BJJ 1/19/2011

We had two completely new people and a couple of guys who have only had a few classes tonight which is awesome because I love seeing the school grow. I'm hoping they all stick with it. I'm also hoping they will show up to the beginner class on Friday.

We started out the class drilling armbars from guard, and triangles, then moved to some more fun De La Riva guard stuff. I'm trying to use DLR a little more when rolling because it transitions pretty well with X-Guard and Spider guard, so I'm liking the current DLR kick.
First technique was swinging to the back, establishing essentially butterfly guard from the back and then kicking the legs out.
Second technique was a technical stand to single leg.
I also spent some time practicing the basic DLR sweep.

Drilled with the lighter guys and swept them all a bunch, passed guard, etc... Tried to let them work the stuff from the class but most of them just froze up when I didn't immediately smash them. I let one guy start one of the sweeps, but when he stopped like 3/4 of the way through I rolled to a kneebar on him, another guy I let get to the single leg, but then he just stood there too long, so I rolled him.
Both of those guys need to be in the beginner class more where they can learn to think while they are rolling, they'll have an easier time of executing stuff in the main class that way.

Rolling was a 4 man group with 3 of the new guys. Spent most of the time letting them work a bit, then sweeping and choking them. One of them is a former wrestler, so he tended to give up his back and do other wrestlery things, once he adjusts to the differences he should be a pretty solid training partner though.

Fundamentals Class 1/16/2011

The first No-Gi fundamentals class had Casey's daughter Katie as well as my buddy Will and Ian back again. I wanted to talk about the difference between gi and no-gi grips and how you use the different grips for control. I started out with the Overhook grip and showed how to get to the Overhook by swimming when someone is posting on your hips and how to hook the back of the head. Also showed the tricep and collar tie grips to replace the sleeve and collar control in Gi. The bulk of the lesson was in how to use the Overhook and the back of the head grip to break your opponent down and hold them, then how to attack from that position. Again this is something that I'll be revisiting frequently because it's something that never gets explicitly addressed in the main class even though the grips are mentioned. I also went over mount escapes and holding mount with the feet on hips "Monkey Mount" position and talked about what to do when someone is strong enough to just lift you off of them from there. After that we practicing spinning when someone lifts you so that their arms cross and you come back down in side control. Then did some work with each other practicing the escapes.

Finally I introduced the concept of flow-rolling. We'll be revisiting that frequently as well since I want people to be able to roll by thinking and looking instead of just seeing who can throw their techniques the hardest and fastest. Flow rolling is all about just doing the correct next move. It's not about making it work by speed and strength, but by thinking it and implementing it. So when you are flow rolling you let your opponent succeed if they attempt the correct move and you flow to something else. It's about honing your ability to think while rolling just like the more intense rolling is about honing your ability to apply the technique against someone who is physically resisting you.

I skipped out after that because my wife had to study for an upcoming nursing test and needed some help.

Fundamentals Class 1/14/2011

So this was my very first "Fundamentals" class at Megalodon. My goal is to help our guys shore up the gaps between knowing a technique and being able to implement it as well as give new people a better foundation from which to learn the techniques in the main class. It's just so much easier to learn a new armbar variation when you don't have to stop every rep to figure which way your hips are supposed to move and that kind of thing. With that in mind I'm starting with escapes and moving from there.

I only had 4 people show up for this first one, my friend Will, one of our blue belts Ian, and Ian's two kids that train with us sometimes. I started out by showing them a mount escape that we don't go over very often in class called the Hydraulic. It works by bracing your hands on your opponents hips, then upa and stiffarm your opponent above you. You can then dump them to the side, go out the back, or pull your knees up and go to butterfly guard. It rarely works that way in actual rolling though, which was my point about escapes today. I wanted everyone to get used to their escape attempt failing, or not working 100% the way it does in practice.

I then introduced the idea of framing as a discrete concept. The idea has always been there in a lot of techniques that Casey shows, but most of our guys have never had a class where framing is specifically addressed. I explained how to setup your frame from the bottom of mount and how to use a combination of framing, the hydraulic, the upa, and the knee and elbow escape to generate a mount escape against a resisting opponent. I talked about not giving up progress and staying off of your back and we practiced a lot of escaping mount. This is something that I'll be revisiting multiple times over the next month.

After that Ian asked about guard retention and since we only had a few people there I showed the Damien Maia guard retention tips about keeping parallel and pushing the head down on the same side as your opponents body as they pass. We played with that a little and then the regular class started.

We worked on De La Riva guard sweeps. The first involved blocking the leg and isolating the far arm to trip them over your leg. The second was for when the strip the grip off of the far arm so you situp, pass the arm under the leg, and stand up to dump them over. The third was, again, the farm arm grip gets stripped, so you put your foot in their side, stretch them out, and then transfer their leg all the way over their arm until you are in a kind of butterfly guard from the back, then grab their belt or gi and kick their legs out while you pull. Very slick way to take the back when it works.

Positional sparring from feet on hips spider guard. I swept a bunch of people mostly. It's all kind of a blur.

Rolling was with super tall guy and Will. I had my intensity dialed up a little for some reason and kept tossing Will around and then taking his back in scrambles. I think it's just my focus on my upcoming Gong Sau causing me to go a little harder than normal. Fun times, fun class.

BJJ 1/12/2011

Fun times, left work a little early to pick my wife up from our house and it ended up taking almost 3 hours to get out there and back due to detours and stupid drivers. Still, I made it to class on time.

Warmed up with some armbars, triangles, and situp sweeps from guard. Good technique heavy warmup just the way I like them. Technique today was a really really slick sweep/X-guard transition that I immediately liked.
The setup is your opponent in combat base, you are sitting back with the same side knee up. Put your foot on the inside of your opponents foot and then overhook their knee so that it crosses in front of your shin and locks their leg in place. Next you roll to the side and lift your leg, dumping your opponent sideways and forcing them to post on their hand. If you can reach their leg you can then come up to your knees and just push them over to side control. If not you can grab their posting hand using the marcello grip, feed your bottom leg through and scissor sweep. If neither of those seems to be working you can easily move under them and switch to X-guard to work from there.

We worked a variation where they get their weight down before you can lift the leg, so you wrap the lapel around their knee, feed it deep, and stand up. You lift the leg, ankle pick, and drive to side control.

Drilling we started in the combat base position with one person already starting with the overhook on the knee. I found that the best way to defend was to overhook their arm and grip the far lapel, then drive my weight down and to the back and sprawl. Me and Antony had some seriously acrobatic rolls using this sweep and several different counter attempts. I'm a fan of it for sure considering how hard it is to get people into my guard now. Most of them are willing to sit in combat base and work though, so playing angry koala on the leg should give me more options now and it fits in nicely with my X-guard push.

Sparring I rolled w/ JC, Katie, Antony, and a few easy rolls w/ Johnny since he's getting ready for a smoker. JC and Katie I try to let work most of the time. Antony is always a blast to roll with and this was no exception save for when I took an unintentional headbutt to the bridge of the nose. It bruised up a little, but no blood. Should be all healed up within a few days. Johnny is just like grappling a dumptruck. Takes everything I've got just to play static defense. Fun times though!

My first Beginners Class is tomorrow at 6pm. The current plan is to warm up with shrimping, situp sweeps and knee to elbow escapes, and some hip movement drills. Then work on how to move when escaping from mount and side control. A very movement heavy class trying to get people to coordinate their whole bodies together when they are working on things.

BJJ and Self Defense

I participate in a couple of web forums, Bullshido.net, Jiujitsuforums.com, and some random smaller ones. About once every two weeks someone comes on posting about how impractical BJJ is for self defense. The discussion invariably devolves into accusations that anyone who trains BJJ will automatically jump guard no matter what the circumstances. Since I'm feeling philosophical today I thought I would address that issue here so that I have it as a handy reference for later.

First argument: Jumping Guard On The Street
For some reason people watch BJJ matches between equally skilled opponents and think that because BJJ players are willing to jump guard in a tournament setting that they have no other options. The strict truth of the matter is that as a BJJ Blue belt 99.99% of people I meet have exactly ZERO defense against me taking them down. I have absolutely no reason to voluntarily pull guard against anyone in a confrontation. My takedowns aren't as good as a four year wrestler, or a four year judoka, but they are infinitely better than the takedown defense of almost everyone. So no, I will not be pulling guard on the street. I will be getting a bodylock and throwing you on your head, as will most BJJ people. And frankly, if a BJJ black belt wanted to he could pull guard in a street fight and crush pretty much anyone who is NOT a BJJ black belt or extremely high level wrestler without worrying about. It would still be a bad plan, but it's certainly doable at a very high level. Of course at that level your takedowns are even better, so once again you are likely to get spiked on your head instead.

Second Argument: Multiple Attackers
It has been stated many times that being on the ground against multiple attackers is a horrible idea and that BJJ has no way to deal with multiple attackers. The flawed thought process behind this argument is actually kind of mind bending. First of all, no Martial Art is going to allow you to effectively fend off half a dozen guys attacking you at once. If you are sufficiently skilled and have a good athleticism advantage you could probably take on two guys and win. If you're Cain Velasquez taking on untrained featherweights you can probably handle 4 or 5. But the mob is gonna bring you down one way or another no matter what. Krav Maga, Wing Chun, Muay thai, Judo, Boxing, BJJ, Wrestling, none of them will stop 6 guys from kicking your teeth in reliably. However, BJJ WILL help you avoid being held down, grabbed, tackled, etc... The ability to sweep and stand up if you get tackled is invaluable and the only way to truly learn it is to practice it against skilled, resisting people the way you do in a BJJ, Wrestling, or Judo class. So BJJ is AS good against multiple attackers as anything else. Of course, this entire argument is based on you being a MORON and going places by yourself where you are likely to end up in fights. I dunno about most people, but when I go downtown to party I usually have five or six friends with me, and most of my friends are trained.

Third Argument: Weapons
Going to the ground against a guy with a knife/gun/nunchuks/nuclear arsenal/etc is a terrible idea. That's absolutely true. That's why it's good to know how not to get tackled and pinned down by a guy with a knife. Knowing how to control someones limbs translates pretty well into defending against weapon assaults, but it's ALWAYS a terrible idea to get involved in a fight against someone with a weapon. Again, no martial art is going to help you against a guy with a gun if you don't have one. Nothing is going to reliably allow you to defend against a knife attack unarmed. BJJ is AS GOOD as anything else for weapon defense, which is to say, terrible. Of course, if you're a BJJ guy armed with a knife it's just that much easier to hold someone still while you stab them...

Really the entire argument is fallacious. The people making the argument are always proponents of some other martial arts system which they claim does the job better than BJJ, however those systems are things like Wing Chun and Systema which are unable to reliably handle a single unarmed opponent, much less two guys with knives. Which brings me to the most important counter argument against the "Deadly" systems. Because some practitioner of one of the arts mentioned here will tell me that their art is too dangerous to use in the ring I'm going to discuss the Force Continuum.

The Force Continuum
BJJ is an EXCELLENT art for self defense. It teaches you to control your opponent, maintain a dominant position, and apply an appropriate level of force ranging from passive restraint all the way up to a fatal choke.
If your drunken cousin starts a scene with his girlfriend at your sisters wedding is it REALLY appropriate to kick him in the nuts and gouge out his eyes? If your 6 year old is throwing a tantrum is the best solution an elbow to the spine? If you said YES! Then you're a psychopath. The answer is NO. Those are not appropriate reactions. But many arts would have you believe that they have no tools beyond those deadly strikes. They have no ability to restrain an opponent that doesn't result in crippling or fatal injury.

With BJJ you can choose to act anywhere along the force continuum. If I need to hold down a hysterical 6 year old I can do so without injuring or even hurting him. If I need to escort my ranting cousin out of the wedding I can do it without putting him in the hospital. But if some guy starts trying to cave my face in I can break his arm or choke him unconcious. Bottom line, BJJ and Judo are both ideal for self defense. The best solution for self defense though is BJJ, Judo or Wrestling and Boxing, Muay Thai, or another solid COMPETITION striking art like Kyokushin, combined with conflict de-escalation and avoidance training and a little common sense.


But most importantly, follow the cardinal rules of not getting your ass kicked:
1. Don't go places where you might get your ass kicked.
2. If you violate rule 1, don't go alone.
3. If you violate rule 1 and 2, don't get drunk.
4. If you violate rules 1-3 then there's a good chance you'll get your ass kicked.

The hard fact is that most people will never ever be in a life or death encounter where eye gouging or trachea crushing is the correct response. Your cousin larry gets drunk and starts hitting on the brides mom at your brothers wedding? EYEGOUGEGROINKICK! Is not the appropriate solution.

There, now I can just link this post in the next retarded BJJ Self defense argument.

No-Gi BJJ 1/9/2011

Was back at my first no-gi class since early december and it felt a little strange, but the break must have reset something in my brain because my normal no-gi game was back. Overhook to triangle to armbar to various other stuff.

Technique was halfguard passing while defending against a kimura attempt from the bottom, then countering the kimura attempt with a spinning armbar. So that effectively kills my ambush kimura game that I've been using. Not that I'll stop until people start regularly hitting the armbar on me, but I'm definitely going to have to be more wary now that everyone has been shown the counter.

Worked with the light guys for positional drilling, mostly swept folks, but Antony was back and once again surprised me by standing up to escape in a spot where I just DID NOT expect it. I love working with him.

We had one of the guys from the UGA club come sign up to train with us, super tall guy that has Muay Thai experience, had a hilarious moment where I thought I was sweeping him and suddenly one of his arms came out of no-where to brace him and he slapped on a guillotine. I'll really have to watch out for those with him. He tried it twice more but I was prepared for them and blocked it handily.

We have another new guy in the class that is close to his height, but with less experience. It's good to have some more new blood.

Ugh, playin defense

Showed up a few minutes late today and missed most of the warmup. Technique was halfguard stuff.
Halfguard to a kimura setup that worked by pushing out to long range half, getting the kimura grip, then sitting out to full guard to finish.
Next up was the same shrimp to LRH, go for the kimura, but your opponent pulls the arm out, so you scoop under their leg and go for X-guard, but end up in failed x-guard. With both knees in front and your top foot behind your opponents thigh, lift with that top foot and scissor the legs as you pull the far arm towards you to execute the sweep, then either backstep pass to side control or transition to the kneebar.

Pairing up for drilling I was with the lightweight side of the room, starting from halfguard to sweep or submit from the bottom. I played fairly relaxed and let folks work and then eventually swept them or passed for the most part. There was a new guy there so I let him work out and escape the first time, then squished him and passed the second time. He seemed to be having fun. I showed him my go-to halfguard sweep.

After that rolling with Ian and Brian. Ugh, rolling with them is WORK. Brian is only 170, maybe 180 on a fat day, but he has really long limbs and really good base and is extremely athletic. He's been doing Muay Thai for years and has several ammy fights already. He's ready for his blue belt skill wise, but his technique library is a little light since he mostly just does a handful of things extremely well. Ian is a 200lb blue belt that is also extremely strong and athletic. So I spent most of my time playing super defense and looking for any small opening. I managed to trick Ian into a sort of overhead sweep variation, but couldn't lock down mount and he managed to toss me back and end up back in my guard. Ended up close to an rather unorthodox armlock from bottom of north south turtle. Almost got it, but Brian is just too strong for any shenanigans like that to work. He's also picked up the single collar choke that I keep using and is now going for it all over the place. I'll probably grab him next week some time and show him some tips for finishing it. He also can openered me twice, once from my guard so I just dropped guard and switched to feet on hips, but the second was from inside my triangle choke. I usually base my forehead on my knee to prevent this, but I slipped to the side and actually slapped him in the eye tapping because of the pressure on my neck.
I spent a LOT of time just using feet on hips and sleeve grips to keep them both at bay. Definitely not as much pure fun as rolling with the guys my size, but valuable for sure.

BJJ 1/5/11 First class of the new year!

Back to Jits for the first time since... Dec 17th I think. I was sure I was going to be completely exhausted after five minutes of rolling, so I grabbed Justin and did a quick warmup roll. Yes. I was completely exhausted after 5 minutes. Then class started and we worked on guillotines with modified grips. Worked on the Marcelo grip which is palm to palm with the choking palm facing your body and the supporting palm facing your opponent and your elbow resting on their shoulder. This means when they posture into it, or drive forward to defend it actually chokes them more. Not a fan of that grip from standing, but from halfguard I loved it.

Worked from closed guard after that for a while and I ended up singing Paranaue while rolling and tossing everyone around with ease. Paired up with Kris and Justin to roll live. You may remember Kris as the white belt that caught me in a Triangle choke right before I took my break. He made the mistake of posting about it on facebook, leading me to promote him out of the "Let the noobs work on stuff" category and into the "NO FREEBIES FOR YOU" category. With that in mind I spent most of the time breakdancing on him. In the interest of fairness I played mostly the same way with Justin. Justin has about an 80lb weight advantage on me though, so it's a good deal harder to toss him around. Still, felt good flow the entire time and didn't get tired at all. I felt MORE energetic by the end of class than I had when I started.

A great first class back! Now I gotta get with Casey about teaching beginners classes and stuff.

Purple Belt Roadmap

I believe I've mentioned before that Alliance has fairly specific testing criteria for belt ranks, which you can check out here, so I'm looking to distill the general requirements down into specifics for my game so that I have a nice detailed list of stuff to practice. My goal is to have a short video of me performing each technique uploaded and linked from this post so that I have a nice specific idea of WTF I'm doing.

Throws and Takedowns
One leg throw:
1.Ashi Guruma

Four hip throws:
1.Hip Throw w/ Underhook
2.Hip Throw w/ Head control
3.Ippon Seio Nage
4.Whizzer throw

Two double legs:
1.Double w/ turn the corner
2.Double w/ sweep the leg

Two single leg:
1.Single w/ turn the corner
2.Single w/ sweep the leg

Self-Defense
Two ways to defend the guillotine standing up:
1.Side step to suplex
2.Turnout to duckunder

Two ways to defend the headlock standing:
1.Sitback takedown
2.T-bone suplex (May not be legit)
3.Body Lock takedown

One way to defend the headlock on the ground:
1.Running man sweep

One way to defend the guillotine on the ground:
1.Stack defense

Passing the Guard
Five different ways to pass the guard and get side control
1. Toreador Pass
2. Double Underhook Pass
3. Basic Knee Through Pass
4. Hug and Climb Pass
5. Log Splitter Knee Through Pass

Half-Guard
Two sweeps from the half-guard:
1.Overhook Upa
2.Oldschool

Two half-guard passes:
1.Backstep Pass
2.Foot on Thigh Pass

Sweeps from the Guard
Five different ways to sweep your opponent:
1. Butterfly Sweep
2. Half Butterfly Elevator Sweep
3. Giftwrap sweep
4. Single collar sweep
5. Situp Sweep
6. Scissor Sweep (Just in case one of the others doesn't count)


Escapes
Two ways to escape the mount:
1.Bridge and Roll (Upa escape)
2.Knee-to-Elbow escape

One way to escape the side-mount:
1.Far side underhook escape

One way to escape the rear-mount:
1.Isolate the arm, turn into guard.

One way to escape the knee-on-belly:
1.Nearside arm grips the foot, bridge, push to halfguard.

Submissions
Five from the mount:
1. Armbar
2. Americana
3. Mounted Triangle
4. Ezekiel
5. Single Collar Choke

Two double attacks:
1. Triangle/Armbar
2. Kimura/Armbar

Three from the side-mount
1. Americana
2. Kimura
3. Single Collar choke

Two from the back
1. RNC
2. Armbar

Two from knee in the belly
1. Farside Armbar
2. Nearside Armbar

Five from the guard
1. Triangle
2. Armbar
3. Omoplata
4. X-Choke
5. Kimura

2011 BJJ Resolutions

So after successfully managing to get married and spending an awesome 10 days in Gatlinburg I'm ready to get back to work and jits. This being New Years Eve it's time to lay out my resolutions for the new year. My BJJ related resolutions are as follows:

1. Purple Belt: I want it. I think I'm close enough that a really dedicated 6-8 months will put me in position to get it by October/November.

2. X-Guard: I want to make this a more central part of my game.

3. Get my weightlifting back on track and push my PL total up to 900lbs.

Along the way I'd like to pick up some gold medals at NAGA or Lutador, and possibly some of the US Grappling comps.

BJJ Private w/ Zapruder

So the guy doing the ceremony for my wedding is Bullshido member Zapruder who also happens to be a Brown Belt. He's in town for the wedding and staying at my place, so last night we pulled out my mats and he gave me a short private with some really handy stuff in it. I'm going to try to get it down here before I forget it.

1. Gable Grip chokes: There are 3-4 really solid variations of the Darce/Anaconda and RNC that using a gable grip instead of the more traditional grip. The principal behind them all is generally the same, to change the pinch point of the choke from the crook of your elbow to the crook where your hands meet. It's important to squeeze your elbows towards each other to finish the choke and it seems to require a little more strength on the squeeze, but more than makes up for that by being stupidly hard to defend.

2. Halfguard pass counter: The most common halfguard pass I run into is the one where your opponent bases out and turns his back on you. Apparently to counter that all you need is good timing and a backwards roll. This will require more of a shift in my focus when on the bottom of halfguard than anything else since I'm usually trying to ball up and go for old school or deep halfguard.

3. Spinning upside down triangle choke setup... thingy: So when my opponent is passing my Z-guard with their arm through my legs to block them, if I spin upside down under them it catapults me around straight into a triangle choke. It's totally pimp and I definitely need to work it since it combos well with my z-guard stuff.

4. The Saddle: My directionality was wrong. I kept getting off to the side and using my free leg to disrupt balance. What I need to do is get directly squared up so that my knee is pointed straight up the center of my opponents body and use my hips to disrupt balance.

5. Kimura/Footlock gripping: By torquing my wrists down sort of like doing wrist curls it adds an entire other dimension of pressure on the submission and allows for better/stronger finishes. In order to improve my ability to do this I need to start doing some wrist curls or something just to help strengthen my wrists further.

6. Guard retention: This was one of those things that when I saw it I just went "DOH! Why haven't I been doing that?" I normally block guard passes with my bottom foot by putting it on my opponents hip. He steps the top foot over between and then feeds the bottom foot back through. Definitely something I like and need to work on.

While we were rolling I did manage to catch him with the overhead sweep that's been working on everyone, that was awesome. He let me pass his guard a bunch and work on trying to sub him. Of course, arms like steel cable and a grip like a vise so I couldn't free anything up to actually come close to a sub, but it was fun to work against someone else who is my height with that degree of skill. He only outweighs me by about 20lbs, so I really got to see the higher level technical side from someone very much my size and build.

Tonight he's coming along to Megalodon to do a leglock class for everyone so I'll get to see him work against our bigger purple belts and blues to see how he handles them as well.

UGA Grappling Club 12/9

The final session of the Grappling club for the semester. Ankhor wanted to work on finishing triangles, so we went over how to turn the corner, the various things you can grab onto to help turn the corner and keep your opponent down, and how to complete the sweep to mount if your opponent is defending well.

After that we just had a good time rolling. I played with a bunch of people and generally tried to work positionally and maintain my flow. I really feel like I need to go back and work on sweeps more. My attempt to concentrate on situp sweeps is helping some, but because people flat RUN from my closed guard it doesn't help as much as I'd like. I've been comboing it with the gift-wrap sweep, some half butterfly/elevator sweeps, and the kimura/kimura sweep, as well as the scissor sweep, but I feel like I need to sit down and just work through that group of sweeps a few dozen times and feel each one out a little more. I don't think I'm using them as efficiently as I should be.

Had a great flow roll with Antony at the end, just relaxed and flowing through positions. At one point I ended up with a triangle on him and he chose to try to defend by sitting down and trying to put his feet in my armpits, so I ended up finishing the most relaxed triangle ever, with my hands behind my head, just chillin, because that escape doesn't work all that well.
Sometime during the roll he snagged a Kimura on me and I ended up in halfguard trying to roll out and he ended up finishing me with one of the weirder kimura positions I've ended up in where I was half upside down with one leg trapped. Very fun roll and the kind I think I'm going to ask him to do more of with me since normally he doesn't like rolling with me that much because we roll together a TON and know each others tricks too well.

No more grappling club until... January some time I think. I'm looking forward to it.

JiuJitsu 12/8

We worked on some more omoplata stuff, unfortunately I barely remember the details at the moment. I remember it was a Triangle choke to Omoplata combo, but not much else. AH! Suddenly remembered. We were doing Z-Guard to Triangle Choke to Omoplata.

We rolled from Z-Guard and I did... stuff... the whole thing is a hair fuzzy. Once we started rolling from neutral I was in a group with Ian, the big ex-wrestler guy, and Will. Ian was ready for most of my shenanigans this time and I think I only managed to get on top once. He wasn't standing up in my guard this time, so no monkey flips. I can feel how much he works to avoid using all of his strength against me, but sometimes I think he goes a little overboard on it and could combine technique and strength a little more. His technique has been getting cleaner since he started working on using less strength though, so as long as it's helping him I don't mind if he's holding back a little more than absolutely necessary.
Big wrestler guy has stupidly good base, I finally swept him and choked him with my single collar choke.
Will also has excellent base and it took me a while to get that single collar grip on him as well and get the sweep. He held out until the bitter end though and since I only had my finger tips in the grip he was able to resist it until time ran out.
We did a couple of back and forth rounds within that group and nothing particularly notable happened.
Afterwards I grabbed Kris to roll since he's one of the lighter guys and learned that I can no longer bait the triangle against him in order to work on crazy passes. Tried to pull off a sort of spinning "hurricane" guard pass and wasn't able to get my hips around before he locked in the triangle. He didn't have it exactly perfect, but he's got some insane squeeze strength and was able to finish it eventually. That moves him from the category of "experiment with whatever stupid shit you want" into "Work your A game".

An excellent class though. I'm slowly starting to form some kind of concept in the back of my brain that I can't quite describe yet relating to my opponents pressure and how I would like to feel when I'm on the bottom. I think there's something useful brewing back there, but I don't know what it is yet. For the moment I've plateaued and am just putting in reps until the next breakthrough.

Gameplan Update for Dec 2010

As the end of the year draws nigh I find myself looking back at how my game has developed over the last 12 months. My first year as a blue belt drew to a close last month and feel that I've developed very well over that time. I've gone from what was, in reality, a game based on around hail-mary triangle chokes and lucky sweeps to one that has a myriad of paths to top control and a wide variety of submissions from each position to attack with. I feel like my Gi control is still lacking though. I'm not much for tying people up with the gi and I probably should be doing more of that. Anyways, aside from that I feel like it's time to lay out my Game as it stands right now.

Destinations: Kimura (Gi and No-Gi), Single Collar Choke (Gi), Triangle Choke (No-Gi)

Kimura - This is really my catchall now. I go work on settings this grip up from wherever I can get it and I've used it sweep, finish, and combo with other attacks like the Omoplata. I prefer to go for it from the top in either Technical Mount or headmount.

Single Collar choke - This choke is still about the only Gi specific submission that I use. However I use a half dozen or so variations of it. If at any point I can get this grip I can at the very least sweep and usually finish from whatever position I'm in. I also use it against the super large guys in order to get top position since hooking it and rolling under them always lands me on top.

Triangle Choke - This is still my bread and butter in No-Gi. I hit it from pretty much wherever I want and finish it most of the time, even when my knee is stacked all the way to my forehead. I'm still working on tuning it in Gi though. The additional grips and friction give me a lot more trouble locking it in and finishing it there than in No-Gi. I'm far more likely to combo off to the armbar in Gi. One of my next goals is to combo it with the single collar choke from above since I'm pretty sure I can make that work.


Roadmap:

Takedowns - I'm all about pulling guard. I have a couple of decent throws, but it's so difficult to get people to engage that I generally end up just pulling guard to get things moving. I suppose I should be more aggressive looking for a takedown to a dominant position, but I'm going to have to get someone to drill with me more next year if I want to REALLY improve my takedowns. My primary guard pulling method is to get a collar and a sleeve grip and then attempt a suicide throw, if it works I end up in mount. If it fails I have guard with a decent set of grips.

Sweeps - I like to get the sleeve grip, try a scissor sweep, then if they manage to block it or post to quickly roll to the other side and push the arm across while pulling down on the collar and hipping out to the side. That gets me halfway to their back and usually gives me the single collar grip, the giftwrap grip, or their back depending on how they react. If that fails I generally move to an elevator sweep with a single butterfly hook. If that fails as well I fall back to spider guard -> leg hook -> bicep slicer sweep. I've become less enamored of that sweep recently since all of the guys in the gym know it and immediately posture up really hard against it, however I'm continuing to work it to look for things to chain together with it when they posture up like that. If that one fails is generally time to regain guard and start over again and throw a flower sweep and some triangle attempts into the mix.

Top Game - I've gone from feeling completely bewildered with KoB to using it as my primary attack vector. I like to get to Knee on Belly, then fish for an arm and transition to headmount and work the Kimura, or slide over to mount and then switch to technical mount and work for that same grip. At the same time I'm always looking for my single collar choke grip and the armbar as well as an opportunity to setup a triangle choke on guys my weight. Against anyone bigger than I am I don't give up top position voluntarily and will continue to transition on top until something opens up.


I've spent the last couple of months working on sharpening up my situp sweeps and found that in No-Gi I can fire them off without a problem, but in Gi I tend to be pinned to the ground more often and more effectively and have to rely on my legs to break the stalemate. I'm not able to situp as often in a manner that lets me attempt the sweep. My armbar transitions and combos have improved greatly though and my combinations in general are far above what they were a year ago. My top control, base, and pressure have developed well also.

I think my focus is going to be more and more on combining techniques with the goal of the third technique in the chain succeeding. Hopefully by the time I have a series
of solid, working combinations I'll be up for my Purple Belt and ready to move on to figuring out what to do with the rest of my game. I definitely know enough techniques to have something effective from pretty much any position. I need to sharpen up my footlocks a bit, and work on developing more combinations and better flow. If I can really pour myself into that starting in January then I should have no trouble earning my purple by the end of next year.

JiuJitsu 12/3

Friday night class at Megalodon we worked on Omoplata variations which included a couple of different methods of finishing the Omo which I have every intention of working in to my normal omoplata game.
Two of them involved being perpendicular to your opponent instead of parallel. To finish you extend your legs and hook their arm at the tricep, or even just extend across the neck, and slide your hips back to put pressure on the shoulder. Worked quite well.
The third was a counter for when they try to roll, it's a relatively LATE roll that you are countering though, so I don't get a chance to use it very often since most people try to roll on me WAY early in the omo. To counter you roll forward with them while maintaining your grips and end up in a sort of crucifix position, then scoot your hips out away from them to finish.

We drilled from closed guard and I opted for the "Large" side of the room with a couple of 200lb blue belts and a ~250lb ex-wrestler, and one of our 220lb 1 year white belts.
Within that group my buddy Johnny is the most insane to roll with. He's huge, strong, fast, and skilled. If I do anything except just try to hold him in my closed guard he blasts right through it and subs me. So of course I threw everything but the kitchen sink at him. Every time I do that I get a little closer to finding something that will slow him down. The other big blue belt doesn't have the same kind of wrestling base, so despite being super strong and athletic I have a much easier time of controlling him and can fairly reliably sweep him and occasionally secure the submission. I found today that when he stands up in my guard his hips fairly reliably end up in position for the overhead sweeps that we worked on a couple of weeks ago. I hit him with it twice and it was a thing of beauty.
The 1 year white belt caught me napping when I tried to just waltz through his guard and I had to defend a triangle choke for about 45 seconds. He actually would have had me if he had kept the lock he had at the beginning which was in front of my shoulder and really tight, but he adjusted his legs and gave me space to defend, so I rode it out.
Gigantic wrestler guy took me a while to figure out, he has good top pressure, but doesn't protect his neck enough, so once I determined that it wouldn't get me crushed underneath him I grabbed the single collar and spun under for the sweep. He seemed surprised that he couldn't fling me off of him since he had just hurled the 220lb white belt around like a small child. Picked up a Kimura on him, and one of my kickover armbars. Fun times and it was nice to work against the big guys again.

I may have a more philosophical post a little later today about gameplan construction.

UGA Grappling Club 12/2

As my wedding approaches the days are starting to blur together. It's hard for me to remember what days I have class and what days I don't.

We had about 17 people show up for the club this time around, including three new ones. I started out with a quick review of the two basic mount escapes, the Upa escape and the knee-to-elbow escape. Then I paired them off and had them work the escapes back and forth starting with very little resistance and working up to full resistance, with an emphasis on combining the two escapes. After about thirty minutes of that I set up 5 "rings" and started king of the hill with mount escapes. One partner starting in mount and having to submit, the other person just having to escape or regain guard. I made sure to emphasize that the TOP person actually has the harder victory condition in this one, it being much more difficult to submit someone that it is to just regain guard most of the time.

I rotated in a few times for fun, then we did half an hour of rolling. One of the new guys has a couple of years of Judo/BJJ from Middle Georgia Judo and wanted to roll with leglocks in play. He went for an early heel hook but didn't even come close to having a grip on it. I threw on the saddle and heel hooked him, then heel hooked him again when he tried to pass my guard standing, then knee slicered him when he put on the body triangle while I was in his guard.

After that I played with some of the other guys, one big athletic guy just absolutely blew my grip while I was trying to control him. The most trauma I've felt in my hands in a while, even worse than when I'm playing spider guard all night.

Continuing my situp sweep work I started just diving for the kimura from guard, then when my opponent tucks his arm, I finish the situp sweep. Worked extremely well and I intend to employ it further in the future.

It was a good class and almost everyone is making decent progress. I'm still encouraging them to come join Megalodon if they are serious about jits though.

Jiujitsu 11/28

No-Gi tonight. A lot of lightweights in the class tonight, Antony was back which is great. We worked more side control escapes, all pretty much related to the ones we worked for Gi on Friday.

We also did a lot of escape drilling, which I always enjoy. Then we worked on some Knee on Belly attacks. Spinning Armbar on the farside arm, a modified Kimura, and a straight armlock.

I spent the night working on my triangle chokes since I've been neglecting them in no-gi. Got them from all kinds of places. Comboed them well with other things including armbars and sweeps. I'm really feeling like my jiujitsu is smoothing out. I transition between defense and offense better and move among my various attacks with less hesitation.

Favorite combo of the night: Arm Drag -> Whose your daddy sweep -> Mounted triangle with the arm trapped for extra pressure.


General thoughts on the way my game is changing some. I now go for the single leg takedown even from knees or butterfly guard or whatever. If I get a chance to snag that leg and stand up to execute the takedown I will take it every time. It's starting to become a highly effective sweep for me when people post their knee up in combat base for me to just latch onto it and stand up. I switched to this after reading about Ryan Hall changing his game away from some of the crazier techniques and how the top level game was all about getting that single leg. I watched a bunch of videos and saw how Marcelo and other guys at the top would indeed grab that single leg and score over and over again from wherever they could get it. So I've been working to add that into my game and it's been helpful so far.

JiuJitsu 11/26

My car decided to crap itself on the 23rd which was just a huge pain all around, but I still made the friday class. Just Four of us, Casey, Coe, me and that same newer wrestler guy. We worked side control escapes including a couple of slick ones that I hadn't seen before.

I learned that Coe and Casey haven't gotten any lighter, but I'm not making as many mistakes against them now. I did manage to reverse Coe from side control which made me happy, and I put up a good fight against Casey, which is about all I can ask for.
My neck and right shoulder are both tweaked though after Coe kicked his leg up and managed to catch my face and peel me backwards off of side control, I felt it coming up and tried to duck forward and didn't quit make it, so super painful.

The new wrestler guy is still ignoring hip control in favor of trying to pin the shoulders, once he gets over that he'll improve a lot almost over night. His top control is already good and tight.

I'm making good progress with armbars from the top, and grabbing both armbars and triangles from more places now, but my situp sweep progression just isn't there. I just can't get most people into my closed guard long enough to try it in rolling. I'll keep working it though.

Jiujitsu 11/19

Relatively small class, Darnell, Me, a visitor from the Alliance school in ATL and a just a few other guys showed up. Darnell decided to show some helicopter techniques for fun, so we started with the monkey flip sweep from feet-on-hips spider guard, then a variation from closed guard, then helicopter armbars. Fun stuff.

So many of our guys are already so gun-shy about moving towards me in guard that I don't get a lot of opportunity to play with this kind of thing, I spend most of the time chasing them down to get some kind of grips.

Mostly I just had fun. Practiced the breakdance pass a few times, worked from the bottom a bunch, worked on my combos, and generally just chillaxed and enjoyed the game. It was a fun class. I might do a quick video on the breakdance pass tonight if I go to No-Gi.

UGA Grappling Club 11/18

Broke away from boring jiujitsu, but still got a lot of drilling in. I taught Scissor Sweep and the basic guard break and pass and had everyone get in 25 reps of each. Then I put everyone in groups of 3 for specific sparring from guard with the top guy just having to pass and the bottom guy just having to sweep to win. So that got everyone some live experience with the stuff we had just gone over.

We had a couple of new folks in the class, one who was a wrestler which was fun. Once he adjusts to the small differences between wrestling and Jits he'll be awesome.

I wasn't really rolling since my left arm is still a little gimpy, so I wanted to preserve it so I could make class today, so I just worked on some combos as per the Roy Dean purple belt DVD. I ran through Omoplata -> Gogplata -> Armbar, and Triangle -> Armbar -> Giftwrap/flower sweep, as well as Scissor sweep -> Triangle -> armbar -> flower sweep, and Scissor sweep -> kimura/kimura sweep. I'm getting smoother with my combos which makes me feel good, but I still have issues making the flow happen against guys with good top pressure sometimes. I tend to go into glacier mode and latch onto one limb and slowly work my way to a sweep or sub, which I guess is fine, but isn't as smooth and flowy as I'd like it to be.

JiuJitsu 11/14 No-Gi

I made the No-Gi class for the first time in a while. Anthony is back from doing his play and was worried that he would be rusty, but he was only out a couple of weeks and hasn't lost a step.
Casey asked if anyone wanted to work on anything particular and I called out for the Situp Sweep. He made the point that you really have to distract your opponent with something before you can go for it since they have to be sitting back on their heels for it to succeed. Of course this meant that everyone in class was looking for the situp sweep to happen so they were all defending it. I don't think I got anywhere close to hitting it on anyone.
We drilled starting in closed guard and I was able to break the guard of everyone except Brian, guy just as insane legs and core strength. Even if he just hangs out and does nothing it's a bitch to get his guard open. I find myself baiting him and then passing when he goes for a sub. Eventually he's going to get good enough to catch me, especially if I keep doing it. I was able to sweep, submit, or pass on the under 180lb guys, but the bigger guys were generally shutting me down. No worries there since that's a black belt, a blue belt, a blue belt with 4 years of wrestling, and hyper athletic Brian. I'm still able to sweep Brian if I get tricky enough, and I can occasionally catch Ian in a sub if I get tricky with him, but Johnny is just too strong with too much pressure and too solid of a base for me to pull off anything other than a stalling game with him.

I'm honestly completely baffled as to why he doesn't dominate his division in competitions right now.

Overall I felt a little directionless rolling tonight. It was fun, and I was making stuff work, but I mostly was just falling back to my normal overhook game with a few new things bolted on. Which I guess is just fine in retrospect. I just want to sharpen that game up anyways, and having a solid butterfly game for when I just can't get closed guard makes it that much more dangerous.

I filmed most of the class today and will probably post some clips up after I've had a chance to watch it and chop it up. The files are enormous.

JiuJitsu 9/10

I got to class a little earlier and put in about 20 reps of the situp sweep, just trying to get a feel for it. Something about the extra bulk of wearing the gi makes it feel really awkward. I need more reps.

Techniques today were butterfly guard -> Armdrag -> Take the back. Several different ways to set it up. All pretty much the same. It was good to get in reps with the armdrag.

Did some positional rolling starting from butterfly guard and spent my time sweeping folks and passing guard. Taught Katie how to pin the knees on one side or another and pass with the shoulder to the gut. She needs all the tricks she can get since she weighs like 100lbs.

After that I rolled with Brian and a visiting blue belt named Phil from Daniel Moraes academy in Jacksonville. He had a very solid style on top, very good at taking away any space that opened up. The first roll we were fairly even with me working several sweep attempts which he blocked and me eventually turtling and moving to halfguard where we stayed for a while. Second roll with him I used my fav tech for breaking people down and was able to launch a nice series of attacks which failed, and eventually ended us up in halfguard again until he had a sudden cramp and had to bail.
Rolling with Brian was normal. I'll sweep him if he gets too aggressive, then if I give him the slightest chance he'll explode and resweep me. He tapped me with a nice north south choke the first time. Then I tapped to Kesa because I got bored under it and couldn't get anywhere. Then we sat around for a while and talked techniques. My guard was compared favorably with Moraes' guard, not that mine is anywhere near as good, but that it is a similar style. A very fun class and nice that I was competitive against a 5 year blue belt from another school that outweighed me by 30lbs who came to play. Always feels nice to validate your training a little like that.

Also, Mad props to my Jennosaurus who made sure I went to class tonight. I've skipped a few recently to help her with nursing school stuff and because I've been SUPER busy at work, but she made sure I got on the mats tonight and that's just one of the many reasons that she's awesome and I'm marrying her in ~30 days.

UGA Grappling Club 11/8

Tonight we started "Boring" Jiujitsu. The first few weeks I taught I would show 2-3 techniques, everyone would practice each technique ~10 times, then we would roll either starting from a specific position or just free rolling. This way everyone got introduced to the kinds of techniques they will eventually be able to use as well as getting to see how hard it is to apply those techniques against other people. This period also lets them get some of the SPAZZ out on each other and usually manages to convince them that if they want techniques to work that they will have to practice them.

Once I've got them hooked on the BJJ though, it's time to get serious. So tonight we went over the very first side control escape I showed them 6 weeks ago and I broke it down step by step, then we repped it 100 times each. We started with minimal resistance, just enough not to be a dead fish. Then every 10 reps we increased the resistance until the last 10 reps you were doing everything to prevent your opponent from escaping, including transitioning to other positions. Some folks were skeptical initially, but by the end of it everyone was very happy with how much they learned. I don't think most of them realized there could be that many details to something as simple as a side control escape. Honestly I could do like 30 hours worth of class time on nothing but side control escapes and still have only gotten started on what I know about them, much less what a black belt knows. I would love to have a month of side control escapes at Megalodon...

No rolling at all tonight. All drilling that escape. Boring JiuJitsu makes you good.

Jiujitsu 11/5: Good to be back!

So despite all the screw ups with the software upgrade I was working on tonight I made it to an hour of jiujitsu. I was rolling pretty hard today, a lot harder than I usually do, but I also noticed some things about my style which I need to fix pronto. I will list those first:
1. I have gotten into the habit of giving people grips on my gi pants as a way to lure them in since everyone runs away from my guard all of the time. This leads me too often to having to defend the pass before I can start attacking. BAD JIUJITSU! So I need to go back to starting in a good butterfly position and sticking to it. If my opponent wants to run away from me then I'll just have to chase them and get REALLY aggressive about it.

2. In no-gi I have gotten SLOPPY. I'm not breaking my opponents down and really fighting for my overhook control the way I should. I'm not going for the situp sweep as a combo to help me break people down. Definitely need to start putting in a little more no-gi time soon to keep me sharp.

3. My halfguard needs a tuneup. I used to be super dangerous from the bottom of half, now I seem to just stall out looking for the oldschool sweep and end up with people hanging on my neck. Gotta get aggro from the bottom of half again.

Now, on to what was awesome:
I hit a ton of armbars. Way more than I usually hit. I was willing to just throw my hips and legs up and see what happened a lot more tonight. As a result I hit something like 6 armbars, including a couple of triangle to armbar transitions.
My situp sweep attempts kept turning into Kimura sweeps though. I need to tune that up a little, gotta get someone to drill with me one day.

I hit a choke I've been looking at for a while but never really found the right place to try. It's a Cobra choke, which works thusly:

I have my grip on the opposite collar and I'm looking to set up my collar choke, my opponent manages to back away and goes for the double underhook pass. I defend the pass by spreading my knees open and digging my feet in under his thighs. I then put my free arm across the back of his neck and snack my hand under my arm that has the collar grip. Then I point the fingers of my non gripping hand at the ceiling and just.... make it tight. I hit that 2-3 times and it was awesome since I've been blocking that guard pass and not having any options. Now I have a great option.

I also hit a kimuraplata. This is a SLICK move for you little folks who find that people get a death grip on their clothes when you go for a kimura from guard, and those same people roll forward when you go for an omoplata.

Step 1: Get your kimura grip from guard and spin 90 degrees to put the kimura pressure on. Your opponent doesn't grab onto something, finish them. If they grab something then go to step 2.

Step 2: Keep your Kimura grip and continue rotating until you are in the omoplata position with the kimura grip. Begin to sit up like you are going to finish the omoplata, but keep the kimura grip. What this does is hook your leg around your opponents elbow and bend their elbow towards the front of their body while you have their wrist locked in place. So instead of moving the wrist to create the pressure on the shoulder you are moving the elbow to create pressure on the shoulder. It works a treat and is super sneaky.

I think this was one of my most productive classes in a while. I actually was able to pinpoint some specific weaknesses to work on, which is nice.

UGA Grappling Club 11/2

I did the last lesson in my "Beginners BJJ Curriculum" today. Normally I would have spent an entire month on each of the things I taught instead of a single class, but the idea is to keep the class fast paced and give people a taste of everything BJJ has to offer to keep them interested first. NOW I'll go back to the beginning and make them drill it over and over and over again.


We had a couple of new people, a couple of gigantic guys, one reasonable sized guy and a girl. Gave them a quick introduction to shrimping, up, and sitouts.

Techniques were attacks from guard. I leave submissions from guard until the end because I want to keep the emphasis on position and obtaining superior position instead of having everyone throwing up wild triangles at each other from the bottom. First I showed the two safe positions in guard, head in the solar plexus, hands in the armpits, weight down on your opponent. Then how to posture up using your opponents ribs and hips to post on. After that I showed triangle chokes concentrating on getting the hips high and getting a good kick over with the leg to make the choke successful. The refresher was really good for me as well since I've been letting my triangle chokes get super lazy and it's been hurting me.
Next up was armbar from the guard. I showed how to isolate the arm and bring it across the chest, then use your legs to trap and hold your opponent and finish. Briefly went over how to sweep from the armbar to finish if your opponent tries to stack you.

Rolling was King of the Mountain style with 5 groups on the mat and the other 6 or so people on the wall. I had them start in guard with the top guy trying to pass, the bottom guy trying to sweep or submit. Things rotated through pretty quickly and everyone got plenty of chances with different partners. I stepped in after everyone had been through once and got some time rolling with different folks. Hit a few situp sweeps, but found myself hesitating to fire the armbar on top a lot. I did hit a couple, but I definitely need to keep refining it. This is an excellent project for me for sure.

After that I let everyone roll open-mat style for a while and I grabbed people to roll with. One guy jumped on my neck from halfguard and tried to tear my head off, which annoyed me enough to pass, bust out the no-gi ezekiel, and then armbar him.

We've got a good solid core group in the club it seems like, so next week we can start in with the "boring" part of jiujitsu that really makes you good at it. Drilling.

Running, it sucks.

So I resolved to start running again to help improve my overall cardio as opposed to only my grappling specific cardio and boy do I need it. My course is 1.5 miles long, .75 up and .75 back. After the first .75 I was sucking wind and coughing like a pack-a-day smoker. I dunno why my lungs are being such bitches about it, but they HATE to run in the cold apparently. Well screw them! I'll be up for another 5am run tomorrow and try to push a little further since this time I ran .75 and walked .75. Once I can run the entire 1.5 I'm going to start edging it up until I'm doing 3 miles. My eventual goal is to run the 3 miles in under 20 minutes. If I actually keep at it with the running this time around I might be get there sometime in 2012....

I skipped JiuJitsu last week to let some minor injuries heal up before they became actual problems, back at it tonight teaching the grappling club. I'm going to teach triangles and armbars from the guard and go over the importance of posture and hand positioning.

Inspiration Struck

So I've been hit by inspiration in the form of this kid Rebecca "Mini-Beast" Forsyth. I've seen her at NAGA a few times when I was there and she's a super fierce little kid. She crushes the competition. Well a co-worker is thinking about putting his daughter in a martial art and I of course suggested BJJ. In order to show him an example of a girl about his daughters age competing I looked up some of Becca's vids from NAGA.
While watching them I noticed two things, firstly that the girl has only gotten more dominant in the last 8 months or so since I saw her compete last, and secondly that she has honed her situp sweep and armbar into a victory machine. She hits the situp sweep almost every match and frequently finishes with the armbar. That kind of dedication to just a handful of offensive techniques has given her a really sharp game. I also liked her technical standup about two minutes in to this video which is one of the cleanest I've ever seen. She follows it up with a nice takedown as well.

So in honor of the Mini-Beast I will be spending the next FOUR, that's right FOUR months working situp sweep and then armbar from the top. Nothing but those two techniques.

UGA Grappling Club 10/25

We were sharing the room with what appeared to be an Indian girls dance troupe of some sort this time around, which was interesting mostly because they kept screaming at each other about whose fault it was when their routine got messed up.

We started off drilling situp sweeps and mount escapes, then I went over the Kimura -> Guillotine -> Situp Sweep combo and we worked on the various parts of that for a while. Then because I had it as a request we did the Darce choke from top of halfguard. This is probably my single WORST submission, but I went over it anyways and we drilled it a little. I went over a halfguard sweep by request as well. My go-to sweep where you overhook, trap the same side leg, and upa. Everyone kept getting 2/3rds of the way through the upa, and then instead of pushing their opponent away EXTRA hard to gain separation and get to side control they would switch to hugging their opponent and land in top of halfguard. I corrected that and then we did positional sparring from the top of halfguard.

We had a couple of people come in towards the end of the positional sparring that have previous Tang Soo Do and Takewondo experience. I rotated them in as we started rolling to see what kind of folks they are. They weren't overly spazzy and both of them are fairly light, so not dangerous. One kept trying to canopener me or something, the other one attempted to get rubber guard from the bottom of side control. I answered that attempt by mounting him, letting him sweep me over, then immediately running through Mission Control -> New York -> Chill Dog -> Kung Fu Move -> Omoplata on him.

It seemed like a good class. It was one of our smaller ones with only 10 people in it, but I expect attendance to pick up again once the dance troupes are all done practicing.

I'm still floundering around a little trying to figure out how I want to proceed with my own training. I think I should revisit some of my old No-Gi basics for Gi since the Situp sweep and Triangle choke used to be my bread and butter, but I don't really hit either in Gi that much. Unless I get some brilliant stroke of inspiration by wednesday I'm going to spend the next couple of weeks just working on situp sweep and triangle. There is a triangle choke setup off of the failed situp sweep, so I want to work that as well.

And as long as I'm talking about triangles, I figured out WTF I'm doing that's lowering my triangle choke percentages in Gi. I figured it out because I did it in No-Gi last night. I'm leaving my hips far too close to my opponent and being far too lazy about the sub. In fact, I've been far too lazy about everything while working on my flow. I've just been flowing with people and looking for openings and then if I get too much resistance just transitioning off to something else. If I'm going to go through all of the trouble to setup a triangle and get halfway to it, I need to go ahead and work harder to finish it.

Bit of a slump

So after talking several other folks through how to deal with their slumps over the last 8 months or so I've hit one myself. The guys in my class that I'm better than I'm just plain better than. The guys that I'm not better than are gigantic purple belts or gigantic wrestlers and the gap between us is pretty big because of that. So I'm having a hard time bridging the gap between where I am and where I want to be.

Luckily I know the answer. Drill. Drill my A-game. Drill my B-game. Drill my backup plans. Drill my go-to-hell plans. Drill drill drill and drill some more. So tonight I'm going to abuse my position as instructor for the UGA Grappling club and get some No-Gi reps in of my A-Game no-gi sweeps and a few other things. See if I can break myself out of the rut.

JiuJitsu 10/14

So true to my resolution I continued working on my A game and my general flow last night and I can definitely feel the improvement over where I was six months ago.

Techniques were an ezekiel from the back where you rotate so that you are looking in your opponents ear, drive your bottom wrist around to on top of their far shoulder, grab your sleeve, and ezekiel.
Then a quick armbar from the back, then an armbar from the back with a kimura grip for greater control.
And finally an armbar vs the turtle where you scoop their far arm with your far arm then roll onto your side. You can finish there or have the option to flip them over and finish.

We did specific sparring from the turtle, Rugby is getting better already, he was able to shake me off a couple of times and get back to guard. Once was my own fault since I felt the triangle setup that I use and automatically went for it, resulting in him escaping to a neutral position.
My single collar choke setups are getting sneakier and sneakier as well.

Rolling was with Ankhor and Katie. Ankhor is one of the super athletic guys that does Muay Thai and BJJ, he's got an MMA fight coming up at the end of those month. A few months ago he was giving me absolute fits because of how strong he is, but over the last 3-4 months I've gotten a lot stronger and improved my technique. So last night I was able to breakdance all over him for the first time in a long time.

Katie is like 14 and is Casey's daughter. I'm not sure how seriously she takes JiuJitsu, but she's there pretty regularly and I try to give her tips on how to make stuff work when you are 100lbs lighter than everyone. Sometimes she seems to be working hard at it, sometimes she doesn't seem to care. But I think if she had some more people her size that she could see the stuff working on it would motivate her more. Instead the next lightest person is like 40lbs heavier than she is and probably 5x as strong. Definitely not a recipe for morale building.

Workin' my A game

Ok, so normally I would entering a new month of experimentation, digging through youtube, reading Subs101 or lockflow, generally just casting about for new techniques to play with. Instead I've decided to go for another month of consolidation on my current game and try to bring it up a level against our purple belts and a couple of the big athletic blue belts. I know there are tricks I can use on them that will work, now I'm going to make a concerted effort to work this tricks and refine them. Time to take things to the next level with my current game until I find a place where I don't have the proper tool. At the moment I think I have plenty of tools to work with.

Weightlifting 10/7

I'm thinking of switching to only updating my lifting stats once a month or something.... 4 times a week makes for a bunch of short little posts with no content.

That being said, hit 5 reps at 127.5, 3 at 147.5, and 5 reps at 163.5 on the bench. That's a personal record of volume for me. Whoot!

Hip Control

I had mentioned to BJJGrrl that controlling the hips was one of those things that was crucially important to a lot of aspects of JiuJitsu, and everyone told me that for years, but I never really understood what it MEANT or how to accomplish it until recently.

I've worked out that there are three ways to kill someones hip movement, the direct method, the indirect method, and retreating. With the direct method you are using solid pressure directly onto their hips. An example would be when you are in someones closed guard and you put your hands on their hip bones and drop your weight on them. You've directly shutdown their hips in order to work on opening their guard and passing. This method requires that you be able to solidly manage your weight, keep it centered, and "drive" down into your opponent. This is probably the first method that most people discover for controlling the hips.

The Indirect method is the method that I've actually found to be most useful though. With the indirect method I'm not attacking the hips directly, I'm removing the levers that control that hip motion, the legs. Every motion of the hips requires that the legs be involved to generate the torque and force required to accomplish anything. Shrimping, bridging, all of it involves driving with the legs. Because of this my primarily method of hip control has become the legs. An example is from mount when you grapevine the legs, it does add some direct pressure to kill the hips, but it mostly just takes the legs out of the equation. I expand on that concept whenever I'm on top and work to lift my opponents legs off of the ground to prevent shrimping. For example, in side control I will turn slightly towards my opponents feet and grab their FAR leg at the knee and pull it up off of the ground. This makes it very difficult for them to shrimp and makes it easier for me to transition to mount if I want to. I follow the same idea when I'm passing guard. I hug the knees, sprawl and then turn and lift to keep my opponents feet off of the ground. This stops them from shrimping away or chasing me with their legs.

The third method is retreating or transitioning. This is the method I use the most now and it's even LESS direct than the direct method. I feel like this method is best suited for a smaller person who is working against a larger person and is still applicable even against people of the same size or smaller, it's just not as necessary. With this method you just remove yourself from where their hips want you to be. If you are in side control and they start to shrimp to regain guard you transition towards north south then pop to Knee on Belly as they follow you. If they try to bridge you off there you spin and sit down on their head for headmount/northsouth. If they start to escape that you slide down to side control on the opposite side and start the process over again. You have to be pretty sensitive to when your opponent is moving to make this work though.

Now, the BEST method, and one I'm just starting to reliably be able to use, is a combination of all three. When I'm moving to KoB I like to grab the far leg at the knee and pull up to prevent shrimping away from me. At the same time I use the KoB to drive heavily into the hips to pin the hips. When I'm sweeping someone I maintain control of their hips either with leg pressure across the hips directly, or with a hook under the knee, or with a handful of pants. Concordantly I work to keep my hips AWAY From my opponent. This flipside of this entire thing is that controlling your OWN hips is just as important as controlling your opponents. If they have your hips locked down you can't do much to them. So again the legs come into play. If your hips are pinned by direct pressure you have to be explosive even if it's a tiny explosion. Just enough to unfreeze your hips on one side and pop out. If your legs are being lifting try to pull your knees up to your chest and pop them open like butterfly guard. If someone is using fast transitions then trick them. Fake shrimping one way the roll to your knees on the other side.

Above all look at ways to prevent your opponent from using their hips while finding ways to maximize your own hip movement.

JiuJitsu 10/7

Worked on a takedown for a bit, then flower sweep variation and a triangle combo with it. Fun times.
Did some specific sparring from guard where I played around trying to figure out what I want to work on this month, then rolled for a while.

I had a couple of big guys to play with and spent my time letting them start in side control or mount so that I could work out of it. One of them managed to spark my rage for a moment when he tried to use gorilla strength on my head to keep me from taking his back. Whenever someone big does that it momentarily releases my normal mental block, so I immediately smashed him to the ground, drive my forearm into his neck/jaw, then armbarred him when he tried to defend against that. Everything was super hard and fast until the armbar went on. I never completely lose control, but that contained rage is something I've been trying to harness so that I can let it out at tournaments when it would really be helpful to be moving twice as fast as I normally do. He also tried to americana me from inside my guard, instant armbar again. He's a good guy, and I look forward to how good he's gonna be when he gets some more training time in, but he's only been training for a week or two, so he still has some bad habits to grind out of him.

This is an "Experiment" month for me, but I have no idea what I want to try out... Gonna have to browse lockflow/sub101/etc... and find some stuff to play with. Or I might hit the Roy Dean purple belt DVD and make it an Experimental Combo month and see what I can put together.

Weightlifting 10/2 and 10/3

Benchpress was only 6 reps at 155 I believe, don't have my notes with me right now.
Overhead press was 9 reps with 90lbs which is very solid for me.
Tomorrow will be squats again which puts me starting my third week of 5/3/1. Overall I'm feeling pretty good about the whole thing. I'm looking forward to maxing out again at the beginning of December to see where I'm at.

Weightlifting 9/28

Squats! WHOOT!

The first day of my second week of 5/3/1.
3x115 (113.5)
3x135 (133.5)
10x150 (153.5)

I felt pretty good about 10 reps at my bodyweight. Tonight is Benchpress, I'll be trying to hit 9 reps or better with 157.5.

UGA Grappling Club 9/27

We had a total of six girls show up to the class, which was awesome. I think only 2 or 3 of them will stay on as regulars, but that's still good. I continued my normal warmup of Shrimping, Upa, Sitouts, then had the folks who had been there before working on Situp sweep to mount, then Knee to Elbow escape, then Situp sweep, repeat...

After that we move on to some a halfguard sweep and a halfguard pass. I taught my go-to moves for both of those. The sweep is 99% similar to the Upa mount escape. You overhook the arm on the same side as the the trapped leg, then plant your inside foot as close to your butt as possible, put your hand on their hip, and upa. You push with your arm at the same time to increase the amount of separation between you and your opponent so that you can try to land in side control top instead of halfguard top.

The pass was the basic shoulder of justice pass. Underhook + arm under head, good shoulder pressure, walk your foot up to their butt, then pop their knee down and drive through to 1/4 guard, put your other foot up on their hip and drive your trapped foot the rest of the way through to mount.

After that we did Americana from side control.

Next week we'll work on Armbar from Mount, and Side Control Escapes, then I'm going to start them working on the "Boring" parts of jiujitsu. We'll be doing positional rolling starting in full guard with the top person working to pass, and the bottom person looking to sweep. No submissions. I'll probably have them do 10 reps of the situp or scissor sweep and 10 reps of a guard pass right before hand so they have something fresh in their mind.

I think I'll start waxing a little philosophical on them as well... Time to get them to start settling down when rolling instead of trying to out muscle and out run each other.

The one sour note was that I had to call out one of the guys for some inappropriate remarks while a couple of the girls were rolling. I suppose I could have done it quietly later, but I wanted everyone to know that I don't tolerate that kind of shit. He seemed to understand, so I don't think it will be a problem in the future.

Weightlifting 9/26

Did overhead press, had my max set at 115 instead of 110 and I was rounding up with my weights, so I ended up with an extra 7.5lbs on my final set, was able to do 6 reps. Fixed the weights, waited about an hour and redid the set at 87.5 instead of 93.5 and was able to hit 10 reps. Both of those are good sets for me considering a year ago 93.5 was my max and I was struggling with it.

JiuJitsu 9/24 and Weighlifting 9/25

Friday is Takedowns as usual, we're working on the deep underhook and wrist control which is a position I like, but one I rarely end up in because people fight so hard to stay away from me. I find that silly because my takedowns are so bad, but whatever. We worked High Crotch to Single leg and High Crotch to duckunder some more. People are getting ready for NAGA, so we're refining techniques instead of learning new ones.

We did standup sparring and I got two nice takedowns. I got the best throw of my life on Antony and it got videoed, so it should be available sometime soon. It was awesome. And I got Rugby when he tried to tackle me and I rolled him backwards and took mount. That one got some applause too.

I find that when I can get some kind of grip and close the distance with my opponent I can actually get the takedowns, but I'm so rarely able to close that distance and I don't shoot very well from outside. I'll keep workin on it.

Weightlifting 9/25

Today was Deadlifts, did 125x5, 145x5, and 165x15. My hands were giving out on the last couple of reps, but I think I could have pulled out one or two more, but the program says not to go to failure. I'll probably do OHP today instead of monday since I have the UGA Club on Monday so I'll be out late.

Weightlifting 9/24

Second day of 5/3/1, first day was Squats, today was Bench Press. Again did no warmup sets or any of the support exercises, might try to work those in next week. Started with 107.5x5, then 127.5x5, then 143.5x9. The last rep at 143.5 was extremely difficult to finish for some reason. I think the height of my bench is really going to start to bother me soon and I'll have to find some way to get my feet up higher so I can support myself properly.

I'm looking forward to how this program plays out for increasing my work capacity, it's a lot more reps than I've been using up to now and I'll actually be working my lower body properly for the first time in almost a year.

JiuJitsu 9/22

Had horrible stomach problems all day, pretty sure I ate some expired Yogurt. Manage to fight my way through class anyways, felt like I was sleep walking.

We worked on some halfguard passes, a couple of which I liked, one of which I didn't. Specific sparring was from guard, we had a new guy who is an ex rugby player in the class, he tried to collar choke me inside my guard so I swept him. Guy is monster strong though, once he has a few months under his belt he's going to be a force.

Rolled with Ian and Ankor again today, not anything like the slickness I had last time I rolled with them. I could barely control Ankor and couldn't do anything with Ian. I made it through though and that's all good.

Still having stomach issues today, was late for work because of it and feel incredibly dehydrated. I weighed in at 143 and it's been months since I was that low.

Weightlifting 9/21

First day of the 5/3/1 Program. Started out with Squats. Doing a 4 day program since I have Jits 3 days a week I'll lift on the days when I don't have jits.

Started with squats today.
5x105, 5x120, and 10x135. I think I could have pulled a couple of extra reps out on the last set without any real trouble, but I don't want to push too much early. It felt good to be squatting again though.

UGA Grappling Club 9/20

Got to the club early and sat around watching the Kendo people whack at each other with sticks while I stretched.

Turn out was good, we had 12 repeats and 6 new faces. 18 people showing up is great. Again we had 4-5 people from Megalodon there, which was good. I opened up by grabbing the new people and showing them how to Shrimp, Upa, and Sitout while the repeats all hit the wall for shrimp+upa+sitout warmup.
Next I taught the Knee to Elbow escape from mount, then the Scissor Sweep. Then I showed them the drill that combines the two. So one person would start in mount, the other would knee to elbow escape, then scissor sweep. Now the other person escapes from mount and sweeps, repeat. I had them do that a few times to get used to it.
Next I showed the knee-through guard pass. I went over the basic guard break again to reinforce the concept and for the people who didn't see it before. Several people had trouble with this pass because they kept turning their backs to their partner when moving around to side control. Had to remind them to get the underhook before moving, which solved that issue.
Finally I gave them a submission to play with. Rear Naked Choke time. I chose that one because I want to force them to work for position instead of trying to crank subs on each other all the time. So I gave them a sub which only exists at the very TOP of the positional hierarchy. Everyone seemed to have fun with that and we moved on to rolling.

This time in order to try to be a little more organized I counted everyone off and had the even numbers take places on the mat, then paired them up with an odd number and had one set of numbers rotate each round. Now that everyone has had a taste of rolling with a variety of people I'll probably set them up in 3s next time and let them do 2 rounds in, 1 round out.

I spent the time working nice and controlled and making it a point to perform the techniques I had shown them and letting some of them sweep me, etc...

Everyone seemed to enjoy it and overall I thought it was a good class.

JiuJitsu 9/15

I apparently forgot to write about this class.

Casey was tied up with something so arrived late, in the mean time Darnell showed a couple of guard passes based around grabbing the gi. They are "gracie gift" style passes with one arm in and one arm out, which can be dangerous, but if you keep the grip on the gi then you are protected from the triangle.

We did some positional rolling, then I got paired up with Ian and Ankor. I love rolling with these guys because both are insanely athletic, so they are kind of my benchmark for how I handle athletic people. I was able to control both of them and generally impose my game well. My integration phase is coming along nicely and the combination of the leg hook, butterfly guard, spider guard, armdrags, and technical mount transitions are serving me well. I spend most of the time in top position after hitting a sweep. I'm rarely stuck on the bottom.

I'm very pleased with my progression and really think I have a good shot at earning my purple belt by the end of next summer.

UGA Grappling club 9/13

It was fun to be teaching again. We had (including me) 8 people from Megalodon at the club and about 10 others. I opened up teaching everyone how to shrimp, upa, and sitout then had them do a bunch of each as a warmup. After that I showed how the Upa and Shrimp became escapes from mount and sidecontrol. Parterned the up and had the work escapes for a while. Next it was on to breaking the guard and moving to combat base and the double underhook pass. Finally I introduced the situp sweep and we drilled that for a little while.

Then we rolled 3 minute rounds for about 45 minutes. I used that time to gauge folks intensity as I rolled with everyone. We had a couple of people with previous experience which is nice, but most of the non Megalodon guys were complete noobs. I let folks work, swept them let them escape, let a couple pass my guard with the double under. Generally just had a bunch of smooth and controlled rolls.
Also rolled with Ankor and caught him in the reverse inverted triangle and was able to finish it. A very good first class I think.

Next week will be shrimp, upa, sitout warmup. Then teach the knee to elbow escape from mount. Then situp sweep to mount to knee and elbow escape and repeat.
Then the knee through pass.
Then RNC.

Weightlifting Update and UGA Grappling Club

So, I tried 197 on the bench on Thursday and failed. Killed my arms trying to push it up. So instead of trying to force it I'm going to take a break from lifting for a few days (probably until this Thursday) and then go ahead and start 5/3/1 with my max bench as 190.

In other news tonight I have my first session as the instructor for the UGA grappling club. I'll be doing that every Monday night. My curriculum is going to look something like this:

Fundamental Movements:
Shrimp
Upa
Sitout

Guard Passing:
Guard Break
Double Underpass
Knee Through pass
Toreador Pass


Sweeps:
Situp Sweep
Scissor Sweep
Elevator Sweep

Escapes:
Upa Mount Escape
Knee and Elbow Mount Escape
Shrimp Side Control Escape to Knees
Shrimp Side Control Escape to Guard
Escape From Back Control to Guard

Submissions:
Guillotine
Triangle Choke
RNC
Armbar
Kimura
Americana

I'm going to start with the fundamental movements and a couple of passes and sweeps and get everyone comfortable with moving around and using positional control first before I introduce the submissions.

I'm really looking forward to this, I love teaching and as far as I can tell I'm pretty good at it. I'll start adding those updates to here as well.

JiuJitsu 9/10

Class today was takedowns again as every Friday will be now. We worked on a high crotch to single leg to seio nage sequence which i really liked.
My problem with takedowns is that i always seem to end up with mu opponent death gripping my wrists/sleeves and im unable to do anything from there. I imagine there must be a throw from there, i just have no idea what it is.
I gave my camera to a 10 year old girl to film class, so i have video, but there's no telling what of. Ill post some up on Monday.

Conditioning and Jiujitsu 9/8

Hit up class at 6 for conditioning. Shaved 2 minutes off of my ladder time so added a second 1 minute rest and did another 5 reps, working to get 3 full ladders in 25 minutes eventually.
Judo showed up at 6:30, but we had to wait about 10 minutes for the kids TKD class to finish up before we could roll. I worked on the Roy Dean Scissor Sweep->Triangle->Armbar->Omoplata->Sweep->Armbar combo. Ran through it a couple of times then we worked on his Triangles for a few minutes. After that we rolled for about half an hour straight. We went back and forth a lot tapping each other, I was trying to work my transitions on top and my combos, but mostly I was just trying to exhaust myself before class. It worked.
When class started Casey had us do armbar drills from guard, then sprawl drills, then crunches throwing the medicine ball back and forth.
Technique was attacks from the top of halfguard. The first one was acting like you are going to pass, then handing the lapel off under their arm to your arm which is under their head. Pushing your knee through and posting up, swithing hands, grabbing some fabric on the opposite shoulder, and choke.
Second one was same setup, but they defend the choke so you pull the arm across for a Brabo+Armbar combo.
Third was the same Brabo as #2, but setup from North/South with an over and an underhook. Pass the lapel from the underhooked side across to the other arm, then spen to KoB, snag the leg and pin it. Choke or Pull the Arm across.

Sparring was me Sean (Shawn?) and Mac. Sean and Mac are both around 220. Mac is a blue belt, Sean is about a 6 month white belt. I was mostly able to impose my will on them, broke them down into my guard, moved to the single collar choke, the triangle, or the armbar. Swept Sean a few times and worked on flowing into submissions, hit a few armbars that way. Was throwing up combos and really feeling smooth and connected. One of the best classes I've had in a while for FEELING like I was doing good jiujitsu.

Gonna try to take the camera on Friday and get someone to film, hopefully I'll have another good day.

Weightlifting 9/7

177 x 2, was going to do three, but my right arm was lagging behind for some reason. The weight overall felt easy enough, but my left arm pushed up just fine and my right went up a lot slower, so I stopped at 2 reps. Still going for 197 on thursday.

Weightlifting 9/4

Lifting was 153.5 for 3 sets of 3. That's actually a personal record for reps at that weight I believe.

Today is horseback riding day, tomorrow is a full rest day, then another 3x1 with 173.5, then thursday 197.5.

I can TASTE that 200lb goal...

Jiujitsu And Conditioning 9/3

Got to the gym at about 10 to 6 so got changed and started conditioning a couple of minutes before 6. Did 25/20/15/10/5/ 1 minute break /5/10/15/20/25 for a total of 150 of each of Squats, Pushups, Crunches, and Bent over dumbell Rows (each hand). Took me just over 25 minutes to complete the set.

After that I waited around hoping my efforts to bribe people to show up early to roll would be successful, but they were not.

Technique was Takedowns tonight, looks like Friday night is going to be takedown techniques and takedown drills going forward, which is good since my takedown game is weak.

We worked on duck unders to a couple of different finishes and a strong underhook transitioning to a couple of different throws. After that we did specific sparring from standing working for the takedown. I hit a couple of decent judo throws and one double leg.

After that we took it to the ground for a big gauntlet. My arms were shot so I spent most of the first two or three rounds working legs only throwing moving through the Scissor Sweep -> Triangle -> Armbar combination then once my arms were feeling better I switched out to Leg Hook -> Omoplata -> Rollover Omoplata sweep to the top. Really trying to work on my flow.

I still turtle too much against Johnny because he blasts through my guard if I do anything except pure defense, and Coe just crushified me as usual, fun times. Gonna keep the flow goin and continue integrating this month, it's feelin good.

Starting not this coming monday, but the monday after I'll be acting as the "instructor" for the UGA Jiujitsu club (Or sub grappling club or whatever they are calling it) So that should be fun. I don't know how structured they want the classes to be, so at first I'm mostly just going to be there to provide guidance to keep them from killing each other.

The beginner class at Megalodon probably won't start until the beginning of next year.

Ugh, all this typing is making my arms tired. Going for 173.5 3x1 again tomorrow, then Some rest, then going for 197.5 on Tuesday. RRRAAARR!!

Weightlifting 9/2

Got the weights set back up, in the living room this time.

Preparing for my attempt at 197.5 I put 173.5 on the bar and put it up for 3 sets of 1 with a couple of minutes rest between each one. Definitely felt the weight, but that's a new personal best for me for reps with that weight.

Once I hit 200 on the bench I'll start the 5/3/1 program as prescribed (as best I can considering time pressure and lack of pullup apparatus) and start working on getting my PL total up. 900 here I come!

JiuJitsu 9/1

This month is an integration month. I've got the single collar choke, Butterfly Guard Armdrags, Tornado Guard, Some new sweeping principles, Leg Hook guard, and a whole new Knee On Belly based top game that I've worked separately over the last 4-5 months. This is the month where I bring it all together into my main butterfly guard based game.

Today I hit up class early, but there was still one of the TKD classes in the room we use, so had to wait until 6:40 or so to get in there. Greg a.k.a. Judo was there early and I showed him my personal favorite way to break people down in closed guard. Cross lapel or cross collar grip, same side sleeve grip, then the foot on the same side as the sleeve grip goes to the hip. Shrimp out to that same side while driving your collar gripping elbow to the mat and pushing the sleeve grip across your opponents body. Then pull your sleeve gripping arm back out and block their arm with your body. Let's you work all kinds of nasty things. I primarily use it to set up my single collar choke.
After that we rolled for about 30 minutes. He weighs 190, has endless cardio, and great posture and base from his time doing Judo. He also can crack a turtle with a quickness. Gave me a good chance to warm up and get ready to open up my game. I caught him with a few things, I think he caught me with something... Power guillotine I think. Really well set up too.

After that we worked some takedowns, using a two handed lapel grab to setup a single leg. I hate takedowns and this one was no exception.

After that we move to some side control stuff. Setting up the Kimura, the Armbar, and the paper cutter choke in north south starting from side control.

Specific Sparring was from side control. I escaped a bunch and choke some people. One of our 4 month white belts, Kris, had asked me not to take it easy on him, so the first roll with him he asked what the goals were, I told him that "inverted triangle" was one of my options from the bottom. Then 2 seconds after we started I tapped him with the inverted triangle.

Rolling had me set up with Judo and new wrestler guy. I dunno how heavy he was, but he was bigger than me and probably somewhere in the 180 range. I tossed them both around, got one REALLY SLICK sweep on judo from butterfly guard when he tried to grab a guillotine. A beautiful backwards roll that landed me in side control. Also had another really good sequence where I went for leg hook guard, went for my sweep, he tried to crush me, I spun under him to Omoplata, he spun somehow and gave me a shot at an armbar, he was able to turn out of it and I had to give it up and take side control.

Was an excellent integration night though. I bounced between butterfly and leghook and feet on hips spider guard pretty well, used my sweeps from all three positions, set up my top game and was able to stay on top and look for subs and get them. An excellent night and one that makes me feel like I'm starting to put together a purple belt level game. I've got some road to travel yet for sure, but I think I've got the road map now.