Monday, August 29, 2011

BJJ 8/28/2011

Great class tonight! One of the new guys whose name I still don't remember showed up for the fundamentals class so I taught him how to shrimp, upa, and sitout, as a warmup then taught him the knee->elbow escape from under mount and briefly the scissor sweep so I could have him drill the combo with Kris.

Got Kris to work on his transitions while the guy worked on escapes having Kris try to intercept the side control escape by stepping over to mount, then defeat the mount escape by bouncing back over to side control. Both of them got in some good reps.

Worked some flow rolling with them both afterwards, well as flowy as they could get. The guys from Jefferson showed up and I grabbed the dude that has a fight coming up to do some warmup rolling.

While we were doing that Casey arrived and we kind of transitioned into the warmup, then into techniques. Technique was the no-gi version of the gi stuff we were doing friday. From side control you trap their near arm with your top leg, then you start attacking the far arm for a kimura, then when they defend you push their arm up and get a monkey grip on their tricep. Next you lever them up onto the side, putting pressure on the neck. Now step around and gather their far arm up with your leg, then shoot your other leg under and triangle it for the crucifix position.
From there you can execute a neck crank or a choke.

Next technique was when your opponent gets and underhook from bottom of side control and begins to escape. You sprawl out, airplane around to the other side, and backpack, then begin to lock up the RNC. When they defend you bring your top leg up and scoop their arm and stretch it out for a half crucifix, then finish the RNC.

Third technique was in case they beat you up to their knees with the underhook. On the non-underhooked side you reach under and cup their chin, then pull guard with your hips out on the underhooked side. Make a fist with the hand under their chin and pull it up with your other hand for an arm-in guillotine.

Did some drilled from side control, then rolled.
I'm enjoying having the guys from Jefferson there, the dude makes me WORK for sure. I was actually exhausted by the end of class. Too tired to finish a triangle choke on him. Had some really good scrambles with him.

Kris has become enamored with diving toe holds to the point where I've just about had to stop letting him work because all he does is jump on my feet, we'll see how that progresses. Either he will get good enough at hiting them that I won't be able to stop him (in which case props to him!) or he'll develop more options, either is good.

Sunday, August 28, 2011

BJJ 8/26/2011

I forgot my gym key, so had to wait for one of the other guys with a key to arrive. Since that took a while it meant that Kris, Darnel (Who showed up with a key for us) and I just rolled for 45 minutes before the main class. We still have pretty much zero attendance for the fundamentals class even though so many people need it.

We started the main class with some takedowns that I will probably never ever use since they are off of a deep underhook and wrist control and if I have a deep underhook I always go for the body lock for the takedown. These were more judo-ish and involved an attempted hip throw to one side, then when your opponent postures up you spin to the other side for a head and arm hip throw. It was neat, but not one of my favorites.

Technique was a crucifix setup from side control that led into a choke. You first bring your top knee up to trap your opponents arm between your leg and your shoulder nice and tight. Then you feed their far side lapel under their arm and get a good grip on it with your hand that is under their head. Now you sit up and force their head forward. If you have a good grip on the lapel this will force their arm away from their body opening it up for the next step. You swing your leg around and hook their arm, then roll back a bit to get your second leg through and triangle them up to trap the arm. Now you have a solid crucifix.

We worked collar chokes from that position as well as an Ezekiel. Fun place to get to. I didn't have a lot of success moving to it when rolling because I wasn't able to effectively trap the near arm from side control, which points to a weakness in my side control positioning that I'll have to work on.

Rolling was a nice six person gauntlet of guys under 160. I mostly just threw people around and working my top game, except against Kris and Antony who I like to work guard retention against, especially Antony. Kris is continually getting better, and I'm looking forward to him getting his blue belt. I'm also looking forward to me FINALLY getting to test for my Purple next saturday as it had to be reschedule again.

I also spent some time rolling with Brian, our guy who has a fight at Bad Manor in a couple of weeks, mostly just having an insanely active guard against him. Working to constantly set up subs on him and make him defend, attacking his neck, etc... Caught him in one triangle before he started reacting properly to them and make him work a lot. I don't think he's going to have any worries about getting subbed in his fight this time around.

Tonight is No-Gi, so I'll probably be working with him again which is always a blast.

Monday, August 22, 2011

Tournament Schedule for the Year

Ok, so if anyone is in Georgia and wants to come meet me at an event or something here are the events I'll be competing in over the next few months:
NAGA Southeast Championships, Atlanta October 1st
US Grappling in Suwannee, Oct 22
Grapplers Quest in Dalton, Nov 6th

Tentative
Copa America Winter Nationals, Jonesboro, Dec 3rd


Not sure about the December one right now. I'll probably decide that after Grapplers Quest.

If you're looking for me I'll be wearing a blue Megalodon Gi or a BJJHQ Rashguard and bright blue Manto shorts and I'll have a pony tail tied in a bun on the back of my head.
You can check out my videos for a better idea of what I look like. I'm always glad to meet people and chat BJJ.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

I love JiuJitsu, seriously

Ok, so I have a 2 minute video of how I wrap my hair up in a bun that I'll be posting for some folks Tomorrow. So anyone interested in that keep an eye out.

In random awesome news BJJHQ is hooking me up with a rashguard with their Logo which I will be wearing for the no-gi portions of those events and should I manage to win anything for the award ceremony portion as well.
My purple belt test has been rescheduled finally for the 27th, and Paleo is shooting my energy levels through the roof. 3 hours of class tonight and I didn't even feel it by the end. I could have done 3 more easily.

On the down side I dropped back below 140 tonight. Weighed in at 139.7. I haven't been under 140 in something like a year. The odd thing about that is that I'm stronger now than I was at 152. I've been rolling with people who normally are able to muscle out of things and I just clamped onto them and shut them down. It's great.

My triangle choke game spontaneously revived itself as well. I had been glitching on my triangles a lot and just having trouble locking them in and finishing, but the last few classes I've been hitting them left and right and finishing them.

Kris showed up for the fundamentals class and we just rolled for about an hour and change. He's getting more aggressive again, but aggressive with a plan and a purpose, not just flinging himself at my guard. He's also getting sneaky with toe holds and foot locks, which is good. I need stay sharp and watch for those.

He hit a very nice transition to a D'arce on me as well which I liked.

Class was Octopus guard, which I'm not going to bother to detail at the moment.

Drilling was from full guard. I got guillotined a couple of times. Some of the new guys throw guillotines on like it's life or death so it took me a little while to get used to fending them off. Worked my top game mostly, sweeping, passing guard, alternating between riding heavy and staying mobile and flowing.

It was a great class and I hope we have more like it with all of the new guys showing up.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Come Support Us!

Fusion Fight Nights at Bad Manor!

Hardcoregym, Megalodon, and a bunch of other local schools will be represented here. Come out and support the local MMA scene for only 15$!

Monday, August 15, 2011

BJJ 8/14/2011

No one showed up for the fundamentals class, but about halfway through a couple of visitors showed up. There is a small MMA school in Jefferson that has been having some success and is starting to get into higher areas of competition where athleticism and a good standup game aren't enough to pick up the victory any more so they are looking to come train with us on Sundays.
It looks like they'll be coming up at 6pm and doing my class and the main class in order to maximize their training time.

Warmup in the main class was tech-falls, tech-stands, safety rolls, and combinations thereof. Then pair up and work mount escapes.
Class was on basic attacks from the mount. Put both hands on one of their arms and drive your weight down to either force their hand to the mat for an americana or force them to roll onto their side. If they roll onto their side then you move to technical mount and attack the top arm for an armbar. Remember to push down on their head as you step around to keep them from coming up into you and escaping.

Second attack is the same setup, but instead of trying to spin to the armbar you pressure down on their elbow and scoop under the head to setup the arm triangle. I have trouble finishing the armtriangle from mount, not a huge fan of that setup. I prefer to lock it up then move to side control and sit out to finish.

Third attack is, again, the same setup, but this time you feed your arm under their head from behind and grab their wrist. So now you have their arm trapped across their face/neck. Get a grip on the other arm, or shoulder, or anything you like to use to control them and then scoop and roll them over to take their back. When they try to free their arm you feed your arm across for the RNC to finish.

Specific sparring was from mount. I got to work with the two visitors a lot and made sure both of them got to the "position of the day". They both eventually made the transition to the back, but were a little slow to abandon the submissions and would have given me plenty of time to escape, but they were doing well.

Both had good explosive escapes.

Rolling was a gauntlet with everyone. Everything I was doing felt pretty smooth. I hit some triangles, swept some folks, and worked my top game. One of the new guys actually used the jailbreak on me to escape side control. Caught me by surprise the first time, but I immediately repassed and then blocked it. Working with MMA folks is always fun for their explosiveness if nothing else. I'm looking forward to having them and other people from their gym back to train with us.


Purple belt test has been rescheduled for the 27th.



Thursday, August 11, 2011

Training Intensity And You

Recently a discussion over on JiuJitsuForums sparked me to write a post about how the training intensity of pro MMA and BJJ guys differs from the intensity of hobbyists. Most people think of pros as training super intensely the way their highlight videos show. For example, Cobrinha training for ADCC or GSP training for his matches. The reality is that those guys aren't training like that 6-8 hours a day 5-6 days a week. Their normal daily training is actually probably LESS intense than most hobbyists 3 times a week training sessions.

I know you're all about to flip out and talk all kinds of shit at me about how stupid that is and how no weekend warrior trains more intensely than GSP and on and on. Well, SIT DOWN AND SHUTUP! Read the rest of the post before you flip out on me.

When you are training three times a week for 90 minutes what do you do? You come in and do your 10 minute warmup, then you do 30 minutes of technique work, then you drill for 30 minutes, then you roll for 20 minutes. How intensely do you roll? Most hobbyists are going to be rolling pretty hard, sparring hard, training hard because they only get to train for 4.5 hours a week and they want to make the most of it.

Do you think GSP trains that intensly for 6 hours? Hell no. He probably trains that intensly for 1-2 hours a week at most most of the time. The key to being able to train 5-6 days a week is to moderate your intensity. If you want to train 4-6 hours a day 5 days a week then here is how you should break your training up:

Warmup with light gymnastic and agility work for about half an hour. Next pick a single technique or combination or specific weakness or position to work on and drill it lightly for half an our focusing on technique and execution and trying to get as many perfect reps in as possible. Next do some light sparring or grappling. Medium paced and concentrating on flow and technique for about an hour.
Now hit an hour of medium intensity cardio. Circuits, elliptical work, rowing, get your heart rate up, but don't go flat out. You've now been training for 3 hours and you shouldn't feel like you're dying.
Now back to technique work, you should be slightly fatigued but not exhausted, so now you want to work your A game. Practice your best guard passes, best sweeps, and go-to submissions. AGAIN concentrating on slow, smooth, perfect reps and DRILLING. Not rolling like you're in the finals at ADCC. So half an hour of drilling your A game. Now another half an hour of some complimentary aspect of your game. If you've been working BJJ all day work on takedowns from the clinch, if you've been wrestling all day work on sweeps from the bottom, something that is different from what you've been working, but complimentary.
NOW you can intensify your workout for the next hour. Half an hour of rolling at a higher intensity, but still not tournament level. Just push yourself a little more. And for the final half hour hit some heavier cardio work. Get your heart rate up high and keep it there.

Do that for two days, and on the third day spend it all doing extremely light work. Light weightlifting, light cardio, very light technique work. Then on your 7th day have a complete rest day.

Your body will adjust to this level of work and gradually you will be able to increase the intensity of your daily workouts, but you still don't want to be going all crazy every day. The majority of your workouts should be light to medium intensity and heavily technique focused.

You'll find you're less sore and can train much more with this kind of structure than training the way you are now because when you only train three times a week your body doesn't really adjust to it. Think about a brick layer, first day on the job you can hang in there pretty good, day two you're hurting, but can still handle it, day three you're flattened and can barely do anything. But if you stick with it your body adjusts and after a year or two you can maintain the kind of pace that makes the noobs weep when they go home at night. But if you worked as hard as you could for two hours one day, then took the next day off, then worked as hard as you could again, then took another day off, and so on your body would never really adjust to the labor.

The bottom line is that those of you that have the opportunity to train 4-6 hours a day multiple days per week should make sure you are regulating the intensity of your workouts to allow you get the most out of them without burning out.

BJJ 8/10/2011 - Good to be back

Great class last night started off with some gymnastic/agility drills. Technical stand to forward rolls, backward rolls, dive rolls.
Technique was butterfly guard, basic sweeps with underhook grabbing the belt, killing the far arm, then rolling over your shoulder and lifting with your hook.

Points to be particularly aware of are ACTIVE HOOKS, don't just kind of stick your foot there and hope that's enough to make the sweep work, You have to be putting pressure on your opponent at all times with your feet so that whenever they start to move you are forcing them off balance. Second point is DON'T BE ON YOUR BACK. If you fall straight backwards then try to lift your opponent for the sweep it will almost certainly fail and result in your guard being passed. You want to roll onto your side, not flop onto your back. Final point is FINISH STRONG. If you don't complete the sweep with authority you are likely to get caught in halfguard. Maintain pressure with your hook all the way over and drive your knee through to mount, or lift more explosively and free your leg early to end up in side control.

We drilled from butterfly for a while, then rolled with Steven and one of his Wrestler buddies. Wrestlers are always fun and since neither had a Gi I threw on my shorts and went No-Gi. Spent the entire time baiting them into armbars and taking the back as they tried to pass guard. Fun times. The guy will be a monster in 6 months if he sticks around and learns what not to do though.

NON-BJJ Related update:
Project Rebuild-My-CRX is coming along pretty well. Had to abandon the idea of swapping out the CV Axle myself because I lack the tools to remove the giant nut that holds the hub onto the axle, so I put that back together and will have to take the axle to a mechanic to have that done. But I got the radiator swapped out and the master cylinder swapped out. Now I'm on to the REAL problem which is that the thing won't start. The starter is getting juice and the solenoid is firing, but the engine won't turn over. So next step is to pull the sparkplugs and try to crank it to see if it's vapor locked, then try a push start. If that doesn't work then I might be forced to tow it to a mechanic for a look since I'll have exhausted my options. Once the starting issue is done though it's time for bodywork. The goal is to have it 100% restored with new fiberglass body kit and cobalt blue paint job by christmas.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

All Work and No Jiujitisu...

So it's been like 8 days since I last made it to class. I'll be able to go tomorrow, then it looks like out of town for work again. Went off Paleo for a few days for my wifes birthday, back on it starting tomorrow as well.
The strange thing about missing class for me is how sore I get. My back starts to bother me, my knees start to hurt, my neck starts to get troublesome. None of these things are sore when I'm going to class regularly. I swear, when I miss a week on the mats I feel like my body is going to fall apart on me, but training 15 hours a week feels great.