12/18/13 - Training

 Warm up 

3 minutes of shrimping

3 minutes of 20s/10s (20 deep squats, 10 push-ups, repeat)

3 minutes of Croc walks.

Warm ups were light today, no reason given. We usually do quite a bit more.

Technique

Armbar/Omaplata setup from guard. Spider grips. Bring right foot down, stay off heel. Take left foot and put on their hip. Bring right leg up and across their back, clamping down. At the same time, you should be pulling your grips towards you. Punch your right arm towards your hip, setting up the omaplata. If the armbar is there on the opposite arm, take it. If not, continue omaplata. Bring your left leg around and over the neck, clamping down. Switch your grip on the sleeve, then use your right hand to grip the pants by the ankle. Straighten your legs and plank as your push your grip on the leg away. It's important to put your elbow over their calf. Small shrimp, bring your left leg to an a position and begin to sit up. Elbow stays connected to them as you, start to move your grip to their hip. Their hand should be tucked at this point, so you can release the grip. Go for the finish.

As I drilled this, I made sure to transition from the armbar, to the triangle, then to the omaplata. I had my partner escape his arm after the first tap to set up the triangle, went for that tap, then to the omaplata. 

Next up was a real senario application, which went over breaking the grips of when you're playing closed guard and the opponent has both hands on your hips, and grabbing the pants.

Get your grips on their sleeves. Escape your hip slightly to the right, and bring your right leg over into like a knee shield, but below chest level. Bring your left leg up a little. It sorta looks like a scissor sweep, but you're over their left arm. Make sure your hips are off the ground. Push their left arm. Swivel your right leg, keeping connected, and clamp it over the back, at an angle. Jump your left leg up for the triangle at the same time. The leg movement should've moved their elbow a bit. Can do the traditional triangle, Tony's triangle or all of the other setups from this position.

The drill worked well for me, and I this is something I want to do more of. Spent 6 minutes drilling.

Rolling

My academy rolls every day. Anyone who is not brand new must roll. Everyone is lined up on the wall. Our professor asked certain people who they wanted to roll with. A 4 stripe white belt named Julia picked me. She's about to be 17, and I've known her since she was 13. I spent 6 minutes trying to use the least amount of energy and only working technique. At the end, I gave up mount, and gave up an arm triangle to her. I defended by extending both of my arms towards my legs, then wrapped my hands around the back of my knee. Time ran out and Julia couldn't finish it. Our professor brought attention to this, and showed how to counter my defense. Instead of putting the pressure on the the outside of the trapped arm, readjust and put the pressure on the other side, using their inside shoulder. The choke was quick and I tapped immediately. Good to know. Also, there is an Ezekiel there.

The next two rolls were againt a one stripe white, and a 3 stripe white. I outweigh them by about 30lbs, and I have more mat time. I worked on my finishes, hit a few de la riva sweeps, until the end of each roll, then I gave up position to work out of it. I finished them with a few armbars from guard, triangle from guard, triangle from mount to guard, and a baseball bat choke. I need to focus on mount pressure, and getting higher up on their chest. I noticed I was having a hard time getting an armbar when they would just extend their hands up. I created too much space. I'm definitely too low when attempting it. Good to know though.

I'm back!

In January of 2011, I went through a really bad transition in life that included the loss of my job, and the beginning of the end of my marriage.

Due to financial reasons, I had to stop training. BJJ is a passion in my life, and has been for years. With great joy, I was finally able to come back to my academy. Almost 3 years of progress halted, but, as the poem Invictus reads, "My head may be bloodied, but it is unbowed".

I have been back for 3 months now, and I train 5-6 days a week, sometimes twice a day depending on people doing privates. Yeah, I let anyone know if they ever wanted to do a private, to let me know and I will be their dummy while our professor teaches them. I'll take any free knowledge I can get!

I am at a point now where my muscle memory is kicking in and I'm flying on a high. Everything I have been working on is improving a lot, and my gas tank has expanded to the point where 6 minute matches are no problem. While rolling, I have tapped all of the white belts, a few blue belts, and three purples. Whoa we got a badass over here! No, I don't mean to be egotistical, but I have also had my share of getting my ass whooped. I have definitely been tapped more than I have tapped, and I don't feel that I should be anywhere but where I am now. I am just happy to see such progress in the few months I have been back.

I am 6 weeks away from my first competition in 3 years. I will be competing at the NAGA in Philly on February 01, 2014. My gameplan is to takedown, pass guard, work a side control sub, or transition into mount for 3 of my finishes. I am keeping my drilling to a few moves, and perfecting them as much as I can. 

My New Years resolution is to win at least one gold medal in 2014. I am going to work hard to achieve that.

It's great to be back!

Sunday, NoGi

Sunday class started without a warmup. I got there 30 minutes early though, and warmed up in the back anyway, so I was fine.

A younger guy came up to me and asked me if I could defend a jumping/standing guillotine. I said I don't know, let's try. I did, and we kept going. I managed to get side control because he stayed committed to trying to finish it, after which I ended up in north/south and finishing with a kimura. Good warm up.

Class started and with a 1 minute timer we live drilled escaping from side mount, while the top person tried to submit or advance position. I only really knew one side escape, which was kick off and push your knee through the belly, which only worked once or twice on my opponent. After that, he used his hand to block my other hip, which stopped me from getting my knee into his stomach.

My top game was ok, I had tried things I haven't before, just to see where where I shouldn't be and I got swept a few times. Lesson learned though!

After the live drilling, we circled up and asked questions, in which multiple escapes were shown by different people. A blue belt named Nelson showed us an escape he learned from when he wrestled, which was putting your inside arm to the far hip, exploding up and turning to your knees and pushing forward. There is a choke he doesn't get up, otherwise you can drive into his leg.

Another escape was an Eddie Bravo technique which he coined as the 25 cent. Elevate your inside knee, turn your body toward your opponent and scoope his leg and bring your outside leg under and establish half guard. The Flo, which can bring you to butterfly guard was discussed, but we didn't do it.

Leg locks were next on the agenda and with that being Andrew's specialty, we learned quite a few positions. We drilled from holding both legs, then standing up and grabbing a leg. My brain is too frizzled to write it down at the moment, so I'm assuming that means I need to drill them more.

Rolled with Nelson at the end and I'm pretty sure he tapped me, I just don't remember how. We were mostly just messing around with some Rubber guard techniques. I do remember having half guard, trying to get the Electric chair sweep, missing the opportunity, then getting the Old school sweep. I let go of his leg too soon, and ended up in his butterfly guard I believe. Like I said I don't remember what happened after that.

My biggest accomplishment is that I am no longer just flat on my back in side control or half guard. That was something that other people have pointed out, but I just couldn't get into my head. It is just finally coming to me. Can't explain the feeling when you just get something, but it's a great feeling!

Great Saturday Jiu Jitsu class!

Class yesterday was started by Ethan, a purple belt whom I met on my first trial class and haven't seen since. We started with some stretching, which included a few yoga stretches that I have never done before, which I enjoyed and will make a part of my routine. We then did 5 sets of 10 pushups and sit ups. After that was done, we did an armbar drill to get our hips set. I was a little sloppy during it and got some pointers.

Brandon then enters and we started from side control. Bottom person uses their outside hand to reach over the back, grab the far lat, then take their inside hand and push off the hip. Bring your feet out then bring your inside knee into their stomach to start reclaiming guard.

Top guy then takes his outside hand, reaches it over, to where the bottom guy's inside leg is, grab the foot/ankle, press it in, then flatten your hips and pass back into side control.

If the top person does not do this, and leans his weight over the bottom guy(say, by putting his foot up to pass), then the bottom guy sweeps into knee on belly.

From knee on belly, you execute the baseball bat choke. Take arm under the neck, and insert thumb into the Gi collar. Bring that towards the same side of that arm. Keep your other hand posted out or on the bottom guy's leg, to keep him from moving. Then you bring your outside leg out a little more for base, take your outside hand and feed it up the collar, palm up, behind the neck. Keep your elbow down and the pressure at a slant. Quickly spin towards north/south and the choke should be finished before you ever land in north/south. If not, head on chest, flatten hips and pull away and down? (don't recall the exact posture, because I finished the choke before ever getting there)

After class, we were given the opportunity to roll. I stayed with the partner I had, a guy in his late 40's, 50s maybe... A blue belt named Vecilli. He asked me if I wanted to help him drill something, I said hell yeah I did! He wanted to find the hole in a set up he had, where our instructor kept rolling out of when he got him in that position. We start in side control, me on bottom, where he has my arm in a figure 4, setting up for an armbar. He executes, and I roll out and into side control. We worked on it for about 10 minutes and after him fixing small positions and readjustments, he finished with either the arm bar or the kimura, rolling at about 50%.

He then asked me if I wanted to drill anything, and I then drilled the Scissor sweep. He gave me some pointers right away, and put me into positions where I couldn't use it. I naturally switched to grabbing the other side, going for a kimura, and he was impressed. He blocked it, but then I went for a guillotine. We somehow ended up with me on his back, and we worked on some positional stuff from there, which included when the top guy gets stacked from his back, how you can release your hooks and drop him back down, etc.

All in all, it was a great session and it celebrated my 3 month marker for training here.

Got the rest of my package today, which included a 75cm Stability ball, a 15lbs. medicine ball and a wrist roller.

I didn't get to mess around with them, because it arrived just before I had to go to work, but I am eager to try them tomorrow. I do have to buy a couple of 5 and 10lbs. plates, so I can attach them to the wrist roller.

My next project is to go to the car shop across the street and see if they have any giant tires lying around for me to take. Good ol' fashion Thor workout with a sledge hammer!

Next month I plan on purchasing a 10'x10' mat to set up in the back yard for BJJ. These are the ones that I am currently interested in buying Realjitsu Mats.

Lastly, I ordered my kettlebells a week too early it seems, because Budovideos have a 20% discount sale on the very ones that I purchased. Oh well! If anyone is interested here is the e-mail:

For this weekend only
Friday, May 21st to Sunday, May 23rd
We're giving you 20% off ALL Kaizen Kettlebells!

Kettlebells are the premiere method for developing incredible strength and endurance, and taking your game (BJJ, grappling, buffsomeness, or import-hefting) to the next level. Just stack those kettlebells into your cart, and use this coupon at checkout: kettle20
Just like that. 20% off ALL Kaizen Kettlebells!

Working out at home

I made a purchase at Budovideos the other day and while the entire contents have not arrived, I did get the two 26lbs. kettlebells today.

Because today was such a beautiful, sunny and warm day, I decided to take my 4 month old son outside so he could watch his father have a small workout.

I have been babying my knee for the past 4 days, because I injured it over the weekend, rolling (not drilling like what I wanted to do in a previous post), so I made sure that I warmed up properly. I haven't put together a gameplan for my workout sessions, so I decided to just wing it.

3x10 cleans with each arm
3x10 press with each arm
3x10 swing (under legs to mid chest) with each arm
3x10 squat, holding both kettlebells at my chest

My rest period consisted of me jogging around the diameter of my back yard. After my last set, I walked with my son in his stroller.

The workout was short, but it felt good. I haven't done any sort of squatting since last October, and while this isn't a heavy load I'm working with, I sure as hell felt it.

I will try to formulate a gameplan for Friday's workout, and really a whole week. I'm thinking Mon/Wed/Fri with the Kettlebell, the Medicine ball that's in the mail, and the wrist roller that I also purchased. I want to work the stability ball in, but since it's not something that is as extreme as a kettlebell workout, I could do it on Sat/Sun and possibly a third day.

List of drills for Saturday

On Saturday, May 15, I would like to drill the following after class:

• Flower Sweep
• Scissor Sweep
• Side Mount escape

I hope to spend 10 minutes drilling each of these for a total of 30 minutes.