February 27th 2016 - Kids & Open Mat

Kids Class
Technique: Cross Collar Choke
Rolling/Game: Guard, Sharks and Octopuses (possibly octopi)

Good class today they were especially excited for the game.  They did have a few negative moments in that Jayden didn't want to hustle during hip escapes and Jace got upset when he couldn't figure out the collar choke.

I did see some good things in sparring. They're both getting better at understanding guard and breaking posture. But breaking guard needs some work.

They got stripes on their belts!

Open Mat
Rolled With: Tate, Jerad, Bhuvana, Craig
Game Plan: Guard Retention

Tate: This was the longest toughest roll I've had in a long time. We must have rolled for 20-30 minutes.  It was both tough physically and mentally. There were several times when I thought about giving up but I kept fighting.  There were good submission attempts mostly guillotines and there were some bad ones too, I went for a few ankle locks I shouldn't have.. Spent a lot of time in half guard and deep half.  Ultimately he caught me in a type of neck and shoulder crank.

Jerad: I think I did better against him dog tired. He commented that I didn't hold things that weren't working as long as I usually do.  I think a big part of this is also the recent shift in how I retain guard along with more movement and controlling my breathing better when escaping.

Bhuvana: We rolled a bit before working on some guard retention. I passed along what I had recently learned from Conan about not reaching with the feet to retain guard when they're standing. She seemed to get it right away and take it to heart.

Craig: He was happy to make it to open mat today and get a chance to roll with Greg for the first time. He commented on how Greg's little movements and adjustments made a big difference. We had a good roll like usual.

February 26th 2016 - Gi All Levels

Theme & Techniques: Koshi Guruma, Basic Triangle Setup
Partner: Craig, Jesus

Conan did a different warm-up to emphasize falling properly.  It was a little like the small kids' class in that we circled up and did some break falls from sitting, crouched, and standing.  Then some rolls landing in the appropriate falling position instead of getting up right away.  I showed off a little bit when he had us do a jumping roll since we did that so often in Hapkido.  I think this was probably great for Jesus since it's his second week of training.

Rolling: Closed Guard (4 x 4 min), Free Rolling (2 x 5 min)
Rolled With: Craig, Zac, Ty

Felt good about my rolling today.  I was able to setup a few triangles and had some guard passes.  I focused on some guard retention and playing some de la riva at times and basic open guard.  Something that has been very strong for me lately has been getting 2 on 1 and moving to a butterfly sweep, if that fails they usually adjust enough that I can hit the arm drag and take the back or sweep. 

Office Hours Partner: Conan, Zac

Had some tough rolls and felt like I held my own today.  Conan commented that I was difficult to pin down today.  I was thinking a lot about readjusting whenever Conan would start to move to a passing position.  Where usually I would try to stop him in some spots I instead tried to hip out and make space.

After we rolled Conan said that often when you start to defend a technique that a person is good at they eventually stop attempting it even if they are close to finishing it.  He has been saying lately that there are times when you need to keep attacking something to eventually wear them out.  I have a hard time figuring out when this is the case or when I'm wasting energy on something that won't work. 

February 25th 2016 - Gi All Levels

Theme & Techniques: Koshi Guruma, Basic Triangle Setup
Partner: Dave, Byrav

Turned out to be a small class today which is fine.  I've trained for 11 days straight now so it's good to have an easy day. 

Here are some tips for this week's techniques:

• Koshi Guruma: I have trouble with this too, but it's important to reach all the way around the neck.  Too many people stop at the shoulder instead of locking it up tight.
• Triangle: Taking up the space is very important.  Being able to put your foot on their hip or thigh and raise your hips to prevent them from getting their arms involved is ideal.  Also for us short legged people it's good to get your knee as high as you can over their head to get the correct angle to close the triangle.

Rolling: Full Guard, Free Rolling
Rolled With: Dave, Byrav

I liked seeing both Dave and Byrav attempt the technique of the day.  They had a great match where Dave was almost passed and Byrav kept shrimping to get his knee back in. 

Free rolled with Dave today and did my best to put him through the wringer.  I did my best to work on the triangle from class and found it very challenging.  I ended up doing some other triangle setups that helped take him a little off guard.  He did a good job getting his grips and doing the standing guard break which led me to failing miserably at the star sweep and ending up in turtle.  From the top I tried to be methodical and do the passes

He was a little discouraged after the roll but I tried to let him know that I wasn't getting everything I wanted and often had to change to different guard passes, subs, sweeps when he defended the others.  Have to count the little victories.

February 24th 2016 - Gi All Levels

Theme & Techniques: Koshi Guruma, Basic Open Guard, Triangle
Partner: Byrav

We did a judo warm-up where Mike would have us run around the room and then grip fight when he told us to stop.  I got a pretty good sweat going after that.

Byrav did pretty well with what we were working on.  It was a little difficult for him to try to stand and break my guard though as I'm a little heavier than him.  When we started working with the triangle he did a good job at following Mike and I's instruction to try to fix everything about it.  Grab your shin, put your foot on their hip, turn perpendicular, put your leg over your foot, too far flex your foot, okay now squeeze.

Rolling: Closed Guard (4 x 2 min), Free Rolling (3 x 5 min)
Rolled With: Byrav, Ben, Chris, Jerad, Mike

Had some tough rolls today and I'm really liking the recent addition of Chris and now Jerad as well.  This will help to make up for all the advanced classes that I'm missing out on. 

Byrav: I can see him improving and getting an idea of some things to do from top and bottom guard

Ben: His grip fighting is noticeably improved, he did a good job preventing me from getting the lapel grips from the top.

Chris: He always surprises me with his ability to create angles from the bottom of turtle when I think I'm about ready to take the back.  I had to hold on and try to out maneuver him a few times.

Jerad: I did a couple good things.  I started off a little behind and was put into quarter guard.  I was able to recover to full guard after a pretty good bridge.  I wasn't able to turn it into a cross guard like I wanted to but I made a good effort out of it. 

Mike: First roll he was taking it easy on me, somehow I got to x-guard and then setup a toe hold.  He said fuck this and he set his thrusters to ludicrous speed.  After a pretty tough back and forth he caught me with an armbar.

Office Hours Partner: Tom

We worked on some deep half and he had a couple of ah-ha moments.  He asked about if they are pressuring you over.  I showed a little of the back take and we practiced that a few times.

February 23rd 2016 - No Gi All Levels

Theme & Techniques: Closed Guard Kimura & Hip Bump Sweep
Partner: Ben

I think I really made a difference in the way Ben does these techniques today.  He obviously had the basic concepts down on what needs to happen and how they work but a few little changes made them more efficient and take less effort.  With the kimura after he got his grips it felt like he was trying to push my hand off the ground to get the lock where I had him secure my elbow to his chest and then think about putting his shoulder down on the mat changing the angle seemed to take a lot less effort. 

For the hip bump sweep we focused on preventing half guard at the end of the sweep by not being lazy with the feet as the sweep is completed.  I also went a little off the books and showed him some deep half entries for the person getting swept to recover to. 

Rolling: Closed Guard King of the Matt
Rolled With: Greg, Robert, Mike, Bhuvana, Ben, Tom

Had some great rolls and it worked out that I went up against Greg, Robert and Mike quite a few times.  Sometimes when we have king of the mat I end up not facing them because of the way the line works.  Some cool things that happened:

• I went for some leg locks.  I didn't get them and made some mistakes but I'm putting in the mat time to make them better.
• I defended some leg lock attempts against me.  A few of Greg's did ultimately get me.
• I gave Greg, Mike, and Robert a hard time (I think).  None of my rolls were over quickly and I threatened quite a few passes and did a decent job in top and bottom half guard, butterfly, and single leg-x. 

Office Hours Partner: Robert

Tough roll after class with Robert as usual.  Good to have a gut check often from him.  Like usual I have to fight for everything that I want and rarely see a top position.  Probably the only place I felt like I was out of danger was when I made it to deep half, but once I got there Mike and Greg were telling me to off balance him and start sweeping.  Needless to say I shouldn't be resting there.  I tried to sweep with homer simpson, but he would really hunker down so I worked my way into a waiter sweep to which he moved to stack.  I then responded by trying to take his back but he was able to turn back into me and we ended up in half guard again.

Greg gave me a couple pointers from there.  For that back take I should have used both hands to secure his hips and keep him from turning.  I had one on the floor to keep me stable but both hands on him would have been better because I would either follow him or pull him down into my waterfall sweep.  I think I may get someone to drill that with before class tomorrow.  The other option was to transition with my free leg into a reap for a heal hook or single leg-x I'm assuming, I may drill this a few times as well. 

Another things I screwed up was a point when I was in single leg-x, he stripped my foot off his hip and he sat on my butterfly hook.  I should have planted my foot and kicked him forward to reestablish the position. 

I feel like this type of stuff is the great part about writing this blog for me.  Unfortunately for the reader it may not mean that much for their skill level or their particular game.  But me recounting it and thinking of how to word it and type it out helps me retain the information that much more for next time.

February 20th 2016 - Kids & Open Mat

Kids Class
Technique: Cross Collar Choke
Rolling/Game: Guard Position

Super proud of how Jayden did in sparring today!  I think he finally got tired of getting his guard passed so easily all the time. He went for grips used his legs and ended up with a couple sweeps.  He still needs to work on his hustle during warm-ups but we'll keep working on that.

A continuous issue with helping teach the kids' class is knowing when to coach and who. I try my best to coach everyone equally and I don't want to only coach my own boys.  It also can be difficult to coach against them.  I know the kids probably don't always understand but it's more important to me that they are trying to do techniques well rather than trying to win at any cost.

Open Mat
Rolled With: Josh J, Henry, Adam, Mo, Greg, Connor
Game Plan: Maintain Guard

Josh: Happy to welcome Josh to his first open mat. By the end of class he said that he'd be attending more often.  We rolled quite a few times with my main goal being to setup the spiral armbar but it never really presented itself. We went over some mount defense and a few other things before switching partners.

Henry: It was just as much a mental battle as a physical one rolling with Henry. Whenever  I'd do something good and try to slow the pace down and he'd get out of it and scramble again. I hate that feeling of disappointment after I just worked so hard for a sweep only to have it taken away.  I need to overcome this thought process and go with the flow.

Adam: Always a pleasure to roll with Adam. I did a few good things and hopefully made it more difficult to submit me than usual. I was able to keep guard a little longer than usual and also recovered guard a few times. My practice with controlling my breathing with bridging is paying off.

My best attempt to get him was when I set up cross guard and went for an omoplata. He stacked and stood to defend.  I'm still not ready to attempt the back roll yet though.  He eventually caught me with a straight armlock.

Mo: I'm going to have to start taking him more seriously because he almost caught me a couple times. At the beginning of our second roll I wanted him to play deep half but I must have been too obvious because he thought I was trying to set him up for a trap.  We went over transitioning to mount from a low side control.

Greg: I was lucky enough to get asked to roll no gi a couple times with Greg. But, not lucky enough to complete any meaningful technique. He stopped my butterfly guard attempts, he caught me with a kimura, an armbar, and head and arm choke.  There was one point where I thought I had pulled him into closed guard but he went to a tozi pass and got out.

Conor: This was his second class so we just drilled a few basics and rolled a bit.  It seems pretty common for new people to try to fight guard by pushing straight forward.  Does anyone else remember how long it took you to get over this?

February 19th 2016 - Gi All Levels

Theme & Techniques: Headlock Escape to Back Mount, Kneeling Guard Break, Knee Slide Pass
Partner: Morgan, Jeff

Cool write up on a leg lock seminar that Greg did during his recent trip to California: Rise Again BJJ

Quote of the day goes to Sam.  In the middle of drilling she said something to the effect of, "your testicles aren't so great!"  Without context I was puzzled about what could be going on over there.  Apparently they were discussing the importance of testicles to ovaries or something. 

Another training session in the books.  Since I don't have much to talk about technique-wise today here's some blog/training stats: According to the counts on my blog I've made 729 posts.  I've made a post for every class, seminar, and tournament.  So I've "done" Jiu-Jitsu 729 times usually for an hour and a half if not more each session (So somewhere on the higher end of 1093-1458 hours).  I've completed 424 gi classes, 120 No Gi and 170 Open Mats.  My teachers have primarily been: Greg 306 classes, Conan 124, Jerad 62, Ray 23, Mike 12, and apparently I've taught 30.  I've competed in 5 tournaments and attended 4 Tinguinha seminars. 

Rolling: Kesa Gatame (2 x 3 min), Guard (2 x 3 min), Free Rolling (2 x 4 min), Open Guard King of the Mat
Rolled With: Conan, Craig, Morgan, Jeff, Sam, Josh

I was partners with Conan for kesa gatame, my all around least favorite position to defend and attack with.  It went as expected, he crushed me a bit from the top and I had to wait for him to give me some space to try to escape.  While he was able to escape me a couple times easily.  Once his head started popping out I felt very precarious and was reminded why I hate the position.  

The rest of rolling I tried to be very methodical in my passing and always looking for the knee slide.  I was able to do a few cross guard sweeps, some butterfly sweeps, I escaped side control once with the granby escape.  I enjoyed the open guard king of the mat as we had one person stand and one person sit.  I attempted to play some sit up guard and single leg-x, but I wish I would have went for some de la riva too.  All in all a good day of rolling.  

Office Hours Partner: Zac, Conan

Conan covered a huge pointer for guard retention.  Zac was doing the same thing that I usually do when someone is making space when they pass by reaching out his leg to try to keep them from moving.  This actually opens up the space that they want for side control so just suck the leg back in and look to sit up and/or get grips.  I find that sometimes I can reach and pull them into half guard but the really good people can get me way over extended and then pass.  I need to fight this urge to stop guard passes with just the tips of my toes and focus on movement and space control instead.