Light Week, Improved Ankle

Skipped class today to take my dogs to the vet to have their sutures removed from being neutered, but I went in yesterday to roll no-gi with the MMA guy who has a fight coming up. His heel hooks are steadily improving, good pressure to immobilize the knee now and he's much more cognizant of when he's vulnerable to heel hooks, so we're making a lot of progress with that.

I worked on tuning up my Omoplata setups and finishes after being unable to finish two last week and was able to sweep with one and finish one. Overall a good roll and a good pace and I still feel like I'm getting better each time. Another month or two and I will feel like I'm better at BJJ that I was at the beginning of the year.

Next week Chris comes back from training with Traven on tues/thurs, so we'll have official no-gi classes on those days and be back in the Gi on Mon/Wed/Fri. I'm going to try to hit 6am Mon, and then 10:30am tues-fri classes starting next week now that I feel like I'm back up to speed.

My ankle improved rapidly from barely being able to walk on it friday afternoon, to barely having any stiffness or pain this morning. I'll wrap it for training tomorrow and probably keep it wrapped next week just to be sure, but I think I can consider it healed.

I'm still not going to be ready to compete at the ATL Open this year, but I do want to try to hit a couple of tournaments before the end of the year. I might try for USG Va Beach... Still trying to figure out budget and schedule for all of that.

What To Do With Downtime

As my regular readers will know I am smack in the middle of a 6 week hiatus from BJJ to heal up and get ready for Mundials training stretch, but I'm not the only one with some downtime. JiuJiu and Meg are both rehabbing injuries as well, and both of theirs are more serious than mine. So what the heck do you do with injury downtime? It's a common question that pops up at Jiujitsu Forums on a regular basis along with the more generic "I Can't train for a week/month/decade how do I keep improving?" questions. So here are a few things you can do to help you avoid backsliding too much during your downtime.

First of all don't neglect your fitness! Just because you can't do jiujitsu doesn't mean you have to turn into a couch potato. I picked up Yoga For Fighters and I've loved it. I also have free weights at home so I'm able to lift weights in ways that don't aggravate my injuries. JiuJiu has a pretty horrible sounding back injury and is still kicking ass and taking names on our Fitocracy (Invite code DACEU) leaderboard by doing an array of bodyweight exercises that aid in her recovery.

Secondly, READ. Pick up some books, Saulo Ribiero's Jiujitsu University is one of the most highly recommended books around and I throw my two cents in on that as well. Buy it, read it, re-read it, put it into practice. Another great book I recommend is Drill to Win by Kevin Howell which will lead you right into my third point.

Third on the list is solo and partner drilling. There are hundreds of great solo drills you can do to build agility and flow even if you can't do anything really strenuous, and even if you can't roll actively in class attending and drilling with a partner can be highly beneficial. Many people find their greatest improvements after periods where they couldn't roll for a while and spent more time drilling. Drilling is a fundamental plank of BJJ that is often overlooked because it's not as much fun as rolling. Forced down time is a good chance to work on that aspect of your training.

Fourth is to clean up your diet! You can always work on improving your diet. I picked up the Samurai Diet on the recommendation of a friend and it's a great book. Switching to Paleo or Primal is always a good idea, but even just reducing your sugar intake and resolving to shop the perimeter of the grocery store (Vegetables, Fruits Meats, and Dairy) instead of the inner aisles (Processed garbage!) will help you in the long run.

Fifth and final is to watch videos. Watch your old competition footage and wince at how awful you were and figure out where and how to fix your mistakes. Watch training DVDs. Watch competition footage from some of the best in the world over at BJJFights.

Staying mentally active with your jiujitsu and physically active any way you can will help you avoid backsliding and losing progress during your downtime. You're still going to lose some progress, but it won't be anywhere near like what would happen if you just sat around eating poptarts and drinking cherry coke for six weeks.

Recovery Update

Injury Recovery progress is going great!

Elbows: Feeling great! No problems deadlifting 250 for multiple sets. No pain at all.

Right foot: 99% pain free, occasional ache if weight hits it JUST wrong.

Right shoulder: Great progress! The shoulder has been fine for awhile except for some tingling and weakness in it. I was actually unable to press more than 50lbs a few days ago because of it. Today I popped my neck while stretching it and suddenly the tingling and weakness was gone. So I hopped over to my weights and put 80lbs up with barely any trouble. So I believe that's completely fixed now. Going to give it a couple of days to complete its recovery.

Lower Back: Is feeling great! More flexibility than I've had in a long time thanks to Yoga for Fighters

Left Knee: Aches randomly, but no real pain. Seems to be improving with the Yoga and it always aches less when I'm doing regular lifting.

Left Thumb: Still hurts randomly if I bump it wrong on things, but no stiffness and seems good.

So I think all of my injuries are healing very nicely, I'm re-acquiring my flexibility via Y4F which I am very fond of, and I'm getting stronger. When I return to the gym in January I should be ready to kick ass and take names.

Downtime Progress

So I've been on break for a week. No weight lifting, no Jiujitsu.

In line with item #6 from my previously posted list I've rewatched all of my competition videos from the last five years.
My most successful submissions are:
1. Triangle Choke
2. Armbar
3. Omoplata
4. Loop Choke

My most successful sweeps are:
1. Scissor Sweep
2. Omoplata Sweep
3. Situp Sweep

My new Game now looks like this:

Submissions From the Bottom:
Triangle
Armbar
Omoplata
Loop Choke

Submissions from the top:
Baseball Bat Choke
Loop Choke
Armbar
Triangle

Sweeps:
Scissor Sweep
Omo Sweep
Flower Sweep

Passes:
Teleport Pass
Double Underhook Pass
Toreador Pass

Halfguard:
Concentrate on the Reguard.
Caio Sweep
Old School
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That's a total of 12 techniques.

After my return I'm going to start drilling each technique in isolation 10 times per day minimum.

Combos based on the above twelve techniques:
1. Scissor Sweep -> Triangle -> Armbar -> Omoplata
2. Scissor Sweep -> Loop Choke -> Armbar
3. Omo Sweep -> Mounted Triangle -> Armbar
4. Flower Sweep -> Armbar ->  Triangle

Infinite Combo for Drilling
Scissor Sweep -> Triangle(bottom) -> Armbar(bottom) -> Omoplata(bottom) -> Omo Sweep -> Triangle(top) -> Armbar(top) -> Triangle from the back -> Triangle(Bottom) -> Flower Sweep ->  Knee on Belly -> Baseball Bat choke(top) -> Armbar(top) -> Loop Choke

Everything feeds together very nicely, so this is what I'll be drilling and what I'll be looking to implement.when rolling.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Recovery is going nicely, my shoulder feels better but I'm not ready to lift with it yet. My knee has been bothering me a little still, but also improving. My foot is still sore, but improving. Everything else seems solid. I will probably resume weight lifting after Thanksgiving.