Time Passes...

I'm feeling better today than I have in awhile. It's still early afternoon, but I'm optimistic that I'm over the hump. I have a very strong desire to do some light lifting today, but am going to wait until evening and to see if I can sustain this energy level.

I had considered going to classes this week just to watch, but I'm not disciplined enough. I'd take my gi just in case I had energy, and if I had my gi I know I wouldn't be able to resist, even if I felt like crap. This was helped by the fact that the simple act of leaving the house is way more of an energy expenditure than I need.

If I continue to feel this good over the next couple of days I should be back in class next week.

It's driving me a bit crazy that Worlds is happening right now and I'm not participating. Turns out it was really fortuitous that I didn't sign up this year. Might get the stream for Sat/Sun though...

Letter from a Virus

o.m.g. I LOVE ATHLETES!!!!!

that's not entirely true.

it's more like a love/hate relationship.

i hate them b/c their overall health is so damned good with all that muscle, all that bone density... the initial barriers are formidable, to say the least.

BUT

they more than make up for strong constitutions by running themselves into the ground. they run. and run. and run. and run. i wait, b/c i know that the serious ones are running to something that is invariably going to be an epic moment in their lives, and when they reach it, i slide right in...smooth as butta.

it's tough to get introduced to an athlete, but as with so much in life, it's about timing. if you make the most of an opportunity, those bullheaded oafs won't even know you're there until it's too late. they're so damned focused on their goals that they don't listen when we...ahem...make acquaintance. but sooner or later, they get the message. comatose style.

once you get introduced to one of them, it's ridiculously easy to latch onto their pals, b/c these athletes tend to travel and do their special whatevers in a PACK. and their travel conditions? well. it boggles the imagination. let's just say that the situation is often RIPE with opportunity. it's the fucking platinum elite club for our kind. i get positively giddy just thinking about it.

the funny part is that i'm often posterized as an evil bastard, but the reality is that i don't want to drag you to your knees. i'm not trying to wreck your life. people (especially single-minded athletes) take it so personally. dude! i'm just looking for a home. a place to hang my hat awhile. don't you realize that we'd get along a lot better if your antibodies weren't all up in my shit? you wouldn't feel so bad, and i wouldn't feel this sense of rejection. i have feelings too, y'know?

speaking of which, could you please knock off the goddamn vit C?!?! for fuck's sake, it's like being smothered with teddy bears.

peace out!

Test Results

............... and the winner is..... MONO!!

*sigh*

I have an uptick in energy today, so am taking that as a hopeful sign that I'm on the mend. I was feeling pretty crappy for awhile, so it's very possible that it's on it's way out instead of on it's way in. Been chewing vitamin C tablets like they're going out of style, which may be helping. Waiting to hear back from the doc on how long she thinks I should put a hold on BJJ.

Mono

I think. Speculating that it's the cause of my general sense of tiredness lately. Going to get a test tomorrow and see if I'm right.

My levels of fatigue are not normal, especially since I've scaled my activity levels back pretty significantly over the past week. Food and sleep are good, but energy is crap. Mental agility not so great either. Emotionally I feel ok, so I don't think it's a psychological thing. In any case, going to lay off BJJ and lifting until I get results of the test. :(

I hate reading about medical conditions online b/c the worse case scenario always scares the bejesus out of you. For instance, I learned that the liver and/or spleen can swell with mono. Combine that with BJJ, where it's not at all uncommon to have knees crushing into your abdomen...

Rolling Back Takes

5/15 - Downtown

The three days off was a good life choice. Came back to class feeling mentally flushed out and ready to enjoy jiu jitsu again.

We did rolling back takes, which was pretty new to me. I've only practiced the technique from quarter guard before. I did fairly well, especially once I was able to figure out which direction to go each time.

I tried to write out the details for each positional take but I was getting my Rs and Ls mixed up. There's a lot of R/L rotation on these, and I just don't know them well enough to describe them yet. However, I will make a note of some details.

1. When doing a rolling back take, you must have the more shallow of the shins for the legs that are locked up. Specifically, you want your ankle to be in their kneepit. If your ankle is extended past their foot, even if you are initiating you are going to lose that positional battle.

2. Step down on your own ankle to give you momentum. There's a big difference between trying to windmill around to get momentum and simply stepping on your ankle to push your leg down (and subsequently theirs).

3. If you want to try to stop a rolling back take, get your back as flat as possible on the mat and extend both of your arms out like you're finishing a breakfall.

Rolled with Antone, Dennis, Kevin and Sol. Had a fun roll with Antone...lots of inversion. Tried to keep everything tight. Could tell that he was playing around. Roll with Dennis was good. He held top position most of the time, but I was able to regain guard and almost had a back mount at one point. Kevin tapped me with an arm-bar from technical mount. He was fishing for a kimura and I thought I escaped out of it fairly well but not so much. And something possessed me to try to roll out of the armbar the wrong way. Not successful. Sol was giving me a fair amount of top pressure from side-control...I tried to be diligent with frames.

I've been trying a bit harder to keep my legs from getting collapsed when I'm in guard but not having a lot of luck.

I've also been pondering making a run at the 2014 Worlds. It's never too soon...

Break

5/14

Although probably a very short one.

I went to class last Saturday (5/11) and felt better about myself in the BJJ world than I had all week. I realized after looking at my calendar that I had done 10 classes in 11 days, which is a pretty high volume for me. It was nice to see that I was getting that much time on the mat, but it might have been overkill, at least for where I'm at right now. So I decided to take a short break, especially since there aren't any Tue/Thu classes this week. Will have at least three days off in a row (Sun/Mon/Tue), which will probably be good for me.

I think that the high volume led to unreasonably high expectations for myself. I'd like to think that I have the mentality to be able to train twice a day every day of the week. I'm guessing that's not the case. My body was ok, but I seemed to have reached a saturation point mentally/emotionally. So a brief respite is order.

Really wish I had the $$ to compete at Worlds this year. I keep seeing mentions of it around the web and it's driving me crazy. A little bit of success has clearly gone to my head.

50/50 Guard - Bug

5/10

I don't know what's up with the radical peaks and valleys this week, but whatever. Today was a complete disaster. I contemplated not going to class and should have followed my intuition. We went over transitioning from shin guard to 50/50 guard and then passing from 50/50. Also transitioning from side-control to 50/50. The technique portion was ok, except I felt pretty awkward since it was new to me.

For 20min we had 4 people down on the mat, everyone else against the wall. Challenger could choose between having guard or being in guard. First one to pass or sweep stays down, other person against the wall. I chose to be in guard, and got swept every time. There were only two or three of us against the wall, so I had a lot of opportunities. I tried standing guard passes, and came close once or twice but did something wrong and got caught. Very frustrating. I wasn't putting forth much effort when if/when it devolved into a scramble, which made me feel even worse.

A couple of times I thought that I should just start in guard (my stronger position) so that I'd have some success, but that felt like caving so I decided to stick it out.

We only had time for two rolls after that. Rolled with Antone and Dennis, and had very little defense to offer.

MEH.

S-Mount and Review

5/8 - Downtown

Went over transitions to S-mount and subs from there. Nothing exceptional to note, other than it's very important to get the first knee up at least level to the top of their head if not farther on your first try.

Also, this is obvious, but keep your weight on them. Don't flop off to the side.

Rolls with Antone, Kenny, Daniel, Joe, Dennis and Jason (B). Did well against the white belts, not so much with Dennis and Jason. I think I defended ok when rolling with Antone, but I can't for the life of me stop his guard pass.

5/9 - Valley

 Reviewed sweeps on a standing opponent, high guard and regaining guard from side-control. Roll with Gary and Damon. Was defending most of the time, nowhere near as on point as I was on 5/7. At one point it seemed like Damon was damned near trying to banana split me. He also attempted several toe holds, nailed a knee bar and choked me with I'm not sure what...ezekiel I think. My leg lock defense knowledge is non-existent, so the only thing I could think of was trying to plant my foot on the mat if possible.

24hrs Later - Windshield

5/7 - Valley

What a difference 24hrs can make. Was able to clear my head last night and class today went much, much better.

And SK, you'll appreciate this...I forgot my belt at home, but instead of being given a white belt loaner, Gary let me borrow his, which meant I was promoted for the day. :)


We went over sweeps, primarily against an opponent who is standing.

1. Double-ankle: Timing is everything. Remember to come up to the side and get a cross grip so that they don't come down right on your legs.

2. Overhead: As you're gripping the tops of the shoulders, pinch your elbows in to keep them from being able to pull out their arms and post.

3. Handstand: Try to keep guard closed as you twist the hips. It doesn't take a dramatic shift of the hips. Hook their R leg with your L arm, shift hips to the L and then push off your R hand near your head. I think when I've tried this in rolls I've been opening my legs quite a bit and over-exaggerating the hip movement.

Set-up: Opponent on knees, you're holding their head/neck down. Opponent brings L leg up, trying to regain posture.

4. Arm-In: Grip inside of their L leg, trap their R arm, R leg comes up to the L lat and sweep over.

5. Arm-Wrap: Worked the choke, shoulder lock and omoplata. My tendency is to start hipping out as soon as I've fed their collar to arm that has the wrap. We played with this a bit and found that you're better off getting fully set-up (i.e. other arm over the back of their head and controlling) before hipping out. If you get a thumb in grip on the back of their neck, you can lasso around easily to the choke if they try to move away from the overwrap.

Roll at the end with Scott, not sure how long. Probably 5-6mins. He brought the heat, but I moved as well I have in quite some time. Nailed a tripod sweep, moved to side-control, transitioned to N/S and at some point took his back. Kept (foolishly) trying for bow-and-arrow and lost position, but was able to maintain back mount for a bit. He had reverse kesa gatame and I was able to hook his outside arm and get myself an escape. At some point I had guard and was threatening a triangle but didn't try hard enough to get his free arm all the way out. He ended up in side-control but I acquitted myself very well.

Bug and the Windshield

5/6 - Downtown

Today I was definitely the bug. The technique portion of class was ok, but I completely wet the bed during the rolls. My mind and heart were not in it at all. This becomes more troublesome when I'm getting choked on the regular. Rolled with Antone, Saul, Jason and Dennis and then decided to call it a day. There was not an ounce of enjoyment in the rolls. It's not often that I'm in an emotional space where rolling isn't fun, but when I'm there, fuggetaboutit.

For the technique portion we worked on breaking posture from closed guard and transitioning to sweeps/submissions. When finishing arm-bars I crossed my feet every time and James made mention of it. I'm going to have to drill, drill, drill to break that habit.

Seminar (Part II) - N/S Choke and N/S Arm Triangle

Set-up: You have side-control on opponent's right side. You are on your R hip, facing them and your R hip is against their R hip. Your L knee is up and L foot is posted. R foot is behind. Brian referred to this as the switched hips positions. R elbow is on their L hip and you're pinching them between your R elbow and your R hip.

1. N/S Arm Triangle: Cup their L elbow with your L hand and the top of their R shoulder with your R hand. Slide up their body, maintaining contact with your hip and their R side. Assuming their R forearm is up and framing against you, slide your L arm under their R forearm and then behind their neck. Roll them up on their side a bit so that you can move your legs from the switched hips position to both knees against their R side in a cross-face side-control position. You should have them pretty tight at this point, and their R arm should be well separated from the rest of their body. If you just hold this position, they shouldn't be able to turn into you or away from you. From here, move your R hand to their R hip to block them from coming into you, move your head to their R side (just under their armpit) and rotate your entire body so that you are almost head-to-head with them. Your head should be off to to their R side. Feed your R hand under your neck/chest and S grip with your L. Bring your L shoulder down into them and pull to your R. Your legs should be dead on the floor. Not on your toes. If you come up on your toes, you are putting weight there instead of having weight on the shoulder that is driving into their neck.

2. Knee Ride to N/S Choke: Start with R knee on their chest, L leg out. Push down on their L shoulder with your L hand and their L hip with your R hand to keep them flat. Switch your hips and rotate so that your L hip is against the R side of their head and you're in the N/S. Feed your L forearm under behind their neck with your palm facing the mat and drop your legs and body back so that you are almost ear to ear with them.   R hand comes under your chin/chest to S grip your L hand. Drop your L shoulder into them and pull to your R.

3. N/S Frame Defense to N/S Arm Triangle: Assuming you are doing #2 above and they create a frame with their R arm to defend. Let go of the S grip. Maintain your L forearm behind their neck. Drive your R arm through the inside of their R arm and get your elbow all the way to the floor. Move your head so that it is just under their R armpit and put your forehead (not the top of your head, your forehead) to the mat. Get up on your toes and start walking up with your legs, so that you are a sortof downward dog position. Push their elbow toward their head and when you have enough weight on your head, rotate your legs to your R and kindof swing them over while you're pushing their R elbow toward their head. This should clear your legs so that their R arm is now on the L side of your body and you still have your L arm under their head. This gives you the set up to finish with an arm triangle like #1.

4. N/S Arm Triangle Counter to Switch Side N/S: If they try to turn into you when you have the arm triangle position, simply replace your L arm under their neck with your R arm and move from their R side to their L side. Apply the N/S choke from L side.

5. N/S WWF Armbar: Assume opponent is in prayer position and you have basic N/S. You want to clear his L arm, so squeeze his L elbow into his body with your L elbow and slide across his chest. As you slide across and squeeze his elbow into his body, you should be able to "catch" his forearm with your chest and free it from the prayer position as you slide across. Come up to a seated position next to their L shoulder, gripping their L elbow with your L hand and holding it close to your chest. Your R hand should be gripping under their R pit (I think). Hook your R leg on the inside of their L leg, and your L leg hook on the outside of their L leg. Use your R arm to grip their elbow and get it high and tight into your chest. Lean back and hip up (if necessary) for a shoulder lock.

Aaarrrrghhhh.  There's two more techniques and I don't have notes for them. Hammer choke. Dang it. I'm pretty happy with what I was able to capture though, as it's more than I thought I would.

Seminar (Part I) - Seated Guard Lapel Drag

5/4 - Downtown

Fantastic seminar by Brian Johnson out of Seattle. If you ever get a chance to attend one of his seminars, do it. The three hour seminar was broken into two parts: seated guard and top control and positioning from side-control and north/south.

The seated guard techniques I was able to transcribe and execute fairly well. The top positioning, not so much. Note-taking was difficult b/c I didn't have the terminology for the positions. Executing was ok, but there were a couple of times when I felt completely lost. I lucked out with the note-taking though, b/c Brian had his outline written up and let me take a picture of it after class which helped immensely. I'm glad that I at least understand and was able to record the seated guard techniques with good detail. First seminar that I've been able to take away so much.

I tried rolling with Russ for a few minutes after the seminar b/c I was feeling froggy, but it became immediately apparent as he started working me over that I didn't have much left in the tank. Breakfast had been 7hrs earlier and no lunch, so my body was ready to be done.

Set-up: Opponent is on their knees in front of you.

1. Seated Guard Fundamentals: Place the bottom of your feet on the front of their knees with your toes pointing away from each other. Feet should cup around their knees if possible. Your shoulders should be in front of your hips so they can't easily push you over or grab your ankles and dump you. Arms should be tucked in. If they move laterally or back and forth, you should be able to follow them by maintaining pressure with your feet.

2a. Lapel Drag to Hip Hoist: Reach for their R lapel with your L hand, then feed it to your R hand. You start with the L hand in case they block it, which will allow you to still get the grip with the hand that you really want, which is your R. Post out with your L hand, scoot your butt to the L and turn your L foot so that your toes are pressing against the outside of their R knee and your R toes are pressing against the inside of their L knee. By doing this, you should be able to keep them from following you for at least a second or two. As you are scooting off to the L, yank down on their lapel with your R hand. This should dump them into the spot you just vacated. Fall to your arm, NOT your elbow. If you post up on your elbow it'll be easier for them to get your weight up so they can posture up. You want to be close to them as well, with your chest touching or close to touching their R shoulder.

2b.  Your R foot should still be pressing against their L knee and your L leg should be laying on the outside of their R leg. Maintain grip on their lapel and if it's a bigger person, scoot down toward their hips. Use your L arm to wrap their R thigh from under their thigh to the inside of their thigh. Think of driving their leg up and toward their L shoulder. You're making it more difficult if you try to drive it straight across.

3. Hip Hoist Counter to Back Mount: Assuming you are doing #2b and when you attempt to drive the leg they post out with their L hand to prevent being rolled. If they do that, release your grip from their leg and swing your L leg over their back for back mount on their turtle position. If they are turtled tightly or you can't get your L leg or body over for whatever reason, reach across their back with your L hand, get a lapel grip and pull them onto you and get your hook in that way.

4. Lapel Drag to Reverse Scissor Sweep: Assuming you are doing #2a above, you slide your L knee across their hips as you fall instead of letting it lie on the outside of their R leg. When they attempt to posture up, bring your knee towards your head and then rotate your leg to the L, which should dump them spectacularly to your L. When done correctly, you can get some pretty good air on someone. I struggled with this one, b/c I kept trying to just rotate my leg instead of loading them up and bringing them in and then rotating. I think you need to use the momentum of them posturing up to help get them over.

5. Reverse Scissor to Back Mount: Assuming you are doing #4 and they base out and you can't get them up and over, kick your L leg behind you to get it away from their body and then swing it over their back to get back mount. Brian used the analogy of starting a motorcycle for the kick out.

6. Lapel Drag / Pant Grip to Kimura: In this instance, opponent has grips on both of your knees. You should attempt to break the grips, but if you can't, go to #2a above (though the fake with the L hand on the lapel is unnecessary b/c their hands are occupied). Assuming after #2a he still has a grip with his R hand on your L knee, grab his wrist with your L hand and swing your L leg over his back. You're holding his wrist in place while you swing your leg to free the grip from your leg. Feed your R hand under your L forearm and finish the kimura.

7. Lapel Drag / Pant Grip to Omoplata: Similar to #5, but instead of grabbing his wrist, grab the back of his elbow or just above on the tricep. Swing L leg all the way over to the mat so that it is lying flat and the inside of your leg against the mat and you're laying on your R side. Brian referred to this as "dead leg"...dead weight which would make it more difficult for your opponent to posture up. It also makes it easier to free your R leg, as you just sit up and you should be able to slide it out and finish the omoplata.

8. Single-Wing Choke: Assuming you are trying the lapel drag, but your opponent keeps squaring up on you. When you move laterally, make a punching or casting motion with your R hand as you attempt the lateral movement. This is to keep their chin up, as they won't want to tuck their chin into your fist. Wrap your forearm around the outside of their neck and bring your R elbow up to the ceiling. Feed your L arm through the crook of your R elbow with the top of your L hand against your tricep. Throw your L leg over their back and drive your L elbow to the ground. I noticed when Brian demo'd this that his L leg was under their R armpit when he put his leg over their back, but mine was over their armpit. He said it didn't matter, but I'd like to figure out why my set-up was resulting in something different.

Half Guard Pass

5/3 - Downtown

This is going to be quick, as I'm on my way to a three hour seminar and want to get this recorded before my mind becomes full with something else.

Set-up: You are in opponent's half guard on their R side. You have cross face control and are on your L hip (i.e. you're facing away from their R side inside of facing them dead on).

1. Pull out their gi jacket on their L side. Pop the bottom corner of their jacket with your R hand and pass it under their L armpit to the hand that is being used to cross-face them (your R). If they are trying to chin check you with their L arm, pop their elbow out and away from you (not just to your L, but out away from your face) and then snug your head on the inside of their arm to trap it. Your L shoulder should be right under their chin. This is important, as the pressure generated from this is what will help you pop your leg free later. Get your head down so that if they try to roll you, you can base out on your head. Slide the leg that isn't trapped between theirs (your L) up and across their belly and hook your foot across their R hip. Push against their L leg with your L knee, pushing it away from their face. The combination of pushing that direction with your leg and pushing into their chin will more than likely make them want to open their legs so you can free your R leg. Slide off to their L side, grip your L wrist with your R hand and look around their corner of their head to finish the head and arm choke.

We did a couple different variations of this, but this was the main gist.

Rolls

Rolled with Antone, James, Corey, and Nate. Maybe one other person. Was happy with my rolls, felt like I was moving my hips fairly well and not collapsing my legs as much when someone was trying to pass my guard.

KOB - No Hopping!

5/2 - Valley

We worked quite a few things, including high guard, a variation of spider guard and KOB. It was a good class, but the only thing that I want to make note of us that I have a bad habit of hopping up to KOB. Instead of sliding my knee up, I jump/hop my knee up. Bad habit. I do it b/c I've seen other people do it. It's might be ok in some situations, but I'd rather get in the habit of keeping at least some pressure on my opponent during the transition from side-control to KOB.

High Guard

5/1 - Downtown

When I was first shown high guard a couple of a weeks ago, I thought it was bizarre and I had the temerity to poke fun at it. Not sure why I was making fun, b/c I should embrace any variation of the closed guard. In fact, I found myself using high guard somewhat instinctively on Monday during a roll. We went over a couple of transition points and attacks from high guard today. I like it quite a bit, especially with the confidence that I have to keep people pinned with my legs.

Technique 

1. Transition to High Guard from Closed Guard: Assuming they are using their R hand to grip midway on your lapel, break the grip by getting a cross grip on their sleeve with your R hand, feed your L hand under their forearm and grip your R wrist. Bump hips up, and as you move hips back down to the ground, pop both arms up. Feed their R arm under your R armpit. Pull them forward with your legs to break their posture. Reach over their back with your L hand and grab their L lat. Bring your R leg up the side of their body as far as you can (preferably up to their L armpit) with your lower leg across their body (foot pointing to their R). Bring your L leg up and in front of their R shoulder. It's important that your leg is in front of their shoulder and not off on the side. Preferably your leg is between their ear and their shoulder.

2. Straight Arm-bar: Bring their free arm (their L) between your ear and shoulder, rotate their arm to your L and arm-bar.

3. Arm-bar (Trapped Arm): If their R arm is trapped firmly under your arm-pit, a simple hip-up should be enough.

4. Arm-bar Hooking the Leg (Trapped Arm): If you can't quite get the leverage you need or if they are defending, hook under their L knee with your R arm to rotate yourself around, then hip-up for the arm-bar.

5. If for some reason you can't break their lapel grip in #1, pull their gi jacket loose, grip the bottom R of their jacket and wrap it over their R arm and hold with your R hand on the inside of their R arm. This should trap their arm in place. You can move their arm even further toward your center-line by pushing their arm to the R with your L hand. Bring both feet up to their hips, slide R leg across their back and bring L leg over their R shoulder.

6. Americana: From #5, push their R wrist to your L with both hands. If they try to run away by moving to your R (thereby eliminating your angle), let go of the gi jacket with your R hand, hook your R hand over the top of your L thigh and hook the inside of their R knee with your L hand. Your R hand will be over the top of their hand, but it their hand will be in the crook of your elbow. Hip up and turn your hips to the R and your  upper body to the L.

7. From the closed guard use your R hand to get a deep lapel grip on their R side. L hand has sleeve control on their R wrist. Bring feet to their hips and R leg across their back. You should be almost perpendicular to them and on your L side. Give some slack on the L hand that has sleeve control so you can bring your L leg up and push your L knee against their R elbow. Once that's in place, you can bring it all the way up and over for a triangle, though you will have to readjust your legs b/c they'll be in the opposite side you'll need for the finish. Or, if they posture up before you can lock on the triangle, bring your L leg across their upper body and hook the back of your knee over the L side of their head. Grab your L shin with your left hand and pull toward you. You should still have the deep lapel grip, which means you'll have a wicked choke from here.

Rolls

Rolled with Nate, Dennis, Julio, Saul and a flow roll with Antone. I was able to get top side with Nate and I was happy with how I was moving my hips to finish the pass and control top side. He was able to escape, but it was good progress for me to actually finish a knee slice pass. Dennis and I both worked from guard a bit, but he was primarily on top side. At one point, I was able to almost sortof escape to the point where I was on my back lying perpendicularly on top of him. Very sad for us time ran out here, as we were both very interested to see if I would be able to complete the pass or not. Julio crushed me for the vast majority of the match, but I tried to hang tough and avoid wrist locks and everything else that came my way. Did fairly well, though he caught me at least a couple of times with chokes. Good roll with Saul, he let me work a bit but said that I was legitimately getting positions and submissions. He let me have an omoplata that I transitioned to triangle and then was able to finish with arm-bar. I worked hard to get top side, but am pretty sure that he let me have that. The flow roll with Antone was a bit of a misnomer b/c while I was staying very mellow throughout, I couldn't help it but to try to defend whatever he was trying to do. We went "light", but I wasn't letting him just have the positions/submissions. I guess everyone has a different idea as to what flow rolling is, and I thought my idea of it was different, but apparently not. Sorry bud, I'll try to be more smooth next time.