BJJ Class 99 - anniversay

Went to BJJ class… This class marks the one year anniversary of my shoulder injury. Just like today, it was the very first BJJ class I could attend in July and it also fell before the fourth of July. Thankfully, there were no injuries today - just a session of some good rolling.

As is usual with classes this year, I arrived too late for the first class and too early for the next class. I stretched and warmed up on the sides and was welcomed in to join the rolling of the first class. I rolled with a blue belt who played defense the whole time. My control felt loose and noobish, but it was nice to get to practice some top control.

Second class started with light jogging, which combined with the heavy gi, 90 degree weather, drinking a bit too much Gatorade beforehand, and the overall lack of fitness - I was exhausted after just a few minutes. We did the (read: tried) the guard wall exercise where while on you spin and rotate on your shoulders, go upside down and end up in the beginning guard position. It was a bit confusing at first, but I eventually started getting the hang of it.

A closed guard sweep to mount was drilled then rolling. I have a backlog of techniques to post about, so I really do hope I get to make a post on this technique. Rolling was great today.

I waited too long before writing this post out, so I don’t remember much anymore. I was extra careful with my shoulder and so tapped a lot, even if there was no tight submission applied. My best roll was with a whitebelt who had done some wrestling, and had great sweeps and base. Tapped a lot to him, but it was very fun. I noticed that my performance was inversely proportional to how long I was rolling, the more tired I was, the worse I got. Good thing I didn’t gas so quickly.

My technique was vacuum-sucky, but it felt infinitely better than the last time..

Happy July fourth everyone!!!

BJJ Class 98 - Total reNoob

So, I went back to BJJ.

I’m gonna take it slow, just one class a week. My school no longer offers a monthly rate for just one class a week, so I’m going to need to fight the temptation to go more than once…But I’ll also need to fight the temptation to go all out, train hard, roll ’till I can’t stand anymore, and say ‘yes’ to anyone that wants to roll… Man, I’ve got a real challenge!

After two months off, I wasn’t surprised at the plethora of new faces and the many new faces with skill. I am surprised, however, at the growth of women joining the academy. There used to be just one regularly training girl and now there are four.  That and there were a lot of promotions recently…

Class was a blur. It was all rolling. And since it was rotation rolling with a base row, there were no noobs to roll with. This return wasn’t as great as last time. My technique felt worse than ever and I was just one big pile of suck.

I sucked big time. And my suckiness must’ve seemed even more sucky as I did only every other roll and I turned down more offers to roll than I can remember. Oh well, injuries suck.

Oh, and I forgot to trim my nails so when I pulled guard once, half of one of my fingernails popped out and completely went the wrong way. I yelled ouch, bent it back, and my opponent said “you should cut your nails before class!” That made me suck even more.

Besides all that, rolling again was nice. It feels great to be back. I hope I get to stay for the long-term this time around!

Ous!

BJJ Class 97 - getting worse

This was monster of a class - 2 hours long. Granted, I wasn’t active the entire two hours, but it was still long. Oh, and that’s not counting the extra 30 minutes I spent before each workday class just stretching my shoulder and the rest of my body.

I spent a good part of the day debating with myself whether I should go train or let my shoulder rest a bit. After going back and forth a bit, it’s obvious to see that I decided to go train.

Class started with drilling a throw (I really gotta learn what all these different types of throws are called) by yourself against a wall, but with a squat mixed in after you do the throwing motion. We then paired off and started drilling jumping guard. The kind of jumping guard where you’re both standing up, and one of you jumps up into guard, and the other guy has to keep his balance and be able to hold you both upright.

Then we drilled a very tiring and highly technical sweep, where you drop down after jumping guard, do spider guard, hipscape between your opponents legs, and make them fall to the ground, where you can establish side control, knee-on-belly, or what have you. Then to make things even more tiring, we practiced the sweep while your partner is trying to pass guard. I’ll illustrate this sweep with my snowboard instructors soon, promise!

I was paired up with tall S (to distinguish himself from the other S), a tall experienced white belt, during the sweep drill, so we paired off for rolling. I’m glad to see that I really do enjoy rolling - as soon as we started, I pulled guard, did spider guard, then proceeded to set-up the sweep we had just been practicing. I LOL’d as soon as I realized that I had just set up the sweep. I had a hard time doing the sweep while rolling because, as I mentioned earlier, it’s very technical. And I think the height difference, with tall S being much taller, made it harder for both him and myself to do.

Anyway, tall S also likes the triangle and manages to catch a lot of fellow white belts with it, just like the other S. So I was on the alert to avoid any triangle set-ups. During the entire roll, I was at the bottom playing defense. I had a few brief moments where I wasn’t on my back, but they were brief. I couldn’t keep him in my guard. I don’t think I even managed to even get closed guard. Anyway, I just kept defending and defending as he would go from North-South, Side control and mount. This went on for a long time. Then at one of the times he mounted, I reversed him, got sloppy (I did want to try the triangle escape that the other S showed me), got caught in a triangle and couldn’t even start to set-up the escape. After that, I was just gassed. I was so gassed and light-headed from the choke, I think I thought about taking a nap right there. But feeling empowered from Supercrap’s post on pushing yourself, I decided to keep on sparring, even though I didn’t have enough energy to even stand up. Well, I barely put up a fight when I had the energy, so I knew I was going to be working on nothing but my defense the whole time. And boy did I! I defended really, really well. My mind went back to the Jedi defense drill we did in BJJ class 91, and that’s just how I defended. If he went for one move, I would roll slightly to one side to neutralize it, if he went for another, I would go the other way to neutralize it. I defended my neck oh so well, even his attempts to set up chokes with his gi. I could tell he was getting frustrated cause he muttered “shitzy” or something like that a few times. I did tap to a gi choke attempt, although I had protected against the choke, it turned into a neck crank. I wanna keep rolling with this guy. Once I can keep him in guard or even maintain a top position, I’ll know that my game has really progressed

I sat to rest for a while, and after several minutes I rolled with P. I had gotten some energy back, but was still way exhausted. I concentrated on staying very technical and tried to do the open guard sweep to knee on belly, which I’ve been trying to do but haven’t managed to pull off yet, and he passed my guard. I was able to get half-guard and I don’t remember how I swept him (I was trying not to do my bread & butter Eddie Bravo half-guard sweeps, which I kept using on him before). I got side control, knee on belly and swung around for the far-side armbar, kinda like this. I still keep forgetting to squeeze my legs together and use my hips more when I armbar, so I landed kinda loose. He was able to stand and stack me, but when he released the pressure, I was able to trip him and finish the armbar. It’s the first time in a real long time that I was able to do an armbar, and even moreso, able to do it when being moved upside down and on my stomach. It wasn’t an easy sub to sink in, so I’m adding this one to my tap counter.

Right after that roll, I felt a sharp but mild pain on my shoulder. I iced it and sat around for some 15-20 minutes then went home. I’ve been icing it since my shower.

The next class I’m scheduled to go for is either two days from now, or on the weekend, 5 days from now. I think I just might pass on them and rest. I can’t risk this shoulder. After a few weeks, I stopped telling everyone I roll with not to pull the arm, since nothing has happened. I will tell every single person I roll with, even if I’ve told them several times before, not to pull on the arm and to avoid doing stuff to my right arm/shoulder, and I will always roll up my sleeve as a constant reminder for them while rolling . Also, before any submission to my right arm/shoulder feels like it is going to be completed, I will tap and yell out. I will not try to escape it, I will tap immediately. I will do this for as long as it takes until the shoulder feels normal again, even it takes all year. And, even if it doesn’t ever return to normal.

BJJ Class 96 - shoulder pain starting

Class 96 was a weekend open-mat session. After stretching and warming up, I started rolling.

I started with V (was this how I named people before or am I just starting this now?), a white belt who I remember from last year. He’s bigger than me and always did the kimura. He didn’t go for the Kimura this time, but we had a good long roll (or it seemed long). I completely gassed. I don’t remember how the roll went exactly, but I think he spent a lot of time trying to pass my guard. At one point he passed, I think he mounted, and I think I reversed. Anyway, I ended up in his guard trying to pass. While trying to break his guard open by pushing down on his hips, he grabbed my right arm and started pulling (armdrag). The pull, plus my pushing down and away on his hips put pressure on my right shoulder (the bad one) and it started to hurt. I think I yelled “stop!!!” or something cause we both stopped what we were doing, then I muttered something about his pulling my arm, me pushing away, and my injury. We rolled a bit more after that, but I got too tired and had to stop.

While resting on the side, I started talking to P. P is a newish white belt (3 months or so) and we started talking about this BJJ seminar he went to. He showed me a few moves that he learned, all of which were pretty cool. One was an open guard sweep that I would like to try out while rolling and hopefully incorporate in my game. I also showed him a bicep squeeze that I learned before, as the initial set-up of the cool sweep starts out kinda alike. We rolled a bit after that and he worked on his side control. I found it kind of funny, cause I think I was able to do most of the submissions we had shown each other. I tried the cool sweep, but it really opened me up for a guard pass, which he did when I tried it. I did several subs (which I’m not adding to my tap counter), but mostly just worked on technique and trying to get the leverage right.

After all that, I did one last roll with S. S is a whitebelt with experience, though I don’t remember how much. Anyway, he really likes the triangle choke. So while trying to pass his guard, I got caught in a triangle. I was trying to escape, escape, escape, but I couldn’t. Just as I was starting to think that I should tap, he pulled out on my right arm, the one caught in the triangle, and quickly triangle-armbarred it. I tapped quickly, but not quick enough as I felt something in my right shoulder. Again.

My shoulder felt ok, but it was time to call it a day. Well, I asked him about some triangle escapes, then I called it a day.

The day after, late in the evening, I found myself in AG’s friend’s couch propped up on my right elbow. I didn’t notice at first, but it got uncomfortable for my shoulder, so I changed position and leaned on my good left shoulder instead. On the way home, I was hugging AG as we were commuting home in the subway standing up. My arms were around her, but the bumpy motion of the train and my arms being around her resulted in my arm being gently tugged every so often. I had to let go of the hug as my shoulder was aching mildy. Not good. I went to bed that night not sure what to think of it…

Bjj class 95 - tips

Another great class today!

Warm-ups were done individually. I did a lot of arm and shoulder exercises, for obvious reasons, and several hip/leg stretches, as my hip has been acting up again.

We immediately went to a double-leg stack guard pass to armbar. I worked the pass and armbar on both sides (going left and right), and the weaker side feels very awkward, loose, and lousy. Weird thing is that, at this very moment, I can’t remember which side is my better side…Oh well. I did finally get to take some pix of my snowboard instructors showing the moves - hopefully I can post them over the weekend.

After that, we did rotation 3-step sparring. This has one person do three moves, then the other person does three moves, then the first person again and then back and forth. The three moves might be 1) pull guard, 2) sweep, 3) armbar from mount. The other person might 1) escape the submission, 2) pass to side control, 3) mount. So any three moves that flow with each other per person. This was a nice way to spar and it was nice to be able to concentrate on actual technique and trying to flow from position to position. With live rolling, it gets easy to concentrate simply on just defending or maintaining position. While those are important too, taking those parts out of the roll opens it up to a different way of thinking and strategizing. It was nice and I wouldn’t mind doing it again.

Since it was rotation sparring, I found myself out of the rotation a few times, waiting for the next spot. At one point, one of the purple belts that was training (but not with the class) asked to roll, regular rolling that is. I feel like that roll has been the most beneficial since I came back to the jits. Some tips I picked up:

• when passing spider guard the way I usually do (grab the pants cloth by the inside of both knees to control the legs), it has to be done quickly. Standing up is fine (which I seem to be doing a lot of lately) but I have to quickly drop down to put my weight on my opponent again when the pass is complete

• when defending a kimura when under side control, trapping your arm by your legs is only a temporary escape. It’s better to quickly hipscape away

• when defending against a choke, there is a point where I have to stop defending my collar and actually work on removing my opponent’s wrist. I have to pay more attention to that point in time and take the necessary action rather than continue to fight a lost cause

There was also something about not standing up when I’m not passing, cause then I turn the game to judo, which I don’t want to do. Anyway, after class I rolled some more with a white belt. Nothing significant happened other than I couldn’t really pass and he couldn’t really establish guard. Stalemate.

BJJ Class 94 - Frogger

This class was great! Well, I don’t know if I’ve ever thought of any class being bad - there’s always something to learn or work on and people to roll with….

Warm-ups were different from the other classes, as one of the purple belts led it. We ran in circles, did leapfrogs over everyone several times, and did a lot of jumping. With the day being 60 degrees and very humid with light rain on and off, it was probably the first really hot training session of the year (it was mine at least). Needless to day, we were all spent by the time warm-ups were over.

The armbar from guard drill was next after warm-ups. It’s still very tiring to do and I gassed after the first 20 reps. I was able to slowly work my way to 50 reps, but man, what a workout on the legs, abs, and neck!! We worked an armbar to triangle from guard move after that.

Positional rolling was after, with just one person playing guard and the other trying to pass. In the first round, the guard guy could only go for arm/shoulder subs. In the second, only chokes. Third was chokes and arm/shoulder subs only. The fourth was chokes, arm/shoulder subs, and sweeps.

I rolled with a guy with a few months less experience than me and who was back for only a month from a long break, just like me. Except he was out from BJJ for two years and I was gone for just 9 months. Anyway, I got to work a lot on my passing technique. It’s feeling less and less sloppy which has me feeling much better. Am still making some mistakes such as bad grip or arm placement and I seem to have only two passing techniques: get some distance, press legs together, pass and get distance, pass one leg over guard, then pass the other. I gotta fix them up and work on some other techniques. Twice I went for the basic under the leg pass and gave away the triangle - one I was able to escape from but both times were because I forgot to grab my opponent’s lapel after passing my arm under a leg.

Working on my guard, I don’t seem to have a submission game. None of my attempts were even close and my set-up attempts were all seen a mile away. I really have to work on this. My guard defense seemed pretty good, with my opponent unable to pass my open guard at all. Once he got half-guard, but I was able to quickly sweep him over. I really want to get to play my guard defense against someone better than me cause I’d really like to see where I am. Least I know that my guard offense needs a lot of work….

Sparring from my back became a different game once sweeps were permitted, as I started sweeping left and right. Mostly the basic scissor sweep and the sit-up/kimura sweep. I was able to get an ezekiel choke from mount off a sweep pretty quickly, but stopped going for subs after that. The first sweep felt like I muscled it and really wanted to work on the technical side of it.

Since returning to the jits, here’s how my game has felt: bad offense on my back, better defense and sweeps, horrible mount, decent side control, less sloppy passing, and lousy turtle attacks. The bad, horrible, and lousy parts are really bad, horrible, and lousy, whereas the better, decent, and less sloppy stuff I’m not really sure about. I’ve been back for just a month and haven’t had the chance to roll with a big variety of people yet, so I don’t really know what better and decent really means. Less sloppy on the other hand is just something I feel.

Whew, what a long post…

BJJ Class 93 - visible bruising

Whew, what a long tiring class!

Warm-ups were proceeded with doing the armbar from guard flow drill. Y’know, the one where you do an armbar on your back with a partner and then quickly flow into an armbar on the opposite side. Yeah, that drill. I had forgotten how tiring that exercise was. I remember doing that almost a year ago - I was able to switch smoothly and quickly from side to side AND I wouldn’t get as tired as I did today.

Anyway, we drilled the basic scissor sweep after that. Although I was able to do the scissor sweep a few times in the past two weeks, I’m glad we went through this as I was able to pick up a few details that I had been skipping or forgetting completely. I guess I’ll illustrate the sweep and variations we did with my snowboard instructors. Yeah, I miss playing working with those guys.

After the sweep, we did rotation sparring, with the objective of the base group to submit or sweep the rotating people, whose objective was to guard pass. If a sweep or sub was done, the rotating person would go to the back of the rotating group line. If a pass was made, the passer switches to the base group and the other guy joined the rotating group. I didn’t get to pass anyone, but I was able to do some good sweep defense, with some of the blues and purples complementing me. I didn’t realize before how much I love to stand when trying to pass. I don’t know if I did that a lot before, but I sure am doing lots of it now.

I can’t say that I got to work on proper technique and unsloppiness, as I didn’t even think about it during the rolling. I did feel much better about my technique and it felt less sloppy. If anything, I want to roll with fellow whitebelts more so I can concentrate on technique better rather than just trying to get something done. I’d like to take my time and be sure I do techniques the proper way.

I did an awful lot of rolling and got that “I just want to sit down” feeling. It was great, I haven’t felt that in a while, even with snowboarding. During one of my rolls with either of two particular purple belts, I got shin kicked in the kisser. I now have an enlarged, purple spot on my lip. Wonder how many of my co-workers are going to notice and ask about the visible bruising….

BJJ Class 92 - busy

Class 91 was a whole week ago. With school starting again after Spring Break and Easter Week (I go to a Jesuit university so we have an extra week off), my already packed schedule just got even busier. Thanks to school projects, taxes, and other happenings I’m a bit behind with blogging, as usual.

Ok, a shoulder throw was drilled after warm-ups. I paired off with an extra tall, heavy guy which made an already awkward-feeling technique even more difficult. I did pick up a very good pointer on positioning your arm during the throw - keep it tight and close to your body, preferably to the front. This is important because having your arm positioned otherwise highly increases the risk of a shoulder injury.

That prolly didn’t make any sense, so I’ll try to find some material on it on the interweb and link to it.

After the throwing drill, I rolled with the tall guy and was surprised by my ability to keep my open guard. Of course I don’t really know his skill level but he did mention he was training on & off for about a year. My hips were mobile and all his pass attempts were neutralized. I rolled with a small blue belt after who completely p*wnd me. I did learn a nice attack you can do from the turtle position, though. It’s real basic but I’ll try to get some photos of it.

No taps on this class. I think I mentioned before about not wanting to concentrate on taps too much. From here on I’ll concentrate on making my technique tight (not sloppy). If an opportunity presents itself, I’ll take it. But, I want to concentrate on technique, using proper leverage & positioning, and not muscling anything.

BJJ class 91 - choke

Great class!! I’m real glad to be back on the mats again….last year it felt like everything was falling apart with my injury and leaving my comfortable, long-time job to start my career afresh with internships and job searches. With this month, everything seems to be fitting in place with a new job/career and being back on the mat, that even though I’m almost broke and overweight, I feel like a million bucks!

Class 91 was the wednesday right after monday’s class 90. Class started with a tiring warm-up which included alligator crawls (going from one end of the mat to the other, while in the push-up position with elbows fully bent, you crawl forward only by pushing/bouncing your body up about 6 inches each time) and me wondering if my inability to complete all the exercises was due to my post-surgery weakness or general lack-of-strength-and wouldn’t-have-been-able-to-do-them-anyway-even-without-the-surgery-ness. After asking myself that question through the warm-ups, we did some cool breathing exercises - the exact same exercises that Rickson did in his Choke documentary. We did them all (tried them, actually), including the facial expressions and the weird roll-your-stomach-into-your-chest thing. If you don’t know what I mean, go watch the movie again. Or watch it for the first time.

Then we did some cool jedi rolling exercises. People pair up and roll. In each round, only one guy does attacks - anything, sweeps, locks, chokes, etc - and the other guy defends. But not your usual defense - no sweeping an opponent or muscling your arm free or anything. Just lay on the ground and defend through posture alone - tuck your chin in, keep your arms in, if an arm gets pulled just roll into a direction that will nullify the sub, if a choke starts sinking in just turn your head and tuck your chin into it. In other words, the defender must do a very passive defense. And do it with eyes closed. While I was the attacker, I couldn’t get any chokes in, but manged to get myself two americanas (keylocks again!!) while my training partner managed to get leg/foot subs only.

After 5 minutes each of that, another round was for armbar attacks only. I didn’t get any, but I almost got another americana and my training partner got an armbar in (if I remember right). After 5 minutes each of that, another round was for chokes only. I was getting a clock choke in tight when the time ran out but my training partner managed to sink in a few sneaky knuckle RNCs. I don’t understand the chokes exactly, so I’ve got to ask him again.

After that was a few rounds of sparring. I don’t remember much since this was about 5 days ago. I do remember getting one americana in, and not getting subbed by anyone. Of course subs aren’t everything (but they are easy to count). While rolling, I was getting smothered a lot and found myself being very defensive. Then I remembered something I realized or told myself a long time ago: I should be more aggressive and try to control the pace of the fight more. I started doing attacks amidst my opponents attacks and I managed to get his focus off of attacking me into defending himself, which eventually lead into the americana (+1 in my tap counter). I did roll with another person after that, but I don’t remember much. What I do remember was how most of my movements felt, be they sweeps, passes, sub attempts, whatever - they all felt loose and lousy.

Therefore, my current goal is tightness. I want to get my game tight. Not tight as in cool or awesome, but tight as in to use proper technique and not allowing my opponent space to move. This includes making my body feel heavier than it really is when in a top position, being able to hold my opponents limbs in place while I attempt to pass, and not giving my opponent space to pull or shrimp out of a situation. Aiming for tightness is a big goal and will touch upon all the areas of my game. I feel that it’s a good general goal for getting back to shape, as I won’t be focusing on only one specific aspect and will hopefully make me get back with as well-rounded a game as possible. When I reach the end of my goal attempting period (50 subs on my tap counter), tightness will still be a part of the goals I will form then, but I might try to concentrate on other more specific areas at that time. Let’s see how it goes…

Ous

BJJ Class 90 - at last!

I’m tired, my clothes stink, my face looks like I was hit with golf balls, my fingertips are sore, my arms and shoulders are red and bruising, and I have mat burn on my foot. Man, it’s great to be back in jiu-jitsu!!!

After re-activating my membership in the school, I told my professor about my surgery and he said I should take it easy in class. Warm-ups were ok, I did everything but the sprawls, which didn’t feel good with my shoulder. We then drilled a couple of hip throws, but only after I told my partner not to yank my arm. After that was rolling.

It was great. After 8 and a half months away from the mat, I still have some roll in me. I was paired off with a blue belt who was much smaller and whom I outweighed by some 30-40 or more pounds. I dominated the roll and got him with an Americana straight away. After that, I swept him immediately (I didn’t think I was going to be able to), then I spent the rest of the round on top on side control, knee-on-belly, and north-south.

My next roll was with a 3-month white belt. Having not rolled in a while, I must’ve been just crazy excited to get to roll again. I completely dominated. Got him with an americana, a second americana which I sunk deep but let go off before he tapped, a clock choke, several sweeps and a few failed armbar attempts. After him was with a white belt that’s been training for a month. He was good, he said he was training almost everyday. While this round was more even, I got him with an americana (seems to be my fave sub) and I was defending a lapel choke from half-guard when time ran out.

By this time, I felt like my ego was inflated. Fortunately, I rolled next with a white belt that’s been training for a year and a half. I only managed to sweep him once, while he got me with a triangle, and he completely smothered me. I’m glad I got that reality check.

Rolling kept going after that, but I had to rush home as I was expecting some people.

Besides my professor and the club secretary, only a few people noticed that I was back. I must’ve been gone a real, long while, since most of the people that were training with me before didn’t recognize/remember me, even when I said hi. Oh, well. I ran into a few BJJ people in the street a few times during my off period, and they were all surprised to hear how long I’ve been out. Either they all have bad memories from all the many different faces on the mat, or I’m really not just memorable. Whatever. Anyway, there was a ton of new faces in class and my buddies weren’t there today, I guess they were out drinking since it was St. Pattie’s day.

I’ve yet to set some new training goals. I’m sure I’d like to get back to and surpass the level that I was in before, but I still have to think of a plan of how to get there. Besides attending class, I mean. Some things I noticed today was that my mount was horrible, I had a decent side control, and I don’t squeeze my legs together when I attempt an armbar. Some stuff to work on. Oh, my guard game sucks now, and my passes are lousy and very loose. A lot of technique to work on. On the plus side though, I was able to relax and breathe through out the rolls and didn’t gas myself. I think I’ll reset my tap counter to today’s class as well.

Anyway, this is too long of a post and I feel like my writing skills are really out of practice. With BJJ back in my activities, I’ll be doing this blogging thing quite often now…