Lots of training

Well I've been lucky enough to continue to get to class on a regular basis. Assuming nothing else crazy happens in my life I may even get to train six days a week for the next month. Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays at Maxercise, Thursdays at the Barn, Saturdays at Optimal, and Sunday for the team train at Maxercise.



Saturday was a great class, although there weren't a ton of people there, it was still really tough. Zak led some particularly strenuous warm-ups consisting of lots of that crazy running on all fours drill and lots of bear crawls and mat cleaners which are the worst. I actually felt like I was going to puke afterwards, which is great. I need more of that.



The first class Zak reviewed the basic arm bar from the closed guard. I picked up some details on how the traps the shoulder with his legs. Say you're attacking your opponent's right arm. Instead of going straight for the arm lock, cross your feet over your opponent's right shoulder first and pull him close to you to prevent him from pushing his shoulder back in. I tried this on Sunday against a bigger guy and had a hard time with getting there. I may need to adjust the angle of my hips. After you're there and have the guy sucked in, push on his head and extend your hips and move your leg over his head to complete the arm bar.



The second class Brian taught an awesome entry to the Ezekiel choke. This is my favorite submission ever, not the highest percentage move by any stretch of the imagination but it's pretty darn cool when you get it. Anyway the entrance Brian showed was from the old school double underhooks stacking pass. You have to jack the guy pretty high up, then when he pushes on your knees you trap one of his arms with your leg, use your elbow to force him to a half-turtle position, get the seat belt, then roll or flip to an Ezekiel choke. Its pretty hard to describe exactly, and honestly, I thought I would never use it, but I hit it on Sunday, I just got a little sloppy with the choke at the end and my opponent escaped but it still gave me clean side control.

Training was great, got to train with Tim a couple of times, Zak, Brian, and a blue belt and a white belt. It's always fun to train with the higher belts, and very humbling. Training with the blue belt can be frustrating because he constantly sits back to an open guard which he uses constantly. He's very good at defending the pass but has no real offence from that position. And if you do pass it he basically just crosses his arms, turns to the outside and stalls. The first time I passed somehow, then took his back and submitted him with a rear naked choke. He may have had his chin tucked a little, and I think he got a bit of a chin choke. We shook hands, then he sat back to guard again, giving me two points, not that it matters but it's a bad habit to get into, and one of our less politically correct Brazilian teachers specifically called us a bunch of faggots for doing it. I saw it coming, and immediately bull passed. I went to knee to belly and he tried to bench press me off him. I sat back for the arm bar and accidentally smashed his face with my leg. I swear to god it was an accident. I really hate injuring my training partners, especially the face, having been the recipient of a few permanently irritating injuries myself. I hope there's no hard feelings there, BJJ is a rough sport and I try to be nice when I train, but basically, shit happens.

Anyhoo Sunday's team train at Maxercise was fun. We did the typical maxercise warm up, a two point train, some positional trainings, and regular trainings. I really sucked at pulling guard. I really really really need to work on that and get it cleaner. There's just no excuse for how bad I am at it. I hate starting off the feet and it just puts me in a bad position from the get go. I wouldn't mind doing a whole hour of two point trains just to get better at that.

More Snow

Well last week was the first solid week of training I've been able to get in for a while, due to snow, various illnesses and the person that I thought was my girlfriend informing that she was no longer my girlfriend. I love you but I'm not IN love with you. Sort of how I feel about Tai Chi.

Anyhoo, had a great train at Optimal on Saturday, worked attacks from cross-side, specifically how to mount, and a fairly evil choke that Urso used to do to all the time when he was last out here. I have a hard time with the mount on bigger guys, but I've had a little success with the choke, almost got it on a bigger purple belt, but couldn't quite lock it in. Getting more taps from side control and knee on belly would be a good thing, at least being more dangerous from there would open up the mount more.

Monday and Wednesday at Maxercise were also fun. Monday night is a little short for me, and the Judo class seemed a bit too intense so I skipped it. Wednesday was longer and lots of fun. We've been working a lot on some Judo, which I love big time and I wish we had been training these moves for a lot longer. I really like uchimata. I have no idea how hard it would be to hit in a competition but I love throwing it just because it feels so neat for some reason. Training was pretty good, although the only higher rank was Maggie. She's always a fun train.

So we're starting the team training for the Pan Ams this week and I'm looking forward to two more nights of training. I'm very excited actually. I make a lot more progress with four or five training sessions in the week than just three. Also my friend Brett invited me back to the Barn, and I may stop by there on Thursdays depending on if they're doing gi or no-gi. Brett's pretty close to my size, but I don't really want to wrestle spazz white belts there in uncontrolled conditions.

The other blog worthy thing is that apparently John recommended me for Saulo's Hell Test. I'm not sure exactly what it entails but I assume I fight a bunch of tough guys until I'm totally exhausted then demonstrate a bunch of techniques. Possibly not in that order. I have to brush up on my Judo terminology and get hip to some basic techniques that Saulo teaches that I don't use that much. Also I need to save up some dough. Frankly I'm just excited because I'm the only person that I personally know that's taken this Hell Test and it just has a really cool ring to it. If it's not in a room with iron braziers and deadly traps and ninjas jumping out at me I will be sorely dissapointed.

Blech

was the way I felt for most of class on Monday. I had a nice stomach flue on Thursday night and was not feeling quite 100% but class was pretty fun actually. I've been working a lot on the x-guard pass from Saulo's book and it's been helping me out, as long as my opponent doesn't grab my sleeve and sweep me over backwards. I'm looking forward to the in-house on Saturday.

Armdrag

Well I have been managing to get back on the mat on a regular basis again and I am working on incorporating some different tactics into my game. Re-incorporating might be a better term as these are moves which used to be a mainstay of my guard game but I haven't really been focusing on them recently.



First on Saturday I trained at the class on Bainbridge. Tim taught a technique that used to be my go-to sweep. I haven't been using it recently; I have been working on other guard positions, but I got some great details that made me want to invest more time in it.



Starting from a sitting up guard position you trap his lead leg (right) between your left shin and your left arm. Grab your lapel with your left hand. Grab his left sleeve with your right hand and feed it to your left hand. This will compromise his balance and cause him to lean forward. Reach over his shoulder as deep onto his back as you can, and fall to your right, kicking up your left leg like a butterfly guard sweep as you push his left knee with your right foot. It sounds complicated but it's basically a glorified butterfly guard sweep as Tim succinctly put it.



The second technique is one that I'm terrible at and would like to spend some serious time on. If the guy puts his knee on your stomach from the sitting up guard position, which he probably will try to do, you use your hook to lift his leg and go under his left leg, whcih will probably be posted out. Bring his leg up to your shoulder then bracing his right knee with your elbow bring your left leg up to put him in deep half-guard. It's hard. I sort of used it last night but my opponent wasn't putting much pressure on me.



Monday and Wednesday I trained at Maxercise. Both nights we worked on an arm drag from the butterfly guard. I like how John focuses on the same techniques all week, it really gives me an opportunity to get into them and practice them.

Basically if you're sitting in the butterfly guard andyour opponent grabs your left pantleg with his right hand make a pistol grip on his sleeve with your right hand, grab his tricep, break his grip by kicking his leg, then launch yourself backwards, pulling his arm. Post your hand on the ground, come up to the back.

Before I came to Maxercise I trained a lot of no-gi and I used armdrags all the time. I evenually kind of got tired of them because I relied on them so much. Last night I hit that armdrag so much it was almost unfair. I want to try it at the Bainbridge class on Saturday and see how it goes.

Update

Well only made it to class Wednesday and Saturday this week, which kind of sucked, but they were both decent classes. Wednesday we covered breaking the guard ala Saulo and did some positional training. I would really like the opportunity to train with him more. I really like the way he explained the positions he showed at his seminar.

I really have come to loathe breaking the guard from the knees. I don't think anyone that doesn't outweigh me by 50 pounds or more has successfully used that open against me in over a year. I much prefer to stand up, it puts you in a much better position to pass and it seems so much more effective.

We did some situational training which is always good. I was reminded how critical it is to position yourself when you're on the bottom, it a way that doesn't allow your opponent to control you, and to make your grips first and get to a place where you can fight. If you spend time fumbling around for grips, a quick opponent with a good bull pass with blast right through your guard.

Saturday's class was at Brian, Zak and Tim's club. Zak taught passing the half guard when your opponent has his knee across your hips. It was nice to cover this again; I've been having some issues passing the half guard recently, and I picked up some good details.

Training was excellent. I went with Tim several times and Brian, and Sam once during class then afterwards. She trained especially well, took my back several times. I like the way she comes in low to pass, it makes everything more difficult, and I've been emulating it.

Hopefully I can make it to class tonight, although I will be late for sure.

Bumps in the Road

Well my training in 2010 has gotten off to an uneven start. This is the onset of the busy time of the year for me, as an accountant, and my class attendance is starting to reflect that. I wasn't able to make it to Maxercise last night so I trained a little with my friend John at Bucks County Community College. We drilled some stuff mostly and did some cardio. I hope to be able to make it to class tonight.



Last Saturday was quite a fun day for me. I think I spent more time in my gi than out of it. I started my day training with Brian and Zak, and it seems that most everyone is back from their holidays as class was full. It's always impressive to see a long line up of the students there, I think there was five brown belts, and several purple belts. Also plenty of tough blues.



Brian went over a technique that was sort of a continuation of what we had worked on last week. Basically it was how to take the back if your opponent turtles to avoid your bull pass. We covered back attacks not too long ago at Maxercise so it was a nice comparison and review.



Training was absolutely awesome! I didn't touch anyone lower ranked than a brown belt all class. I trained with Brian, Zak, Dr. Joe, and Tim four times, as he's coming of an injury. Training with Tim so much really helps and gives you a different perspective on things. He was able to provide me with some insight as well.



After class I had my now traditional death match with Sam, who was especially fiesty and it was fun as per usual. Soaking in the hot tub was a perfect way to end the class.

I went from the class to the Saulo Ribiero seminar at Maxercise. I was pretty tired and starving so I hoped that it wouldn't be too strenuous, but actually we didn't really drill or train anything, mostly Saulo lectured about his history, his association, Jiu-Jitsu University, and some concepts about jiu-jitsu. I'm sort of processing everything but he did hit on some subjects that I've been thinking a lot about which I'll talk about later.

Thanks for reading.

End of Year Update

Ok so I'm the worst BJJ blogger in the world. I think about Jiu-jitsu all the time but I just don't have the dedication to put everything out there on the internet. I even have a ton of notes scattered around my house waiting to get typed up, and I'm sure it will never happen. But I'm a big fan of this time of year as a period of reflection and reaffirmation of goals so I'd like to take a second to discuss the progress I've made in 2009 and what I would like to focus on in 2010.

I feel that my game overall has improved this year. When I think back to where I was last December, I realize that I honestly couldn't say I had much of a game. I now have certain positions that I'm comfortable with, know some entries to, and can pull off on people my own rank or even higher.

I think one of the sweeps that I spent the most time on is what I call the knee open sweep, which I learned from Brian and Regis in a private early in the year. I worked that sweep practically the the exclusion of all others, and I feel it's my most powerful technique. I also feel that I've made a lot of progress getting to the x-guard and sweeping from the x-guard. Learning to pull myself under my opponent has helped a lot against bigger guys. I've also had a lot of success from the de la Riva guard.

Next year I would like to put together a flowchart of moves from me pulling butterfly guard, sweeping, getting the x-guard from the failed sweep, and sweeping or taking the back from the x-guard. I'd like to work on my butterfly guard game in general.

I spent a lot of time working on escapes this year, specifically the elbow escape which has helped me a lot. I'd like to work on the running escape more in 2010.

My passing game and top game overall has gotten tighter. I worked on the bull pass consistently, and I'm happy with the results, but certain situations give me problems still. There's some details that I need to get cleaned up. I've been working the crossknee pass, I'd like to focus on that in 2010, and also focus on the esgrima pass more. I got a solid underhook several times in my last tournament and couldn't complete the esgrima pass which frustrated me.

I feel that my side control has improved, but I haven't been landing many submission from anywhere really. Mostly I worked on collar chokes, and that's what I get more than anything in class. I'd like to work on taking the back more and finishing from there.

I've been getting into strength training recently, and I'd like to continue that. I've noticed it helps a lot in class against bigger guys who could just control my arms and hold me, even from inside my guard. I now have the strength to actually use the techniques against them that I may be able to do against someone my own weight, but couldn't use on someone who had 50 or 60 pounds on me.

So in general, I'm not dissatisfied with the progress I've made, and I have a pretty clear direction for where I want to go in 2010. I'd like to improve my posture, particularly when I'm in the guard, and my head placement, which I am coming to realize is a critical detail that beginners often overlook. I figure another year of working on training achieving and maintaining superior positions, then I'll start thinking more about submissions.