Friday Morn

Arm-bar from mount. Entrances, finishing on top, breaking the defensive grip from on top or from the side. Great level of detail on everything.

Rolled with Sarah for the entirety of the rolling portion of class. I started off strong, but then she got a great position with my arm trapped for a shoulder-lock in the 50/50. She wasn't able to quite finish, but it was a great catch. We spent a fair amount of time getting in and out of 50/50. I tried bolo'ing her several times to no avail. I finally got past step #1 of my knee cut to leg drag technique that I drilled last Sunday. In fact I made it to step #2, but didn't have enough pressure so it devolved into a scramble.

Good, fun roll all around. We started standing and I got the takedown by virtue of size/strength. I think I'm going to have to abandon the John Smith single.

Double Class Wednesday

Ummm..... tired.

Tough rolls this morning where I got my ass kicked a lot. Tough rolls tonight where there were equal amounts of ass kicking by both parties. We covered a new sweep from half guard that I haven't seen before and I like it quite a bit. Will have to set aside some time on Sunday to drill it.

Tonight was rolling back attacks. From half guard, quarter guard if they are in the midst of escaping mount and reverse side control.

I started from the feet in both classes. That did not go especially well for me. I tried the John Smith single that Kelly showed but I think I'm starting from waaaaay too far out. 

Felt like I was gassing a bit this morning. Felt during the evening class. Oh, and Rachael and I got a roll in *before* class. 

So tired.

UPDATE: Briefly dozed off in the shower. 

Double Class Monday

Rachael's going to Master Worlds!!!!! We both registered today, so that's pretty awesome.

Knew that I wanted to do the morning class for sure, but figured there was a 50/50 chance I wouldn't do evening class. However, since Rachael found out yesterday afternoon that Worlds was going to be a thing, the evening class was a no brainer.

James covered sweeps from the knee cut pass, specifically the omoplata if you can separate their elbow from their body, the bump and twist sweep and taking the back if the twist sweep doesn't work. I was working with a very new girl (her second class), so spent a good portion of the time going over the knee cut itself and less on the sweeps. 

Rolled with Anjela, Dennis, Jason S. and can't remember who else. Similar theme to Sunday...I did some things right, but was in bad positions a fair amount.

For evening class, James went over setting up the kneebar and toe hold when you're the one back-stepping out of a knee cut pass and then defending the backstep. Drilled with Rachael, and fortunately we didn't have a third person assigned to us so that we could get a lot of high quality and quantity reps.

Rolling was KOTH, win by back, mount or sub. I started down, and Rachael came over first. We ended up rolling the entire time, even though I took her back at about 15min in and she got an armbar about 10min later. I felt good throughout, in that I never felt like I was flagging in a big way for energy. If I don't feel excessively tired rolls then I'm happy. 

"Flow" rolled with Clayton after class (we both sortof went for submissions) for at least 5min and then Sarah for at least another 5min awhile later.

Was out like a light for the night and a bit groggy when I woke up this morning. A big cup of coffee made everything better.

Advanced Class

I had a response plan for today in case James decided to omoplata me while I was in the midst of a knee cut pass, but he didn't show up for class. It was just Jason S., Shaun and I. We did the usual hour of drilling and then rolled. I spent the majority of my drill time on the knee cut to over/under pass to the backside. I like it quite a bit. The most difficult part will likely be the first portion, which is feeding the arm under to grip the far lapel. I need to remember to keep my near side elbow tight on the knee cut anyway, b/c that's what James has been killing me with lately. 

Rolled with Shaun and Jason twice. Got tapped by both of them, but felt like I was pretty competitive. 

I'm trying to pressure Rachael into going to Master World's, but she's waffling. Stupid work obligations. :(

Fundies and Open Mat Nooner

An...interesting mix at Fundies this morning. Nando brought his gf for her first class. A guy who comes in now and again brought a friend, who he introduced as Father Andrew. Which explained the robes. Lots of new folks that I hadn't met before. Richard (Joe lookalike), Cole (younger guy), and can't remember who else. 

The position of the day--back control escapes--was perfect for a class full of new people. I thought it went fairly well, even though my first run-through of the escape to choking side escape didn't go quite right. Nando wasn't giving me quite enough pressure, so I didn't have to get rid of the second hook before turning over. I corrected it the second time around, but was thrown off a little bit by the lack of tension. Overall though, pretty happy with it.

After Fundies rolled with Blaine, Nando and Richard. Nando was going all out and had top positions for the most part, but I wasn't in real danger and was able to regain guard. Blaine and I played our usual game of him in my guard. I tried to open it up a bit, but kept closing my guard. I'd like to just keep trying to play my open game with him.

Noon class was straight rolling. Rolled with Sol, Kasey, Dess, Glen, Jamie, James. Of note was my roll with Kasey, which I felt went much better than I've rolled with him before. I think it was partly due to him opening up a bit, as he went for a rolling back attack from top half guard. 

Had a pretty fun roll with James, although he caught me twice with an omoplata while I was trying to knee cut pass. He told me after the first one that I need to make sure I had the underhook, but I apparently didn't listen b/c the next time through I got caught with the exact same thing. 

One pretty cool thing though. He was doing the escape from back control toward the choking arm side where you grab the back of the head and step out wide and belly down. As he stepped around I was sortof able to follow, but b/c he had the back of my head I was getting flipped in front him. I flailed around somehow almost got a crucifix or armbar. I can't explain it well, but it was wild and James said "holy shit" so loud I thought I injured him. Was very close to awesome is the summation.

Back in the Fray

I barely feel like I'm back, and had a so-so rolling session on Wednesday morning. Nonetheless, last night James asked if I would cover the morning class today. I haven't been feeling especially confident in any of my techniques aside from things that I've already shown on the occasions that I've taught regular classes before. So I semi-frantically went through my notebook trying to find something and came across some notes on sweeps from reverse half guard. Voila!

Smallish class for what we've had lately, I think 12 or so. Shaun was the only other purple belt. Folks seemed like what I covered, so that was nice. We had a girl who just started today and unfortunately the techniques were fairly advanced, considering she didn't really know what guard was, much less reverse half guard sweeps. Rachael helped her out, for which I was thankful.

Rolled with new girl, Rachael and Chris N. Rachael got past my guard and it was all over. She slowly and systematically got a kimura for the finish. Had a good roll with Chris, got a sweep, probably got swept back. Very evenly matched.

Drop Ins

Trained twice in ten days. Stopped in at one school for an evening advanced gi class and was a little surprised by the basic nature of the class. I'm all about fundamentals, but this was being taught like it was their first exposure to DLR. Another red flag is that I was very evenly matched with their 4 stripe purple belt dudes. Something is amiss somewhere if I'm going toe to toe with a 4 stripe purple dude.

The other school I visited is in the same affiliation as ours. Instructor was no-nonsense, and it was no gi so I had no idea of the experience level of my training partners. Went over some attacks from the arm-wrap that I haven't seen before. I was doing surprisingly poorly on the warm-ups and technique, although my training partner mentioned a number of times that he wished he had the hip mobility that I did. I'd guess that he was a low purple and most of the other guys were high blues or thereabouts. Almost all of them were big dudes, but they went surprisingly light during the rolls. Didn't try to hulk smash their way through, which was very much appreciated.

Sleep and hydration were serious issues on the trip. It's two days later and I'm just now starting to feel like my body is getting back to normal. Went to class on Wednesday morning. Warm-ups consisted of flow rolling, and I felt like a complete idiot during my first flow roll. It's like I've never done jiu jitsu before, even though it had only been a week. It was better once I got going.

Had a pretty decent roll with James at the end of class. Also rolled with Opal, Laurie, and possibly Jason S. again.

Very happy to be home.

Wednesday

Had an absolute shit day at class and have no idea why. I had 5-6hrs of sleep the night before. Not awful, but not great. 

Technique was ok, arm-drag from guard to take the back, arm-drag from guard to half guard twist sweep, arm-drag thing from butterfly where you take the back. Worked with Kris, who seemed to understand the techniques better than I did. This was one of those days were I was just slow.

Regular rolls, win by mount, back-mount or sub. If opponent took your back or subbed you then you owed 10 jumping jacks at the end of the round for each one. I did a lot of jumping jacks. Kris got my back at least once and probably subbed me once. Can't remember the outcome of my roll with Dennis. Joe gave me fits and nearly finished a head and arm triangle from half guard. Nate was going easy on me for some reason. Sol tapped me about a gazillion times. At least one foot lock, a wrist lock, can't remember else.

I was very frustrated by the end of class. Some of it was my not great technique, some of it was being outweighed by 50lb and having guys just shove my legs out of the way or smash smash smash. Unhappy with my jiu jitsu today. Didn't stick around after class b/c I didn't feel like chitchat.

Been doing this over five years and there are still days when I'm spending the vast majority of rolls in awful positions and feeling like I'm getting manhandled the entire time. Mostly b/c of technique, but being lighter in weight definitely plays a part.

Ugh.

Fri & Mon

Friday was no gi, and I was the jerk who wore shorts and a sleeveless compression shirt. Nice for me to stay cool, but not fun for my partners with my sweat going everywhere. There was a huge difference in rolling with someone who was dressed like myself as opposed to those who were mostly covered. I'm going to go that route in the future out of consideration for my training partners. Had a pretty good day at no gi, happy with the rolls.

Monday morning was hot as balls again in the gym, 86F and probably 70% sweat humidity. Fortunately I had a nice heavy gi to soak it all up. blargh

Techniques consisted of takedowns, which was great b/c we rarely touch on those. James did his uchi mata ankle pick. Julio showed a kindof brutal I-don't-know-what. You wrist lock yourself if you do it wrong. Kelly showed my favorite, dropping down like you're going for a single but basically just knocking them over with your head pressure against their knee.

KOTH for rolling, win by back, mount or sub. I started on the wall. Had a long roll with Sol where I was defensive the entire time. Felt like it was close to 10min or so. I fended off a fair amount, but finally succumbed to mount.

After that it was Harris. He's very strong and good at closing up space. I barely fended off his pass attempts, went inverted several times and really focused on having good frames. He finally started getting tired and I caught a triangle that I eventually finished. Then it was Dennis. Ugh. Can't remember how that roll went, I was getting gassed but not badly. A couple of breaths and I was more or less back to form. He won, I can't remember how.

Final roll was with Chuck. He's very squirrely and worked a strong DLR hook. He didn't take advantage of it quite right though and I passed. I worked mostly from side-control and north south, much to my surprise. I very nearly got mount, but he had his knee wedged in just enough for it to not count. Time ended while I was in top position.

Can't complain about my rolling today.

Week of June 22nd

I'm getting lax on posting, not sure why.

Didn't end up going to SLC after all. 

Did several classes last week, don't remember anything remarkable. I did have a couple of rolls with James in which I felt like I did pretty well. I did the Advanced class on Sunday and then took Mon and Tue off. Two consecutive days off felt like forever. It's hot as hell here, getting up 108F last Sunday and consistently in the 95F+ range. Nothing below 90F in sight.  :(

I had a day where I felt exhaustion during rolls, but the next day I was fine. This morning's class was 20+ and I rolled with a bunch of big dudes.... Chris P., Dennis, Jason S. and Jason W. I felt overwhelmed a couple of times but overall my defense was fairly decent. I was in pretty crap positions for the most part. A lot of getting smashed in bottom side control.

I haven't been able to watch/focus on Mendes vids for the month of June and I feel like my progress has stalled a little bit. BJJ has been an afterthought for the most part.

Doing double class today and drinking as much water as I can beforehand.

Received a quote for an home AC unit this morning and there's good news and bad news. The bad news is that I can't afford it. The good news is that the money I would have had to put into that can go into tournaments this year and next.