Operation Be More Assertive Update

OBMA has been an ongoing project for while now, it took a break when I came back from my layoff in favor of me just getting back into the groove and being able to train regularly, but since the beginning of the year I've been able to really get back to it. I find that now I have made a lot of progress in avoiding sweeps and reversals, refusing to give into them, and maintaining my top position. I've also made progress with asserting myself while performing sweeps, pushing to get on top, and generally making the rolls go my way.

Now what I have noticed is that I am WAY too comfortable just hanging out in top position. I do not assertively push for submissions and seek to finish. I don't actively generate openings, I just chill and put pressure on from the top and hope my opponent gives me something I can use.

I suppose that's all find and good, but I do need to be pushing myself to attack once I'm top a lot more. I'm fond of saying that the progression is Defend, Escape, Advance, Submit and I'm getting 1-3 going very successfully, but I have to tighten down on my submission game.

To that end I'll be focusing on Americanas, Arm triangles, and Armbars from the top for the next couple of months with an eye towards immediately attacking the second I get on top, even if I completely blow it and end up on the bottom again.

Lifting and Competition

Hit the gym tonight and started the next phase of lifting. I'm still on 4x10 sets with Squats since I haven't started to plateau with them at all, but tonights bench press was 8x100, 6x105, 4x110, 2x115. Rows are 80lbs, 4x10 and will stay there for a while before I move up again.


I'm registered for the New Breed tournament next weekend, it happens about 20 minutes from my house so it's a super convenient one. Last time I went 3-0 in it, I hope to repeat that performance since I'm feeling a lot better about my jiujitsu and my fitness now than I was then.

And I will get video this time! Camera is charged, memory is clear, and we're ready to go.

Just a lifting update

Should be training BJJ in the AM, but tonight I hit 4x10 with 70lbs on bench/squat/rows. The rows are hard as hell, dunno if I'll be able to make it at 75 or not next week, but I'm going to try.

Bleh, No ATL Open For Me

Something went sideways with my ATL Open registration. It sat in some kind of 'pending' status for 3 days, then my name didn't appear on the list for my division. I have no idea what happened, but I'm kind of annoyed by it.

In better news, I'm up to 4 sets of 10 with 65lbs on all of my lifts, which  has me on schedule to be doing 5x5 with my bodyweight by the beginning of summer, and 3x3 with 200lbs by the end of the year.

So if nothing else I'll be in great shape for all of the rest of my competitions this year.

More DLR work

Couple of things going on. I realized I'm walking around at the top of the 151 weight class by being 144-146, so I'm just going to stay where I am. No need for a cut. Second thing is that I'm retuning my Tomoe Nage to give me a better entry and more control over the sweep and the followup. Previously I was coming straight in and sweeping my opponent straight over my head. I ran into problems when my opponent was very agile (Like at Newbreed), and in loosing contact after completing the sweep and diving right into triangle chokes while trying to lock down side control.

I did some chatting with some of my Judo homies and was told that I need to be coming in at an angle, so that my foot is parallel with my opponents belt, not perpendicular. Some further discussion determined that it's also possible to fake Tomoe Nage into X-guard from this execution, and it's easier to drop your opponent into an armbar, AND post sweep you are tighter and already past the legs. Happily we got to drill takedowns today so I got in about 50 reps with the new version and it felt really good.

After that was work on the same DLR sweeps. The sitdown sweep when your opponent goes to one knee to avoid your normal DLR shenanigans and you just make them fall over with your body rotation.
From there you can follow up with the berimbolo, or you can slide across to take mount.

After that we did some 'Fun Friday' cardio work which involved tug-of war, then some crazy game involving trying to pile all of the boxing gloves in the middle of the mats, or in the corners. My team lost, we did sprawls, I was sad.

Next more work from DLR, I didn't feel as fluid with my DLR sweeps this time. I felt like I was not being as aggressive about inverting and not as forceful with the DLR hook as I was on Monday. I need to really dig the hook deep and MAKE my opponent fall over. I also got outscrambled a few times, I need to work on that as well. And finally, I'm still having trouble finishing submissions right now. I need to pick a couple and really zero in on them. Probably the nearside armbar since it combos with my takedown, and then work on transitioning into the single collar choke from more places.

I'm improving for sure, but I still have a lot more work to do.

I'm still hitting the non-BJJ gym a few times a week and running and lifting. My strength should be starting to improve over the next couple of months, but not soon enough to make a real difference for the Atl Open.

Ramping up to the ATL Open

I have been training! But I have not been updating. Mostly because nothing much interesting has happened lately. Just getting in the gym, putting in the work, trying to get to that next level.

This past Saturday I went up to Team Octopus for a Team Traven group training session. Master Traven showed us some very slick foot on hip spider guard transitions into X-guard and to some sweeps if you don't quite make it to X that I liked, but I won't be able to play too much with in the short term since I'm trying to get my game properly put together for the ATL Open at the end of the month.

That means a lot more weight lifting, and a weight cut for the first time in years. I'm walking around at 144 and I want to weigh in at 141 with my Gi on, so I've got a ~7lb drop to hit, which shouldn't be hard.

I'm also refocusing on my guard retention since I think it's weaker than it should be. My passing and top game have improved, but my guard is lagging. Time to step that game back up.

First Training of the New Year

Weight lifting has been going decently well, I'm on 4x10 with 65lbs, which is brutal for upright rows. I'll probably stick at that weight for rows for a couple of extra weeks at let it lag behind. Thanks to hitting the gym and running my cardio didn't take much of a hit over the holidays, so I was back on the mats and feeling strong today.

Technique was sweeps from DLR.

First tech was the overhead sweep. Go to DLR, get collar and sleeve control, load your opponent and send them flying. Easy.

Second tech was a nice push sweep. When you are setting up the overhead sweep if they posture up to break your collar grip you bring the far side foot over to the near hip and push while you extend. Down they go.

Third tech was the 'Kiss of the Dragon' back take. From DLR you go for a deep DLR hook, then insert the front leg behind the opponents near knee, rotate to their back and grab the belt, at this point they are sitting with your shins in the back of their knees, so you just extend and drop them and take back control.

After that cardio was working open guard passes in groups of three, starting from DLR, sweep or pass, winner stays on bottom. I did ok, was working with a blue belt who had GREAT top control, but I had better passing, so we passed each others guard a bunch, I managed like 1 sneaky sweep on him.

Got to roll a couple of rounds, the first one with that same blue belt and his top pressure was just as insane there, as was his grip control. He was too greedy for positions a few times though and I was able to catch him in X-guard and sweep him. Other than that I was on defense almost the whole time.

Second roll was with Chris and his damned unbreakable grips. Good training to start the year with!

Year in Review - 2015

Just like everyone else on the planet I begin to reflect on the last 365 days of my existence as the year comes to a close. This year was fairly momentous for me in several ways. I was unable to train for the entire first 6 months of the year except for a few random Saturday classes, then I bought a new house and moved which is itself pretty awesome. After that I was able to start training again but at an entirely different school. And finally, for the first time ever, I went to a tournament and won every match. It was only 3 matches, but for me that's still a pretty good deal. I'm going to try to carry that success into 2015 with a nice list of goals for the new year.

1. Compete 6 times.
2. Lift weights 3 times a week or more.
3. Train 3 times a week or more.
4. Brown Belt


That's a pretty hefty list of goals for me, and there are some subgoals that will go with that 4th one, like finding out what the Brown Belt criteria is for my new gym/association, but I have the time this year to dedicate to my training in a way that I haven't been able to since just before I got my purple belt.

Hopefully everyone had a great 2014, and will have an even better 2015. I certainly plan to!

Strong Like Bull!

So I won't be back training until after Christmas, but I am able to get to my regular gym finally and I've started lifting weights again on a 30 week program. I went last night and did 30 minutes on the dreadmill (not a typo, I hate that thing) doing interval sprints between 3mph an d 6.5mph, finishing off with a 7mph leg.

After that I hit the weights for 4x10 with 45lbs on Squats/Bench/Upright Row. Those are the only three lifts I'm doing and I'm going to be adding 5 lbs each week, going 4x a week for the first month, then it starts bumping up on the first set of 10 for the next month, then it starts a staggered program.

Long story short, at the end of 30 weeks the goal is to be doing 3 sets of 1 rep with 200lbs on each lift.  Realistically with plateaus and whatnot this is probably a 50 week program, but I'm happy with that too. If I can stay on track for the first 15 weeks I'll actually be back up to a place where I can bench my bodyweight for multiple reps again, which is kind of my minimum strength requirement.

Not being able to do that right now really bothers me.

Newbreed 12-6-2014 Tournament Report

Slept well last night and woke up about 9:30am, Chris arrived a little after 10am to pick me up and we made it to the venue by 10:45 and the rules meeting was still going.

I weighed in, 146.5 with my jeans on, and made my self comfortable. I took a nap from about 11:30 to about 1:30 and then got called up to the weigh in area again because my division was empty. I told them to put me wherever, I'd roll with anyone, and then I went and changed clothes in case they got my division going early.


They called me up a couple more times to make sure I was ok with whatever division I had going and I ended up with 3 divisions. Adult Gi Purple Belt 149 and under, Masters Gi Purple Belt 149 and under, and Masters No-Gi Advanced, 149 and under. So I actually ended up with all of my opponents being in my weight class which is a rare event.

I only had 1 opponent in each division though, and my opponent for both Masters divisions was the same guy.

We started out in No-gi and I wanted to generate a takedown, but he kept his posture low and had stronger head control, so I opted to pull guard thinking that I could maybe hunt some leg locks. My guard pull was SUPER SLOPPY and I ended up battling against d'arce chokes from halfguard for a while. We went back and forth with him hunting the d'arce and me trying for a sweep, until I finally rolled him over and got on top, popped out of the choke, and hit the same knee cut pass that has been the bane of my existence at the gym the last few months. I cut right to mount and collected my points and rode out the last 50 seconds.


Second match, Gi, same guy. This time I was able to get a sleeve and a collar, so his bent over posture let me hit the Tomoe Nage immediately. I tried to come up into the armbar, but he caught my leg and started inverting trying to berimbolo me. I stuffed the berimbolo and ended up in his guard and up 2 points. He had really strong head control again and was able to maintain his closed guard for a while until he opened it to shoot for an armbar, I tried to pop out and he still had enough head control to get a triangle locked up, but I felt it happening and was able to bring my hand back in and lock it up to defend the triangle.

I then spent the next 3:30 just stopping him from finishing the triangle on me and then won 2-0. My opponent seemed fairly annoyed by the results, which I guess I understand since I spent the majority of both matches fighting off his submission attempts and then won on points, but Jiu-jitsu has always been about defense and survival first to me, and submissions as an afterthought. I was better at defense than he was at offense, then my passing was better than his pass defense. Today I was the better competitor and I feel pretty good about it.


My third match was Adult Gi, and it was against a 16 year old kid named Duncan. I gripped up, got my collar and sleeve and went for the Tomoe Nage, but he had some serious agility and managed to land on his feet THREE times when I had him all the way up and going over. Since I couldn't make the Tomoe stick I pulled guard with grips. He picked me up trying to break my guard, but I held it until he over-committed trying to break it and I was able to hit a backsweep to mount.

From there I worked for an Americana, he pulled his elbow in, but left me the grip, so I was able to transition to the armbar and finish.

He was really game though, and I wish I had been a purple belt at 16. He's been training since he was like 5 years old and I imagine will sit at purple belt for a few years while he develops and end up being a monster.


This is the first tournament I've been to where I haven't lost a match, and also the first one in a LONG time where everyone I faced was actually in my weight class for real. I feel great about my performance and I'm going to be redoubling my efforts at weight training as well as working hard to make 3+ classes per week.

Toes... Ouch

Trained Wednesday as my last class before Newbreed. The break from my car accident hasn't hurt me quite as much as I expected it to, so I'm still feeling decent about it.

Class was more work from the back, this time working the clock choke if the back take is blocked, then if they bring the hand in to defend the clock choke the step over rolling bow and arrow. 

I actually have videos from an Ian McPherson seminar for both of those techniques so I'm not going to describe them in detail here. 

After that we played some bear crawl soccer and crab soccer for cardio and I managed to smash two of my toes up really good kicking another guy in the foot. So that sucks, but I don't expect it to be a factor on Saturday. 

I just need to keep myself focused and work my gameplan.

Training for Newbreed

So, despite my car accident I am still competing this Saturday.

With that in mind I went into class today focusing on grip control and being assertive.

Normal warmup, then some takedown work. I drilled tomoe nage for 4 minutes and it felt really smooth from a variety of setups even against resistance. I practiced my followup a lot to make sure I don't run into the same problem I had last time where I hit the tomoe then can't capitalize on it.

After that technique of the day was sprawl, then take the back, shoot for the collar, bring the knee in and roll to back control, then attack with the collar choke from the back, or the arm triangle, or the ezekiel, depending on how your opponent defends.

We drilled that for a while, then did cardio. Cardio was 10-9-8...1 of sprawls, then firemans carry your partner down the mat and back. I made it through that without dying and then got to roll.

Three rolls, first with a blue belt who is one of our MMA guys, who at the moment just hates the gi. I continued to contribute to his hatred by being very assertive with my grips, then when he stood to try to break my guard I monkey flipped him and took mount. Rode that for a while and eventually ended up in 50/50, worked nearside sleeve control and hit the armbar.

Second roll was with a purple belt who is about my level of athleticism, slightly bigger, and has a few stripes. I hit him with a teleport pass vs combat base and transitioned to mount. Worked for the kimura but it was on my weak side so I lost it. Eventually he also stood up and I monkey flipped him, took mount, and was able to get the kimura on my strong side and finish it.

Third roll was with Chris and I flat out can't do anything with him except stall his passing for a while. I need to work on getting under him better to take control of his hips. His base is just insane and I can't disrupt it as easily as I can the other guys. And when he stands up he always picks me up with him. I probably should have dropped and tried to shoot the double on him, but I didn't have it in my head until after class, so I missed the opportunity.

Still, I felt as good as I've ever felt, so we'll see how Newbreed goes.

We'll call it a draw...

The above is a picture of my car post confrontation with a 6 point buck in the middle of I20 at 1am. So I've missed a little bit of training time.

I came through it mostly ok, but the car is totaled.

I won't be back training Jiujitsu until after thanksgiving, but I was able to get in the gym tonight to do some prehab-rehab.

I did half an hour on an elliptical, then 3 sets of 10 with 65 lbs on the bench, and 1 set of 10 with 45 lbs along with 3 sets of 10 squats with 115 lbs. Just enough to assess all of my limbs and make sure everything still worked properly.

Followed that up with a 20 minute massage and now I feel like life is pretty good. I'm still going to be competing at the New Breed tournament Dec 6th no matter what.

Leglocks are fun!

Missed the rest of last week training due to work project and being kind of sick. Back on the mats this morning though.

Chris and some of the other guys were out in Cali for Worlds Masters, so they weren't back yet which left a small gaggle of us hanging out at the beginning of no-gi november. We were chatting about random stuff and somehow leglocks came up, so I ended up teaching an entry to the saddle (inside leg triangle) and knee bar and heel hook attacks from there, then basic heel hook defense, and then the specific defense against the saddle position.

We drilled that stuff for a while and then rolled gauntlets for like 45 minutes or an hour. I got to roll for like 20-25 minutes with a purple belt who is slightly bigger than I am, and slightly better, which was a lot of fun. We would go back and forth positionally a bunch and then eventually he would catch me with something that he was just slightly better at doing than I thought he would be, including a really smooth transition to an armbar from the back, and a really nice reversal from side control.

This is the first time in a while I've rolled without having done a bunch of conditioning beforehand, and it felt really good. I was able to put together a lot of stuff against some of the bigger guys and I really felt good about all of my jiujitsu. Most problematic rolling partner is still a very energetic and athletic multi-stripe blue belt. He's really really really good at 2-3 things, and pretty good at everything else, so he can frequently get 90% past my guard with a leg drag, and then I have to fight to reset to guard, then we do it all again. And he has great pressure, and great base, so he's very difficult to sweep. He's an awesome partner to train against because of the good mix of intensity and skill.

Putting in the hours

I'm doing well keeping my class time consistent, that's probably the biggest single factor I need to concentrate on.

Chris was running a bit late this morning, so I grabbed a white belt and we did some relaxed rolling to warm up. Once Chris arrived we jumped right to Knee on Belly flow drills.

Pass to side control, block the hip and pop to KoB, hook the far arm and walk it up, go to mount, partner shrimps, you go to tech mount, they push your leg over the head, you breakdance to side control, they turtle and roll through back to guard, repeat.

We did 5 minutes apiece on that drill, then went to KoB techniques.

Thumb in grip under the back of the head, pop up to KoB, palm up grip on the collar, knee slide down on the bicep and step around for the baseball bat choke.

Second one was KoB gets blocked, so you reach back to the hip, use your body to push the knee down, step unto the pocket, free your hand and walk their arm up while driving the knee over to take mount, then trap the arm and complete the straight armlock.

We worked each of those for 5 minutes, then started conditioning.

Final countdown of shoot under, leap frog, pushups, sitouts, squat jumps starting at 10. I was pretty much done by the end of that, but we immediately started rolling.

My first partner was a white belt who was also a beastly wrestler. He wasn't even tired, so I was in 100% defense mode and still got subbed like three times. I just had no energy for the guy.

Second roll was with another purple belt who is stylistically similar to me, so we had a lot more fun. He eventually D'arced me, but it was a much more flowing roll than the first one.

I'm having a VERY hard time maintaining an assertive roll while I'm that tired, hopefully adding in tues/thurs weight lifting will help further improve my conditioning and by the time Dec 6th rolls around I'll be in good shape.

A Stripe? That's pretty cool!

So, for the first two years of my BJJ career I did only No-Gi, so no stripes, and no belts. Then when I trained with Alliance I didn't get any stripes. I went from white to blue, and blue to purple. But now that I am training at a Roberto Traven affiliate stripes are a thing, and today I got my first stripe.

I'm actually pretty psyched by it. It's a good signal that I've managed to return to my pre-layoff skill level and I'm now actually getting better at jiujitsu. This is a nice boost for me going towards the New Breed tournament in December.


Today was the same halfguard stuff from monday plus cardio via running back and forth, shooting under one partner, then jumping over them, then getting taken down and the partner doing the running and whatnot. Fun stuff for 5 minutes, then grueling for the next 5.

After that was work from halfguard, 5 minutes on the bottom, then 5 minutes on the top. I hit a couple of Caio sweeps, but I need to work more on forcing the arm to the inside in order to get the reverse scissor sweep and the back take to work, and generally mess with my opponents posture more. I'm too lenient about letting my opponent flatten me out and going for the Caio or setting up waiter sweeps and things.

On top my passing is light years better than it was even before my layoff. Having an instructor who is my size means all of the guard passing tips and techniques are better tailored to smaller people so I've been really able to tune my passing game.

After that I had time for one roll with a 3 or 4 stripe purple who's a bit bigger than I am and is also one of the MMA fighters. He has a solidly intense rolling style with a great mix of clever techniques and crushing pressure. A couple of months ago with I rolled with him I was able to accomplish exactly nothing, this time I was able to generate a sweep, a near sweep, a couple of close guard passes, and defend almost everything. I went down to an armbar that was setup with insanely good pressure, but I didn't feel as completely outclassed as I did last time.

So, getting the stripe felt great, and I'm going to be working even harder now since I still want to have a shot at my brown belt in the next 18 months.

This Weekend... Next Weekend... Whenever...

Once again updating here has fallen by the wayside a bit. Business with work, training, and owning 26 acres and a 150 year old farmhouse are eating up all of my time, but I'll try to do better since I need to keep some notes on my training.

Last week Chris tried to kill us all. We warmed up with armbars, triangles, and omoplatas, then spent 30 minutes doing some kind of Crossfit style masochism consisting of (for me) a 35lb bar and a pair of 10lb bumper plates, then 40 reps of back squats, front squats, strict overhead press, overhead push press, clean and press, and jerks.

By the end of this I wasn't sure what was going on and was pretty much as exhausted as I had ever been in my entire life. Then we rolled for a good 45 minutes. I spent the entire weekend barely able to move because of how sore and stiff I was, but it was awesome.

Went back today and we were decidedly lighter. Worked on some halfguard stuff.

First technique was a slick sweep against the wizzer that I love and want to work on more. You get your underhook from half guard. The opponent wizzers you and you circle your own hand back inside and trap their wrist, then you roll back and pendulum sweep. It's nice and flashy.

Second one was the standard reverse scissor-sweep, current gym calls it a Wing sweep. Also played around with the immediate backtake off of this one.

Third one was for when they block your knee from coming in for the wing sweep, you bring it up on top and pinch the shoulder and rotate to face the feet for the armbar.

Then our cardio for today was an exercise in guard based on some stuff that happened at the tournament over the weekend. Your opponent is in guard and stands up with you, you open your guard and immediately change levels for the double leg, then you stand up and pick your partner up and they do the same thing, back and forth for 5 minutes. Then you start in mount, your partner reguards, you stand up, they monkey flip you into mount, you reguard, they stand, you monkey flip them. Back and forth for 5 minutes.

Then we did some positional sparring from halfguard. I was able to get some decent technical halfguard going with a successful waiter sweep, a technical stand to single leg, a butterfly sweep, a couple of caio sweeps, finally got got tricked by the blue belt in our group and he caught me with the top half guard bow and arrow. When I came back in on top I immediately passed guard using the tricks I picked up a few weeks ago that have really altered my passing game against halfguard.

The focus on driving the elbow down to block the knee really changed how my passing works and upped my success rate. Ended up with a couple more passes in similar fashion, then had to shower and head out to work.

My conditioning is steadily improving and I feel like I'm rapidly returning to my previous technical level, which leads me to.... Competition Time!

I was going to head up to Virginia for the US Grappling Submission Only competition Dec 13th, BUT I couldn't find anyone who would give me a ride from the airport to the venue and back, SO there's a Newbreed tournament Dec 6th right in town that a bunch of guys from the current gym are going to, AND there's a Roberto Traven seminar on the 13th. So instead of paying for a plane ticket, I'm going to see if I can do the Newbreed comp and the seminar instead. It will be my first time competing under my new teams umbrella, so I'll be training pretty hard leading up to it.

Completely Forgot....

I didn't realize I hadn't been updating this...

I took a couple of weeks off to prepare our house for the winter, went back to the gym this week and I'm feeling good. Improvement is steady. I will update with more details this weekend.

I had something for this...

I had a relevant title for this post, but I forgot it, because.... reasons.

Anyways, good class this morning, more mount escape work. Rodeo drills, then cardio and rolling.

Getting to the point where I can reliably beat up on the blue belts again even when exhausted, but my sweep and pass completion needs a lot of work still. I'm not assertive enough when I'm completing them still. It's definitely better than it has been in the past, but not as good as it should be.

I'll be at the Atlanta Open at the end of this month as a spectator filming for people. Looking forward to that.

Oh. Almost forgot, my elbow that I tweaked a bit monday is fine. Barely any pain or stiffness.

Americanas are Serious Bizness!

Got in and did some drilling with one of the blue belts for 20 minutes, 5 on top and 5 on bottom each. Worked mostly grip controls and sweeps, just rebuilding some of my chains and reflexes. He's got a competition coming up so he worked a lot of passing stuff.

Technique was Mount escapes, standard knee and elbow to halfguard, and standard upa.

Drilled those for 20 minutes, then did rodeo drills for... a while. Felt like eternity.  Was probably 7 minute rounds.

Cardio was sprawls while partner sprinted the mats, partner does pushups and sprints back, then you sprint down, do pushups, and sprint back. Pushups were done countdown style, 10 on the first lap, 9, 8 ,7. and so on. It was brutal.

After that we rolled, and at this point it's mostly a blur. I do remember defending an americana a little too long because it was super sloppy and it felt like I was about to escape the entire time, and then he suddenly started doing it right and I felt my elbow pop once. So that's not good, but probably won't be too bad. In retrospect I should have tapped about 20 seconds earlier, but the dude doing the americana was a purple belt, and it was white belt sloppy, so I felt like I could defend and escape it. But the guys top pressure and control is 100% purple belt, so he was able to keep me there while he cranked on my arm, and then suddenly he shifted and finally brought my elbow down properly and the americana went from 'meh, whatever' to OMFG TAP. So that sucked.

I remember getting MAULED by the instructor in hilarious fashion. At one point I swear he was posting on just one hand and I still couldn't generate a sweep.

I rolled with a blue belt that I had talked to a while back about focusing his weight better when he was on top and he apparently took it to heart because this time whenever I had a frame or anything his weight was immediately 100% focused and just splattered me back flat. I finally eventually managed to hit x-guard, sweep, and pass and stay on top for about 15 seconds.

Might have been some other stuff that happened