OBMA - Day 5

I ended up at the gym a little before the kids classes started, so I jumped in and did their warmup and drills and then helped coach the kids while they were rolling, and did some gymnastics with them and stuff. We started off our class with armbar defense and escapes and drilled those for a while. Basic stuff, elbow pops, stacking, and the hitchhiker for desperation.

Assertiveness was in full swing while rolling. I was insistent about my sweeps, and continued to hit combinations. My collar drags weren't working quite as well today, but I was switching off to spider guard and hitting sickle sweeps when needed. It actually felt very strange at one point, I realized I had rolled with 4 or 5 blue belts and completely controlled them with almost no effort. I caught myself wondering if that was what I was like as a blue belt.
I rolled with Casey for the first time in a while and for the first time I can remember everything he did wasn't dark magic and sorcery. I could tell what was going on and avoided a lot of things that would have swept me a few months ago. I was able to execute an effective guard pass and avoid a trap that usually gets me immediately swept. All in all I felt a lot of progress tonight.

I also rolled with Johnny and was able to prevent him from passing my guard up until the last 15 seconds of the round, which hasn't been the case in a couple of years. I had to fight hard for it, but it's what I NEED to do, so it was super good for me.

Closed out the night with another points match with Kris, again I could tell he was tired, but that didn't stop me from tomoe nageing him in spectacular fashion and breakdancing on him. He'll recover from this fatigue or whatever in a week or so and be back to being one of the best guard passers in the gym, so I'm getting my licks in now while he's weak and helpless.

This is been the most successful mental project I've done since I started keeping track of my training and I think it's what I needed to finally break through and get my Jiu Jitsu to brown belt level.

OBMA: Day 4

Another solid day for the project. Today was takedowns mostly working from the russian 2 on 1 grip, which I never use, so I spent a lot of the time working with Kris on gi grips, grip breaking, foot sweep combos, and the very non-wrestling standup game we both use.

Started out rolling with Kris and continued to be assertive with my gripping and execution, he felt a bit less intense today than he usually does so I think he might have been backing it down a notch due to the heat and humidity in the gym. I hit a bunch of sweeps to KoB and executed my baseball bat choke. My assertiveness and determination to complete sweeps was leading me to combos that I had worked on before but never really was able to put into practice. I used x-guard or x-guard variation sweeps, the hook sweep, and some others that I am now too tired to remember.
Also rolled with a bigger guy that trained with us before, but was gone for a while. Went immediately to my standard big guy game and omoplata, swept to mount, worked for bow and arrow, then transitioned to his back. Ended up just riding it out on his back and refusing to be shaken off while working for the choke.

Rolled with a new guy that turns out to have a lot of previous wrestling experience. He was preposterously strong, so right off he tried to canopener the hell out of me, then head crushed me. I tapped to the headcrush real quick before my nose could get too smashed, then loop choked him immediately. After the reset I was setting up the loop choke again and he performed a very ballistic sitout that turned it into a kimura, which only didn't wreck my arm because I was lucky and was already going that direction. Rolled through it, and he head crushed me again. Tapped and then pulled him into full guard and x-choked him on the restart.  After that I just held him in guard until the round ended while he tried to canopener me repeatedly.

At that point it got hard to continue my assertiveness due to exhaustion, but I did what I could.

I also have noticed that I am trying to pass the knee shield the same way no matter what size my opponent is. I need to adjust that so that on the stronger guys I back out and work to generate an agility advantage instead of trying to pressure pass through them. I can do that on guys my size, or inexperienced bigger guys, but bigger blue or purple belts it just isn't the appropriate passing method for the situation.

At the end I rolled with Kris again, and as our like 7 minute long round ended, Johnny called for a points match again starting from where we were with me under side control. I spend about 6 minutes playing full on defense unable to muster any kind of offense until I regained guard and at some point accidentally clipped Kris in the face with my knee.

Still it was continued progress mentally and I'm pretty happy with this project so far.

Operation Be More Assertive: Day 3

Due to some transportation issues I missed out on class for over a week, again, which sucked. But I was back last night to keep working. I ran into a few problems this time around, first of all popcorn and a hard cider is probably not the best lunch to prepare one for future athletic endeavors, just for anyone who might be wondering.

Technique for the day was armbar attacks when your opponent attempts to stack or slam out. Heel curls, leg hooks, spin unders, and regular ol' sweep to finish. Good basic fundamental stuff.

Rolling I partnered up first with a newer guy who is apparently a fresh blue belt who has been out of training for a little while. I maintained my assertive mindset and went immediately to the scissor sweep and a strong knee on belly top game and finished with a baseball bat choke. Continued in that vein and completed a few other submissions while refusing to allow sweeps or escapes for the most part. Towards the end of the round he did get a really did situp sweep on me that eventually succeeded, but I was happy with my mindset in that round.

As rounds went on my ability to maintain started to drop as I became more and more exhausted. I maintained my assertiveness through a round with Chris, and one of the other blues, and then rolled with Ian whose top pressure just sapped the energy right out of me this time. Then with Johnny, again enormous top pressure that drained my reserves. I tried to maintain the mindset, but I ended up falling back into unproductive patterns because I felt physically unable to assert control over the roll.

Final roll was against Kris again, this time Johnny was calling points for it so Kris came out like he meant it and I was flat out exhausted. This led to 6 minutes of pure defense on my part hanging in quarter guard, fighting off collar chokes, and barely blocking guard passes until I finally got to deep half guard and executed a sweep, then fought off a berimbolo to close it out.

It's definitely easier to maintain that assertiveness when I have more energy, but I feel sore today as if I did work, which is good, and I give myself a 6/10 for my assertiveness for that class. Next class will be next wednesday and we'll try for 9/10.

Operation Be More Assertive: Day 2

Apparently this is actually Operation Turn Me Into a Badass.

I had more success today with sweeps than I think I've ever had in a single class. I think my success rate was damn near 100%.

Multiple times the sweep was blocked temporarily and I fought through it to completion. I also successfully fought off several reversal attempts that I normally would have allowed. I was more explosive when I needed to be during my escapes and transitions and again I just went in and comboed my scissor sweep and collar drag with no care for what my opponent might be doing. Huge success rate.

I still have things to work on, but this is definitely getting me into the right place mentally.

Also, for the first time in a long time I feel like I really worked out. My arms, my core, my back, and my legs all feel like I went weight lifting. Normally I would think, "Shit I was muscling things too much." But for this project that's GOOD. I was actually using strength when it was needed in order to block my opponents explosiveness.

I need to continue this trend and keep this mindset all the way up to my next competition as well as hitting the weights and working to improve my strength and muscular endurance. The early results of this project are already very heartening though.

Operation Be More Assertive is a Go

In the past I have had what I definitely consider to be 'Lazy' jiujitsu. This has been hurting me in competition, and I've now compiled enough competition footage from the last year to see exactly where the biggest issues are and start to address them. The following is my plan for addressing these issues and making my jiujitsu more assertive and dynamic.

1. Ignore my opponent - I have in the past had a tendency to play defensively and wait for my opponent to make a mistake and then pounce on it. This lead to a very reactive game which frequently was very passive. This hurts you against opponents that don't make many mistakes or don't make mistakes that you know how to capitalize on. I have now begun ignoring my opponent and working to implement what I want to happen. 

2. Don't give up sweeps and don't give up ON sweeps - I previously would begin a sweep, and if my opponent blocked it I would just chill and wait to try something else. Instead I am now continuing to fight for the sweep and push harder to end up on top. I also would frequently allow my opponent to complete a sweep if it was pretty close instead of spending effort blocking it. Now instead I am actively working to block all sweeps no matter what stage they are at. So even if I miss my first opportunity to counter I am continuing to push back and work to stay on top. 

3. Take risks for submissions - Another passive point of my game has been being very relaxed about seeking submissions. I would be content to positionally control someone for 5-6 minutes and threaten a few submissions, but not seriously. Now instead I am aggressively seeking submissions, and a wider range of submissions and combining them. 


I began this project last night and immediately was able to see a difference. I secured more sweeps and submissions than I normally do and was able to do much more to control my opponents and force them to play the game I wanted to play, to my advantage.

Of course, I also managed to force a white belt to waiter sweep me, which was not exactly what I intended, but it was fun. All of my rolls felt more fun and dynamic as well. I feel good about this project and my expected results.