9/30 - Downtown
The Valley school changed their BJJ days from Tu/Thu to Wed/Fri. Direct schedule conflict with the downtown school, and since I pay for the downtown school and don't pay for the Valley, the decision is pretty clear. Hopefully this new schedule won't last too long...
Today we had a roomful of blue belts....and one brand new guy. I didn't envy the new guy. We all have to start somewhere though...
Side control submissions, with a lot of time for drilling while James helped the new guy. I was working with Sol, who is about 180lb and has a fine understanding of how to apply pressure from top side. I figure if I can survive with him on top then I can survive pretty much anything. One of the subs was an arm-bar on the far-side arm. I was doing a little bit better on isolating the elbow, but still struggling. Sol recommended starting on the upper forearm and sliding the blade of your hand up until you find the elbow. Move past it toward the armpit for another inch and then roll and apply pressure. Seemed to work ok, but need more work on it.
Rolls with Sol, Nate, Manny and Blaine. Sol got me with a pretty slick brabo from bottom half. I knew he was setting something up, but wasn't sure what and backstepped right into disaster. Nate was scrambly but I was able to regain guard consistently. Manny got me with a foot lock, maybe something else. Good roll though. He was in top side most of the time. Blaine was hanging out in my guard, so I tried everything I could to arm-drag to back-mount. I came close several times, and had full back-mount at one point. Eventually lost it.
After class, I rolled with Dennis without a clock. It was a super fun roll. Lots of transitions with both of us trading top positions. I passed his guard and almost got to mount, but couldn't complete it. He passed my guard and I think from top side went for an arm-bar. I was able to yank my elbow to the mat before he could lock it up which allowed me to slowly inch my way out of it and escape. At some point I had him in an arm-wrap in my guard and transitioned to an omoplata. We battled a bit, and then he stood up while I had the omoplata fully locked on. The only thing I could think of was the photo of Clark looking suave as hell in a similar position. We had a bunch of people watching us since we were the only ones rolling, and someone recommended that I back roll to get a sweep. I did it all wrong though and ended up losing position. I figured we'd go until someone got a tap since there was no clock, but we decided to call it then. I don't know how long our roll lasted, would've been an interesting tidbit. It was really fun, mainly b/c we had a lot of back and forth and we were both trying out some different parts of our games instead of our go to movements.
Monday, September 30, 2013
Friday, September 27, 2013
Spiderguard & DLR Hybrid
9/27 - Downtown
James is traveling for a tournament tomorrow, so four of us were left to our own devices. We went over a spiderguard-to-triangle and then a spiderguard sweep, and then Jason showed us a spiderguard/DLR hybrid that he picked up from Leandro Lo. We did a basic sweep from the position that seemed effective, but it was difficult to maintain top position instead of having it devolve into a scramble because at the end of the sweep your torso is close to their feet and your legs are extended forward.
We did three rounds of flow rolling, then three rounds of not flowing rolling. I got Jason in a far side shoulder lock via the omoplata that I picked up from the Buchecha seminar. It was extremely gratifying to be able to put something from the seminar to use.
Energy was pretty low today, likely due to skipping dinner last night and breakfast this morn. I have zippy appetite even though I've picked up my activity level in the past 24hrs. It'll fix itself sooner or later. Hopefully sooner, as I tripped on the mats during warm-ups and fell right over. That's not something that generally happens when I have all of my faculties.
James is traveling for a tournament tomorrow, so four of us were left to our own devices. We went over a spiderguard-to-triangle and then a spiderguard sweep, and then Jason showed us a spiderguard/DLR hybrid that he picked up from Leandro Lo. We did a basic sweep from the position that seemed effective, but it was difficult to maintain top position instead of having it devolve into a scramble because at the end of the sweep your torso is close to their feet and your legs are extended forward.
We did three rounds of flow rolling, then three rounds of not flowing rolling. I got Jason in a far side shoulder lock via the omoplata that I picked up from the Buchecha seminar. It was extremely gratifying to be able to put something from the seminar to use.
Energy was pretty low today, likely due to skipping dinner last night and breakfast this morn. I have zippy appetite even though I've picked up my activity level in the past 24hrs. It'll fix itself sooner or later. Hopefully sooner, as I tripped on the mats during warm-ups and fell right over. That's not something that generally happens when I have all of my faculties.
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Back in the Valley
9/26 - Valley
Today was a run through a variety of techniques that Damon is working on for his purple belt test. I would have thought that I've seen everything on the test, but there were a couple of new wrinkles today. One involved chucking your opponent over your head from butterfly guard and wrapping yourself around their legs to eventually get mount. Felt good about all of the techniques.
More importantly, energy level felt ok until the first roll. I thought I might have been overdoing it, but felt fine after a couple of rolls. Had a challenging roll with Damon in which he tapped me several times, twice with footlocks when I tried to play open guard. Dang it. I was able to fend off an arm-bar for a small piece of time, but eventually tapped. Another arm-bar I successfully defended and came up into his guard, so that was a small bit of progress.
I would probably be better served by taking the entire week off from BJJ, but at this particular point in time I need it for my emotional well-being. If I'm dragging ass tomorrow morning I'll skip it, otherwise I'm hoping that the two days of complete rest earlier in the week is enough.
Today was a run through a variety of techniques that Damon is working on for his purple belt test. I would have thought that I've seen everything on the test, but there were a couple of new wrinkles today. One involved chucking your opponent over your head from butterfly guard and wrapping yourself around their legs to eventually get mount. Felt good about all of the techniques.
More importantly, energy level felt ok until the first roll. I thought I might have been overdoing it, but felt fine after a couple of rolls. Had a challenging roll with Damon in which he tapped me several times, twice with footlocks when I tried to play open guard. Dang it. I was able to fend off an arm-bar for a small piece of time, but eventually tapped. Another arm-bar I successfully defended and came up into his guard, so that was a small bit of progress.
I would probably be better served by taking the entire week off from BJJ, but at this particular point in time I need it for my emotional well-being. If I'm dragging ass tomorrow morning I'll skip it, otherwise I'm hoping that the two days of complete rest earlier in the week is enough.
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