Monday, March 28, 2011

BJJ 3/27/2011

Again, just taught the fundamentals class since I'm trying to let all of my injuries heal. Kris showed up and wanted to work on halfguard sweeps and halfguard passing so we worked on the halfguard overhook sweep and then the oldschool sweep and the plan B sweep.
For passing I just went over the basic pass where you switch to a cross body position and walk your foot up until your knee is straight up and down, then push your opponents leg off and drive your knee to the mat. Showed a couple of alternate finishes for that pass as well, but all of the setups involve pinning your opponents upper body so that you can free your hips and pass.

Did some flow rolling after that, worked up to some medium strength rolling. JC and Antony showed up early for the main class and I grabbed JC to roll for a bit, he's 100% submission defense, so I sweep him and then sit in mount messing with him. He tried to peel me off with his feet so I ankle locked him, but he refuses to tap, so instead of ripping his stupid leg off I let him go and reset and just kept crushing him from on top. He really needs to open up a bit so that his escapes develop, but apparently he doesn't actually like BJJ all that much.
Rolled with Antony and had a lot of fun, he's better at establishing the deep halfguard than I am, but I'm able to stop him from doing much with it. We went back and forth for a few minutes having a good time then the main class started up so I headed out.

Hand is much better, but still achy, knee is feelin pretty good though it still has some stiffness and soreness, ribs are much improved, back flexibility is still good.

BJJ 3/25/2011

Had Kris, Antony, and Johnny for the fundamentals class and went through a collar choke sequence that combos from one collar choke setup to the other.

Start out getting your first collar grip nice and deep, with emphasis on keeping your wrist straight. If your wrist breaks and wraps around your opponents neck then you lose the force of the choke later on. So nice deep grip on the first collar, then reach under and get your grip on the second collar nice and deep, and turn your thumbs towards each other and pull your elbows down to the mat.
If you can't get the second grip because your opponent keeps blocking your hand then go for the grip 2-3 times then swing your hand over the top and grab the gi near on top of the shoulder as close to the neck as possible. This finish requires slightly more strength since you are having to close a larger hole for the choke, but it his essentially the same, turn your one thumb in and then elbows down.
If you can't get that grip either then you wrap that arm around on the same side as your first collar grip and pull your opponent down, breaking their posture. then you slide your second hand across the back of their neck and tuck your thumb into the collar right behind their ear. Then as they try to posture up you clear the head, turn your first thumb in, and pull the elbows down to finish. This one is super tight.
If your opponent doesn't try to posture up, but just clings to you there then you hip out a little bit and reach straight across your body, still holding the first collar grip, and place your elbow on the opposite side of your opponents neck, then scissor your elbow and your gripping hand across. This one works really well once you figure out the proper elbow placement. You really have to make sure you get the elbow on the neck to get the tap.

Running through this sequence is highly likely to secure you a collar choke.

I had everyone drill by one partner being in closed guard and the other person running through the sequence ONLY trying to get the collar choke, no other offense, while the top person only tried to defend the collar choke, no guard passing or anything.

After that we did some flow rolling, then Kris wanted a competition level roll. Right of the bat I punched him in the mouth. Not intentionally, but grabbing for his collar, yanked him into guard and just climbed up him and secured the chinstrap choke which I'm beginning to prefer as my single collar choke variant because it's harder to resist. The only difference between it and the normal single collar is the angle that you put pressure on. Chinstrap involves pulling "up" towards the back of the head at about a 45 degree angle compared to the chin. That pulls the collar up into the crook of the throat and makes it MUCH harder to tough out.
Second go he stood up, so I stood up until I could get a sleeve grip, then pulled guard, swept him, and kimuraed him. I liked the level of intensity I kept during those rolls and I hope I can harness it during Lutador.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

BJJ 3/24/2011

Got to class about half an hour early and rolled with Will for about 20 minutes, he's back up around the 235lb mark and when he did get on top of me it was pretty crushing. He's gotten a lot better at using that weight. I was still able to sweep him and airplane all over him though. Definitely my transitions are a step above now.

Warmup was super technique heavy which was great, armbars from guard, triangles from guard, kimuras from guard, sweeping and recomposing guard and resweeping, then some standup work. I had to take it easy on some of it because I'm trying to let my knee and ribs heal before Lutadore, but a good warmup.

I don't remember what the technique we worked on was... So much technique drilling was done that I THINK that's all we did. Then we went to drilling in closed guard and I swept a bunch of people. Antony is super difficult to sweep because as soon as I open my guard he disengages and stands up. I have to bait him with a guard pass to get him close enough to work on him.

Rolling I was in a group with Brian, Antony, and Kris. After the first round I was talking to Antony about Lutadore prep and we decided I should he tweaking my "A" game to get ready. So the next round I was all loop chokes and cut passes. Ended up accidentally bloodying Antony's nose, but I also pulled of the chin strap choke from mount on him, so I'm happy. Brian vs my A game = I don't get subbed and can somewhat out position him. I took his back and held it for points and kept him from passing my guard. A technical victory. Kris tends to grab a sleeve and throwhimself backwards to z-guard, which actually makes it harder to submit him than Antony. I passed his guard and was setting up an arm triangle and my hips got too close, he sensed it and flipped me over which I was very happy with. He's making good progress in the sensitivity department and seems to finally be getting over his obsession with submitting everyone he rolls with. Of course I grabbed halfguard, then full guard, then reversed him, took his back, and choked him. He tends to protect his neck and arms very well though, just need to get him to combine so better defense and escapes with that.
He rode out the rest of the round under mount while trash talking about how I only subbed him once, so I supermanned my cup into his solar plexus and can openered him, but he remained steadfast and rode out the last 30 seconds. I'm really happy with his progress and I see him getting his Blue soon, same for Will. Brian is still a long way away not because of his ability to grapple, but because he only bothers to know like 6 techniques.

Good times! Teaching fundamentals on friday, more pummeling drills and I think collar chokes will be on the menu. I saw a lot of people flaring their elbows and trying to finish with strength when we were drilling them today.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Counter to the Body Triangle from Guard

This is a very quick video I shot for some folks at Jiujitsuforums.com about countering the body triangle from guard. It's just a reference video, so no detail, just the gross movement.

Body Triangle Counter

Sunday, March 20, 2011

BJJ 3/20/2011

Fundamentals class had Katie and Kris today, so we worked on pummeling to double underhooks and then changing levels and stepping around for the basic sitdown takedown to side control. I made them pummel a BUNCH and practice it over and over. Next we worked on another basic guard pass, breaking the guard and hitting the double underhook pass. I emphasized locking the hands tight and getting a good stack by stacking once, then sitting back and pulling your opponent up, then stacking really hard and rotating towards the head. Again, made them practice it back and forth a bunch.

Things to keep note of are keeping your elbows in tight to stop people from switching to Z-guard. I noticed later that I have a very bad habit of not keeping my elbows in tight enough. I need to work on that.

Third was the regular scissor sweep. I emphasized getting the underhook and really pulling your opponent forward onto your shin and then chopping them over. Also showed a variant for when you get the overhook instead of the under hook. Lift and get your knee pointed to the ceiling, then block them with your leg and move your upper body away and hook the elbow to finish with the Americana variant that Ian McPherson uses.

Afterwards we did some position only rolling for a bit trying to concentrate on guard passing and sweeps. Then after a bit I started rolling with Kris and the wheels in my head started spinning and I started having a lot of fun and then something clicked and suddenly my transitions all started flowing really well. To the point that I was just airplane spinning on Kris and flashing from sub setup to sub setup and all over the place. It was great.
Next step is to try it on some bigger white belts like Andrew or Will, then on Antony, then on someone like Brian or Ian to see if I can keep that level of flow. If I can move like that at Lutador then the no-gi should be no problem.

Gi mobility is still a problem for me, I'll have to see what I can do about that.

Kris is finally starting to chill out I think, that bodes well for his progress. I'm certain he'll get his blue this year in October if he trains through the summer. After Lutador I'm going to start working through Blue Belt test with the people that come to the fundamentals class to make sure they all pass.

BJJ 3/18/2011

Lot of hilarious pre-class banter before this one which always bodes well for a fun class. We had a new guy who is about 5'6" and somewhere north of 200lbs. I ended up working technique with him so I could show him how things went. The only gi we had for him to borrow was a TKD gi that was about 2 sizes small.

Techniques were all lapel based starting with breaking the opponent down and feeding one lapel up over the back to the other hand. Then if you could pass it off you grabbed a palm up grip with a nice tight lapel and finished like an X-choke essentially.
Second technique was if your opponent ducks his head out of the choke, this traps their arm with the lapel, so you pull the lapel across and swivel to armbar the trapped arm.

Then my favorite of the variations, you get the grip like you are going to hit the first choke, but they reach up to defend, so you grab their sleeve and pull the arm across and hip out to trap their elbow against your stomach, then pull your elbow back to tighten up the choke. Excellent pressure with that one.

Positional sparring starting in closed guard. I tried to work the lapel stuff, but I always have a hard time figuring out how to get the gi open and available, so usually by the time I got somewhere close to the gi being available my opponent had done something that forced me to sweep them. So I got a little practice with it, but not as much as I wanted.

Rolling had Coe join our side since he was heading up to Alliance on Saturday and he always gets thrown to their giants. He squished me a bunch, but not enough to stop me from trash talking.
Don't really remember much else, I DO remember that I was able to put together a bunch of X-guard sweeps which I've been working on.

Good class. Good times.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Injury Update 3/17/2011

Left middle finger: Very stiff, sore, limited ROM. Probably going to take weeks to fully heal since I keep using it and ignoring it.

Left ribs: Sore, slight pain when taking very deep breaths, tender to the touch. Probably be fine in a week.

Left knee: This is generally my "Bad" knee and it's a little achy because I haven't been doing squats because of fencepost work and the right knee injury. It will probably never fully stop hurting, but it doesn't interfere with anything and always gets better when I'm lifting.

Lower back: Some soreness, mostly muscular, some stiffness, same. Still 100% flexibility. I was able to comfortably put the balls of my feet on the floor above my head while laying on my back. This should continue to improve with my stretching and weight lifting. I have noticed that I need to strengthen my back to counteract my abdominals. The muscle imbalance makes it hard to hold good posture.

Right Knee: Some soreness at the extremes of the range of motion. No weakness, no real pain. It stood up just fine to playing feet on hips spider guard yesterday and tornado guard. Should be 100% in a week.

Neck: Little bit of soreness, but generally my symptoms are pretty minor. If I poke the spot where I have the bone spure I can feel things go tingly, but it rarely interferes with my ability to do things. It does make neck cranks extra painful for me and I tap to them really quickly, which is why I tend to really fight to avoid them.

All told I'm feeling in good shape. Feeling strong and flexible. Going to go back to lifting and just restart the 3 rep week of 5/3/1 and not worry about it. Return to lifting scheduled for next Tuesday.

BJJ 3/16/2011

Casey didn't make it to class today, so Coe was teaching. We worked on some side control escapes.

I'm going to diverge for a moment into more technical discussion than I normally do because this particular set of techniques really didn't mesh well with my normal way of doing business so I'd like to get it written down so I can contemplate it later.

For the initial escape your opponent has standard side control and your arms are out, wrapped around your opponent. Your NEAR arm, the one closest to their body, you work in first and grip your opponents bicep on their top arm, the arm closest to your head. NEXT you bring your far arm across and clasp your hands together and use them to frame, bridge, and swim for the farside underhook up high so that it extends their arm. Once you have the farside underhook you bridge and reach while pulling on the bicep to twist your opponent and make it easier to escape.

Now, I have no problem with the last half of that escape, but the FIRST half I take issue with. When you swim your nearside arm through first your opponent can switch to Kesa Getame with their arm under your head and your elbow pulled up VERY easily. It's almost an automatic reaction. Once that happens you have no chance of bringing leverage into them to execute the escape and you have to switch to Kesa escapes.

Swimming the nearside arm through first also traps that arm. Once you have the bicep and before your arms are joined your opponents weight is pinning that arm leaving your far arm unsupported and vulnerable to attack.

My preferred method of building a frame is to lock my hands together above my opponents head and then use the strength of both arms to wedge my forearm or elbow across my opponents face until my far arm is braced across his throat, then wrap my hand over the back of his shoulder. Next I turn into him and pressure up with my elbow to force him to loosen up and I swim my nearside arm through.
At no point were my arms ever in danger, and with the farside arm already in and me already on my side he can't switch to Kesa.

After that you have the same option. Bridge, farside underhook, escape.

I just greatly prefer that entry to the series because I feel that it provides more consistent defense.

We drilled several stages of that escape, including when your opponent goes to north south and you push their armpits and pull your knees up, catching your knees in their armpits and dumping them forward. I showed Kris this one a couple of weeks ago, it's an awesome escape that I've rarely made work rolling. You have to catch your opponents armpits early before they start to slide down in N/S.

Did some position sparring from side control which reminded me why I have the kind of guard game I do. Those people are HEAVY. Everyone got to Kimura me, I escaped a few times, fun times.

We rolled continuously with no breaks for 21 minutes after that, 7x3 minute rounds, switching partners every round with no breaks. I rolled with Brian, Ian, and one of the 220lb cops whose name I can never rembmer, which made for some insanity. And once for a minute with Coe where I played tornado guard while he airplaned around on top of me for about 2 minutes, which was fun.

In trying to up the intensity of my game I was going for a lot more submissions, especially guillotines. On this group of guys I usually just make it about 75% through the setup for armbars and triangles and then they power out of it and I go back to guard. I've been working my guillotine game to help give me some more options. I'm still having trouble finishing them, but I feel a lot better about going for them now than I did before. Mostly I just tried to keep moving the entire time, attacking, working for sweeps, and maintaining a solid guard. It was a good class and I think I'm coming up on another epiphany about my guard sparked by my use of tornado/upside down guard and the recovered flexibility in my back.

Hopefully it will hit before Lutador and I'll make another skill jump. I love those.

Monday, March 14, 2011

How I spent my weekend

So, Friday there was jiujitsu involved. At this point I vaguely remember that one of our guys brought one of their wrestling buddies who is ranked 12th in the state at like 189lbs or something crazy like that. I rolled with him and another new guy that's got about 8 months of MMA training, but not a lot of pure jiujitsu. They were both very active and dynamic and sense I was in tournament training mode I didn't really let them work very much. I subbed them both a few times and kept sweeping them. It was fun, I think there's a good chance both of them will be back.

Saturday I rented a post hole auger. Now, one might think that using a post hole auger would make digging post holes exponentially easier than using manual post hole diggers. That would make one WRONG. Using the auger was generally faster, and did let me dig holes where there is NO WAY I would have been able to dig them with post hole diggers, but it was HARD. The thing would dig about 6 inches, bind up in the clay and I would have to deadlift it out against the weight of the augur, and the mud, and the fact that the mud was generally still connected to the rest of the dirt. I put in 74 posts over 2 days.

On the third to last post I was lifting the auger out and felt my right knee pop, it didn't seem to hurt at the time so I just kept going, finished out the holes, put the posts in the holes and then showered up and headed to jiujitsu. On the way I was doing the stretches my Chiro gave me at the redlights and near the last light my back suddenly gave a series of small pops, then a medium pop, then a BIG pop. I went light headed and euphoric for a moment, then realized that my back pain was GONE. Three years of lower back stiffness and pain just vanished. When I got to class I confirmed that I now have regained 100% of my lower back flexibility. Now my hips instead of compensating for my lower back allow me to be all crazy gumby flexible.

No one showed up for the fundamentals class, presumably because it's the beginning of UGA spring break, so I just sat around and chatted and stretched. People started to filter in around 7:20 and then we started class. We opened up with some drilling then went on to techniques. We did sprawl -> guillotine, then sprawl-> guillotine -> 100% Shoulder lock sub, then Sprawl -> guillotine -> 100% sweep.

Drilling was from closed guard and I was rolling with Casey and Coe. I managed to catch Casey in a heel hook and as he spun out of it I hopped up on top for the sweep. And Coe tried to bear crawl over my guard, which he does ALL THE FREAKIN TIME, but this time I was ready for him and spun under, locked his leg up with the saddle and caught him with a kneebar. After that Casey murdered me for a while and Coe upped the pressure, but I never felt totally overwhelmed.

Rolling was with Coe, Casey, and Brian I managed to take Coe's back and work an RNC, but he is insanely hard to finish, so as time ran out and he started to escape I switched to mount and held that until the end of the round. I tried to catch Casey with the butterfly guard lift to heel hook combo, but he shut me down. I felt great though, super energetic, super flexible, and I still feel pretty damn good. However, about an hour and a half after class my right knee started to feel stiff and a little sore. But the time I got in bed around midnight I could barely move it. And now this morning I can't put any weight on it or extend it fully. So, that sucks, but my back feels great, so I figure it's a wash. My knee will heal over the next couple of weeks and I'll just take it easy. I'll be fine for Lutador as long as I don't do anything stupid leading up to it. That means no weight lifting and probably no rolling for at least a week, probably two.

Still, feeling good about having my back fixed and despite getting about 4 hours of proper sleep last night I feel extremely good.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Weightlifting 3/10/2011

Tonight was deadlifts. Warmed up and powered through them, 7 reps with 165lbs, so no drop from the 5x week. I already feel like I'm building back up pretty well. I've been doing my chiro prescribed stretches at work to keep my lower back flexible and I can once again put my palms flat on the floor with my knees straight without any pain. There is some soreness in my back that I'm slightly worried about, but it's not all that painful and doesn't seem to be bothering me much. I assume it will go away over time as I continue to stretch properly and take care of my back.

I'm going in to full on tournament prep mode starting tonight. So, competition level rolls with everyone and no breaks. I'm hoping to be rockin it enough to take the blue belt absolute at Lutador and win the moneys. We shall see though.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Judo Class Visit

I paid a visit to our local Judo school and had a great time. The guys there were very friendly and a lot of fun. The class was small, the blackbelt instructor, a female blackbelt, and a guy wearing a yellow belt. It was their newaza class, so they made it a brazil night in honor of having a BJJer in the house and we just paired up and rolled the entire time.

They have strangely unexpected holes in their ground game. Very little defense against being butterfly swept, and pretty much zero defense against any guard passes. Their only mount escape appeared to be hook the arm and Upa like mad. They invited me to throw out some BJJ tips whenever I saw an opportunity, so I showed one of the guys technical mount and how to launch attacks from it, and how my favorite collar and sleeve breakdown works and how to launch attacks from that. I also showed the female blackbelt how to use the knee to elbow mount escape and showed the yellow belt why he shouldn't reach up from under mount.

They were absolutely baffled by my guard work and seemed to enjoy trying to get past it, when one of them did get past I damn near tapped from the pressure in Kesa and he managed to kickstand armbar me while I was trying to breath. That actually damaged some cartilage in my rib cage from an old wrestling injury so my ribs are a bit sore today, but overall it was a blast. I might drop in on them again every once in a while, but I won't be able to start Judo training until next summer.

I skipped out of my Jits class early because my wife has a nursing test coming up and then her final exam, so she needed to get home to relax.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

BJJ 3/6/2011

Bit of a late update this time around. Had only a couple of people for the beginner class so I went over the underhook and overhook methods of controlling posture in guard, and then since the two people in the class weren't complete noobs I went through an armbar -> triangle combo from the underhook position.

Spent some time with Katie refining her butterfly guard, she had the same issue most people do of starting with her knees too close together and not maintaining the linkage between her elbows and knees while moving.

Main class was guard passing, the No-Gi version of the passes we did Friday. Hand just below the sternum, hand on hip, sit back to break the guard, then pass. We did a couple of variations of baseball slide and backstep pass.

Drilling was from full guard, I passed a bunch, swept a bunch. Let a couple of the smaller whitebelts work through the pass properly.

Rolling I was with Ian and Vinny (Vinnie?), Vinny is one of our ammy fighters that usually just does Muay Thai. Last time I rolled with him he triangled me a dozen times. He hasn't trained much on the ground since then though so this time around we stalemated. He's very dynamic and athletic which is fun, makes me keep moving the entire time.

Ian kept trying foot locks but was falling back before he actually locked the grip on which allowed me to repeatedly just pop my foot out. I set up a nice gradual armbar and hit it, and then did a stealth heel hook setup against his combat base and got that one. Mostly we just went back and forth though. He caught me with a wicked Kimura from bottom of halfguard while I was trying to pass. I couldn't shake his hand off and he jumped on it as soon as it got too far for me to defend it with my other hand.

Another good class, but I need to really work on upping my intensity when I'm rolling heading towards Lutador.


Visiting the local Judo school today finally, that's going to be fun!

Saturday, March 5, 2011

BJJ 3/4/2011

Fundamental Class:
I had enough brand new people in the fundamentals class today to start the actual curriculum so we started out by running through the basic positions. Then we I had them drill moving from one position to the next for a while just to get the idea of moving around in their heads.
Next I demonstrated safe position inside guard and I showed them how to posture up. I had them drill posturing up back and forth for a bit, then moved on to showing how to hold side control and the basic side control escape.
Finally we did positional flow rolling.

Main Class:
Some of the new folks stayed for the main class and we had a visiting blue belt named Josh from California in as well. We worked basic guard breaks and passes, standard grip the gi, grip the hip, make an L with the hips, knee through, establish side control. Good to get reps in and I worked with the super turbo spazzy new guy and got him to slow down some and work technique. He has great potential once he slows down.

Rolled with the spazzy guy, steven, and brian. Almost got Brian with a nice chinstrap choke but I couldn't get the leverage quite right. Then he eventually managed to escape a triangle attempt and get to my back for the choke. Rolled with the visiting Blue belt at the end of class and immediately choked him with my single collar hangman variation. Not sure if he just didn't see it coming or what. The rest of the roll was him being unable to get past my guard and me being unable to mount an offense. Towards the end he passed to side and I pushed down for the inverted triangle and time ran out. Fun times!

Bench press is tomorrow. I'm probably going to end up breaking my lifting up into Mon/Tues = Squats/OHP, Thurs = Deadlifts, Saturday = Bench. That should give me a good rhythm with enough rest built in.

On a non jiujitsu related side note, I now have an awesome Tokay Gecko named Vanderwall the Fierce who is currently climbing around on the side of his aquarium. He was the final birthday present from my awesome Jennosaurus. He seems to be stuck to a paper towel, and he does not appreciate it when I spray the side of his aquarium with water...

Thursday, March 3, 2011

3/3/2011 Deadlifts

Deadlift day on 5/3/1.
Warmup sets 5/5/3 with 75/92.5/112.5 then main set with 120/140/157.5. Hit 10 reps with 157.5 which I felt good about.
Then I ate a huge bowl of pasta w/ tunafish in it and drank a bunch of milk. My finger is really stiff from where it got caught in Brian's Gi yesterday, but it didn't interfere.


I decided I should setup a 6 month rotating curriculum for the Fundamentals class. I'm going to work on that tomorrow before class. Current idea is to teach in this order:

Month 1: Positions - moving through them, holding them, transitions
Month 2: Escapes - framing, shrimping, upas, sitouts, combining escapes
Month 3: Guard Passes - posture, grips, guard breaks, various principles of passing
Month 4: Sweeps - grips, breaking balance, using leverage, etc...
Month 5: Basic submissions - Armbar, Triangle, Americana, Kimura, Guillotine, X-Choke, Ezekiel
Month 6: Review

I'll put together something more comprehensive tomorrow.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

3/2/2011 BJJ and Wendler 5/3/1

Just going to hit the highpoints. It's coming up on Lutador time which will be my first tournament this year. I'm starting conditioning before class now, started out slow with some work on the big yoga ball holding KoB, transitioning to side control, and holding mount. Rocked out some stability ball pushups and other random stuff with it. Did some windsprints and running just kicks my ass like nothing else.

Jits warmup was my favorite drill. Upa->Shrimp->Turtle->Sitout->Repeat, then armbars from guard, then fitins for a hipthrow. That led right into our class for the night which was all standup. Various grip hipthrows. I fucking HATE working standup. We have no crash pads, then mats aren't very thick, and we work on it so rarely that only a couple of us know how to control the throws very well. It's always a pain in the ass. It's also one of my weakest points. We did some takedown sparring which I participated in a minimum of and then on to rolling.

I was in a group with Brian, Andrew, and a new guy that has done two classes. Started out with the new guy and he tried to dive onto my head going about 150%. I fought him off and threw some subs at him to see how he reacted a few times and then the round ended. Next up I rolled with Andrew, very chill working from guard, setup the armbar, then worked from the top, passed guard, and held mount, transitioned to tech mount and setup the single collar choke. Switched to the bow and arrow choke when he held out, then to a shin in the back of his neck to finally finish.

We took a break then I rolled with Brian. I was being as squirrely as possible, working to make him work and try setting up subs. Mostly we just stalemated for like 3 minutes.
Then I ditched the gi to go a second round with the new guy. Without the friction from the Gi I went back to my superior No-Gi game and really got into the groove on him. Tossing him around and subbing him every time he tried to super speed rush past my guard. He's in REALLY good shape, so hopefully he'll learn to calm down, pay attention, and work. Hopefully I can get him to come to the fundamentals class and slow him down there.
Last roll was with Brian again and was no-gi. In the middle of a great sequence where I setup a triangle, then he defended, I switched to an armbar, he defended, I switched to the omoplata and he defended, I caught my fingers on his gi pants and bent them back bad enough that I had to tap. We were just getting into the groove, but that was arleady 10 minutes past the end of class.

Came home and did my overhead press work. Finished out the set with 7 reps w/ 80lbs. That's not too bad considering that my left shoulder is still protesting. Chugged a bunch of milk too, hoping to put on some weight and some strength for lutador.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Pickin up Heavy Things Again

I've returned to Wendler 5/3/1 as of today. I ended up taking a 4 month break from it during wedding planning, honeymoon, and then post wedding stuff. Now I'm finally ready to get it started up again.
I reset all of my maxes to well under where they were when I stopped last, so for the purposes of the workout my numbers look like this:
Squat 1RM: 150lbs
OHP 1RM: 100lbs
Deadlift 1RM: 200lbs
Bench Press 1RM: 150lbs

I started out with squats today and finished with 13 reps of 115lbs. If you aren't familiar with 5/3/1 you should check out this article http://theswole.com/swole/531-jim-wendlers-theory-of-strength/ to find out WHY I did 13 reps with 115lbs. It felt really good to be lifting again and I look forward to the 6 month mark when all of my lifts are ~50lbs heavier.