Common White Belt Mistakes: Over Reaching

*EDIT* Julia from JiuJiuBJJ recommended that I clarify this one a little bit to make it more clear what I'm talking about. So here we go!

*EDIT 2* The lower res video was annoying me. So I uploaded the original HD cut. The black box STILL annoys me. Gotta figure out WTF my camera/editing software is doing...
This video is of me rolling with one of our whitebelts. In it he makes several mistakes which are common to white belts. I'm going to discuss a few of them with a primary emphasis on what happens when you over reach during your passing attempts.

Video Summary:
At the beginning you can see where I establish my grips and insert a DLR hook. I then strip his grips and while I'm slapping his hands away I barely shift my hips and transition to his back. I roll through to mount, then back to his back and continue to control him, then move to the armbar for the finish.

Minimum effort for maximum results is the name of the game. He pushes forward, but doesn't know how to get past my hooks, so I'm able to control the game from there. He never is able to get ahead of me during the transitions so he never really has a chance to avoid my attack.

Mistake:
His biggest mistake, and what allowed me to sweep him is his continued attempt to attack my collar to the exclusion of everything else. Even after I have established hooks he continues to ignore my legs and grasp at my collar.

Recommendation:
What he should have done is to stop grabbing at my collar and grab my pants instead. Allowing me the use of my legs makes it infinitely more difficult to pass my guard. It's commong for white belts to attack as far forward as they can reach and leave half of their opponents weapons available.

Instead you should begin by controlling the ankles and work inwards in order to immobilize your opponents weapons in the most effective way. Controlling the ankles, then the knees until you are past the hips, then pinning the hips and beginning to isolate and attack the arms while working to disrupt your opponents posture to prevent them from escaping.


Protip:
Don't be over eager to attack the neck. Ignoring your opponents legs is a huge mistake.

US Grappling Submission Only - Greensboro - Full Writeup

We left the house around 4pm Friday and despite some traffic due to a four car fender bender we managed to roll in around 10pm to the Clarion hotel. We settled in and got some rest.

Unfortunately the hotel complementary breakfast was meager and horrible. So I ended up foodless rolling out Saturday morning.
We got to the venue and I weighed in, fully clothed, at 143.4 lbs.
I talked to the Crissy and the USG crew for a few minutes and then ran into Leslie and we did some warmup rolls. I would have liked to roll more with her since I didn't really get a good feel for her full game, but she has good squirrley hip movement and nailed that Emily Kwok step pass on me even though I knew she had be working on it.

Since I was reffing this time around I hit up a brief referee meeting with Andrew and the other refs, then we had the main rules meeting. As always everything was very clearly communicated and demonstrated and questions were answered thoroughly.

My division started promptly at 11 as I've come to expect.
There was no one in my Masters No-Gi Advanced division so my first match was in the Absolute Masters, No-Gi Advanced against James Viars. That is also the only match that I have video of this time around. The Jennosaurus was working the tables for USG, so I didn't have anyone to run the camera. I'll be uploading that video as soon as I get a chance. I pulled guard, he made it to halfguard and tried to d'arce me. I sat around in the darce for a while then he transitioned eventually to an armbar, I rolled out of it, got on top and snagged his ankle to lock in a straight ankle lock for the finish. Time: 5:12

After that was the Mens No-Gi Advanced, which had me up first against John 'Bagels' Telford from Team ROC. I again, pulled guard and let him set up a D'Arce, hoping to pull the same shenanigans and let him wear himself out a bit and work from there. But he used the D'Arce to take mount on me. I worked my way out and we hit a bit of a scramble, he locked on a toe hold but I flexed through it and popped free and I was SURE I had him turning directly into a triangle choke off of that scramble, but instead he ended up on top with an armbar. I tried to roll out of the armbar, but he caught me and finished it.  Time 5:38

We had a three person division, it was round-robin, so Bagels was up against Herman Mattison after that and their match went over half an hour of back and forth. Both of them just had endless strength and cardio. It was a joy to watch them. Eventually Bagels caught an ankle and finished it.

After that I had to go up against Herman. I tried to hit a footsweep off of the clinch, but he countered with a monster double leg. I played more halfguard, but couldn't put anything together against him either and he eventually locked on a tight RNC. Time: 11:33

From there I ran over to start my Mens Advanced No-Gi Absolute division. First match was against Sampu Blankenship. (Edit: That's SAMPY Blankenship. Who is a Budo-Ryu black belt) I pushed him around in the clinch a little bit then pulled guard and was able to 100% play my normal no-gi game. I setup the overhook, then setup the omoplata. He rolled and I rolled with him, then he postured and I comboed over to the triangle for the finish. Time 3:14.

Now, for the record this is the last match I have with anyone close to my size. The rest of my opponents are all at least 30lbs heavier than I am.

Second match Laban Probst who was huge. Somewhere in the 220lb range. At this point everyone was starting to get a little blurry on me. He armbarred me fairly quickly though. Time 2:24.

Third match I won by forfeit.

I changed into my Gi real quick and then reffed a few matches for Bagels so he could coach some of his guys. Then my Gi stuff started, so Leslie took over reffing for me.


At this point, things were pretty much a blur.  My first opponent was named Zebulon (Awesomest name EVER) and he completely outgripped me. I was defending a kimura at one point and he passed my belt around my wrist somehow and locked it down, then used his free hand to lock in a collar choke.  It was awesome and I'm going to steal that tiedown from him for next time. Time: 3:15.

Next match was Matt Moretz, who also outgripped me and armbarred me. Time: 1:57.

Next match was against Bill Bennet who has an absolutely WICKED paper cutter choke that he nailed me with. Time: 2:06

Next was an awesome match against an ENORMOUS 300+lb guy who also competes in Judo named Brian Mathis who threw me rather spectacularly onto my head, and then landed on me in surprisingly gentle fashion, then... I think he armlocked me in some fashion. It's hard to remember. Might have been a choke. Time: Unknown, but I think it was about 2 minutes.

I had another match with Matt Moretz, this time I almost caught him in an inverted triangle, but he managed to hide his arm from me and ended up armbarring me again. Time: 1:57.

My last match was a second one with Bill Bennet who AGAIN hit me with that Paper cutter choke, though I knew it was coming and I thought for sure I had a counter for it, but at this point I don't know what the hell was going through my mind, so I could have been hallucinating. Time: :40

Total Matches: 12
Wins: 3 (1 by forfeit)
Losses: 9 (Ouch, that's a lot of losses)
Total Mat Time: 40 minutes.
Average Match Length: About 3 minutes 35 seconds.
Good enough for a 1st place, a 2nd place, and 5 3rd place medals.

Also because of a snafu with the medal manufacturer they are sending out rashguards to the people who placed in each division, which means I ended up also getting 7 rashguards out of it. AND because the USG folks are awesome I ended up with a new pair of shorts and a ton of t-shirts.

I then went and reffed a a huge novice division, and then an equally large white belt division. I spent a LOT of time on the mats. After all of the matches were done me and Jenn helped break down the mats and everything and then the USG team took all of the refs out to dinner. Thanks Crissy, Andrew, Brian, and everyone with US Grappling for an AWESOME AWESOME weekend! We'll be back for the Charlotte tournament for sure!

Oh, I also have to give a huge shout out to Roy Marsh who was there coaching some of his guys for his impromptu private lesson with me after the event. Learned a couple of really really wicked tricks from him including a great grip control trick and a really nice way to increase pressure from knee on belly and side control.

And of course, a MILLION props to my awesome Jennosaurus for coming out with me and supporting me and making friends with all of the USG people and running a table for them.

And a friendly warning to Team ROC. I'm going to be ready for you behemoths (And you too Bagels) at Charlotte.

US Grappling Greensboro Sub-Only This Weekend!

So this saturday is US Grappling's Submission Only tournament in Greensboro and I finally was able to confirm that I'm attending. I'll also be helping out as a referee, which is pretty easy at Submission Only tournaments since I pretty much just have to watch out for competitor safety and flagrant rules violations.

On the downside, I haven't really prepped well for this one. Class attendance has been sporadic, diet has been bad, and I've done no specific cardio training. Despite all of that my jiujitsu feels smoother, cleaner, and better than it did for my last tournament. I feel stronger and faster. I feel like my cardio is better than it's ever been. I'm really looking forward to this tournament and getting as many matches as I possibly can cram into the day while still helping out with refereeing.

So, again, if you're going to be out there look me up and say hi! I'll be rocking my blue Megalodon Gi or a blue Megalodon t-shirt whenever I'm not decked out in USG stuff. I hope to see a big turnout!

As usual, videos will be up the week after the competition. I'm going to TRY to stream some of the matches via Ustream, so we'll see how that goes. My official videos will be up some time the week after.

We're Getting Our Own Place!

As some of my regular readers may know my gym currently shares space with a local Taekwondo school. This leads to things like children running all over the mats and dirtying them up and there being hordes of loud children having birthday parties and whatnot. We also have to work around their schedule.

Well, that ends in two weeks! Starting in March the Megalodon MMA gym will have a new location and our very own building! With wrestling mats andeverything!

I'm super excited about it.

We're breaking the new gym in with a Muay Thai training camp and the details will be up on the Megalodon website pretty soon. So, for anyone that is semi-local and is interested in a Muay Thai camp with some of the best in the state check http://megalodonmma.com/ for details coming up.


Class was great today, no-gi, working on high guard stuff. Everything felt super smooth and flowing for me. Punch-you-in-the-ribs-for-no-reason guy was back. He's very cool, fun to roll with, but has odd habits like headbutting my sternum and punching me in the ribs at random intervals. I offered to bring my gloves next time so we could do jits with hits and he apologized. He's fun to roll with though. Very high energy.

I'm tipping the scales ast 145lbs right now, which is just fine for USG. Looks like I WILL be able to make it up this weekend and looks like I'll be helping ref as well, so anyone who is going to make it to the US Grappling Sub Only tournament in Greensboro on the 18th drop by and say hi.

BJJ And The Mentor System

This post is going to tie in somewhat with my previous post about what I value in the various belt levels and will help explain why I have the expectations that I do.

When I first started training jiujitsu I constantly felt lost on the mats. Not just with techniques, but with mat etiquette, and the way the class flow worked. It took weeks to really settle into how things were done and there was still plenty of confusion. Based on all of the posts on JJ Forums and elsewhere from noobs with similar concerns this is a common theme.

When I got my blue belt and a few new students started at the gym I picked a couple of them and helped guide them through the classes, answered their questions, showed them basics, and then continued to help them develop their games. I became the person they could ask questions of when they weren't relevant to the current class. I also had the time to help them go into more detail about their game and how it worked and what they wanted to do. I was there to help them get over rough patches and frustration and to congratulate them on their triumphs. I very much became a BJJ Mentor for a couple of guys. They have since gotten their blue belts and are getting to the point where they will be mentoring people as well.

How does this tie into my previous ramblings about teaching proficiency requirements for belt ranks you may ask? Well, I believe that the mentoring system should be actively developed and encouraged within jiujitsu schools. Each purple or blue belt should have a pair of white belts to help guide through class and to answer very basic questions. Each Brown belt should have 3-5 blue and purple belts that they mentor through developing their game and navigating the pitfalls that come with developing into a complete jiujitsuka.

Putting a mentoring system like this in place helps everyone get the most out of their training. Lower belts get more personally tailored attention, while upper belts get chances to use one of the most powerful learning tools in anyone's arsenal, Teaching. While you are being mentored as a white, blue and purple belt you learn HOW to mentor others. Then when you begin mentoring you get to hone those skills. By the time a brown belt is ready for their black belt teaching has become a natural part of their development.

Having a mentor also removes a lot of the stress and anxiety that many people feel when attending class. The idea that they will do something stupid without knowing it because of ignorance is alleviated when you know someone is standing there to help you through everything and explain things.

Of course it takes balance. If you spend too much time helping your Mentee and not enough time working on your own development then you will lose out. You have to strike the right balance between personal development and Mentoring and it's the responsibility of YOUR Mentor or your coach to help you strike that balance. In this respect having a Mentee can be really handy as well though, you have a ready made training partner to work your developing game on while at the same time helping them to develop.

The entire system is, to me, something that many BJJ schools and students would benefit from, and would lead to better instruction over all.

Why are you punching me in the ribs?

So, holy controversial insanity batman!
Apparently my previous post caused a bunch of people over in /r/bjj to have minor heart attacks or something over the idea that I, a mere purple belt, might deign to give some thought to what I value from students at each level with an eye towards one day running my own school. I assumed there would be some discussion about the various ways schools promote and the alternate criteria espoused, but I didn't expect anyone to actually become offended by the idea. Shows what I know...
But, lucky for me I absolutely don't care about those people and the post did generate some interesting discussion from the non-spazz folks.

Anyways, we had either four new guys from the police academy training today or three from the academy and one random new guy. I didn't get the full details of everyones origin. Warmed everyone up with fundamental movements, and then a knee on belly drill for switching from one side to the other.

We started off the lessons with takedowns, a few reps of the basic double leg and then working finishes on a failed double. A nice escape against a front headlock after the failed double was the first one. Reach across and grab the choking arm and pull down, then step up your outside leg and reach that same arm over your opponents back as you spin away from them and take their back. The movement was awkward for me at first because I kept trying to go UP instead of OUT. Once I figured that out it worked nice and smooth.
The second one was switching off to a single leg from the failed double.
The third one was a basic sitout from a bodylock.
Bonus technique was another one against a front headlock. Base up, pull butterfly guard and immediately butterfly sweep. Fun stuff.

After that Coe worked Knee on Belly escapes.
First one is the basic grab the ankle, upa, shove the leg between yours and reguard.
Second one ones scooping under the foot, grabbing the gi or the belt, and the hipswitching and rolling them backwards to take side control.
Third was for when they are REALLY driving into you. Block the far leg as you hip away as hard as you can while they keep the pressure on you, then bring your top knee up to take some of their pressure and push hard like you are going to stand up, when they push back into you roll them and take side control.

After that was some rollin'. I had one of the new guys in my group and in his first roll he slammed one of the white belts. His second roll was with one of our wrestlers and they were going crazy as well. So when I rolled with him I kept it relaxed and let him spazz all he wanted to. Worked on breaking his posture down, holding him, setting up what I wanted, and then executing. He was explosive enough to pop out of quite a few things, so I got in some good reps of breaking his posture down. Then I noticed that he kept punching me in the ribs lightly while I was breaking him down. This confused me, so I swept him and took mount. At which point he started reaching up towards my eyes, and then trying to hook me with his feet to roll me backwards. I ended up just slapping his hands away and then keeping him trapped under mount to calm him down some.
I think I'll bring my MMA gloves next time and ask him if he wants to do jits with hits. Might be fun.

I did land a technique I've been playing with in no-gi for a while but hadn't seriously pursued. It's a no-gi flower sweep that I was certain was possible, but had never FELT the mechanic. This time I had a nice tight overhook and just felt the sweep the same way I have been with the gi version. I rotated and underhooked the leg and dumped him right over. I plan on working that more in my no-gi game.

Everything else was standard. Worked my single collar grips, my sweeps, and my top control.

Promotion Standards and Belt Meanings

The catalyst for the enormous wall of text that is going to follow this was this thread on JJ Forums and the conversation about women and BJJ standards that came out of it. This is a long post and contains largely my own personal philosophy created out of my experience with Taekwondo, BJJ, and Judo.

How SHOULD promotions be handled?
Black Belt: My personal view is that not everyone necessarily needs to achieve a blackbelt. Solely putting time in grade should not be enough to eventually land you a blackbelt. If you are getting tooled by blue belts that outweigh you by 50 lbs just because they are super athletic then you aren't black belt material no matter how good you are at teaching or how many years of experience you have. Black Belt is a signal of both ability AND knowledge. For the same reason I don't believe that solely winning the mundials 5 times at brown belt is enough to warrant promotion to black belt. If you can't teach worth crap, then you also aren't black belt material.

Brown Belt: This is where most people belong in my mind. If you are excellent at competition, or excellent at instruction, but aren't at least good at both then you should get stuck on brown belt and stay there. That doesn't mean I expect every black belt to be a world champion, but if you aren't getting on the mats to compete and beating other brown belts then you don't need to make the step up to black. However, if you hate to compete but are a great teacher then there is no reason why you shouldn't be a brown belt. At that point there's not the same expectation of ability to handle blue-purple belts that outweigh you massively, or to have all of the answers. So you can be a competition only brown, or a knowledge only brown and get by.

Purple Belt: This is the belt where the distinction will end up getting made for you. Are you going to be a competitor or a teacher or both? To reach purple belt I think you should be competent at both already. You need to be able to teach a beginner class and you need to have competed. This doesn't mean you should be able to school a whitebelt that is 100lbs bigger than you are, but you SHOULD be schooling white belts who are your size and you should have a technique library to draw from that is much larger than white belts or new blue belts. You should definitely be able to run roughshod over anyone with no experience pretty much regardless of size difference.

Blue Belt: This is the commitment belt. You've shown some dedication to training and grasp the basic concepts and techniques. The only requirement for blue belt is that you be able to perform the basics and roll competitively against other white belts your size with similar training, and roll successfully against new people your size.

Women vs Men: This comes up a LOT. Should a woman be required to roll successfully against a man of equal size in order to progress in jiujitsu? For me I say no for blue belt. Getting your Blue belt isn't about rolling, it's about knowing the basics and being ready to learn how to use them. As a purple belt, it's a different story. You SHOULD be able to splatter a 150lb untrained male. If you can't do that then stay at blue belt until you can. If that means you have to hit the gym to develop the physical attributes necessary, then so be it. My reasoning behind this is that a Purple belt is a sign of competence at self defense as well as everything else. If you have one then you should be able to defend yourself if attacked. I wouldn't want a woman that I promoted to purple belt to be unable to defend herself from at least a moderately sized male attacker. At Brown belt I would expect women to be able to handle 200lb untrained men with assurance, if not with ease.
However, I hold men to the SAME standards. If you are a 135lb male and you want your brown belt you better be able to breakdance all over a 220lb noobs face all day long.

Batsugan Promotions: This is something from Judo that you rarely see in BJJ, but is becoming more popular. It shows up in MMA occasionally when a fighter gets promoted after winning an MMA fight, and it happens sometimes when a blue or purple belt wins the Mundials. It's promotion based specifically on competition victories. Alliance took it one step further this year and held a "fight for your belt" event for white  belts trying to make blue and blue belts trying to make purple. The competition was no weight class, no time limit, and as soon as you and your next opponent in the bracket finished you started your next match. Minimal breaks. One of our guys won 5 or 6 matches in a row to go from white belt to blue. This guy is a GREAT competitor. Extremely athletic, really good at the things he does, but his technique library is very small and his technical understanding is limited. His technical execution of the things he does is great, but he would he can't explain past the basic details. Does he deserve his blue belt? Absolutely. But he will require a lot of development on the his understanding of the technical side before I think he is ready for his purple belt.
I'm interested to see if more of this catches on and what it does to the sport overall. I think Batsugan up to Brown belt would be fine for me, but from brown to black as I mentioned above I believe you have to be more well rounded than can be determined by solely competition prowess.

All of this being said, I really liked the exercise that Julia mentions here about determining how to promote people. Black Belts want the people they promote to represent their lineage, their school, and their instructor well. Not just be able to do the techniques, so every Black Belt is going to have different and equally valid promotion methods. I fully expect to be a black belt four years from now and will be working super hard to make that happen, and if I do then I expect I'll be no different.

Nutrition - More Important Than You Realize

For the entire last half of last year I ate really really well. Mostly lean meats, vegetables, and fruits with hardly any sugar or crappy carbs.

I fell off the wagon during my vacation to disney and have been completely derailed for the last 4 weeks essentially. I went from having almost unlimited energy and only really needing 6 hours of sleep a night to feeling like garbage and being tired all of the time. I attribute this almost entirely to the sharp rise in my consumption of crappy fast food cheeseburgers.

My diet has been sporadic, my meals random in time and composition including far too much fast food. My calorie intake has also been sporadic. I'll eat almost nothing one day, then end up snarfing down 4500 calories the next day. My weightlifting has suffered as well. I'm frequently too exhausted and crappy feeling to lift and I then feel stressed  because I've missed an opportunity to improve.

Such a simple thing, how much you eat, what you eat, something we take for granted all the time, but it can change your entire training regimen. When you aren't well fed, and well rested, then you can't train as well, you can't pay attention as well, and you don't absorb knowledge as well.

This is especially important if you have limited training time. If you can only train twice a week then it's incredibly important for you to get the most out of each minute that you are training and part of that is going to come down to your nutrition. Remember, lean meats, vegetables, and fruits. A minimum of sugar and bread, and plenty of post workout protein! Eat well, train well!

I Hate Ringworm, But I Love US Grappling!

So in addition to having to struggle with my work schedule I ended up with a spot of ringworm on my arm. That means I spent the last 7 days treating it with myconizal and bleach. It's faded away to almost nothing now, but just in case I'm taking an extra couple of days and won't be back on the mats until friday.

But, it looks like I WILL be heading up to Greensboro, NC for the US Grappling Submission Only event so for anyone else that is going to be there, look for me. I'm easy to find. I'll be in a blue gi with a giant shark on the back.

I'll be competing in 30+ Advanced No-Gi, Adult Advanced No-Gi, 30+ Purple Belt Gi, Adult Purple Belt Gi, and Adult and 30+ Absolute divisions as well. Should be able to hit between 6 and 8 divisions if all goes as planned. So I hope to have a nice long day.

I hope to have a couple of technique videos up next week as well. Just some fun stuff to play with.

BJJ 1/15/2012

Went horseback riding for a couple of hours before class and my arm was already starting to ache a little bit. Got there about 6:15 and got dressed and started rolling with Kris. I'm still working on being smooth and fluid with my transitions and forcing the game into MY game, but since it was no-gi we also throw in leg locks of all kinds.
I actually hit my figure four DLR counter SEVERAL times on him and it worked nicely. Also quite a few other nice transitions into submissions. He landed one extremely smooth transition through to the back and right into a nice choke.
His hip movement is getting very slick and forcing me to continually improve my guard passing. I was also reminded that grip control is just as important in no-gi as it is in gi and started to put together a better offense when I made it a priority to break his grips and establish my own.

At the moment my arm is aching like MAD because I just got done lifting, so typing is hard, but check out my review of the Spiderguard Flex Cup that I just put up and keep an eye out for a new homework assignment coming up friday.

Review: Spider Guard Flex Cup and Compression Shorts

The Spiderguard Web Flex Cup

I started trying to get one of these over a year ago and had zero luck. Amazon was sold out of them, MMAWarehouse was sold out, even the manufacturer couldn't tell me where to get one. But someone my wife managed to magic one up for me for christmas. I've worn it for half a dozen or so classes now so I feel like I can offer a solid review of the strengths and weaknesses of the cup.

My first impression of it was that it was pretty sturdy feeling for a rubber cup with holes all in it. My second impression was that it was a huge pain trying to get the cup into the pocket of the compression shorts. The rubber has a lot of friction and tends to bind up on the compression shorts and not sit in the pocket all the way without considerable fiddling around. It took me a few times to get the hang of how to get it seated properly.

The compression shorts themselves FEEL very fragile. I got a size small because I wanted tight shorts and I have a 29 (This was a typo that had me with a 39 inch waist. Oops! Thanks Georgette!)  inch waist, and when I'm pulling them up I frequently hear strings snapping. That might be normal "settling" but it makes me afraid to pull too hard while I'm getting into them. That being said, they haven't actually ripped or torn or anything, they just give an impression of fragility.

Once you have them on for a few minutes though they are a DREAM. I forget I'm wearing the cup as soon as I start moving around. It never digs into my stomach when I'm playing inverted guard or getting folded in half while working to finish a triangle. The cup is definitely sturdy enough to shrug off the occasional random groin shot without even a wince and it provides a nice barrier between my junk and my opponent when I'm doing things like mounted triangles or bicep slicers.

This really is an excellent cup for jiujitsu. I don't think it would stand up well to a full on kick in the crotch, but then again, it might. And for that matter I've seen guys break plastic cups in half, and even dent metal ones. I've also seen metal cups slide and trap a testicle to nasty effect. The spiderguard flex cup is in no danger of doing anything like that, so I have to see I highly recommend it.

My Rating: 9.5/10. It only missed half a point for the rubber material grabbing the compression shorts and so making it a little fiddly to get inserted. I can not stress enough that this is the MOST comfortable cup I've ever worn in 17 years of martial arts training.

Job vs BJJ: Shootout

So we found out recently that instead of 4 major, enormous, HUGE projects over the next 8 months we have 9 major, enormous, HUGE projects and 3 somewhat smaller projects. Now, while this means that I stand to make truly preposterous amounts of money this year it ALSO means that the amount of time I have to train may have just been drastically reduced. As may have my ability to compete in the US Grappling tournaments I wanted to do, and quite possibly the mundials as well. I won't know for sure for a couple of months on that front.

In the mean time I'm trying to fit as much training as I can in and getting back to 5x5. I also started doing Couch to 5k with my wife, even though I hate to run. It will probably be good for me.

Anyways, got to class a little bit late due to work so I missed a couple of the halfguard techs, but paired up with a new guy and showed him the basic positions, a basic halfguard pass, escapes from mount and side control. Then worked on the halfguard sweep that we were drilling.

Opponent has turned to face your feet and is working to free their leg. Grab their bottom arm near the elbow and then push them them forwards like you're trying to just shove them over. They shove back and when they do you roll with their momentum and end up on top. Very simple.

Drilled with the lightweights, then with a few of the heavier guys because I needed more people to drill with. Worked on sweeping instead of just reguarding because reguarding is too easy.

Rolled with the some of the heavier guys and felt slow, clunky, and not quite as smooth as I want to be. Nullified everyone's offense and worked my escapes and sweeps, but the bigger guys are starting to really develop good base and have caught on to most of my tricks, so it's really difficult to get sweeps on them unless I crank the intensity up and then everything gets crazy. I didn't feel as good about class today as I did last week, but it's all good.

Coming up: Review of the Spider Guard flex cup. I just want to roll in it a couple more times before I write it up.

Fight for your Belt Alliance Tournament Results

So this past Saturday one of our white belts (Brian) who is also one of our Ammy MMA fighters was heading up to Atlanta to compete in the Alliance "Fight for your Belt" tournament. It was a submission only, no weight classes tournament for white belts (There is one for blue belts coming up) and the winner gets promoted on the spot.

The night before the tournament he came in with his Gi to train. As far as I know this was the first time he has trained while wearing the full Gi. He wears the jacket frequently, but not the whole getup. I grabbed him for about 10 minutes of pointers for the competition primarily consisting of "Don't let them grab your collar. Posture up is safer than head down when the Gi is involved" and other things like that. I also showed him the baseball bat choke from side control and mount and he repped it maybe twice.

Fast forward to Saturday and I'm checking facebook and see that some videos are up from the tournament:

That right there is my boy Brian winning his blue belt using a choke he learned the day before and practiced for 5 minutes. The guy is a beast and if I can finally lure him away from his obsession with Muay Thai and cracking peoples skulls he's going to be a complete badass.


The rest of the night friday was taken up with more halfguard work. It was a small class, so I ended up rolling mostly with Casey and Ian, so I didn't get to work quite as much of my tournament game since both of them are around 200lbs, but I did work really hard on my passing and whatnot against Casey and was able to block a couple more tricks this time. A lot of good rolls and I did get plenty of grip work in, so that's always good.

Tonight is the No-Gi class, so mostly just going to play around in this one. Focus on movement, mobility, and general flow.

Day 1 of Mundials Training Prep

Started off with half an hour drilling scissor sweeps and then drilling attacking for the single leg takedown against standing guard passes.
Then rolled light for half an hour and worked on sweeping, passing, and applying baseball bat chokes.

The main class fed nicely into what I was working on with a lesson on halfguard/zguard with the overhook.

The first technique was a basic transition from halfguard, to the z-guard (Also called long range half) then situp and get the overhook, shrimp out on the overhooked side, free the bottom leg and base on the opponents hip, then pull the top leg out and base that on the hip. Push the opponent away and clear the arm to execute a triangle choke. There is a straight armbar available here as well if everything lines up just right, but it's rare.

Second technique was the same initial setup, but finishing with an omoplata. Key detail is to lift and drag your hips away from your opponent to drop them over onto their side before trying to finish.

Third tech was the Mir lock when your opponent tries to free their arm from the overhook. They drive their elbow towards the inside and you lock it up, extend your body and pull up like a guillotine for the finish. If they have super flexible shoulders you can turn it into a sweep by lifting them over with your top knee.

We then did position sparring from halfguard. I stuck with the lightweight side of the room and spent the time sweeping from the bottom mostly. Kris is the only one that can even slow down my guard passing and that's primarily because he has great hip movement on the bottom. Which reminds me I need to make it a point to continue working passing against him to make it more reflexive to establish good controlling grips and block the hips properly while passing. He'll make me pay for mistakes better than pretty much anyone else I could train with in my weight class.

Rolling was a lightweight gauntlet. Again I tried to concentrate on working my scissor sweeps, single collar chokes, and baseball bat chokes. I also worked a couple of back-take  transitions that combo with the single collar. I briefly got distracted playing with the berimbolo, then reminded myself I wasn't supposed to be screwing around and got back on track.

Final roll of the night I rolled with Brian, who wasn't wearing a Gi, and without anything to latch onto to slow him down he mauled the crap out of me. He's REALLY worked on refining his technique and avoiding muscling things and it shows in his progress. He's going up to Atlanta this weekend to compete int he "Fight For Your Belt" tournament as a white belt and I fully expect him to return with a Blue.

I felt like it was a good progressive day. I hit my goal of drilling and using the small group of techniques that I want to refine the majority of my time on the mat. A very successful class.

Also, my cardio felt great even after two and a half hours. I could have gone another hour and still been fine.

Drilling is the Heart of Jiujitsu

OK, so I might get some crap for helping Lloyd Irvin promote something because a lot of people aren't fond of his hype machine, but whether you love the guy or hate the guy he trains world champions. He also has the same philosophy that I do. Drill! DRILL! DRILL!!!!

So if you won't believe me then here is a world class instructor telling you exactly the same thing:

http://blackbeltsweepsecrets.com/grappling-blueprint/

It's 20 minutes long, watch it. Pay attention to it. Make drilling part of your life. Break your techniques down, drill them, put in the reps and you WILL get better.

Happy Homework New Years!

Ok people! Enough holiday slacking! Time to get back to work.

Everyone who has been following my homework assignments now gets to start fresh with me in the new year and return to lesson number one! Let's play "What's Your Game?!"

So again, your homework assignment is to go back and look at the LAST time you wrote out your game, see what parts of it you've actually be using and what you haven't. Look for places where you've been using a technique frequently that's NOT listed in your game and add it in.

NOW, move on to the next assignment and craft three sequences using techniques from your game which result in you achieving a submission. These should consist of a takedown, a guard pass, and a submission each. Ideally three different ones. These are "Ideal Competition Sequences" and you should drill each of these as often as you can until they are second nature and flow naturally together.

Third is the new component to this assignment. C-C-C-Combo Time!

Figure out how two submissions and a sweep or two sweeps and a submission can be combined together. For me I use Scissor Sweep, Triangle Choke, and  and Armbar. Go for the scissor, if my opponent manages to post to block I transition to the Triangle Choke. If my opponent postures up to escape I switch to the armbar.
There are thousands of ways to combine various sweeps and submissions together so that they flow smoothly, you'll want to get one really solid sequence that you are comfortable with.
You will drill this sequence EVERY SINGLE DAY in January. If you don't have a partner to drill it with then go through the motions solo in slow motion as best you can while thinking your way through it. The goal is 100 reps of this sequence every day. The first 10 reps should be with no resistance. Go through the technique with perfect form nice and slowly. Over the next 90 reps increase the resistance by about 10% every 10 reps. By the time you get to reps 90 through 100 your partner should be fully resisting. Your goal is to get ahead of them and land the third move in your sequence. The first two MUST be convincing enough that if they don't bother to defend them the technique will work, but the moment the technique is failing and you have the opportunity to transfer to the next technique you should do so.

So, DRILL! DRILL! DRILL! and make it your own.

A Year in Review: 2011

So here were my resolutions for 2011

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.

Let's take a look at where I ended up!

Purple Belt? CHECK! Ran into some scheduling difficulties, but the test itself went smoothly.
X-Guard? NOPE! Worked it some, then decided it was not yet time and circled back to some more basic stuff including X-guard setups.
PL Total 900? Progress! Hit 710lbs. Still work to do, but things are going well.

On to NEW GOALS!
New goals for 2012

1. GOLD MEDALS: I want to win some damnit! I've got a ton of 2nd/3rd place medals but no 1st place. I want some!
2. Compete at the Mundials: If I pick up a medal here it will be FUCKING EPIC, but I'm going for the experience more than anything else.
3. Push my PL total up another 100lbs.
4. Push two or three techniques up to blackbelt level.

Good luck to everyone else with their goals for the year!

Theme/Layout Changes

Be Warned, I'm mucking around with the theme and the layout for the next couple of weeks, so it might change randomly at any moment. I'm trying to settle on something that looks a little nicer than what I had before without being obnoxious. Bear with me while I screw around with it all and hopefully at the beginning of the year things will look more awesomerer.

Tournament Organization Review: 2006-2011

I promised that I would write up a review of all of the organizations that I've competed under in the last 5 years, and this is going to be it. I will be rating them on several factors, Scheduling, Organization, Communication, Cleanliness, Value, Spectator Experience, and Turnout. Each item will receive a score from 1 to 10 and will be totaled for a final ranking. Fair warning, this will be a LOOOONG post as it took me almost a week to put together going over my notes from all of my previous tournaments.

Casca Grossa (Note: I'm not sure these guys even run events any more. The last one I know of for sure was in 2009, but still)
Scheduling: My division was scheduled to begin at 1pm. We arrived at 11:30. My division did not start until 6pm.
Score: 3/10 (I gave them a 3 only because I only attended ONE event, so it could have been an anomaly)

Organization: The registration and weigh-ins went smoothly, I was able to find my ring assignment easily, and the officials all seemed to know what was going on. Everything was well organized except the scheduling.
Score: 8/10


Communication: We were never told why our division was delayed, or ever given any information on when it might start. It was just "any minute now". The announcements were difficult to hear over the PA system and the announcer was difficult to understand.
Score: 4/10


Cleanliness: Didn't see anyone with ringworm or anything like that allowed to compete, competitors were not allowed on the mats with shoes, competitors were not allowed into the bathrooms WITHOUT shoes. When there were fluid spills (Blood or whatever) on the mats it was cleaned up immediately with what appeared to be clorox wipes. We did see some people walking around in their socks who then walked onto the mats in those same socks.
Score: 8/10


Value: I paid 60$ to compete in one division. I ended up getting two matches. The spectator fee was 10$, so I paid 70$ for the day. I could have done 2 divisions for 70$. So, not bad.
Score: 7/10


Spectator Experience: My wifes experience at this event almost resulted in me not getting to compete anymore. Ever. The air conditioning was non-existent, the venue was incredibly loud, and there was absolutely no effort made to make sure that spectators could actually see what was going on. Additionally the scheduling problems contributed to issues for her as well. This tournament did NOT earn the Jennosaurus Seal of Approval. Of course, it could have been worse. Somehow.
Score: 3/10


Turnout: There were around 15 people in my division, which is on the upper end for most of the competitions I've been to since then, so it was a decent turnout. I would have had to win 4 matches to take first place, so that's pretty solid.
Score: 7/10


Overall: This was a pretty bad tournament. I drive like an hour and a half, then had to wait around for almost 7 hours before I got to compete. The venue was miserable, and the staff did NOT communicate well with the competitors. There were no brackets available to check either, so we had no idea what was going on. I would not recommend competing at these events for any reason.
Final Score: 38/70




NAGA
Scheduling: Again there has consistently been a 4-5 hour delay between the time my division is listed to start, and the time the division actually starts. This has been consistent across every single NAGA event I've attended.
Score: 1/10 


Organization: Ring assignments frequently change from moment to moment. The organizers rarely seem to know what ring you belong to and have no idea when your division will start. The brackets appear to be hand draw at the table that day. These events have ALWAYS been complete Chaos. I've never been told completely wrong information, but I have gotten a lot of, "I don't know, check back later" answers.
Score: 5/10


Communication: Announcers are usually easy to hear and intelligible at these events. They are good about calling people to the rings if they can't find them and rules and policies are clearly and consistently communicated to people. Once the organizers do know when something is going to happen, they are very good about letting everyone else know.
Score: 9/10


Cleanliness: This is one of the dirtier tournament environments I've ever been to. The bathrooms are usually filthy with overflowing toilets within an hour of the event start time. I regularly see people walking around barefoot and then stepping onto the mats. I've seen a few people walking in and out of the bathroom/locker room areas barefoot and then getting on the mats. And despite hosing myself down with alcohol wipes after every event I almost always end up with ringworm a day or two later and end up missing 8-10 days of training to get rid of it. Blood spills are cleaned up promptly, but I've had to grapple in a huge puddle of someone elses sweat because no one bothered to clean it up after their match. Definitely not cool.
Score: 2/10


Value: I paid 100$ plus a 15$ spectator fee to do 2 divisions pretty much every time I've competed for NAGA. I feel like it's kind of the average value. If you are cheaper than NAGA you're a good value, if you're more expensive then you're doing something wrong. The spectator fee is a bit steep though.
Score: 5/10


Spectator Experience: The venues are frequently hot, and noisy, but there is reasonable effort taken to keep people from obstructing the view of the spectators. They have been a little on the strict side about preventing outside food/drink into some of the events. But I think that might be related more to the venue than NAGA itself. That being said, my wife views these with dread every time. So they are not Jennosaurus approved.
Score: 5/10


Turnout: These are always huge. 1200+ competitors. My division almost  always has 12-16 people in it and requires four wins or more to take first. Because of that there is decent prestige in winning a gold medal at NAGA, so that definitely bumps the score up here.
Score: 9/10

Overall: Almost all of these tournaments are bad experiences for me. I arrive at the venue around 11am in a panic thinking that THIS TIME they will start my division on time at 12 and I'll miss it or something, only to get there and wait around for HOURS. Continually trying to stay warmed up, not wanting to eat anything in case my division starts 10 minutes later, etc... They are stressful and I always end up feeling drained and exhausted by the time I get on the mats from the repeated adrenaline surges of "Your division is about to start. Oh wait, no it isn't. Oh yes it is! Over there! in the other ring! Oh wait, no, we meant an hour from now it will start." The only redeeming feature for NAGA is the size of their attendance and the frequency of their events.
Score: 37/60




Lutador Grappling:
Scheduling: Going in to Lutador I had heard  good things about their scheduling at tournaments, so I was optimistic about my chances of getting on the mats in decent time. Unfortunately that proved overly hopeful. Once again my arrival was approximately 5 hours before the actual start of my division. I don't know what's so hard about starting and completing things on time, especially for a tournament that was pre-registration only, but no one seems to be able to pull it off.
Score:1/10


Organization: This was probably the worst organized tournament I've been to. Despite being pre-register only the brackets for my division weren't up until around two hours after I arrived. THEN my ring assignment got moved twice. THEN I was  told I would be competing in the Gi division first. I got my gi on, was standing at the ring for my Gi match, and was then told my NO-GI match was starting, which required that I strip down and change RIGHT THERE at ringside, which wasn't THAT bad, but damn! Then after my no-gi match it was another hour before my  gi match started. Terribly organized and no one seemed to know what was going on. I considered giving them a 3 instead of a 2 because they apparently had a larger kids turnout than expected, but then I realized that they are PRE-REGISTRATION ONLY. So they HAD to know at least two days in advance of the tournament what their kids turnout was going to look like.
Score: 2/10 


Communication: Terrible. Frequently told to go one place, then another, updates for ring assignments were late, and several times wrong. I was, in fact, ASSURED that my Gi division would start before my No-Gi division on two occasions. This turned out to be completely wrong. Not cool guys, not cool.
Score: 3/10


Cleanliness: The mats were well policed, I didn't see anyone walking around barefoot anywhere. I didn't see any sock go from the floor to the mats. Everything seemed pretty clean and well taken care of. The bathrooms were nice, everything seemed well taken care of.
Score:9/10


Value: I paid 85$ to compete in Gi, No-Gi, and Gi Absolute, and the spectator fee was 5$. Total cost was 90$ for three divisions. Definitely a good value. I felt like I got my moneys worth out of it for sure. Also, the absolute winners get a cash prize, so you have the chance of going home with more money than you came in with.
Score:10/10


Spectator Experience: The venue was airconditioned and reasonably comfortable. Effort was taken to clear the areas in front of the bleachers, and they had no problems  with us bringing in outside food/drinks. The scheduling issues had a negative impact on the Jennosaurus though, so this event also failed to earn the Jennosaurus seal of approval despite their relatively positive experience.
Score: 7/10


Turnout: My divisions were relatively small, 8-10 people in the No-gi and 3 people in the Gi, but the absolute division was huge, with around 20 people. There is also some decent prestige to the Lutador tournaments because of the heavy Alliance turnouts so guys like Cobrinha and Ian McPherson compete at them. Definitely a strong average turnout.
Score: 8/10


Overall: Despite the long wait I did enjoy this tournament. The atmosphere was good even though they had no idea what was going on and the competition is pretty high level. It's also a good value for the available divisions. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and will probably do one more of these some time in 2012 to give them a chance at redemption. I definitely recommend them over NAGA or Casca Grossa though.
Score: 40/60


US Grappling
Scheduling: After I mentioned my experience with Lutador over on JiuJitsu Forums I got multiple assurance from Clinzy that the USG tournaments were a million times better organized and scheduled. Admittedly I went in with some skepticism since I had heard the same thing about Lutador, but this turned out to be the absolute truth. We arrived at 9:30 so I would have time to eat some breakfast and stuff and the rules meeting started sharply at 10:30. By 11am I was on the mats and grappling. By 12 no-gi division was done. My gi division started at about 12:30 and we were done by 1:30. We were frankly, astonished. At first I assumed it was because the turnout at ATL was relatively small, but I spoke with folks who attended their Richmond events which have much larger turnouts and got the same kind of reports. These guys know how to schedule a tournament and stick to it.
Score: 10/10


Organization: Even though they allowed registration at the door the brackets were ready before the rules meeting ended. We even had a late addition to our division and the change took about 30 seconds to enact. The brackets were generated and printed via computer and everything was incredibly smooth. This is by far the most organized event I've ever been to. I'm only avoiding a perfect score on this because the turnout was small and I want to see how they handle a larger crowd before I give them full marks.
Score:9/10

Communication: Again, I was skeptical going into this, but 10 minutes after I arrived I knew which ring I would be in and the name of my opponent. At every turn communication was swift and accurate. I couldn't really ask for anything more here.
Score: 10/10


Cleanliness: Signs on the bathroom doors reminding people not to go barefoot in them. Didn't see anyone walking around barefoot, but I did notice that one of the tables made a small group of people wipe their feet down with alcohol/clorox wipes so presumably they were walking around the gym barefoot. Did see a few sockfeet to mat transitions though. All fluid spills were handled quickly with clorox wipes and excessive sweat was handled quickly.
Score: 9/10


Value: I paid 90$ to do 4 divisions, which ended up only being 3 divisions due to lack of purple belts in my weightclass. Spectator fee was FREE. So that ended up with 3 divisions for 90$. you can do up to 8 divisions for 115$ which breaks down to almost nothing on a per division basis.The only thing missing to make this a perfect score is some kind of cash prize somewhere.
Score: 9/10


Spectator Experience: The venue was comfortable, it was easy to see the mats, they had no problem with outside food and drinks, everyone was friendly. It was a great time. The Jennosaurus actually ENJOYED the tournament! This is the ONLY tournament I've been to that received the Jennosaurus Seal of Approval and as a result it is likely to be my primary tournament venue going forward despite them being mostly held in the Carolina and Virginia area.
Score: 9/10


Turnout: This was the biggest downside issue for USG. My no-gi division had 3 guys in it. My gi division had no one but me in it, so it was  turned into a purple belt absolute division with 3 guys in it. TINY turnout. Part of that can be blamed on the Miami Open being held the same day, and a large Alliance belt promotion happening as well, so a lot of people were at those events instead, but I still expected a larger turnout. Hopefully in the future when USG returns to Atlanta more people will know what a great event they run and we'll have more people there. That being said, I DID get to have 6 matches. So I can't complain too much.
Score: 3/10


Overall: I enjoyed this tournament the most of any I've been to. It was pure FUN. There was no stressing about my ring assignment or when my division would start. I was able to eat breakfast and have a snack between divisions because I KNEW when my matches would be happening. I was able to stay warmed up and relaxed without getting tired or adrenaline dumping multiple times. It was a great experience in every way. I wish there had been more people, but I'm sure future events will get a stronger showing as the organization gains exposure.
Score:59/70


I definitely welcome input from people who have been to tournaments from any of these organizations presenting their own ratings. These are ALL from tournaments around the Atlanta area, so if you have experience with one of these organizations from a different region please feel free to chime in. If you think any of my ratings are ludicrously low or high then feel free to let me know that as well.

Innovation, Jiujitsu, and You

This post has been forming itself in my head for a few days, ever since I saw this video from the ADCC Pro Trials: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrluVaEJSfw

In it the guy catches a very slick collar choke variation off of a scramble. He posted it over at JiuJitsuForums in this thread and we had a discussion about what it was called, and exactly how it was executed. This lead me to thinking about innovation, especially at the lower belts, and jiujitsu.

One of our white belts who has been training for a long time did something that as far as I can tell is completely unique to him. He made up the technique. I've never seen anyone else do it, or even indicated it might be possible. He hit an ezekiel choke on a guy that HAD HIS BACK. In the process he discovered a really solid way to block attacks from the back while threatening his opponent with a choke. Is this a brand new move? Who knows, but it's definitely new to our gym. More importantly, should he, as a white belt, be trying to make up new stuff on the fly instead of working on his established defenses? I don't have an answer to that and that isn't what this post is about.

This is about the creative process of JiuJitsu and how it forces innovation, as well as how that innovation is embrace by the community. Some blackbelts have been extremely innovative and everyone knows about it. Marcelo Garcia's X-Guard is widely studied and used, Eddie Bravo's Rubber Guard system is something that almost every white belt has dabbled with, Spider Guard, De La Riva guard, etc... are all relatively recent innovations as well, and Upside Down/Inverted/Tornado guard has been exploding across the BJJ world for the last few years.

This post is about where this stuff comes from. Again this is not about the specifics of how Marcelo developed the X-Guard, but you can read about that in his book if you're interested, this is about how innovation in general occurs.

Ok, so enough teasers. Innovation in BJJ happens when someone hits an obstacle that they can't overcome with traditional methods. BJJ itself is a testament to this process as Helio developed it largely because he wasn't able to use the traditional Judo style effectively because of his particular body type. When the white belt from our gym kept getting his back taken and getting stuck he was getting outmuscled by guys when he tried to escape, so his solution was to try to use something he's already really good at (His Ezekiel choke is pimp) to solve a problem he was having somewhere else.

My game has partially shaped itself around issues like that because I'm small, weak, and lazy. Sweeps not working on bigger guys? Well, what if I collar choke them at the same time? Oh hey! That works! And not only does it work, but I can't find video or reference to it anywhere. Did I just invent something? Nope. Someone, somewhere, is using exactly the same stuff I'm using. Doesn't matter though. I discovered it within the context of my jiujitsu so for all practical purposes I "invented" it.

This will happen more and more as your game develops because your instructor can only teach you so much and most of it will be out of solid, universal, fundamentally successful techniques. Much of what you discover or invent  will be techniques that fit uniquely into your attributes or your game. Your instructor will have some of these things which he may or may not teach because they may or may not be universally applicable, but rest assured he does HAVE them. Everyone past blue belt will have at least 2-3 techniques that they "invented" that work well for them, but may not work well for anyone else.

Frankly I approve of this process. The sport develops because people try new things. Most of the new things you try will fail, but some will work, and some will work incredibly well. Don't listen to anyone that tells you everything in BJJ has been discovered already. That MIGHT be true, but one guy, in one gym, in Brazil using something doesn't do you any good if you don't know about it. That means we should all be trying to innovate, all the time. Don't try to innovate to the exclusion of your fundamentals, but don't be afraid to set some time aside every week to explore your jiujitsu.

I guarantee that all of the guys who have pushed the sport forward started exploring with their Jiujitsu WELL BEFORE they got their blackbelts.

Interview with Carlos Lemos Jr.

I doubt there is anyone that follows my blog that doesn't already follow Slideyfoot's, but just in case I'm going to give a shoutout for this.

Carlos Lemos Jr was visiting Slidey's school recently and our intrepid Englishman scored an awesome interview with the man which he has posted up over on his blog. So, check out Slideyfoot's interview with Carlos Lemos Jr. and enjoy.

What To Do With Downtime

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Recovery Update

Injury Recovery progress is going great!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Circles, Pyramids, Shotguns, and Lasers

During a brief but very productive conversation with Georgette (Who I hope will write up her own perspective on this) today we briefly got onto the subject of how techniques and classes are taught. She had a very interesting metaphor involving Pyramids vs Circles that goes thusly:
The two most common ways to teach techniques are the Pyramid, whereby a strong base of fundamental techniques is taught in sequence with each additional layer of techniques relying on the knowledge from the previous techniques, and the Circle, whereby techniques are introduced in a cycle that doesn't rely on or really connect with the previous set of techniques but are repeated on a regular basis in a cycle.
The advantages to the pyramid are that you build a very cohesive game that fits together very tightly. The disadvantage is that if you miss a chunk of the foundation techniques it may take a while before you see them again so the later techniques may be more difficult to learn until you pick them up.
The advantages of the circle are that it doesn't matter where you come into the cycle, you will eventually see all of the techniques over and over again, getting better at them each time until you master them. The disadvantage is that it may take a very long time to master a given technique because you don't have a foundation to build from.

Now, within the Pyramid and the Circle there are teaching methods for individual classes. The way I describe this is using the Shotgun approach or the Laser approach. With the shotgun you are covering 3-5 techniques or technique variations each class, with only enough detail to practice each one a few times. The idea being that each class will offer something valuable to everyone and that over time you will pick up more techniques and go into greater depth on the ones you prefer.
With the Laser method you only introduce one or two techniques or technique variations in a class and go into deep detail on it. You cover fewer techniques in a given time period,. but the ones you do cover you have a more comprehensive knowledge of.

Now, there's nothing wrong with any of these methods. Some people learn better from one than the other, but all of them are valid. I'm a Pyramid-Laser person. I like a strong foundation of techniques that all build on each other, and I like to pick one or two techniques and go into deep detail on them in a given class.
Other people might be Circle-Laser learners, they prefer to learn their techniques in isolation and develop their own path from one to the other, but still like in depth examination of those techniques. There are several combinations and knowing what kind of learner you are can help speed up your development.

Now, from a teaching perspective knowing what kind of teacher you are is even more important. I teach the way I learn, but my gym is more of a Circle-Shotgun gym. Our home gym in Atlanta seems to be a Circle-Laser gym with a lot of depth on one or two techniques each class, operating on a cycle that isn't really dependent on the previous technique.

So how do you prefer to learn? How does your academy teach?

All The Small Things (And a Homework Assignment)

So, I'm sitting here trying eat a turkey sammich and my giant golden retriever starts shoving his head into my lap and looking up at me with his soulful eyes. At the same time our Husky is laying in her crate amidst a pile of stuff she managed to latch onto through the hole she chewed in the metal crate and drag into it with her. Meanwhile our German Shepherd is making constant and incredibly annoying noises. CONSTANT.

What this initially made me think of was a captain planet style cartoon where my three dogs combined their powers and became Super Annoying Dog, so irritating that it could prevent nuclear apocalypse. It would go like this, "Thank you for saving the world Super Annoying Dog! Now will you please go somewhere else?" but then I had a followup thought, this is why I go to jiujitsu. Little daily annoyances, tiny things at work that get on my nerves, people that I can't punch in the face in wal-mart for bringing 900 items through the self checkout and trying to pay with a 5 gallon bucket of change.
Those things drive me to get out of the house, go to the gym, and try to strangle someone that I'm actually good friends with.

So, your homework assignment for this week is to make a list of five things that make you go to class.  Not five things like "I want to be the best person I can be!" or "I want to get in great shape!" or whatever high and mighty ideals drive you forward. I mean the five things in your day to day life that get you to the gym THAT DAY. Some guy cuts you off in traffic and it makes you want to punch him? BINGO! You're gonna make the gym tonight for sure!

How will this help your jiujitsu you ask? Well, that's an excellent question. While thinking about this I realized  that's a crappy attitude to be carrying into the gym with me. I should not be taking my irritation out on my classmates. If I acknowledge the cause of my annoyance and think about it, it helps me to avoid hulksmashing the whitebelts just because my boss gave me a complicated assignment with no background information and a deadline.

So, take note of those little irritations and don't carry them on to the mats with you. You'll be a better partner for it.

Epic Thanksgiving

So, my awesome awesome wife Jenn cooked a HUUUUUUGE thanksgiving meal for us. Epic huge. 14 lb turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatos, broccolli casserole, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, pumpkin pie, pecan pie.... I think that was everything. All of it homemade and all of it delicious.
We've barely made a dent in it.
Then we did our christmas setup a bit early this year. Usually I decree that Christmas stuff can't go up until December 1st, but her exam schedule for school is insane this year, so this is going to be the only weekend we have available. So we did the Christmas transformation today. Tree is up, stockings are up, christmas music is on.

Injury recover is going very well. My shoulder and neck are almost completely pain free, though at certain angles of holding my head, my arm gets pins and needles which I'm told is likely to heal up in another week or so. I'm ending my complete rest tomorrow though and starting a 45 minute Yoga routine from the Yoga for Fighters DVD that I got. That should make me feel a bit better about my inactivity.
All of my other injuries seem to be completely cleared up.

So, Yoga starts tomorrow, then Dec 1st I'll start lifting weights again it looks like. I'm going to go ahead and get my current powerlifting total and see where I stack up to my 900lb goal.

Downtime Progress

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

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

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

My new Game now looks like this:

Submissions From the Bottom:
Triangle
Armbar
Omoplata
Loop Choke

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

Sweeps:
Scissor Sweep
Omo Sweep
Flower Sweep

Passes:
Teleport Pass
Double Underhook Pass
Toreador Pass

Halfguard:
Concentrate on the Reguard.
Caio Sweep
Old School
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That's a total of 12 techniques.

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

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

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

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

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

Downtime Plan

So here's what I've put together so far as what I will be doing during my 6 weeks off.

1. Acquire "Yoga for Fighters" book as recommended by Slideyfoot.
2. Setup 30-40 minute Yoga routine to do 3-4 times a week.
3. Pick up "The Samurai Diet" by Nate Miyaki as recommended by Ralph from The Hardcore Gym.
4. Continue tweaking my diet for recovery and energy output.
5. Start taking my Glucosomine and Omega-3 supplements regularly.
6. Watch BJJ DVDs and study them. Competition videos included. Take notes!
7. Rebuild my game from the ground up based on the techniques that I've had the most success with in competition.
8. Build a new training plan that incorporates more DRILLING and less free rolling.
9. Concentrate on RECOVERY and not getting ahead of myself and starting to lift weights and stuff before I'm healed up.
10. Relax and enjoy the holidays.

On Hiatus from 11/14/11 to Jan 1

Food Diary: Had half a rotisserie chicken and about 3oz of frozen yogurt. Felt plenty fast and awake, but was rolling with the HWs so definitely was working a LOT harder than normal. Which leads me into the rest of this quite nicely.

Technique was side control work, attacking from the top. Farside armbar, kimura, and the head scissor choke combo. Drilled it with Kris and enjoyed it.

Did positional sparring with the lightweights and hit kimuras and head scissor and stuff. Ankor was in town visiting, so I got to roll with him. His choke defense is still pimp, but he hasn't been training BJJ recently, so his positional work was weaker than it used to be.

Rolled with the HWs for live rolling including a guy named Christian who currently trains with team ROC at their headquarters school.  He also trains Judo and has the same kind of strong top game that Johnny has only a lot more technical. I kept giving up halfguard on all of them because it's by far my weakest position against heavier guys and it continue to be so. I could fight off submissions for a good long while, but couldn't put together any effective sweeps for the most part. I did finally manage to break him down long enough to get the overhook and behind the neck grip and turn it into an omoplata sweep, but lost control in the scramble.
Also had a nice leglock battle with them, had to make a note to myself to make sure I got my toe hold grip up close to the toes, not in the middle of the foot.
Also got to roll with Casey and he played a lot of catch and release, I was able to put together a little bit of offense against him, but not much.

But, post class I feel like I was run over by a truck and thrown down a cliff. Every injury I have is flaring up extremely painfully and in light of that and other issues with work and my schedule I'm taking some time off from class until Jan 1. I'll be going to Alliance HQ once in Nov, and once in Dec, and I might still make the USG tournament in NC, but I'm going to take some time off. Let all of my injuries heal completely and come back after the holidays ready to make my run for the Mundials from a nice fresh injury free base. In the mean time I'll be watching some DVDs, retooling my gameplan, and concentrating on the mental side of my jiujitsu for a little while. There will still be awesome posts here, but they won't have anything to do with class until Jan 1.

BJJ 11/11/11 - Light Work

Pre-Workout meal: Banana! 1/2lb! NOMNOMNOM!
Ate that at 5:30ish and started rolling about 6:15. Felt quick, plenty of energy. But was RAVENOUSLY hungry by 7:30.

Kris and Will showed up to roll and we had some good stuff. Kris has really good standing guard passing and I'm really enjoying working with him because he's fairly innovative and does a lot of research outside of class so he always has some new stuff to try. He's also quick and fairly strong, while still being my weight so it's always a good roll with him. He's been ready for his blue belt for a while now. I did get him with the figure four counter to the DLR again, and this time he didn't see it coming. The more I mess with it the more I think that might actually be a legitimate counter in some circumstances. We'll see....

Rolling with Will is a whole different experience. He trained with us for about a year and was a couple of months away from his blue belt when life interfered and he ended up not training for about a year. He's been back on and off the last couple of months, but he's put on a bunch of weight and is back around 235 now. He's still got great base and is strong and fairly explosive, but his cardio is complete trash now. He ends up using occasional bursts of power to defend. It's valuable because it helps me work on my ability to react to explosive movements.

I was able to continue to implement my game. Working the scissor sweep and the various combinations off of it and the single collar choke and armbar and triangle offense. Worked on the flower sweep as well.

From the top, I really think I'm still missing something in my guard passing, my worst position is still trying to pass long range halfguard, but I don't think it's as bad as I think it is. For some reason I have the idea that passing guard should be as effortless as sweeping someone when I get it right, and when I hit my Teleport Pass it IS that easy, but if I really have to be low and tight to hit that pass properly, and when I'm getting stopped by long range half it's because I'm passing too upright. I'm getting closer and closer to making this my primary focus for a while, just passing guard and then letting my opponent reguard with minimal effort and then working to pass again.

Had to ditch out before the main class started though. Was STARVING. Came home and ate some salmon cakes. NOMNOMNOM!

As a note, I need to rewrite my gameplan again. It's been further refined and trimmed, and reorganized into sequences instead of being divided by position.

BJJ 11/04/2011 - Wheel Of Injury!

Food Diary: At 5:00 my wife and I hit Longhorns for an early dinner, so between 5 and 6 I had 3 slices of bread with butter, a quarter pound angus burger with cheddar cheese, and half a plate of french fries. It was delicious. Clearly I am NOT the best role model for pre-workout eating, as you will discover below.

Got over to the gym at 6 and got changed. Kris arrived at 6:30 and we started rolling. The entire time the cheeseburger felt like a rock in my stomach. I would fold up for my normal transitions and feel slightly sick and have to give up positions. I was also moving more sluggishly than normal. I blame this for the injury I inflicted on myself. I was playing with the lapel reversal from the bottom of side control that I hit at the judo school Wednesday and found that against normal side control as opposed to Kesa you have to really get both legs involved and crank it super tight to put on enough pressure to pull them off and over. While doing this I dropped him onto my foot and heard a crackling noise that was mildly disturbing. Had a little bit of pain, but nothing too bad. We stopped occasionally for me to give him pointers or to get some water. But it was pretty much nonstop rolling from 6:30 to 7:20, at which point Johnny had arrived and Kris was exhausted, so I rolled with Johnny until the main class started, about 10 minutes.

*UPDATE* Almost forgot, while rolling with Kris I forced the Figure 4 counter to his DLR pretty much purely by out gripping him. He saw it coming towards the very end and he quite probably stopped resisting right as I put it on.  But it was hilarious and we laughed about it.

Main class was more back control stuff. This time you block the fatboy roll and take the farside collar grip. First finish was with a normal clock choke, weight down, run around the head. I'm terrible at finishing this for some reason. I never move quite right and end up all the way on the other side of my opponent before the choke sets in. Still troubleshooting, but not all that much because there are other moves I prefer from that same grip.
Second finish was the Hell Strangle. You pull free of the fatboy roll attempt and grab the pants or the belt, get the same collar grip, then step over the head, put your knee on the back and either stand up and pull for the finish, or fall backwards. You run the risk of them rolling you and you faceplanting if you stand up, so I recommend falling backwards for the finish if you're as pretty as I am.
Third finish you drop your weight on them, get the same collar grip, and then bring your farside arm over and drive the elbow into their neck to complete the choke. Super wicked tight.

Next up was specific sparring starting from the turtle. I swept a lot, choked people a lot, worked through a lot of transitions. However, I still felt slower than normal, and fairly uncomfortable in my normal folded in half game. Managed to repeat the exact same "Drop guy on foot" scenario 3 more times resulting in a really annoyed foot. Also got neck cranked by one of the whitebelts. Neck popped about 8 times before he had the thing even on and I was already tapping. Osteoarthritis in the neck = no neck cranks. I had forgotten to warn this white belt because it's been so long since anyone threw one at me. No lasting injury, but my neck will be sore as hell for a couple of days.
Also got the chance to get a problem area fixed. Same white belt I was playing under side control, got halfguard and went to deep half. Made it part of the way out the back, then got kneebarred which is what usually happens. This time however Coe was watching, so I was able to ask him what the hell I was doing wrong and he pointed out that I'm overcomitting to controlling the leg that I have trapped with my legs, and I'm letting my opponent maintain mobility with his untrapped leg. I need to concentrate on immobilizing that leg in order to make the sweep work. I also need to maintain control of my legs during that transition.

The above is one of the perfect examples of how you CAN NOT learn if you aren't tapping. If you refuse to play to your weaknesses, then they will ALWAYS be your weaknesses.

Ended the class with a slightly tweaked neck, slightly tweaked knee (Dudes cup jammed into a spot on my knee, tapped in plenty of time, but ended up pushing on a soft spot), slightly jacked up foot, jacked up pinky finger from a collar choke, my elbow is tweaked from work since I spent about an hour hanging from the rafters one handed pulling cable. Shoulder is still tweaked. So, all in all feeling like I got run over. No class sunday because it's homecoming weekend and I'm not going anywhere near town.

When I entered my stuff into Fitocracy I realized that we do a LOT of sparring relative to the amount of drilling we do. We spend 30 minutes doing techniques and drilling them a dozen or so times. I need to cut the amount of sparring I'm doing and get more drilling done. Definitely need to make my sessions with Kris into 50/50 drilling and sparring at least. I'm neglecting repping my competition rounds which is no good.

Tomorrow is roofing the barn day for my awesome wife. So probably no weightlifting, but maybe I can fit some in somewhere.

William Wayland Gives Some Great Advice

http://williamwayland.blogspot.com/2011/11/powering-through-slidecast-01-s-advice.html

And he does it in slideshow format!

William is a BJJ Blogger and a Strength and Conditioning coach that also happens to have a voice like honey being poured into your ears. This slideshow and the accompanying lecture make some excellent points about how your training, weight lifting, and supplemental cardio should be structured based on your goals, lifestyle, and, current fitness level.
If you're new to BJJ, new to S&C training, or just new to the combination of both you should DEFINITELY check out that slideshow. Even if you're experienced you're likely to pick up a couple of things you hadn't thought about before.

Figure Four Leglock Counter to the DLR

Ok, so I got several requests for a video of the figure four DLR counter that I mentioned a few posts back, and since I'm nothing if not an attention whore I have delivered!

You can clearly see my crazy hair from the two and a half hours of grappling prior to this. The guy with the DLR has the deep DLR hook, but it works just fine with the shallower one as well, you just have to pull the leg through with authority.

I have no idea what the legality of this move is in competition, but it's essentially two straight ankle locks and a kneebar, so as long as kneebars are legal you should be all good.

Special thanks to Kris for being my victim here and Antony for running the camera.

BJJ 11/2/2011

Pre-Class Food Diary: At 5:15 had 3 mini reeses cups, 2 mini krackles, and a mini butterfinger because one of my clients plied me with candy while I was onsite. Couldn't turn it down. Drank 48oz of water.

Finished up work at about 6:15 and headed over to the local Judo school for a romp with them. They asked me to give them some pointers on maintaining mount, so I talked about high mount, and being mobile and transferring to technical mount. Predicting which way your opponent will roll based on which arm they have trapped. Killing leverage points by hooking under the head and grapevining, etc...
We drilled that for a bit, then rolled. I worked my grip game, swept a lot and worked the mount stuff I had shown them just to demonstrate that it definitely works. Threw some triangles up, etc... The instructor is really solid, even when I trick him into where I want him his posture and grip strength is enough to keep me from being able to finish anything. At the end they had me turtled in the middle and they started from dominant positions and I worked to escape and get on top. The last round was with an big guy, somewhere over 200lbs, who started on top of side control. I ended up wrapping his lapel around my foot and using that to move him over me and take side control. Then they started me on top of side control with him and told him to survive for 30 seconds. I hit the baseball bat choke on him with about 6 seconds left and he had to tap. Was a blast and I will probably try to make it regular wednesday thing with them.

Hurried over to the gym for the beginning of class. Got there just in time to start techniques which were all attacking the turtle. First one was the basic harness, then shin against their knee and roll to get your hooks in and setup your choke. Key point on the choke, if you can't get the full RNC and use the palm up forearm choke instead then you don't want to feed across as deep. You want the forearm parallel to your opponents chest when you pull back, and you want to pull back with your back muscles and your arms. Not just your arms.
Second technique was for when your opponent hooks your leg while you are moving, you triangle and extend, then put the choke on anyways. Variation of that technique was if they don't take the bait of your leg. You cross grip their near wrist with your outside arm and roll them anyways, then pin their arm with your leg and choke.
Third technique was if you get fat-boy rolled. You want to triangle on their arm and extend your hips for the armbar. If the turn their arm in to defend you turn into them and slide your hips away for the armbar anyways. Key point was to triangle your legs so that your foot was pointing TOWARDS your opponent.
Variation, if you triangle with your foot pointing away you won't be able to finish with the amrbar, but you can allow they to bend their arm and the while maintaining some control you can sit up and roll into an ompplata (might have been a reverse omoplata, the details are fuzzy.)

Drilled from turtle and I did a lot of sweeping and chokes and whatnot. Hit the rolling hell strangle.
Rolling was a gauntlet of light folks, Antony gave me some good grip work, he breaks grips religiously and stands up to pass a lot, so I like working with him. Put in some more concentration work on establishing and using my grips. Continued to be very successful.

At the end of clas I had Antony and Kris help me out while I filmed the Ric Flair Figure 4 counter to De La Riva. I'll post that up tomorrow.

Grabbed a banana and headed home where my awesome Jennosaurus had STEAK and ASPARAGUS and SWEET POTATO waiting for me hot out of the magic kitchen when I arrived!! She is epic awesome and I can not express how much I love her.