Went to class early to see if anyone would show up to play. I did some conditioning for about half an hour. 25,20,15,10,5,5,10,15,20,20 of Squats, Pushups, Crunches, and dumbbell rows (Each arm) with a 20lb weight. Took a brief rest after the ladder down and another after the ladder back up. Could have done more of everything except the pushups. Arms were completely on strike.
Had a warmup roll with one of our Ammy fighters, Brian, his standup is awesome, but his ground game has been highly reliant on his athleticism until the last few months. He's finally starting to settle down an start working the technique, though he still tends to fall back on just being in better shape than everyone else sometimes. We rolled for a while and I caught an elbow to the trachea. Didn't stop the roll, but it got uncomfortable later. Not videos this time around because class was so small, had no one to run the camera.
Talked to Casey about getting a beginners class going and he agreed to it, so long as he didn't have to come do anything. I'm going to talk to Coe and Darnell, the two purple belts, about working up a schedule and a curriculum for it.
Technique was a counter to the far side underhook escape from side control. Bottom guy gets the underhook, turns in and pushes you off. You backstep for stability and then step over into technical mount with the overhook. Next you work your foot on the overhook side up to your opponents head and then squeeze your knees towards each other (EVen though one of your knees is still on the ground, yes) resulting in an omoplata like shoulder lock.
Next technique was the same setup, but you feed your leg across for the Gogoplata. Final technique was same setup but you feed the leg across and sit back for a wicked armbar.
After that some specific sparring from side control. I got to move over to the Gigantor side of the room to even things up. Rolled with GiantNewWhiteBelt guy who I discovered is named Brent, Darnell, Brian and Casey. Played as defensively as I ever play which means looking for sweeps and subs while not completely ignoring the fact that I'm about to get tooled. Darnell shut me down completely today and even Got me with an ezekiel while I had an overhook and he was in my full guard. Sneaky.
Casey dominated me in hilarious fashion as usual. The best part about that is the split second between me making the key mistake and him putting on the sub. It's just a huge "OHSHITISHOULDN'THAVEDONETHAT" moment and it's always from something seemingly innocuous.
Brian I was able to sweep a few times early on, and generally handle just fine, but once I started to slow down it was all over. The guy does NOT get tired.
Sparring was with Brian, Darnell, and then one of the guys my size, Kris. More of the same with Brian, while I Was fresh I could handle him, but as soon as I started to get tired it was everything I could do not to get mauled.
Darnell continued to shut me down.
Kris I was able to sweep a bunch, throw around, an generally handle the way I handle all of the whitebelts my size. At one point he went for an ankle lock of some kind, so I defended and slapped a toe hold on him. Apparently I tweaked it a little hard for his taste, but he's fine. I don't go for leg locks on white belts unless they start in it first, but I probably need to start working that toe hold on the higher belts a little more....
By the time I got home from class lifting the gallon of milk to pour me a glass felt like the heaviest thing in the universe. That's how I know it was an good day.
Interesting that you didn't have a beginners class previously: I presume you therefore think it is a good thing for beginners to have a separate class to begin with, rather than throw everyone in together?
ReplyDeleteI personally found it helpful to have that 'settling in' period with a beginners class, but I've spoken to people who disagree, and think it unnecessarily slows progression.
I'm definitely a fan of beginner classes. Casey is a black belt. He can't help but teach at a relatively high level. We've got him showing crucifix variations of the omoplata to people who can barely get their hips off the ground and only have the most vague idea of what an omoplata or a crucifix is.
ReplyDeleteHaving a beginners class where people learn the basic positions, basic movements, basics escapes, basic submissions, etc... means that when they do start learning from Casey they can spend more time thinking about the technique he's teaching and less time figuring out how they are supposed to move for the basics.
In the past we haven't had a beginners class because Casey just doesn't have the time to teach more classes himself.
When I started at RGA, there was beginner and advanced, which since I left has progressed to beginner, intermediate and advanced.
ReplyDeleteAt Braulio's place in Birmingham, he's also got three levels, but the other way: Foundation, basics and then advanced. I'd be very interested to check out the foundation class (a friend of mine who has just started gave me a brief description, but of course that's not the same as taking part yourself).
I think my dream school would probably have a ridiculously huge timetable and number of instructors, with classes on specific positions. It would be awesome to be able to just focus on escaping side control for a year.
Heh, I think that level of isolation is counter productive. You would find yourself a year later IMMUNE to side control, but barely functional everywhere else.
ReplyDeleteI prefer the 3 tiered class structure. Introduction, Fundamentals, Advanced.
Introduction: Basics movements such as shrimping, upa, sitouts, etc... Positions and how to move in and out of them, basic escapes. A guard pass, a sweep, and a couple of basic subs. You would be in that class for 3 months before being encouraged to move to the Fundamentals class.
Fundamentals: Still working the basic movements, but only as warmup drills. All of your "Standard" stuff goes in here. This is BJJ 101 and you would generally be in this class until you are a blue belt, then as a blue belt you would share time between this class and the Advanced class until purple belt.
Advanced: Whatever the flavor of the month is. 50/50 Guard, Rubber Guard, Leg Hook guard, Monoplatas, Tornado guard. This class would be more of a meeting of minds with primarily purple belts and above working on the things each one needs to work on. A well supervised collaborative open mat session.
Presuming that program gets put into place at your school, it will be interesting to hear how it works out. I've been enjoying the articles Chrissy has sent me about setting up her women's classes, and now Leslie has just kicked off teaching kids.
ReplyDeleteSo, if your school (or you? I presume it would be those two purples teaching it, or would you be doing some too?) get a general beginners class going, would complete the set nicely. ;)
It will most likely be primarily me teaching it with the purple belts coming in occasionally. I'll definitely be doing writeups about it if we get it started. With my wedding coming up though it will probably go through the planning stages for the next few months and then start at the beginning of next year.
ReplyDelete