with ezekiels because he kept putting his arms down to push my hips. Then we went over some basic defense stuff and it continued in cycles from there. I'd attack something and succeed and then show him a defense or an opening and then when he understood it I would move on to something else. I respect him for willingly taking a crappy position in order to get better. Most guys who have trained as long as him would just want to roll during open mat.
Mo: We had kind of a interesting roll where we fought for position. Once he was close deep half guard I saw an opportunity for him so we stopped and worked on that position for a while. He's also having trouble with the sweep, so I showed some tricks to get around people attempting to triangle. people attempting to triangle. This was a part of deep half guard that I struggled with as well.
Henry: He was stalking me like a tiger after I finished rolling with Mo. It's been a while since we rolled and it was really challenging mentally and physically. We spent a lot of time and half guard and I was happy that I could keep him from standing up by using my knee shield on his hip bone. There was a point when he attacked me a lot from turtle and back mount and it to everything I had to defend all of the attacks he was throwing at me.
Jerad: I have been looking forward to rolling with Jerad. I don't think we've rolled for at least 2 months. I was curious to see how well I would do with all of the training that I've been doing. It started out well but we got to a point where he was shutting me down at every turn. He gave me some advice on turning my body instead of lifting my head to defend chokes from mount, as he is catching me with mounted triangle most of the time.
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
December 23rd 2015 - Gi All Levels
Theme & Techniques: Half Guard Knee Slide Pass, Kimura from Bottom Half Guard Attack and Back Take
Partner: Mike, Morgan
Before class I was asking Mike about attacking the kimura and taking the back. I've been getting the kimura grip lately but unable to finish it or improve my position before they posture. I've also had others like Alejandro control me quite a bit with the kimura and turn it into an armbar or back take. Part of my problem is that I haven't yet grasped when I need to push it away from me or hold it in and how much torque I need to put on at any given time. Mike demonstrated it and I could feel it, but it's going to take some experimentation to figure it out.
We did the half guard pass for a little while with using the free leg to hook their thigh and then knee sliding. The thing that we focused on the most was moving our head across away from the underhook and grabbing the elbow.
I think we were supposed to work on the granby roll next but since it was such a small class Mike had us work on kimura from half guard. Some really good details came out of this.
Rolling: Half Guard Position (6 x 3 min)
Rolled With: Mike, Morgan
We each took our turn on the bottom. One thing that stood out, pertaining to the theme of the class, was I was able to get the kimura grip at one point on Morgan and swept with it. I was still in half guard and instinctively let the kimura go to push on the knee to pass the guard as Mike was telling me not to let it go. After class he showed me to put my free knee on his hip to help pry my leg out while I keep the grip. Mike and I had some great exchanges when we rolled, some koala guard, some attacking the back, some inverted half guard, etc. It was great fun and really cerebral fast rolling makes my day.
Partner: Mike, Morgan
Before class I was asking Mike about attacking the kimura and taking the back. I've been getting the kimura grip lately but unable to finish it or improve my position before they posture. I've also had others like Alejandro control me quite a bit with the kimura and turn it into an armbar or back take. Part of my problem is that I haven't yet grasped when I need to push it away from me or hold it in and how much torque I need to put on at any given time. Mike demonstrated it and I could feel it, but it's going to take some experimentation to figure it out.
We did the half guard pass for a little while with using the free leg to hook their thigh and then knee sliding. The thing that we focused on the most was moving our head across away from the underhook and grabbing the elbow.
I think we were supposed to work on the granby roll next but since it was such a small class Mike had us work on kimura from half guard. Some really good details came out of this.
- The first being when they defend by hiding their hand on their thigh and posturing up. I usually lose the kimura here. Mike showed us hip out and then step all the way over to their opposite hip, this provided a lot of leverage to pull their hand out.
- Next we worked on the back take if they stay down. The major new thing with this was getting the butterfly hook to help push away. Then Morgan and I both had trouble keeping our legs close to the floor and tight together. So this gave me some things to work on and perfect.
Rolling: Half Guard Position (6 x 3 min)
Rolled With: Mike, Morgan
We each took our turn on the bottom. One thing that stood out, pertaining to the theme of the class, was I was able to get the kimura grip at one point on Morgan and swept with it. I was still in half guard and instinctively let the kimura go to push on the knee to pass the guard as Mike was telling me not to let it go. After class he showed me to put my free knee on his hip to help pry my leg out while I keep the grip. Mike and I had some great exchanges when we rolled, some koala guard, some attacking the back, some inverted half guard, etc. It was great fun and really cerebral fast rolling makes my day.
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
December 22nd 2015 - No Gi All Levels
Theme & Techniques: Arm Drag to Single Leg, Knee on Belly North South Choke setup, Follow-up with no arm darce or guillotine
Students: Harvey, Ben, Dwight
Coming into class today I had a few ideas for what to teach. I had 3 things in mind depending on who was going to be there: Deep Half Guard, Omoplata, and North South Choke. I think NS was probably the best choice as just setting up Deep Half can be a lot of information, much less sweeping, but still I may do it next week. Some tips on the techniques:
Rolled With: Harvey, Ben, Dwight
With both Harvey and Ben they got stuck on the bottom of side control and I planted my hand by their hip and then switched sides. It came up later when Harvey asked why it was happening. I showed them the offense first with how I was blocking their hips and putting some shoulder pressure down as I scrambled to the other side.
Dwight and I had a good roll. He's visiting for the holidays and we talked about his training schedule in Sacramento. I can tell that he's a lot better than the last time we rolled. I wasn't able to submit him. We had quite a few position changes and it was a fun roll!
Office Hours Partner: Harvey
After class I showed them that they should not be laying on their side without their feet engaged into the ground. I remember Mike A. telling me over and over that I was hanging out on my side too much in side control and he would always be switching sides on me when I was on the bottom. It took a while to sink in or to understand what I was doing wrong. I had in my head that I need to be on my side to escape, but if I don't have my feet engaged with the floor I'm a dead fish.
Students: Harvey, Ben, Dwight
Coming into class today I had a few ideas for what to teach. I had 3 things in mind depending on who was going to be there: Deep Half Guard, Omoplata, and North South Choke. I think NS was probably the best choice as just setting up Deep Half can be a lot of information, much less sweeping, but still I may do it next week. Some tips on the techniques:
- Posture and head position is very important during the single leg. After armdragging, I like to keep my head really close into their armpit and Dwight made the comment that I liked to listen to their heart. Don't lean over.
- The most important parts of getting the north south choke are getting their hands out of the way and keeping their head straight up.
- When they turn into you I switch to a grip on their chin and move to a modified knee on belly ready to go to mount. From there I base with my head and make some space to connect my hands for the guillotine choke.
Rolled With: Harvey, Ben, Dwight
With both Harvey and Ben they got stuck on the bottom of side control and I planted my hand by their hip and then switched sides. It came up later when Harvey asked why it was happening. I showed them the offense first with how I was blocking their hips and putting some shoulder pressure down as I scrambled to the other side.
Dwight and I had a good roll. He's visiting for the holidays and we talked about his training schedule in Sacramento. I can tell that he's a lot better than the last time we rolled. I wasn't able to submit him. We had quite a few position changes and it was a fun roll!
Office Hours Partner: Harvey
After class I showed them that they should not be laying on their side without their feet engaged into the ground. I remember Mike A. telling me over and over that I was hanging out on my side too much in side control and he would always be switching sides on me when I was on the bottom. It took a while to sink in or to understand what I was doing wrong. I had in my head that I need to be on my side to escape, but if I don't have my feet engaged with the floor I'm a dead fish.
Monday, December 21, 2015
December 20th 2015 - No Gi Beginner
Theme & Techniques: Single Leg, Mounted Armbar, Bicep Slicer
Partner: Darijo
Went to class today since I missed open mat yesterday. Still didn't get enough rolling though. We worked on setting up the armbar by getting the opponent to lift their elbow then moving into S mount.
I don't have too much experience with slicers mostly because they're usually not allowed in gi, so it was nice to get some reps of them.
Rolling: Mount (4 x 4 min)
Rolled With: Darijo, Shane
Mount escapes felt solid. I feel like I have a lot of options for escaping and even ending up with a deep half sweep in the process. From the top I seem to cycle through americana, no gi Ezekiel, to guillotine and then mounted triangle. I still don't feel strong with my attacking but I do feel good about maintaining the position. I gave Shane some pointers on technical mount and some deep half.
Office Hours Partner: Tate
Was glad Tate stuck around for a little bit. We had a good roll. I find it difficult to get to a good position on him as he always finds a way to squirm out. He caught me with a calf cutter from the truck and I found myself without a defensive answer for it. I did some good things as well with an omoplata sweep and a toe hold attack that I need to improve.
Partner: Darijo
Went to class today since I missed open mat yesterday. Still didn't get enough rolling though. We worked on setting up the armbar by getting the opponent to lift their elbow then moving into S mount.
I don't have too much experience with slicers mostly because they're usually not allowed in gi, so it was nice to get some reps of them.
Rolling: Mount (4 x 4 min)
Rolled With: Darijo, Shane
Mount escapes felt solid. I feel like I have a lot of options for escaping and even ending up with a deep half sweep in the process. From the top I seem to cycle through americana, no gi Ezekiel, to guillotine and then mounted triangle. I still don't feel strong with my attacking but I do feel good about maintaining the position. I gave Shane some pointers on technical mount and some deep half.
Office Hours Partner: Tate
Was glad Tate stuck around for a little bit. We had a good roll. I find it difficult to get to a good position on him as he always finds a way to squirm out. He caught me with a calf cutter from the truck and I found myself without a defensive answer for it. I did some good things as well with an omoplata sweep and a toe hold attack that I need to improve.
Friday, December 18, 2015
December 18th 2015 - Gi All Levels
Theme & Techniques: Standing Guillotine Defense, Half Guard with Underhook: Back Take, Guard Recovery
Partner: Craig
Small class with the usual Conan and Craig, and then Bhuvana and Byrav making a rare Friday morning appearance. Interestingly, I've been through the same material with 3 different instructors in the last 3 days. They each had their differences with how they taught each technique and details that they would emphasize as important. This shows that there is more than one way to do a technique and can also spark interesting discussions about why something is done a particular way.
This can be difficult for me to deal with as I feel like I pay pretty close attention to the details and want to make things as perfect as possible. But I also don't want to be the guy that says, "But, Greg taught it this way yesterday!" Sure there is a time and place to do that but it has the potential to interrupt the flow of the class; after class is probably the best time for this discussion. In fact, I've seen Greg teach a technique one way a couple months ago and then add in a detail or say something different the next time he teaches it. This could also be my perception as memories are flawed. It could also be that the teacher has discovered something new about the technique.
One thing that I like about the BJJ instructors that I've learned from is that they usually have a practical answer for everything that they do. You'll never hear a phrase like, "that's just the ways it's done, we've always done it this way." The instructor will usually speak from experience about what works for them during rolling or will have a troubleshooting session to try to figure out the answer.
Rolling: Half Gaurd
Rolled With: Craig
I was doing a good job of shutting down Craig's game from both top and bottom half guard when we did a couple of 4 minute rounds. He was doing a lot of straight arm pushing and trying to hold me in place. We stopped for a bit and Conan gave him some pointers on relaxing a bit more and moving in a way to make me move then finding the open space to move into.
Then we did some half speed rolls where Conan or I would give him certain resistance to set him up for certain defenses. Occasionally I would say, "okay now underhook" or "use your legs" It seemed to help as he was piecing things together. He stopped using so much energy and was having better results. One of the main things that I've noticed with people learning half guard is that they mostly just fight with their arms and completely forget about their legs. Using my legs is a huge part of my half guard. You're wrong if you don't do it.
Partner: Craig
Small class with the usual Conan and Craig, and then Bhuvana and Byrav making a rare Friday morning appearance. Interestingly, I've been through the same material with 3 different instructors in the last 3 days. They each had their differences with how they taught each technique and details that they would emphasize as important. This shows that there is more than one way to do a technique and can also spark interesting discussions about why something is done a particular way.
This can be difficult for me to deal with as I feel like I pay pretty close attention to the details and want to make things as perfect as possible. But I also don't want to be the guy that says, "But, Greg taught it this way yesterday!" Sure there is a time and place to do that but it has the potential to interrupt the flow of the class; after class is probably the best time for this discussion. In fact, I've seen Greg teach a technique one way a couple months ago and then add in a detail or say something different the next time he teaches it. This could also be my perception as memories are flawed. It could also be that the teacher has discovered something new about the technique.
One thing that I like about the BJJ instructors that I've learned from is that they usually have a practical answer for everything that they do. You'll never hear a phrase like, "that's just the ways it's done, we've always done it this way." The instructor will usually speak from experience about what works for them during rolling or will have a troubleshooting session to try to figure out the answer.
Rolling: Half Gaurd
Rolled With: Craig
I was doing a good job of shutting down Craig's game from both top and bottom half guard when we did a couple of 4 minute rounds. He was doing a lot of straight arm pushing and trying to hold me in place. We stopped for a bit and Conan gave him some pointers on relaxing a bit more and moving in a way to make me move then finding the open space to move into.
Then we did some half speed rolls where Conan or I would give him certain resistance to set him up for certain defenses. Occasionally I would say, "okay now underhook" or "use your legs" It seemed to help as he was piecing things together. He stopped using so much energy and was having better results. One of the main things that I've noticed with people learning half guard is that they mostly just fight with their arms and completely forget about their legs. Using my legs is a huge part of my half guard. You're wrong if you don't do it.
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