Stephanie has posted a great video about women in BJJ on her Jujitsunista blog. Check it out:
Sure looks like plenty of women enjoy the art, doesn't it? Maybe some of the folks who gave their opinion on this Sherdog thread should watch it :-).
I don't usually go on about women in BJJ. I'm the only one at my school. I very rarely think of being different, and I certainly don't feel awkward. There are funny moments, for sure, but the guys at my school and the other schools I visit are totally cool. I couldn't care less for women only classes for me personally. I just think that more women should take up BJJ, and if women only classes get them started, then I'm all for it. I think the video gives a glimpse of how much BJJ means to those women who not only give it a go, but stick with it. Despite the hardships. Or maybe because?
As for me, BJJ is one of the best things I've ever discovered. I couldn't imagine my life without it.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
wouldn't it be nice...
...if there was a place on the web where people can look up accurate gi sizes?
Something like a table or spreadsheet where for every gi brand, every model and every size on offer, there are jacket and pants measurements? Maybe a google spreadsheet or some such thing...? Preferably it would have before and after shrinking measurements. Something like the way Seymour does in his reviews, for example see the RDA gi review. If the gi manufacturers were so kind, they could provide this information. Otherwise, it could be added by people who buy gis. Eventually, it could end up being quite a complete collection of sizing info.
I'd also love to see a collection of links to all gi reviews made for every gi type. Again, to help people decide on what they require.
It would make gi buying so much easier!
It bugs me that there is such a vast difference in sizing. Every new gi purchase is a guessing game. I have bought A3s that fit, A3s that were too big, A2s that fit, A2s that were too small and A2s with sleeves too long and pant legs too short :-(
If the makers can't decide on a sizing standard, then at least it would be a very good start to have a central place where all the measurements are kept.
Something like a table or spreadsheet where for every gi brand, every model and every size on offer, there are jacket and pants measurements? Maybe a google spreadsheet or some such thing...? Preferably it would have before and after shrinking measurements. Something like the way Seymour does in his reviews, for example see the RDA gi review. If the gi manufacturers were so kind, they could provide this information. Otherwise, it could be added by people who buy gis. Eventually, it could end up being quite a complete collection of sizing info.I'd also love to see a collection of links to all gi reviews made for every gi type. Again, to help people decide on what they require.
It would make gi buying so much easier!
It bugs me that there is such a vast difference in sizing. Every new gi purchase is a guessing game. I have bought A3s that fit, A3s that were too big, A2s that fit, A2s that were too small and A2s with sleeves too long and pant legs too short :-(
If the makers can't decide on a sizing standard, then at least it would be a very good start to have a central place where all the measurements are kept.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
hit and miss
The hardest, yet most fun part of this blog is to think up titles. Sometimes I can't think of something clever to say, other times it's easy :-)
Another whole week has passed. It was a shorter week than usual (from a training point of view) as we missed the two Wednesday classes because that was the Australia Day holiday. I also didn't make it to Geelong this week, because one of my cats hurt it's leg. So it was off to the vets with the furry critter. Poor sod has a broken toe, but the leg is ok.
Monday night's class was yet again on back contol escapes. Again, we did a bit of drilling the escape from back control, from mount and then from half guard, then sweeping to side control, go to north/south and do the boatramp to get back control. Rinse and repeat. Then we did positional rolling, starting from the back with hooks in but hands on shoulders. Everyone had a turn with everyone else. Good news is that I had a lot more success with this than last week, both holding the back and doing chokes and getting out. Even the bigger guys were more "manageable". Most memorable part of the night (for me) was when I started the last roll with one of the beast men, my nemesis. He'd waved me over with that look of "step here, I will end your suffering quickly" :-). As I sat down to take his back, I showed him my hands and said: "See these? They are KILLER hands". Beware!". So we start. And I was going to have that choke. One way or another. It took some doing, but I choked him. Yeah! Killer hands! :-)
Thursday and Saturday morning we did something a bit different. We were paired up. One partner put on boxing gloves. Then we practiced mount escapes with a few variations. First just a bridge and roll, then a frame and push on his hip while hip escaping. The latter works well if they sit back to take a good swing. Aim for both scenarios was to get to our feet and back away. So it was either pass guard and back away or shrimp out and then do a technical standup.
Today we also had a play with the scenario where someone punches while in our closed guard, and then in our open guard. We drilled that for a bit and eventually went to rolling from open guard where the person with gloves on can strike, the other must wrestle only.
It is just amazing how much the game changes when we need to watch out for punches. A lot of stuff came flooding back to me. It's over a year now since I've done any standup/punching but I seem to remember how to cover up :-) Mixing punching with wrestling is highly interesting, and I think it gives you much greater awareness of where your opponents hands are. From a self defence point of view, this is a reality check for sure.
Friday night's open mat was good fun. I had my arse kicked big time by a senior blue and a purple belt. I got out of a bit of stuff but I really, really need to think of my legs!! They are constantly under attack now and I still don't see it coming early enough. I did some interesting thing where I nearly ended up getting back control after I had my guard passed when my partner had his back towards my head. I was pushing on his head, shrimping backwards and then grabbed hold of his top arm. It nearly worked, and he commented on it later. Something I will investigate further..
I'm pleased that I'm feeling opportunities to sweep, and consciously make the necessary adjustment to get them. That is a vast step forward for me. The other thing which is finally happening is that look ahead for submissions. An example: after several rear chokes I wanted to chase something else. Got to mount and decided on a triangle, so I set up for getting a leg over one arm and then went straight for the triangle. Another: while rolling with one partner wearing gloves and punching, I decided on armbars, one each side. Did the first one from guard, the second one from mount. And I was the one wearing the gloves :-)
I'm in the fortunate position to have two white belt guys (good three stripers) who are my size and a bit smaller. Both are nice and quick, so they can be quite a threat, and both have caught me on occasion. What is great about rolling with them is that I can work on sweeps. And because I get top control relatively often, I feel my top game developing. On the one hand, I feel a bit of a bastard because I've smashed and choked and armbarred my way through them all week. On the other hand, I certainly have paid my dues in that respect for quite a long time. I need to work on attacking, sweeping, smashing. So why should I feel bad about it, when I'm not unduly rough or arrogant about it? I miss no opportunity to tell them when they have done something well or when they have really threatened me. And if one of them legitimately gets a sub, I won't thrash out of it, I will tap. For their sake and mine.
We all have ups and downs. Sometimes we think we have a down when in fact all is well, but people around us have an up. I was trying to explain that to someone the other day. Just because some technique worked for us for a while, doesn't mean it will work forever or on everyone. For starters, our partners in the dojo learn which our fave moves are and they learn how to avoid or get out of them. Then we have to get better, more cunning in the set up or move on to a new technique to catch them out. It's a constant evolution. And that's how we have to see it. That constant pressure evolves our game. And that is why tapping is part of the learning curve. We pressure test our technique in live rolls. We must try and we must fail until we find what works. And then we have to keep on evolving our game to stay ahead. Everyone around us on the mat also evolves. Everyone has their own direction and speed though. So at times we come up against seemingly insurmountable difficulties (like me with my nemesis!). Well, we just have to keep trying new stuff and learn from our mistakes until eventually, the previously inconquerable becomes merely another step in our evolution.
As we grow our trickbag of techniques, or balance, strength, resilience and general knowledge, we also grow as a person. This growth can't happen while we are motivated by the number of taps we get. It can only happen if we look at everything that happens as a learning opportunity. So what if I haven't tapped anyone all night, or even all week? It's totally irrelevant. I don't need to hang my head in shame if I spent all week improving myself.
Oh, and next time I'll feel down in the dumps, I will come back and read that :-)
But for now, I'm looking back on another fun week, where the world was in order because some of the time I had my arse kicked and some of the time, I kicked arse. Beware the killer hands, you big brutes!!
Another whole week has passed. It was a shorter week than usual (from a training point of view) as we missed the two Wednesday classes because that was the Australia Day holiday. I also didn't make it to Geelong this week, because one of my cats hurt it's leg. So it was off to the vets with the furry critter. Poor sod has a broken toe, but the leg is ok.
Monday night's class was yet again on back contol escapes. Again, we did a bit of drilling the escape from back control, from mount and then from half guard, then sweeping to side control, go to north/south and do the boatramp to get back control. Rinse and repeat. Then we did positional rolling, starting from the back with hooks in but hands on shoulders. Everyone had a turn with everyone else. Good news is that I had a lot more success with this than last week, both holding the back and doing chokes and getting out. Even the bigger guys were more "manageable". Most memorable part of the night (for me) was when I started the last roll with one of the beast men, my nemesis. He'd waved me over with that look of "step here, I will end your suffering quickly" :-). As I sat down to take his back, I showed him my hands and said: "See these? They are KILLER hands". Beware!". So we start. And I was going to have that choke. One way or another. It took some doing, but I choked him. Yeah! Killer hands! :-)
Thursday and Saturday morning we did something a bit different. We were paired up. One partner put on boxing gloves. Then we practiced mount escapes with a few variations. First just a bridge and roll, then a frame and push on his hip while hip escaping. The latter works well if they sit back to take a good swing. Aim for both scenarios was to get to our feet and back away. So it was either pass guard and back away or shrimp out and then do a technical standup.
Today we also had a play with the scenario where someone punches while in our closed guard, and then in our open guard. We drilled that for a bit and eventually went to rolling from open guard where the person with gloves on can strike, the other must wrestle only.
It is just amazing how much the game changes when we need to watch out for punches. A lot of stuff came flooding back to me. It's over a year now since I've done any standup/punching but I seem to remember how to cover up :-) Mixing punching with wrestling is highly interesting, and I think it gives you much greater awareness of where your opponents hands are. From a self defence point of view, this is a reality check for sure.
Friday night's open mat was good fun. I had my arse kicked big time by a senior blue and a purple belt. I got out of a bit of stuff but I really, really need to think of my legs!! They are constantly under attack now and I still don't see it coming early enough. I did some interesting thing where I nearly ended up getting back control after I had my guard passed when my partner had his back towards my head. I was pushing on his head, shrimping backwards and then grabbed hold of his top arm. It nearly worked, and he commented on it later. Something I will investigate further..
I'm pleased that I'm feeling opportunities to sweep, and consciously make the necessary adjustment to get them. That is a vast step forward for me. The other thing which is finally happening is that look ahead for submissions. An example: after several rear chokes I wanted to chase something else. Got to mount and decided on a triangle, so I set up for getting a leg over one arm and then went straight for the triangle. Another: while rolling with one partner wearing gloves and punching, I decided on armbars, one each side. Did the first one from guard, the second one from mount. And I was the one wearing the gloves :-)
I'm in the fortunate position to have two white belt guys (good three stripers) who are my size and a bit smaller. Both are nice and quick, so they can be quite a threat, and both have caught me on occasion. What is great about rolling with them is that I can work on sweeps. And because I get top control relatively often, I feel my top game developing. On the one hand, I feel a bit of a bastard because I've smashed and choked and armbarred my way through them all week. On the other hand, I certainly have paid my dues in that respect for quite a long time. I need to work on attacking, sweeping, smashing. So why should I feel bad about it, when I'm not unduly rough or arrogant about it? I miss no opportunity to tell them when they have done something well or when they have really threatened me. And if one of them legitimately gets a sub, I won't thrash out of it, I will tap. For their sake and mine.
We all have ups and downs. Sometimes we think we have a down when in fact all is well, but people around us have an up. I was trying to explain that to someone the other day. Just because some technique worked for us for a while, doesn't mean it will work forever or on everyone. For starters, our partners in the dojo learn which our fave moves are and they learn how to avoid or get out of them. Then we have to get better, more cunning in the set up or move on to a new technique to catch them out. It's a constant evolution. And that's how we have to see it. That constant pressure evolves our game. And that is why tapping is part of the learning curve. We pressure test our technique in live rolls. We must try and we must fail until we find what works. And then we have to keep on evolving our game to stay ahead. Everyone around us on the mat also evolves. Everyone has their own direction and speed though. So at times we come up against seemingly insurmountable difficulties (like me with my nemesis!). Well, we just have to keep trying new stuff and learn from our mistakes until eventually, the previously inconquerable becomes merely another step in our evolution.
As we grow our trickbag of techniques, or balance, strength, resilience and general knowledge, we also grow as a person. This growth can't happen while we are motivated by the number of taps we get. It can only happen if we look at everything that happens as a learning opportunity. So what if I haven't tapped anyone all night, or even all week? It's totally irrelevant. I don't need to hang my head in shame if I spent all week improving myself.
Oh, and next time I'll feel down in the dumps, I will come back and read that :-)
But for now, I'm looking back on another fun week, where the world was in order because some of the time I had my arse kicked and some of the time, I kicked arse. Beware the killer hands, you big brutes!!
Sunday, January 23, 2011
more back control
We spent the rest of the week on back control escapes. Also on mount and half guard escapes. So by the end of the week, we were doing drills where we were stringing it all together.
The idea being that if we manage to escape back control, chances are the other guy will go for mount. Although we try and block him from doing that, he may succeed. At the point of realising he is going for mount, we should start escaping mount, rather than wait for him to settle.
So the drill was that we escape back control and our partner starts to mount. Right away, we connect our bottom elbow and knee and start the mount escape. Hopefully, he won't even get mount that way, but end up in half guard. Next step, again without waiting for him to settle in, we go for the half guard escape we covered last week. From there, we transition to side control. Or, if he exposed his back during the half guard escape, we can take his back.
The point was to learn to string escapes together to maintain the initiative, rather than letting our opponent settle. This requires the ability to figure out where his next move might go or at least recognise his next move in the early stages. Of course, it was also great to really rep out these escapes lots of times. I certainly found that I was getting quicker and smoother with all of them.
But the thing that most stuck in my mind is the concept that stringing things together works on the defense side of the roll as much as on the attack side. Ceasing the initiative and keeping it can this way can soon turn a bad position into an attack.
We had a look another technique called the boat ramp. It tied in with our back control oriented week. The boat ramp allows us to turn a north/south position into back control. We looked at the grips for no gi as well as how to use the lapels for grips.
During the week I had a few frustrations during rolls. We did a lot of situational rolling from back controls. As before, I had a lot of trouble with the bigger stronger guys. They simply shut me down. I described the feeling of having one of them on my back as "being strapped to a post". Not good if you can't move to even start an escape... Hmmm, there's a lot more work for me yet. It was a bit of a reality check. In days gone by, I wasn't too worried about giving up my back, I could hang out there, defend and eventually escape. As the guys are all getting better, it's no longer a safe place to hang out!
I was a bit disheartened in how I fared against some of the bigger guys on Wednesday night. But truth be told, it was during a class which was my fourth hour of BJJ within a 24 hour period, the evening after the Geelong visit. I had a big guy to drill with all evening before we started rolling. He's a fantastic partner, but it is more hard work than being paired with someone smaller. I was actually very fatigued by the time we started rolling. That in addition to always struggling with the big boys anyway, made it a tough session. But I did stay positive.
I will just have to keep working and get better :-)
The idea being that if we manage to escape back control, chances are the other guy will go for mount. Although we try and block him from doing that, he may succeed. At the point of realising he is going for mount, we should start escaping mount, rather than wait for him to settle.
So the drill was that we escape back control and our partner starts to mount. Right away, we connect our bottom elbow and knee and start the mount escape. Hopefully, he won't even get mount that way, but end up in half guard. Next step, again without waiting for him to settle in, we go for the half guard escape we covered last week. From there, we transition to side control. Or, if he exposed his back during the half guard escape, we can take his back.
The point was to learn to string escapes together to maintain the initiative, rather than letting our opponent settle. This requires the ability to figure out where his next move might go or at least recognise his next move in the early stages. Of course, it was also great to really rep out these escapes lots of times. I certainly found that I was getting quicker and smoother with all of them.
But the thing that most stuck in my mind is the concept that stringing things together works on the defense side of the roll as much as on the attack side. Ceasing the initiative and keeping it can this way can soon turn a bad position into an attack.
We had a look another technique called the boat ramp. It tied in with our back control oriented week. The boat ramp allows us to turn a north/south position into back control. We looked at the grips for no gi as well as how to use the lapels for grips.
During the week I had a few frustrations during rolls. We did a lot of situational rolling from back controls. As before, I had a lot of trouble with the bigger stronger guys. They simply shut me down. I described the feeling of having one of them on my back as "being strapped to a post". Not good if you can't move to even start an escape... Hmmm, there's a lot more work for me yet. It was a bit of a reality check. In days gone by, I wasn't too worried about giving up my back, I could hang out there, defend and eventually escape. As the guys are all getting better, it's no longer a safe place to hang out!
I was a bit disheartened in how I fared against some of the bigger guys on Wednesday night. But truth be told, it was during a class which was my fourth hour of BJJ within a 24 hour period, the evening after the Geelong visit. I had a big guy to drill with all evening before we started rolling. He's a fantastic partner, but it is more hard work than being paired with someone smaller. I was actually very fatigued by the time we started rolling. That in addition to always struggling with the big boys anyway, made it a tough session. But I did stay positive.
I will just have to keep working and get better :-)
Thursday, January 20, 2011
to Geelong in style
On Tuesday, I went to Geelong with Warrick. He decided to take his Trans Am for a spin :-) Ha, that rides a bit different to the cars I'm used to (both the Landcruiser and the Starlet!!).
We did the advanced class taught by John Will. Theme of the night were armbar escapes, both the running one and another which is good when the opponent does not have the leg across the belly. We did drills using both escapes. We looked at attacking the trapped arm with an omoplata if our opponent does the running escape.
We had a good amount of rolling. The advantage (for me) in going against higher belts is that they have a tendency to play more open guard, instead of smash and crush and smother... This gives me opportunities and I find I can work both my escapes and my top game and attacks. It's much more fun! I threatened both blue and purple belts with all sorts of things. Of course I didn't get all those things :-) But I got some. And I got caught in loads of things. The most memorable being three twisters by two different guys. A purple belt sprung the first one on me. Having never had it done to me, it was a surprise. Mind, I knew what it was when I was.. well... twisted.
Second time though I saw it coming, but not early enough. And by the time I realised, it was too late. Then, several rolls later, I was lucky to be paired with a black belt. We went here and there and then he starts the set up from half guard. I was wiser to it by this stage, but no matter where I went, and although I half escaped a couple of times, eventually he got me. I need to learn from this, one of my defensive positions gives an opening to lock my legs in. And I am fond of half guard bottom, which is another dangerous place to hang out.
After that, we stayed on for the intermediate class. The Bear had a car breakdown and couldn't make it, so a purple belt took the class. We started off with rolling with the fresh white belts. It is nice to see a young woman in this class. She is lighter than everyone but she has the best attitude and seems scared of nobody. And believe me, there are some big fellas i this class! I had a couple of rolls with her but mainly I helped her with things and played very lightly. I had mixed success with the guys. It's hard(er) when I'm already a bit tired and they come in fresh. After all, they are stronger at the best of times :-)
The class was about two guard passes, one standing one from closed guard and another from open (hooks in guard). We drilled those a fair bit which was great. They were very different passes, and I had a few problems getting my hips low enough to control his leg on the open guard pass. But eventually, I figured it out. It is exactly the thing I need to work on.
Then we played the pit game, with four in the pit whose guard had to be passed. They could choose open or closed guard. As with the rolling, I had mixed success. I got swept a few times, but when my turn came in, I also swept some people. Ditto with the passing. But by this stage of the class, I really was quite tired.
And then, right at the end, we had to do 20/10 tabata intervals with burpees, pushups, situps, lunges. Oh oh. Not fun, I must admit. It was only six minutes all up, but it sure felt longer than that!
And then we went home. By the time Warrick dropped me off, I really, really had trouble getting my aching and stiff body out of that infernal deep Trans Am seat. Oh man!
We did the advanced class taught by John Will. Theme of the night were armbar escapes, both the running one and another which is good when the opponent does not have the leg across the belly. We did drills using both escapes. We looked at attacking the trapped arm with an omoplata if our opponent does the running escape.
We had a good amount of rolling. The advantage (for me) in going against higher belts is that they have a tendency to play more open guard, instead of smash and crush and smother... This gives me opportunities and I find I can work both my escapes and my top game and attacks. It's much more fun! I threatened both blue and purple belts with all sorts of things. Of course I didn't get all those things :-) But I got some. And I got caught in loads of things. The most memorable being three twisters by two different guys. A purple belt sprung the first one on me. Having never had it done to me, it was a surprise. Mind, I knew what it was when I was.. well... twisted.
Second time though I saw it coming, but not early enough. And by the time I realised, it was too late. Then, several rolls later, I was lucky to be paired with a black belt. We went here and there and then he starts the set up from half guard. I was wiser to it by this stage, but no matter where I went, and although I half escaped a couple of times, eventually he got me. I need to learn from this, one of my defensive positions gives an opening to lock my legs in. And I am fond of half guard bottom, which is another dangerous place to hang out.
After that, we stayed on for the intermediate class. The Bear had a car breakdown and couldn't make it, so a purple belt took the class. We started off with rolling with the fresh white belts. It is nice to see a young woman in this class. She is lighter than everyone but she has the best attitude and seems scared of nobody. And believe me, there are some big fellas i this class! I had a couple of rolls with her but mainly I helped her with things and played very lightly. I had mixed success with the guys. It's hard(er) when I'm already a bit tired and they come in fresh. After all, they are stronger at the best of times :-)
The class was about two guard passes, one standing one from closed guard and another from open (hooks in guard). We drilled those a fair bit which was great. They were very different passes, and I had a few problems getting my hips low enough to control his leg on the open guard pass. But eventually, I figured it out. It is exactly the thing I need to work on.
Then we played the pit game, with four in the pit whose guard had to be passed. They could choose open or closed guard. As with the rolling, I had mixed success. I got swept a few times, but when my turn came in, I also swept some people. Ditto with the passing. But by this stage of the class, I really was quite tired.
And then, right at the end, we had to do 20/10 tabata intervals with burpees, pushups, situps, lunges. Oh oh. Not fun, I must admit. It was only six minutes all up, but it sure felt longer than that!
And then we went home. By the time Warrick dropped me off, I really, really had trouble getting my aching and stiff body out of that infernal deep Trans Am seat. Oh man!
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
back control
Monday night we worked on back control.
There were some fairly new guys in the class, so we started with the basics of back control: the seat belt grip and the hooks. Then everyone had a go at keeping back control when their partner started rolling around a bit.
Next thing covered were the two most common chokes form the back, the rear choke and the collar choke. Not from the point of view of applying the choke, but from the point of view of defending it and escaping back control. With a grip on the collar, we drilled escaping from back control. First, grab the choking arm with both hands, then fall to the side where he has our collar (or if you like: to the side where his choking hand points) so we can get our shoulder to the floor. Now we kick our bottom leg straight to dislodge his hook on that side and put weight on his bottom leg. Next step is to use our bottom hand and grab the pant leg on his top let. This is to ensure he can't come over the top and go to mount. Now it's a case of turning into him and we are in his guard.
I've used this escape plenty of times. Yet I didn't know about the hand to block his top leg. Which probably explains why more often than not, I ended up in mount as I scrambled to try and turn and end up in guard. So, a valuable lesson for me. Did I mention before that I pick up something every time we revisit 'basic' techniques??
We also looked at why it's unwise to cross feet when we have back control. It was just my luck that I happened to be the demo dummy for that part of the evening's proceedings. Ouch.
After that, we had a few rounds of rolling starting in back control. We were allowed hooks in, but hands only on shoulders. Just so our partners had a chance :-)
In my first roll, I started on someone's back. Ha, I snaked my right arm around his neck so fast it was scary, choke, bang! That elicited a giggle from the instructor who was walking past. I'm sure it will just make him say I'm mean ;-) After that, there were several other rolls. I was annihilated by a blue belt. He started on my back, and somehow I ended up in a scarf hold. From there, he pulled off his favourite, the armchair (I think that is what it is called). That is nasty. Do not like.
Then I ended up with a brandspanking new white belt. Big guy. On my back... I escaped but as I turned into him, I made the mistake of not blocking the top leg and he ended up in mount. I escaped that and got guard. He strained and pushed and tried to stack me, all the while attempting a figure four. That didn't work of course and when I tried to collar choke him, he started to grab my collar. If he had been my size, I would have just laughed, but a big boy like that, using all his strength is a different matter. So I went for feet on hips to keep him away. Somehow he realised I had gone to open guard and he grabbed my ankle and shoved it over, landing in side control. I didn't feel dreadfully threatened, but he was heavy. He smiled and told me it's good to be big and heavy. I nodded sagely (how could I argue?) and started escaping :-) . Some place in that roll I also ended up turtled and once I was in mount, but he just tossed me off...
Still, it is good to be reminded what new guys do. I'm pleased to say that while the big new guys still give me loads of trouble, they no longer freak me out. If they do muscle a submission it means I was careless and I need to work on that. But mostly, they get nothing, and I use the opportunity to hone my escapes and my open guard techniques.
Last couple of rolls were fun. Someone more my size. Less experienced, but explosive and squirmy. I caught him in a cross lapel choke from guard. Don't know how I got there. Next round was lively, but time was called. Great fun and we had a good laugh, too.
There were some fairly new guys in the class, so we started with the basics of back control: the seat belt grip and the hooks. Then everyone had a go at keeping back control when their partner started rolling around a bit.
Next thing covered were the two most common chokes form the back, the rear choke and the collar choke. Not from the point of view of applying the choke, but from the point of view of defending it and escaping back control. With a grip on the collar, we drilled escaping from back control. First, grab the choking arm with both hands, then fall to the side where he has our collar (or if you like: to the side where his choking hand points) so we can get our shoulder to the floor. Now we kick our bottom leg straight to dislodge his hook on that side and put weight on his bottom leg. Next step is to use our bottom hand and grab the pant leg on his top let. This is to ensure he can't come over the top and go to mount. Now it's a case of turning into him and we are in his guard.
I've used this escape plenty of times. Yet I didn't know about the hand to block his top leg. Which probably explains why more often than not, I ended up in mount as I scrambled to try and turn and end up in guard. So, a valuable lesson for me. Did I mention before that I pick up something every time we revisit 'basic' techniques??
We also looked at why it's unwise to cross feet when we have back control. It was just my luck that I happened to be the demo dummy for that part of the evening's proceedings. Ouch.
After that, we had a few rounds of rolling starting in back control. We were allowed hooks in, but hands only on shoulders. Just so our partners had a chance :-)
In my first roll, I started on someone's back. Ha, I snaked my right arm around his neck so fast it was scary, choke, bang! That elicited a giggle from the instructor who was walking past. I'm sure it will just make him say I'm mean ;-) After that, there were several other rolls. I was annihilated by a blue belt. He started on my back, and somehow I ended up in a scarf hold. From there, he pulled off his favourite, the armchair (I think that is what it is called). That is nasty. Do not like.
Then I ended up with a brandspanking new white belt. Big guy. On my back... I escaped but as I turned into him, I made the mistake of not blocking the top leg and he ended up in mount. I escaped that and got guard. He strained and pushed and tried to stack me, all the while attempting a figure four. That didn't work of course and when I tried to collar choke him, he started to grab my collar. If he had been my size, I would have just laughed, but a big boy like that, using all his strength is a different matter. So I went for feet on hips to keep him away. Somehow he realised I had gone to open guard and he grabbed my ankle and shoved it over, landing in side control. I didn't feel dreadfully threatened, but he was heavy. He smiled and told me it's good to be big and heavy. I nodded sagely (how could I argue?) and started escaping :-) . Some place in that roll I also ended up turtled and once I was in mount, but he just tossed me off...
Still, it is good to be reminded what new guys do. I'm pleased to say that while the big new guys still give me loads of trouble, they no longer freak me out. If they do muscle a submission it means I was careless and I need to work on that. But mostly, they get nothing, and I use the opportunity to hone my escapes and my open guard techniques.
Last couple of rolls were fun. Someone more my size. Less experienced, but explosive and squirmy. I caught him in a cross lapel choke from guard. Don't know how I got there. Next round was lively, but time was called. Great fun and we had a good laugh, too.
Monday, January 17, 2011
rolling, lots of great rolling
Yes, that about sums up the rest of last week!
We had classes on Thursday and Saturday and open mat on Friday. The classes were split so that the guys worked on stuff as needed. Two totally new guys were going through their first couple of basic drills, and some of the three stripers were practising their fourth stripe stuff, like knee ride escape and headlock escapes.
So I spent some time teaching/helping with those things, some time getting one on one help with stuff I needed to work on and a lot of time rolling inbetween.
The thing I worked on on Saturday was the hip bump rollover sweep. That's one of the things which I occasionally manage to pull off, without ever quite knowing why it worked, because generally it does NOT work for me. Haha, very little escapes our instructor, so I wasn't suprised he picked that one out for me :-) It seems like most of it came down to hand placement. The hand that braces and pushes off. We did some tweaks and I spent some time practising and eventually I got the hang of it.
As before, I came up against the issue of self-destruction. What do I mean by that? Well, sometimes when I've learned a new technique, I try it out and it doesn't work so well (wow, now ain't that a strange and unusual thing!!). I have a fantastic habit of finding an explanation, be it that it's hard against big people or whatever. But the main problem is that I tell myself that I can't do it. And that is the real problem. I set myself up for failure for every other time I happen to try again. I have the expectation it won't work, so I'm half-assed when I do try and then lo and behold, I fail - which yet again reinforces that belief. I know I do it. I know it's stupid. And I still do it. GGRRR!
So at one point when I became frustrated, I actually stopped and said that the biggest problem is that I'm defeating myself. BUT that I wasn't willing to be defeated. Deep breath. Tried again with focus. And... made visible progress.
The main difference is that I now understand the technique better and the additional information will help me to tweak it further to make it work better. It's no longer a black box. But the revisiting of the technique has restored my confidence. I now believe that I can do it, even to the bigger guys. So watch my sweeps!!
Alright, but aside from all that, I had loads of time on the mat to "just" roll :-)
Gustavo joined us again for a class and for open mat. More rolling time with a black belt. Whoohoo!! He also showed me two of his lapel chokes from mount. Using his lapels. Both so simple, so tight. I prefer chokes over armbars/armlocks, so I'm sure I'll find some use for these. The caveat is that I need to get mount first :-)
But as luck has it, I'm actually getting mount these days. Gone are the days when I'd last all of .5 of a second mounted on someone (once every three weeks on average!) before getting rolled off. In fact, several rolls I had with some of our white belts, I got mount and maintained it well, even getting subs from there. For me, that is relatively new territory, but a nice place to be :-) In fact, one of the guys said that it felt very tight and controlling when I had mount on him, comparing it to one of the purple belts. Well, I must be doing something right :-)
Ok, so I can get good positions, I'm getting better at keeping them and I'm able to actually do some damage from there. So now I hit subs which I learned ages ago but could never get because of lack of good positions or lack of time there. So for example, I got the head/arm choke twice. And nearly a third time on one of the purple belts (he told me I was close, but I thought it wasn't working and let it go).
I'm getting sweeps, and I'm starting to be less proned to being swept. I think that I'm paying much more attention to posture and hip pressure. Some of it is conscious, ie: I'm thinking of positioning, I'm deliberately adjusting. But some of it is just happening on auto pilot. Then I go: oh, I just managed to base out, how did that happen?
But oh yeah, I still get swept plenty, and I still have ample time to practice my defences and escapes. Got a big compliment from a purple belt about making him string together a whole bunch of attacks before he finally succeeded in ripping my arm off. Ha, soon I'll be escaping and ripping HIS arm off ;-)
Another thing I did for the first time: I volunteered to start off in a bottom position for a roll with one of the white belts. I let him choose. We did some from half guard bottom, some from side control bottom. I figure I will benefit from the opportunity to work more escapes. Oh, and a couple of times I didn't succeed and I had to tap. Well, that gave him the the chance to work his top game.
So rolling went exactly how it should be: I worked my top game and assorted attacks on the white belts and worked my defence and escapes with the higher ranks. I had enourmous fun, whether I was hammering people or getting nailed.
I said to our instructor that I have the feeling that I'm starting to connect some of the dots. Stuff is starting to fit together in my head. Learning isn't just a case of adding new stuff, but to broaden the existing knowledge base and to find relationships, which help to deepen the understanding.
We had classes on Thursday and Saturday and open mat on Friday. The classes were split so that the guys worked on stuff as needed. Two totally new guys were going through their first couple of basic drills, and some of the three stripers were practising their fourth stripe stuff, like knee ride escape and headlock escapes.
So I spent some time teaching/helping with those things, some time getting one on one help with stuff I needed to work on and a lot of time rolling inbetween.
The thing I worked on on Saturday was the hip bump rollover sweep. That's one of the things which I occasionally manage to pull off, without ever quite knowing why it worked, because generally it does NOT work for me. Haha, very little escapes our instructor, so I wasn't suprised he picked that one out for me :-) It seems like most of it came down to hand placement. The hand that braces and pushes off. We did some tweaks and I spent some time practising and eventually I got the hang of it.
As before, I came up against the issue of self-destruction. What do I mean by that? Well, sometimes when I've learned a new technique, I try it out and it doesn't work so well (wow, now ain't that a strange and unusual thing!!). I have a fantastic habit of finding an explanation, be it that it's hard against big people or whatever. But the main problem is that I tell myself that I can't do it. And that is the real problem. I set myself up for failure for every other time I happen to try again. I have the expectation it won't work, so I'm half-assed when I do try and then lo and behold, I fail - which yet again reinforces that belief. I know I do it. I know it's stupid. And I still do it. GGRRR!
So at one point when I became frustrated, I actually stopped and said that the biggest problem is that I'm defeating myself. BUT that I wasn't willing to be defeated. Deep breath. Tried again with focus. And... made visible progress.
The main difference is that I now understand the technique better and the additional information will help me to tweak it further to make it work better. It's no longer a black box. But the revisiting of the technique has restored my confidence. I now believe that I can do it, even to the bigger guys. So watch my sweeps!!
Alright, but aside from all that, I had loads of time on the mat to "just" roll :-)
Gustavo joined us again for a class and for open mat. More rolling time with a black belt. Whoohoo!! He also showed me two of his lapel chokes from mount. Using his lapels. Both so simple, so tight. I prefer chokes over armbars/armlocks, so I'm sure I'll find some use for these. The caveat is that I need to get mount first :-)
But as luck has it, I'm actually getting mount these days. Gone are the days when I'd last all of .5 of a second mounted on someone (once every three weeks on average!) before getting rolled off. In fact, several rolls I had with some of our white belts, I got mount and maintained it well, even getting subs from there. For me, that is relatively new territory, but a nice place to be :-) In fact, one of the guys said that it felt very tight and controlling when I had mount on him, comparing it to one of the purple belts. Well, I must be doing something right :-)
Ok, so I can get good positions, I'm getting better at keeping them and I'm able to actually do some damage from there. So now I hit subs which I learned ages ago but could never get because of lack of good positions or lack of time there. So for example, I got the head/arm choke twice. And nearly a third time on one of the purple belts (he told me I was close, but I thought it wasn't working and let it go).
I'm getting sweeps, and I'm starting to be less proned to being swept. I think that I'm paying much more attention to posture and hip pressure. Some of it is conscious, ie: I'm thinking of positioning, I'm deliberately adjusting. But some of it is just happening on auto pilot. Then I go: oh, I just managed to base out, how did that happen?
But oh yeah, I still get swept plenty, and I still have ample time to practice my defences and escapes. Got a big compliment from a purple belt about making him string together a whole bunch of attacks before he finally succeeded in ripping my arm off. Ha, soon I'll be escaping and ripping HIS arm off ;-)
Another thing I did for the first time: I volunteered to start off in a bottom position for a roll with one of the white belts. I let him choose. We did some from half guard bottom, some from side control bottom. I figure I will benefit from the opportunity to work more escapes. Oh, and a couple of times I didn't succeed and I had to tap. Well, that gave him the the chance to work his top game.
So rolling went exactly how it should be: I worked my top game and assorted attacks on the white belts and worked my defence and escapes with the higher ranks. I had enourmous fun, whether I was hammering people or getting nailed.
I said to our instructor that I have the feeling that I'm starting to connect some of the dots. Stuff is starting to fit together in my head. Learning isn't just a case of adding new stuff, but to broaden the existing knowledge base and to find relationships, which help to deepen the understanding.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Wednesday with a surpise visitor
I was fortunate to make it to two classes yesterday.
We are continuing to have the big wet. With the exception of yesterday afternoon, it's been raining more or less solidly since Monday morning. It is nowhere near as wet as it is in Queensland, but it's record rains for Victoria for this time of year. Thankfully the place I call home is not in a floodprone area...
With the big wet, humidity is near 100%. It's pleasantly warm. Last night, when the sun came out for a while, it soon warmed up some more and it felt much like being in the tropics. So much for the famous cold Ballarat weather :-). Anyway, as expected, the dojo was like a steambath, especially for the evening class. I took the warm up for the lunchtime class and we didn't need much warming up before starting to drip.
Then we had a surprise visitor. A guy walked in and asked if he could join in. Turns out Gustavo is a Brazilian BB, second degree. Do fish swim? Sure he could join in! We only had a small class with four white belts, a blue and myself and he looked like he wanted to roll.
Firstly, we did a few more reps of the arm drag techniques we did on Monday, and our instructor had a few rolls with Gustavo. Didn't get to see much of that as I had some issues with the technique we were practising until I finally figured out where all my limbs had to go. We were interrupted to watch a cool technique demonstrated by Gustavo. It started with a feint armbar, then the arms (both) were trapped with a gi lapel and then there was a forearm choke for the submission.
Then it was my turn to entertain Gustavo ;-) Honestly, I cnn't remember many details. He allowed me to get some good positions, only to sweep me at will. He seems to like chokes. He also likes to use his gi lapels to either choke people or to hold them or tie them down. So many of my usual escapes didn't work simply because there was always a hand, foot or gi lapel blocking my path.
He showed me a technique that beat one of my usual defences, which means that I'll have to think of something else now. Hm. As expected, I was doing all the work. In all, I had the impression that he sort of surfed on me :-) His control was either flowing or tight, and he was always several steps ahead of me. All roads led to being choked! What a learning experience. And what a nice guy.
The rest of the class, I helped some of the guys with their basics, while our other blue belt had a few rolls with Gustavo.
Best news of all: he will be back because he lives in Ballarat at the moment. So we will have further opportunities to roll with him. YEAH!!
We are continuing to have the big wet. With the exception of yesterday afternoon, it's been raining more or less solidly since Monday morning. It is nowhere near as wet as it is in Queensland, but it's record rains for Victoria for this time of year. Thankfully the place I call home is not in a floodprone area...
With the big wet, humidity is near 100%. It's pleasantly warm. Last night, when the sun came out for a while, it soon warmed up some more and it felt much like being in the tropics. So much for the famous cold Ballarat weather :-). Anyway, as expected, the dojo was like a steambath, especially for the evening class. I took the warm up for the lunchtime class and we didn't need much warming up before starting to drip.
Then we had a surprise visitor. A guy walked in and asked if he could join in. Turns out Gustavo is a Brazilian BB, second degree. Do fish swim? Sure he could join in! We only had a small class with four white belts, a blue and myself and he looked like he wanted to roll.
Firstly, we did a few more reps of the arm drag techniques we did on Monday, and our instructor had a few rolls with Gustavo. Didn't get to see much of that as I had some issues with the technique we were practising until I finally figured out where all my limbs had to go. We were interrupted to watch a cool technique demonstrated by Gustavo. It started with a feint armbar, then the arms (both) were trapped with a gi lapel and then there was a forearm choke for the submission.
Then it was my turn to entertain Gustavo ;-) Honestly, I cnn't remember many details. He allowed me to get some good positions, only to sweep me at will. He seems to like chokes. He also likes to use his gi lapels to either choke people or to hold them or tie them down. So many of my usual escapes didn't work simply because there was always a hand, foot or gi lapel blocking my path.
He showed me a technique that beat one of my usual defences, which means that I'll have to think of something else now. Hm. As expected, I was doing all the work. In all, I had the impression that he sort of surfed on me :-) His control was either flowing or tight, and he was always several steps ahead of me. All roads led to being choked! What a learning experience. And what a nice guy.
The rest of the class, I helped some of the guys with their basics, while our other blue belt had a few rolls with Gustavo.
Best news of all: he will be back because he lives in Ballarat at the moment. So we will have further opportunities to roll with him. YEAH!!
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
happiness
Happiness is... being back to normal BJJ classes. What bliss!
We had a very large class last night and it was great to see everyone again after the holidays.
The weather was warm and very humid after it rained most of the day. So, back in gi for the first time in about five weeks, we were all suffering a little bit. The mats were covered in small wet patches at the end of the night :-)
We paired up and did hip escapes. Our partner's job was to push forward and our job was to stiff arm his shoulder to keep distance, and hip escape away. After some laps of this, we turned this into an attack. As he pushes forward, I do a little escape, then I go for an underhook with the arm that has been used as a frame. I cup his shoulder from behind and pushing down on it, pull my leg out from between his to come to my knees. Finally, this became a half guard escape. My outside leg is over his trapped leg, and I use my shin against his thigh for control as I push down on his shoulder and get my other leg out.
At that point in time, I have a choice, either I can duck under his arm and take his back or I can attack his arm. The control is very good as I can exert a lot of pressure on his shoulder and I restrict his movement by having my shin on his thigh. It is not hard to just push into him and flatten him out, giving me side control or even mount.
We tried one more adjustment. Using the outside foot near his ankle, we wing out his lower leg to his outside. This turns his foot away from him and his knee towards his other knee. Now add the shin on the thigh and the underhook to get the shoulder to the floor, and you nearly have a submission. But certainly, it gives much more control over our opponent's body. With his near leg locked up in this fashion, it's impossible for him to try and push back into us, but I still have the option of going for side control, mount or back control.
After that, we wrestled. I worked with a small white belt first. We played for a bit with grips, trying to get the hang of sleeves and collars again. I made a point of going for open guard, managed a nice sweep. He is small, fast and aggressive (in a non-spazzy way), and fun to wrestle with. At one point he threatened me with a triangle/armbar when I did a standing guardpass (which was a bit sloppy...), but a shin on his forearm and small adjustments saw that I passed his guard. As I still had his arm pinned, I went for a kimura from north/south. Second round we didn't finish because we all had to swap partners.
This time around I had one of the very new white belts. He is a lot heavier than I. Again, I worked on open guard, but also on guard transitions. I let him work a fair bit and concentrated on using my hooks and doing sweeps. I talked him through some stuff, and tried to get him to start using his feet, by showing him how to push and pull with hooks, push with feet and shins. Also, after a scramble, to come back pushing in to flatten me. I know I'll regret that later ;-)
I had a really great time, and it was fun to grapple in the gi again, even though I had sweat rolling off me. I sure wasn't gassed or tired (I've adapted to 2+ hours of far harder training..), but the high humidity ensured I was sodden. We all were. But happy face all around!
We had a very large class last night and it was great to see everyone again after the holidays.
The weather was warm and very humid after it rained most of the day. So, back in gi for the first time in about five weeks, we were all suffering a little bit. The mats were covered in small wet patches at the end of the night :-)
We paired up and did hip escapes. Our partner's job was to push forward and our job was to stiff arm his shoulder to keep distance, and hip escape away. After some laps of this, we turned this into an attack. As he pushes forward, I do a little escape, then I go for an underhook with the arm that has been used as a frame. I cup his shoulder from behind and pushing down on it, pull my leg out from between his to come to my knees. Finally, this became a half guard escape. My outside leg is over his trapped leg, and I use my shin against his thigh for control as I push down on his shoulder and get my other leg out.
At that point in time, I have a choice, either I can duck under his arm and take his back or I can attack his arm. The control is very good as I can exert a lot of pressure on his shoulder and I restrict his movement by having my shin on his thigh. It is not hard to just push into him and flatten him out, giving me side control or even mount.
We tried one more adjustment. Using the outside foot near his ankle, we wing out his lower leg to his outside. This turns his foot away from him and his knee towards his other knee. Now add the shin on the thigh and the underhook to get the shoulder to the floor, and you nearly have a submission. But certainly, it gives much more control over our opponent's body. With his near leg locked up in this fashion, it's impossible for him to try and push back into us, but I still have the option of going for side control, mount or back control.
After that, we wrestled. I worked with a small white belt first. We played for a bit with grips, trying to get the hang of sleeves and collars again. I made a point of going for open guard, managed a nice sweep. He is small, fast and aggressive (in a non-spazzy way), and fun to wrestle with. At one point he threatened me with a triangle/armbar when I did a standing guardpass (which was a bit sloppy...), but a shin on his forearm and small adjustments saw that I passed his guard. As I still had his arm pinned, I went for a kimura from north/south. Second round we didn't finish because we all had to swap partners.
This time around I had one of the very new white belts. He is a lot heavier than I. Again, I worked on open guard, but also on guard transitions. I let him work a fair bit and concentrated on using my hooks and doing sweeps. I talked him through some stuff, and tried to get him to start using his feet, by showing him how to push and pull with hooks, push with feet and shins. Also, after a scramble, to come back pushing in to flatten me. I know I'll regret that later ;-)
I had a really great time, and it was fun to grapple in the gi again, even though I had sweat rolling off me. I sure wasn't gassed or tired (I've adapted to 2+ hours of far harder training..), but the high humidity ensured I was sodden. We all were. But happy face all around!
Friday, January 7, 2011
summer has arrived
We are due to resume BJJ classes next Monday. I'm really looking forward to that, though I've been sneaking in some training this week.
The summer so far has been pretty cool and pleasant, but I think the hot weather has finally arrived. That's perfect timing for training, haha. But I shouldn't complain, our last summer was so hot and started early and lasted seemingly forever.
I was just thinking this morning that it's been about a month of not training in the gi. That's the longest ever since I started BJJ. It's been good, and yet I'm also looking forward to do a bit of gi training. I like both!
I managed to catch up with a few of our local guys for a Monday and Wednesday session. It was really mostly open mat, but we were shown some deep half guard sweeps and we went over the Japanes Necktie and d'Arce choke (which sort of go together). Also, we looked at a lockdown escape and a variation leading into a cartwheel pass. Wheee! But mostly, lots of wrestling. Fairly easy, as people were coming back from time off.
On Tuesday I went to Geelong where one of John's BBs took the advanced class. It was a much smaller class than usual, and there, too, we took it a bit easy.
We worked on takedowns, mainly single legs, and variations on how to get the opponent to the ground once we have hold of his leg. The most interesting was a duck under and roll takedown while we have his leg trapped between ours. We literally duck under and roll over taking him with us. Looked easy, but the first few tries felt awkward. But after a few reps it made good sense and it felt easy.
Then we looked at how to achieve a takedown if we step both legs around the front of his trapped one, or to the back. Repped these out until they felt pretty consistent. We also looked briefly at entries, and what to do to off balance our opponent and get near that leg. Finally, we did single leg takedowns in a bit more of a live scenario, with our partners resisting so we could feel for which was the most appropriate way to get him down. I saw some very interesting variations, and came up with a couple myself ;-)
Aside from that, we had some rolling. I really don't remember too many details. I do recall getting choked by one of the BBs though.
Then it was the intermediate class. The guys came in for a warm up roll. I scored a very big boy, resplendant with mohawk and Tapout shirt... Clearly, he thought he'd have an easy time ;-) I wish I could say I kicked his butt, but that didn't happen. And I will say to his credit, he didn't muscle too much and didn't spazz at all. I had plenty of opportunity to switch from one guard to another and I managed to mostly stay out from under him. I attempted armbars from closed guard even. He finally pinned me after passing my guard and got a figure four. By this time, he was nicely warmed up for his class, and he said that I hadn't made it easy for him. Ah - that was as close to a compliment as I was likely to get. :-) I had him for a drilling partner later and found him to be good to work with.
What we worked on were a half guard escape and and escape from lockdown/grapevine.
Then more rolling, where again, I can't remember most details. I know I still spend too much time using closed guard. I did get the back a couple of times, as usual, from closed guard. My submissions tend to be front or back chokes. Time to get working on armbars and armlocks!
Oh yeah, funny moment of the night. I ended up with the huge guy for the last few rounds. My goal with him is NOT get on the bottom. Closed guard on him ends in disaster. Firstly I only just get my legs locked around him, so he can usually bust out, but worse of all is when he leans forward. You do not want to get stacked up under a mountain! So it's open guard and move, move, move! That was reasonably successful, as the fear of getting squashed sharpened my response times. We had to restart a couple of times because we were rolling into other people. From a kneeling start I managed a (sort-of) armdrag and scuttle to his back. Yeah, I thought, I'm in - a choke coming your way right now! Then he just sat back, leaning into me and laughed (!) as he pushed over the top of me. I will say that I converted my stanglehold to a push and my hooks went from around him to underneath him. Not fair, not fair!!!
As we both rolled on the floor laughing, it was time to line up.
So I managed some six hours of training the week before we go back to BJJ classes. Good stuff!
The summer so far has been pretty cool and pleasant, but I think the hot weather has finally arrived. That's perfect timing for training, haha. But I shouldn't complain, our last summer was so hot and started early and lasted seemingly forever.
I was just thinking this morning that it's been about a month of not training in the gi. That's the longest ever since I started BJJ. It's been good, and yet I'm also looking forward to do a bit of gi training. I like both!
I managed to catch up with a few of our local guys for a Monday and Wednesday session. It was really mostly open mat, but we were shown some deep half guard sweeps and we went over the Japanes Necktie and d'Arce choke (which sort of go together). Also, we looked at a lockdown escape and a variation leading into a cartwheel pass. Wheee! But mostly, lots of wrestling. Fairly easy, as people were coming back from time off.
On Tuesday I went to Geelong where one of John's BBs took the advanced class. It was a much smaller class than usual, and there, too, we took it a bit easy.
We worked on takedowns, mainly single legs, and variations on how to get the opponent to the ground once we have hold of his leg. The most interesting was a duck under and roll takedown while we have his leg trapped between ours. We literally duck under and roll over taking him with us. Looked easy, but the first few tries felt awkward. But after a few reps it made good sense and it felt easy.
Then we looked at how to achieve a takedown if we step both legs around the front of his trapped one, or to the back. Repped these out until they felt pretty consistent. We also looked briefly at entries, and what to do to off balance our opponent and get near that leg. Finally, we did single leg takedowns in a bit more of a live scenario, with our partners resisting so we could feel for which was the most appropriate way to get him down. I saw some very interesting variations, and came up with a couple myself ;-)
Aside from that, we had some rolling. I really don't remember too many details. I do recall getting choked by one of the BBs though.
Then it was the intermediate class. The guys came in for a warm up roll. I scored a very big boy, resplendant with mohawk and Tapout shirt... Clearly, he thought he'd have an easy time ;-) I wish I could say I kicked his butt, but that didn't happen. And I will say to his credit, he didn't muscle too much and didn't spazz at all. I had plenty of opportunity to switch from one guard to another and I managed to mostly stay out from under him. I attempted armbars from closed guard even. He finally pinned me after passing my guard and got a figure four. By this time, he was nicely warmed up for his class, and he said that I hadn't made it easy for him. Ah - that was as close to a compliment as I was likely to get. :-) I had him for a drilling partner later and found him to be good to work with.
What we worked on were a half guard escape and and escape from lockdown/grapevine.
Then more rolling, where again, I can't remember most details. I know I still spend too much time using closed guard. I did get the back a couple of times, as usual, from closed guard. My submissions tend to be front or back chokes. Time to get working on armbars and armlocks!
Oh yeah, funny moment of the night. I ended up with the huge guy for the last few rounds. My goal with him is NOT get on the bottom. Closed guard on him ends in disaster. Firstly I only just get my legs locked around him, so he can usually bust out, but worse of all is when he leans forward. You do not want to get stacked up under a mountain! So it's open guard and move, move, move! That was reasonably successful, as the fear of getting squashed sharpened my response times. We had to restart a couple of times because we were rolling into other people. From a kneeling start I managed a (sort-of) armdrag and scuttle to his back. Yeah, I thought, I'm in - a choke coming your way right now! Then he just sat back, leaning into me and laughed (!) as he pushed over the top of me. I will say that I converted my stanglehold to a push and my hooks went from around him to underneath him. Not fair, not fair!!!
As we both rolled on the floor laughing, it was time to line up.
So I managed some six hours of training the week before we go back to BJJ classes. Good stuff!
Sunday, January 2, 2011
that was fun
I had a visitor today. Well, actually, it was my best friend's visitor. Her daughter from Adelaide.
Yana started training MMA/BJJ in Adelaide a couple of months ago. When I caught up with her on New Year's eve, I half jokingly said that if she was interested in a roll, to come and visit, for I have mats!!
And surprise, surprise, she turned up on New Year's day :-) She brought her mum (who came armed with a camera) and her boyfriend (who came armed with curiosity). Well, it transpired that she hadn't been to very many classes, never rolled yet, and was still hazy on some of the basic stuff.
I decided to just go over some of that basic stuff. Turns out the place she trains (I've forgotten the name, and I'm sorry for that) is a Will-Machado afilitate, so they do the same basic drills and things I'm used to. That made it easier.
So as much for the edification of the onlookers (who had never seen BJJ) as for Yana's benefit, we went over some very basic "Basics", ie: a drill that involves side control, mount, dismount, side control via north-south. It's all about the transitions and maintaining pressure. The other drill is the "keep the mount" drill where the top person goes from side control to mount. Then the bottom person tries to escape by bridging first and then rolling to their side. Top person has to keep the mount during the bridging and then transition to side mount, get seat belt grips and hooks in as the bottom person finally rolls over totally and the top person gets back control. The drill ends with the top person flattening the bottom person. A perfect position for a rear choke, of course.
We worked on the back choke for a bit. And then, just for a variation on that theme, I showed her a front choke from guard and turtle top. And that was all we had time for.
No rolling, but it was fun all the same. Here are some pictures :-)
Explaining some stuff before we started. I've no idea why I'm pointing my finger. But I know I have a bad habit of doing that when I work with horses, too ;-)
Explainig concept of guard passing. Notice concern on boyfriend's face. :-)))
Explaining knee through guard pass (as opposed to passing under the leg).
Yana practicing her front choke on me. No other volunteers ;-)
I'm really happy she has chosen BJJ and I think she'll enjoy it. Pity she lives in Adelaide. By the time she visits next time though, we'll be able to have a roll. I'm looking forward to it!
Yana started training MMA/BJJ in Adelaide a couple of months ago. When I caught up with her on New Year's eve, I half jokingly said that if she was interested in a roll, to come and visit, for I have mats!!
And surprise, surprise, she turned up on New Year's day :-) She brought her mum (who came armed with a camera) and her boyfriend (who came armed with curiosity). Well, it transpired that she hadn't been to very many classes, never rolled yet, and was still hazy on some of the basic stuff.
I decided to just go over some of that basic stuff. Turns out the place she trains (I've forgotten the name, and I'm sorry for that) is a Will-Machado afilitate, so they do the same basic drills and things I'm used to. That made it easier.
So as much for the edification of the onlookers (who had never seen BJJ) as for Yana's benefit, we went over some very basic "Basics", ie: a drill that involves side control, mount, dismount, side control via north-south. It's all about the transitions and maintaining pressure. The other drill is the "keep the mount" drill where the top person goes from side control to mount. Then the bottom person tries to escape by bridging first and then rolling to their side. Top person has to keep the mount during the bridging and then transition to side mount, get seat belt grips and hooks in as the bottom person finally rolls over totally and the top person gets back control. The drill ends with the top person flattening the bottom person. A perfect position for a rear choke, of course.
We worked on the back choke for a bit. And then, just for a variation on that theme, I showed her a front choke from guard and turtle top. And that was all we had time for.
No rolling, but it was fun all the same. Here are some pictures :-)
Explaining some stuff before we started. I've no idea why I'm pointing my finger. But I know I have a bad habit of doing that when I work with horses, too ;-)
Explainig concept of guard passing. Notice concern on boyfriend's face. :-)))
Explaining knee through guard pass (as opposed to passing under the leg).
Yana practicing her front choke on me. No other volunteers ;-)
I'm really happy she has chosen BJJ and I think she'll enjoy it. Pity she lives in Adelaide. By the time she visits next time though, we'll be able to have a roll. I'm looking forward to it!
Thursday, December 30, 2010
missing the mats
Sigh.
I'm missing training. It's been over a week and I desperately need a BJJ fix ;-)
I've cleaned and rearranged my mini gym. And yes, I've used it, too. Not as much as I should. But I've always found it hard to motivate myself (when I'm by myself). But at least I managed two decent work outs and aside from that, the place is clean and orderly so it's more inviting to do more.
Last night I did tabata intervals: burpees, sqats, mountain climbers, pushups etc. Only 16 minutes' worth, but by golly that got me nice and warm.
Oh yeah, and I have been doing joint mobility exercises every day, and a bit of stretching every few days. I've also been reading up more about it and am coming to the conclusion that stretching before training isn't such a good idea. On the other hand, this joint mobility stuff seems to be working and I'm trying to learn more about it.
I received my belated xmas present in the mail today: Ryan Hall - Back Attacks. So I guess I'll take the hot afternoon as an excuse to sit down and start watching some of it.
I'll let you know what I think of it :-)
I'm missing training. It's been over a week and I desperately need a BJJ fix ;-)
I've cleaned and rearranged my mini gym. And yes, I've used it, too. Not as much as I should. But I've always found it hard to motivate myself (when I'm by myself). But at least I managed two decent work outs and aside from that, the place is clean and orderly so it's more inviting to do more.
Last night I did tabata intervals: burpees, sqats, mountain climbers, pushups etc. Only 16 minutes' worth, but by golly that got me nice and warm.
Oh yeah, and I have been doing joint mobility exercises every day, and a bit of stretching every few days. I've also been reading up more about it and am coming to the conclusion that stretching before training isn't such a good idea. On the other hand, this joint mobility stuff seems to be working and I'm trying to learn more about it.
I received my belated xmas present in the mail today: Ryan Hall - Back Attacks. So I guess I'll take the hot afternoon as an excuse to sit down and start watching some of it.
I'll let you know what I think of it :-)
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Merry Xmas!!
I always do an E-Xmas card with horses. It's always a picture of a mare and a foal that was born in that year.
As I have absolutely no interesting BJJ pictures to play with, you will have to cope with a horse picture :-)
I hope you have a great Christmas, lovely holidays and the most fabulous new year.
As I have absolutely no interesting BJJ pictures to play with, you will have to cope with a horse picture :-)
I hope you have a great Christmas, lovely holidays and the most fabulous new year.
Friday, December 24, 2010
pre-holiday roundup
It was the last week before the holidays, and a shorter week than normal. The school is closed until the second Monday in January. Hm, I miss it already... But there are plans to get together for a bit of wresting and cardio work before then!
Monday night's class was about rubber guard stuff. It was mainly a revision of what we went over so far and a chance for everyone to get a few more reps in, particularly the transitions between the positions.
We also learned a new attack. Well, one that I hadn't seen. Please don't ask me for the name of this.... But essentially it's a triangle from New York. Nice and easy. All I need is to get him to post the arm to the floor on the side where I have my foot on his hip. I grab the wrist, adjust my hip and thread my foot over his arm. Then the leg goes on his shoulder and with a few grip adjustments and getting a cut across the back of his neck with my lower leg... triangle. Beautiful.
We did a little bit of wrestling and I did pull off a triangle from that setup.
Wednesday was our last class for the year. After a tabata warmup we were shown and drilled a couple of techniques and had rolls inbetween.
We did the hooks in (butterfly) guard to x-guard transition and one of the sweeps from there. We also did a double leg takedown with a leg trip.
Rolling was just plain good fun. I had one of the newer white belts for a bit. I did my best to tread that fine line between attacking him and working my game and letting him have some fun, too. It's kind of weird to tell someone what he could try to counter what I'm doing. A bit like playing chess against yourself :-) And of course it gives me the chance to work my escapes after I've allowed him him get into a dominant position.
I had to work much harder with one of the purple belts. I spent most of the time defending there :-) However, I managed a couple of sweeps, one from halfguard where miraculously I ended up in high mount. When my brain registered that I had a leg over one of his arms, I converted that to a mounted triangle. Bingo! I have no idea how that sweep worked. All I remember is the feeling of moving well, pausing because I was surprised and then recognising the opportunity. And the triangle was tight, he told me. After that, I was paid back handsomely with figure fours and armbars. Good times!
A couple of things are happening. Firstly, I am starting to get sweeps. No specific ones, but all sorts from all sorts of places. I had all but given up on sweeps, because I just couldn't make them work like 99% of the time. I'm not sure if it's a result of moving my hips better, allowing me to get under people, or because I can feel opportunities and make the necessary adjustments. Probably all of the above. It is as though a whole bunch of little puzzle pieces are suddenly fitting together and I'm starting to get the bigger picture.
The same is the case with recognising submissions. Oh, there are still loads of times when I'm in a good spot and I go: ah, what was the xyz sub from here, which arm/leg does what, doh?? BUT. Increasingly, I get to some position, or rather, I'm in the process of getting to that position when an attack pops into my head and my hands and legs seem to know what to do.
Revisiting techniques: I've found so often lately that things which didn't work for me in the past suddenly make sense now. Make sense and actually work for me. So I did know the puzzle pieces, but they didn't make sense to me, or I couln't fit them into the section of the whole picture I was working on. The other thing about revisiting techniques is that even if I was already successfully using that technique, I'm discovering ways to make it work better, tighter, faster. Or hit it from a different position, or help me see a related technique.
I suppose it's all part of a natural progression. As a result I'm moving more efficiently and I have more time to think and react. That in turn means I'm no longer just defending and getting a seeing to. Goodness knows, that stage lasted long enough for me! And obviously I still get nailed regularly, even by bigger white belts. But I'm spending a lot more time working attacks and giving others a hard time :-). That translates to much more fun.
My next goal is to start stringing techniques together. To use one attack to elicit a specific response which is the setup for my next technique. So far I'm merely reacting to my opponents moves. I certainly can go from one attack to another depending on his defence, but I am not yet chaining things together or setting traps.
I'm still relying on closed guard too much. On the one hand, I have good attacks from there, so it's my main game. On the other hand, I really, really want to be a better open guard player so that I have more options.
What I am pleased about is that I have good defence and a number of escapes from every bad position. So I'm not too scared to experiment, because if I fail, I know I have a good chance to recover from the inferior position I'll land in. What I'm less pleased about is that my top game is still pretty underdeveloped. But that's starting to improve, too.
So I have loads of things to work on next year. I intend to 1. have a load of fun, 2. get better and 3. compete again and do well.
Monday night's class was about rubber guard stuff. It was mainly a revision of what we went over so far and a chance for everyone to get a few more reps in, particularly the transitions between the positions.
We also learned a new attack. Well, one that I hadn't seen. Please don't ask me for the name of this.... But essentially it's a triangle from New York. Nice and easy. All I need is to get him to post the arm to the floor on the side where I have my foot on his hip. I grab the wrist, adjust my hip and thread my foot over his arm. Then the leg goes on his shoulder and with a few grip adjustments and getting a cut across the back of his neck with my lower leg... triangle. Beautiful.
We did a little bit of wrestling and I did pull off a triangle from that setup.
Wednesday was our last class for the year. After a tabata warmup we were shown and drilled a couple of techniques and had rolls inbetween.
We did the hooks in (butterfly) guard to x-guard transition and one of the sweeps from there. We also did a double leg takedown with a leg trip.
Rolling was just plain good fun. I had one of the newer white belts for a bit. I did my best to tread that fine line between attacking him and working my game and letting him have some fun, too. It's kind of weird to tell someone what he could try to counter what I'm doing. A bit like playing chess against yourself :-) And of course it gives me the chance to work my escapes after I've allowed him him get into a dominant position.
I had to work much harder with one of the purple belts. I spent most of the time defending there :-) However, I managed a couple of sweeps, one from halfguard where miraculously I ended up in high mount. When my brain registered that I had a leg over one of his arms, I converted that to a mounted triangle. Bingo! I have no idea how that sweep worked. All I remember is the feeling of moving well, pausing because I was surprised and then recognising the opportunity. And the triangle was tight, he told me. After that, I was paid back handsomely with figure fours and armbars. Good times!
A couple of things are happening. Firstly, I am starting to get sweeps. No specific ones, but all sorts from all sorts of places. I had all but given up on sweeps, because I just couldn't make them work like 99% of the time. I'm not sure if it's a result of moving my hips better, allowing me to get under people, or because I can feel opportunities and make the necessary adjustments. Probably all of the above. It is as though a whole bunch of little puzzle pieces are suddenly fitting together and I'm starting to get the bigger picture.
The same is the case with recognising submissions. Oh, there are still loads of times when I'm in a good spot and I go: ah, what was the xyz sub from here, which arm/leg does what, doh?? BUT. Increasingly, I get to some position, or rather, I'm in the process of getting to that position when an attack pops into my head and my hands and legs seem to know what to do.
Revisiting techniques: I've found so often lately that things which didn't work for me in the past suddenly make sense now. Make sense and actually work for me. So I did know the puzzle pieces, but they didn't make sense to me, or I couln't fit them into the section of the whole picture I was working on. The other thing about revisiting techniques is that even if I was already successfully using that technique, I'm discovering ways to make it work better, tighter, faster. Or hit it from a different position, or help me see a related technique.
I suppose it's all part of a natural progression. As a result I'm moving more efficiently and I have more time to think and react. That in turn means I'm no longer just defending and getting a seeing to. Goodness knows, that stage lasted long enough for me! And obviously I still get nailed regularly, even by bigger white belts. But I'm spending a lot more time working attacks and giving others a hard time :-). That translates to much more fun.
My next goal is to start stringing techniques together. To use one attack to elicit a specific response which is the setup for my next technique. So far I'm merely reacting to my opponents moves. I certainly can go from one attack to another depending on his defence, but I am not yet chaining things together or setting traps.
I'm still relying on closed guard too much. On the one hand, I have good attacks from there, so it's my main game. On the other hand, I really, really want to be a better open guard player so that I have more options.
What I am pleased about is that I have good defence and a number of escapes from every bad position. So I'm not too scared to experiment, because if I fail, I know I have a good chance to recover from the inferior position I'll land in. What I'm less pleased about is that my top game is still pretty underdeveloped. But that's starting to improve, too.
So I have loads of things to work on next year. I intend to 1. have a load of fun, 2. get better and 3. compete again and do well.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
A modelling career? Fail!
... because I manage to look silly, no matter what. That's why!
See?
Despite knowing I'd produce a bunch of dorkish looking pictures of myself, I was brave and faced the camera today to bring you pictures of my latest three gi acquisitions. I try to keep my belt tied in the cool zone (definition here), but I have a high dork factor nonetheless :-) I must be just a natural.
I've been meaning to put up photos of the Shoyoroll and the RDA gis for some time, but I've been too busy. However, I just received my Tatami Zero G gi, so now there are three I owe you info about. The SYR and the RDA have been washed and worn several times. The TZG has had one wash to get the shrinking happening, and I have not yet had opportunity to roll in it. I'll get back to you about it's performance on the mat.
All three gis are A2. For reference, I'm 172cm tall and weigh in at 66kg (if you can't think in metric units, you'll have to convert that yourself :-) ). I'm really almost between sizes and roll happily in A3 Atama and Fuji Kassen gis. But I bought these three gis in A3, based on the size charts supplied.
So here - in order of when I bought the gis - are some photos and comments:
1. Blue Shoyoroll Superlite Batch 6
The sleeves in this gi were so long that I had to shorten them. I did this by turning them over to the inside and running the sewing machine along the edge. This was meant to be temporary to see if I liked the length, but it's been like that for some time now and is working well.
The pants have a thick draw cord which is very easy to fasten. About six loops ensure that it stays in place around the front. What I don't like about the pants is that the doubled area ends too far up. Basically, by the time I kneel down, the bottom seam of the reinforced area (which is jacket weave material) is right under my knee. It's never rubbed me but it seems pointless to have a reinforced front if it ends above where most of the wear will happen on the knee!
The jacket is a wee bit loose, especially under the arms. But it's nice and light and I feel fine when drilling or rolling in it. The collar is just the right thickness for my liking.
The gi looks nice, the embroidered patches are small. A friend who saw me in in the other day said it looks "sharp". I agree.
2. Roy Dean "Honor" Gi
This gi appealed to me primarily because of the embroidery. The top seems to be single weave material which is fairly light. The collar is quite thick and stiffer than the other two gis.
There was significant shrinkage of the whole top, and especially the sleeves. I would doubt that it is competition legal for me. It fits pretty snugly and I'm very happy with the rest of the fit.
The pants are from a thicker cotton material than the other two gis and are nicely finished with plenty of reinforcement. The embroidery down the leg looks fantastic. The RDA logo on the back of the leg is very nicely done. As there is no lettering on it, there is no problem wearing this gi at another school, as far as I'm concerned. The pants have a cloth tie, which makes it more difficult to adjust than the other pants, but the brown tie looks very spiffy together with the brown stitching of the whole uniform.
I've had several nice comments about this gi. I would have preferred a pearl type of weave for the top, and a bit less shrinkage. All in all I'm pretty happy with it.
3. Tatami Fightwear Zero G
I bought the Zero G because I wanted another lightweight gi. It gets pretty hot down here, and we don't always do no-gi in summer! I was offered this gi at a discounted price and because I had read promising reviews by Slideyfoot and Meerkatsu, I decided to give it a go.
As I said, I haven't rolled in it yet, so I can't comment about usability/user friendliness. It has only had one single wash at 30 degrees C, so there may be a little more shinkage to come. Here are my first impressions:
The top is similar in cut and material to the SYR, but it's a bit more snug under the armpits. The sleeves did shrink a bit but are still on the long side. I will know after another couple of washes if I need to shorten them. The collar thickness is very similar to the SYR. There is a significant difference though in how wide the collar is at the back of the neck. When I lay the gi down flat, it has a narrower neck opening than the others. I can feel this when I wear it, too. It is more tight around the back of the neck. I have a reasonably skinny neck so I can't see that being an issue. Time on the mat will tell which style I prefer. I like the cut of the jacket and I think it looks really nice.
All part of the gi are have clean and tidy stitching and there is decent reinforcement everywhere. I like the blue patches on the shoulders and on the pant legs. The patch on the bum however - it's coming off. Don't like!
The pants are made of an even lighter material than the SYR pants. It seems a very tight weave though. The front reinforcement could come down a bit further below the knees, but it's better than in the SYR. The draw string cord is easy to adjust and I really like it, but a couple more loops at the front would have been better (there are only two near the front). The pants did shrink a fair bit, too. In hindsight, I would have been better off with A3 pants, but then I don't know how bulky they would have been. I also don't know if it's possible to buy mixed sizes. Aside from the length, the fit of the pants is good.
If there is interest, I can post exact measurements. But if you go to Meerkatsu's blog, you will find measurements of both the RDA and the TZG in size A2. Nobody does better or more throrough reviews than the Meerkat!!
All three gis are a bit of a rarity in Australia. I've seen a couple of Shoyoroll gis around, if only white ones. I have spotted one Tatami gi (not a Zero G) and never any RDA ones. The postage on all three gis was similar and significantly added to the cost of the gi. I purchased the SYR and the RDA from BudoVideos in the US. The Zero G was purchased from Tatami Fightwear in the UK.
Despite knowing I'd produce a bunch of dorkish looking pictures of myself, I was brave and faced the camera today to bring you pictures of my latest three gi acquisitions. I try to keep my belt tied in the cool zone (definition here), but I have a high dork factor nonetheless :-) I must be just a natural.
I've been meaning to put up photos of the Shoyoroll and the RDA gis for some time, but I've been too busy. However, I just received my Tatami Zero G gi, so now there are three I owe you info about. The SYR and the RDA have been washed and worn several times. The TZG has had one wash to get the shrinking happening, and I have not yet had opportunity to roll in it. I'll get back to you about it's performance on the mat.
All three gis are A2. For reference, I'm 172cm tall and weigh in at 66kg (if you can't think in metric units, you'll have to convert that yourself :-) ). I'm really almost between sizes and roll happily in A3 Atama and Fuji Kassen gis. But I bought these three gis in A3, based on the size charts supplied.
So here - in order of when I bought the gis - are some photos and comments:
1. Blue Shoyoroll Superlite Batch 6
The sleeves in this gi were so long that I had to shorten them. I did this by turning them over to the inside and running the sewing machine along the edge. This was meant to be temporary to see if I liked the length, but it's been like that for some time now and is working well.
The pants have a thick draw cord which is very easy to fasten. About six loops ensure that it stays in place around the front. What I don't like about the pants is that the doubled area ends too far up. Basically, by the time I kneel down, the bottom seam of the reinforced area (which is jacket weave material) is right under my knee. It's never rubbed me but it seems pointless to have a reinforced front if it ends above where most of the wear will happen on the knee!
The jacket is a wee bit loose, especially under the arms. But it's nice and light and I feel fine when drilling or rolling in it. The collar is just the right thickness for my liking.
The gi looks nice, the embroidered patches are small. A friend who saw me in in the other day said it looks "sharp". I agree.
2. Roy Dean "Honor" Gi
This gi appealed to me primarily because of the embroidery. The top seems to be single weave material which is fairly light. The collar is quite thick and stiffer than the other two gis.
There was significant shrinkage of the whole top, and especially the sleeves. I would doubt that it is competition legal for me. It fits pretty snugly and I'm very happy with the rest of the fit.
The pants are from a thicker cotton material than the other two gis and are nicely finished with plenty of reinforcement. The embroidery down the leg looks fantastic. The RDA logo on the back of the leg is very nicely done. As there is no lettering on it, there is no problem wearing this gi at another school, as far as I'm concerned. The pants have a cloth tie, which makes it more difficult to adjust than the other pants, but the brown tie looks very spiffy together with the brown stitching of the whole uniform.
I've had several nice comments about this gi. I would have preferred a pearl type of weave for the top, and a bit less shrinkage. All in all I'm pretty happy with it.
3. Tatami Fightwear Zero G
I bought the Zero G because I wanted another lightweight gi. It gets pretty hot down here, and we don't always do no-gi in summer! I was offered this gi at a discounted price and because I had read promising reviews by Slideyfoot and Meerkatsu, I decided to give it a go.
As I said, I haven't rolled in it yet, so I can't comment about usability/user friendliness. It has only had one single wash at 30 degrees C, so there may be a little more shinkage to come. Here are my first impressions:
The top is similar in cut and material to the SYR, but it's a bit more snug under the armpits. The sleeves did shrink a bit but are still on the long side. I will know after another couple of washes if I need to shorten them. The collar thickness is very similar to the SYR. There is a significant difference though in how wide the collar is at the back of the neck. When I lay the gi down flat, it has a narrower neck opening than the others. I can feel this when I wear it, too. It is more tight around the back of the neck. I have a reasonably skinny neck so I can't see that being an issue. Time on the mat will tell which style I prefer. I like the cut of the jacket and I think it looks really nice.
All part of the gi are have clean and tidy stitching and there is decent reinforcement everywhere. I like the blue patches on the shoulders and on the pant legs. The patch on the bum however - it's coming off. Don't like!
The pants are made of an even lighter material than the SYR pants. It seems a very tight weave though. The front reinforcement could come down a bit further below the knees, but it's better than in the SYR. The draw string cord is easy to adjust and I really like it, but a couple more loops at the front would have been better (there are only two near the front). The pants did shrink a fair bit, too. In hindsight, I would have been better off with A3 pants, but then I don't know how bulky they would have been. I also don't know if it's possible to buy mixed sizes. Aside from the length, the fit of the pants is good.
If there is interest, I can post exact measurements. But if you go to Meerkatsu's blog, you will find measurements of both the RDA and the TZG in size A2. Nobody does better or more throrough reviews than the Meerkat!!
All three gis are a bit of a rarity in Australia. I've seen a couple of Shoyoroll gis around, if only white ones. I have spotted one Tatami gi (not a Zero G) and never any RDA ones. The postage on all three gis was similar and significantly added to the cost of the gi. I purchased the SYR and the RDA from BudoVideos in the US. The Zero G was purchased from Tatami Fightwear in the UK.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Japanese necktie
We had John Campbell as guest instructor last night. Theme of the night: Japanese necktie.
We were shown and then drilled the technique from several setups including half guard top, lockdown top or turtle top. I like the last the best, giving me the best choke.
To see what the technique looks like, check this out:
After the technique part of the class, we did five minute rounds from standing, followed by:
50 knee ups
10 burpees
10 pushups
10 squats
1 minute rest
Then we did that twice more. I was wrecked by a white belt who has more than 30 kgs on me, but I didn't get squished continuously for a change. I managed some reasonable escapes and after getting caught in a straight armbar, he couldn't get anything else. I consider that a success :-)
Second round was with a purple belt. He set me up and although I knew he was going for the JNT, I couldn't stop him. We went again and I found means and ways to avoid the choke. I certainly started being very wary of using an underhook! But I found that if I blocked him from getting the second arm in, I could eventually limp arm out of his setup. From then on, I defended it well. I also moved around quite well, so he didn't have it all his way. I didn't do anything fancy from the standing start. I didn't even try for a takedown, because my entries are slow and I don't like being sprawled on. Also, he got me in a clinch. But I did have success in getting half guard straight away when we went down. So all in all, I was quite happy.
Third round was with another purple belt. Again, nothing fancy from the standing start. It was more of a race to see who'd pull guard first. I had his back at one point but couldn't get the choke. He turned and I had him in full guard, going straight for high guard towards the armbar I like. Nearly got it but lost his shoulder. Then I think he passed and we were into his game. Underhook to armbar. We went again. He shot in for the double but there was a neck sticking out, so I choked him as I got full guard. Then we went again, starting with guard pulling. At some stage an opportunity presented itself and I went for the JNT. Had to fight for it a bit, but I did manage to finish it. Yeah!
We were pleasantly tired and glowing at the end of the session.
John answered a few questions about particular issues people were having. I was particularly interested in hearing his comments about head control when someone is in your half guard and they are hugging you low with a view to breaking your lockdown or passing your half guard.
We were shown and then drilled the technique from several setups including half guard top, lockdown top or turtle top. I like the last the best, giving me the best choke.
To see what the technique looks like, check this out:
After the technique part of the class, we did five minute rounds from standing, followed by:
50 knee ups
10 burpees
10 pushups
10 squats
1 minute rest
Then we did that twice more. I was wrecked by a white belt who has more than 30 kgs on me, but I didn't get squished continuously for a change. I managed some reasonable escapes and after getting caught in a straight armbar, he couldn't get anything else. I consider that a success :-)
Second round was with a purple belt. He set me up and although I knew he was going for the JNT, I couldn't stop him. We went again and I found means and ways to avoid the choke. I certainly started being very wary of using an underhook! But I found that if I blocked him from getting the second arm in, I could eventually limp arm out of his setup. From then on, I defended it well. I also moved around quite well, so he didn't have it all his way. I didn't do anything fancy from the standing start. I didn't even try for a takedown, because my entries are slow and I don't like being sprawled on. Also, he got me in a clinch. But I did have success in getting half guard straight away when we went down. So all in all, I was quite happy.
Third round was with another purple belt. Again, nothing fancy from the standing start. It was more of a race to see who'd pull guard first. I had his back at one point but couldn't get the choke. He turned and I had him in full guard, going straight for high guard towards the armbar I like. Nearly got it but lost his shoulder. Then I think he passed and we were into his game. Underhook to armbar. We went again. He shot in for the double but there was a neck sticking out, so I choked him as I got full guard. Then we went again, starting with guard pulling. At some stage an opportunity presented itself and I went for the JNT. Had to fight for it a bit, but I did manage to finish it. Yeah!
We were pleasantly tired and glowing at the end of the session.
John answered a few questions about particular issues people were having. I was particularly interested in hearing his comments about head control when someone is in your half guard and they are hugging you low with a view to breaking your lockdown or passing your half guard.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
the joys of the holiday season
I'm sitting here bitching and grizzling that there is no open mat tonight :-(
Bah.
Yesterday, we had a fairly small class, only six guys turned up. I guess it's just the time of year, people have other stuff to do as they hurry about fitting in everything they need to fit in before xmas....
And seeing I was the only coloured belt on the floor, the job to take the class fell to me. That was easy, I gave them the choice of going through headlock escapes or going over some rubber guard basics again. Two of them had missed the last couple of classes, and the others wanted more reps, so that's what we did.
Aside from that, I made them wrestle. Calmly, lots of moving, no busting guts. Flow boys, flow! Even the less fit ones could keep up at that speed and energy output and all seemed happy. I did remind them that nothing stops them from rolling like that more often!
Didn't get to roll much myself as I was busy keeping an eye on things.
Bah.
Yesterday, we had a fairly small class, only six guys turned up. I guess it's just the time of year, people have other stuff to do as they hurry about fitting in everything they need to fit in before xmas....
And seeing I was the only coloured belt on the floor, the job to take the class fell to me. That was easy, I gave them the choice of going through headlock escapes or going over some rubber guard basics again. Two of them had missed the last couple of classes, and the others wanted more reps, so that's what we did.
Aside from that, I made them wrestle. Calmly, lots of moving, no busting guts. Flow boys, flow! Even the less fit ones could keep up at that speed and energy output and all seemed happy. I did remind them that nothing stops them from rolling like that more often!
Didn't get to roll much myself as I was busy keeping an eye on things.
what better way to spend your birthday?
Monday
We had a huge class, including some guys who haven't been in a lot lately.
We did a tabata style warmup with burpees, mountain climbers, pushups, situps and squats. Haha, there was a bit of blowing and panting, and they boys sure looked warm ;-)
We were shown and then drilled a half guard escape which also works when someone has lockdown. Ideally, we want underhooks, then we wriggle down until we can manage a gable grip around the thighs. This pins the knees together. Our head needs to be firmly against his belly so there is no chance of chokes. Also, this helps pin the hips down. Lastly, we mule kick back/up with the trapped leg. This will pop the half guard open. If they have lockdown, it works, too. It's vastly more painful for the person holding lockdown... So much so, that if I have lockdown and I feel them going for this escape, I tend to unlock...
We did some wrestling then, but starting from specific positions, ie: half guard or with instructions to keep going without holding positions for more than 3 seconds. A few rounds of that...
Then we practiced the hip bump sweep, and where that fails because they brace, the kimura from guard. For this, I scored the biggest guy in class. Terrific. It's like smashing your hip into a tree :-) However, he did point out a way to improve my technique, and after that at least I could budge him.
At the end of class, we all had a very short round each with one of the guys who is getting close to blue belt. It was quite funny, as we tagged each other going in, and some changeovers were quite nifty.
Tuesday
It was my birthday and I decided I needed to spend at least part of the day doing my favourite thing. So I caught a lift with a fellow bluebelt to Geelong.
John Will was back from one of his many overseas trips and took the advanced class. He had some visitors from the UK and one from South Africa. But he still took the time to welcome the country cousins ;-) I had a chance to drill and roll with one of the guys from the UK. I didn't catch his name, but he's a nice guy and was a great partner.
Theme of the night was X-guard. First, an entry from standing. Then an entry from hooks in guard. That's one of those techniques where every arm and leg has to do something totally different. Not easy, but once the body 'knows' which way to turn, which leg to kick up and which leg provides the hook that lifts the leg, it starts working.
I've had one previous exposure to X-guard many months ago and must admit I couldn't make head or tail of it. I guess I wasn't ready at the time. This time, it made sense. We did lots of reps to get the movement pattern established. Thanks to John's excellent breakdown of the techniques and subsequent corrections where needed, it wasn't too difficult.
The next thing were two sweeps from X-guard. The first one involved grabbing the near arm (the one closer to my head) and shoving it down. Then I raise my legs and sweep my partner over the near shoulder, where I've removed the post, towards my shoulder. I then have to follow and end up sort of sitting on his leg. I think that in practise, it would depend a lot on which direction they end up rolling in, which is a bit hard to control. And then it may end up in a bit of a scramble. I may well end up back in guard actually, making this sweep a bit low percentage in my eyes.
The other sweep works by grabbing their far arm and pulling it towards our head and then it's more of a push with the legs. As we follow over, we keep hold of the leg which was on our shoulder and we keep hold of the arm. And we land in: knee ride. This sweep felt easy and it flowed, so this would be the one of choice for me. In reality, I suppose it would depend of whether I can grab hold of that far arm.
At the end of the class we did a few reps of a standing guard pass.
And, as always, there was plenty of chance for rolling. John reminded us that we should at least try to have a go at the new stuff, to see if it might be something to fit into our games. I didn't set the world on fire with submissions, but I had good solid rolls and managed several sweeps. However, I felt was was using closed guard too much. Funny, how I revert back to that in no-gi. I have been making a big effort to use more open guard, but I find it a lot easier when I can control people's sleeve. No gi = no sleeves :-) Oh well, something to work on more. But at least I didn't sit still when I had guard, I tried stuff. Even if opening up meant I'd get passed. And when I was passed, I managed a variety of side control escapes and for that I was happy indeed. One of the purple belts pointed out some useful stuff in relation to holding mount, which is one of my very weak areas. What he said will help for sure!
Then it was time for the intermediate class. As usual, the white belts came in and warmed up with rolling. I had a few good rolls and caused people a fair bit of trouble :-)
The class was about headlock escapes. Including the one I really suck at.... I said to the guy I was drilling it with: I suck at this and I'm glad that we're working on it, so I can get better at it. He looked at me and then said: well, that's a good attitude! Haha, yeah. I suppose I have two choices: I can give up on a technique which means it will definitely, positively never work for me. Or I can keep at it and welcome every opportunity to work on it, until I get it right. I think the latter idea is better.
And actually, for the first time, I pulled off that escape with a degree of success without having to use every ounce of strengty. I know now what I've been doing wrong. The escape is the one where I can't get my trapped arm's elbow to the mat. So I've hugged my opponent and have a grip around his middle. I walk into him and bridge, bridge again and if need be again so I can get my bottom hip under him. Then I bridge and rock back over my shoulders to sweep him towards my top shoulder. The imaginary line has to be between my shoulder and my head. In the past, I've tried to heave him across me to my left, which didn't work.
So we practiced that escape and two other ones, where I can suck my elbow back in. I certainly could do with extra practice on those as well :-)
It was pretty warm, not to mention humid, and it was a hot sticky evening for everyone on the mat. I was thoroughly tired when we were finished. But what a way to spend a birthday!
Oh, and it happened to be the day when my new Zero-G gi arrived from the UK. It looks very smart and I hope to be able to try it out soon. Then I'll report back!
We had a huge class, including some guys who haven't been in a lot lately.
We did a tabata style warmup with burpees, mountain climbers, pushups, situps and squats. Haha, there was a bit of blowing and panting, and they boys sure looked warm ;-)
We were shown and then drilled a half guard escape which also works when someone has lockdown. Ideally, we want underhooks, then we wriggle down until we can manage a gable grip around the thighs. This pins the knees together. Our head needs to be firmly against his belly so there is no chance of chokes. Also, this helps pin the hips down. Lastly, we mule kick back/up with the trapped leg. This will pop the half guard open. If they have lockdown, it works, too. It's vastly more painful for the person holding lockdown... So much so, that if I have lockdown and I feel them going for this escape, I tend to unlock...
We did some wrestling then, but starting from specific positions, ie: half guard or with instructions to keep going without holding positions for more than 3 seconds. A few rounds of that...
Then we practiced the hip bump sweep, and where that fails because they brace, the kimura from guard. For this, I scored the biggest guy in class. Terrific. It's like smashing your hip into a tree :-) However, he did point out a way to improve my technique, and after that at least I could budge him.
At the end of class, we all had a very short round each with one of the guys who is getting close to blue belt. It was quite funny, as we tagged each other going in, and some changeovers were quite nifty.
Tuesday
It was my birthday and I decided I needed to spend at least part of the day doing my favourite thing. So I caught a lift with a fellow bluebelt to Geelong.
John Will was back from one of his many overseas trips and took the advanced class. He had some visitors from the UK and one from South Africa. But he still took the time to welcome the country cousins ;-) I had a chance to drill and roll with one of the guys from the UK. I didn't catch his name, but he's a nice guy and was a great partner.
Theme of the night was X-guard. First, an entry from standing. Then an entry from hooks in guard. That's one of those techniques where every arm and leg has to do something totally different. Not easy, but once the body 'knows' which way to turn, which leg to kick up and which leg provides the hook that lifts the leg, it starts working.
I've had one previous exposure to X-guard many months ago and must admit I couldn't make head or tail of it. I guess I wasn't ready at the time. This time, it made sense. We did lots of reps to get the movement pattern established. Thanks to John's excellent breakdown of the techniques and subsequent corrections where needed, it wasn't too difficult.
The next thing were two sweeps from X-guard. The first one involved grabbing the near arm (the one closer to my head) and shoving it down. Then I raise my legs and sweep my partner over the near shoulder, where I've removed the post, towards my shoulder. I then have to follow and end up sort of sitting on his leg. I think that in practise, it would depend a lot on which direction they end up rolling in, which is a bit hard to control. And then it may end up in a bit of a scramble. I may well end up back in guard actually, making this sweep a bit low percentage in my eyes.
The other sweep works by grabbing their far arm and pulling it towards our head and then it's more of a push with the legs. As we follow over, we keep hold of the leg which was on our shoulder and we keep hold of the arm. And we land in: knee ride. This sweep felt easy and it flowed, so this would be the one of choice for me. In reality, I suppose it would depend of whether I can grab hold of that far arm.
At the end of the class we did a few reps of a standing guard pass.
And, as always, there was plenty of chance for rolling. John reminded us that we should at least try to have a go at the new stuff, to see if it might be something to fit into our games. I didn't set the world on fire with submissions, but I had good solid rolls and managed several sweeps. However, I felt was was using closed guard too much. Funny, how I revert back to that in no-gi. I have been making a big effort to use more open guard, but I find it a lot easier when I can control people's sleeve. No gi = no sleeves :-) Oh well, something to work on more. But at least I didn't sit still when I had guard, I tried stuff. Even if opening up meant I'd get passed. And when I was passed, I managed a variety of side control escapes and for that I was happy indeed. One of the purple belts pointed out some useful stuff in relation to holding mount, which is one of my very weak areas. What he said will help for sure!
Then it was time for the intermediate class. As usual, the white belts came in and warmed up with rolling. I had a few good rolls and caused people a fair bit of trouble :-)
The class was about headlock escapes. Including the one I really suck at.... I said to the guy I was drilling it with: I suck at this and I'm glad that we're working on it, so I can get better at it. He looked at me and then said: well, that's a good attitude! Haha, yeah. I suppose I have two choices: I can give up on a technique which means it will definitely, positively never work for me. Or I can keep at it and welcome every opportunity to work on it, until I get it right. I think the latter idea is better.
And actually, for the first time, I pulled off that escape with a degree of success without having to use every ounce of strengty. I know now what I've been doing wrong. The escape is the one where I can't get my trapped arm's elbow to the mat. So I've hugged my opponent and have a grip around his middle. I walk into him and bridge, bridge again and if need be again so I can get my bottom hip under him. Then I bridge and rock back over my shoulders to sweep him towards my top shoulder. The imaginary line has to be between my shoulder and my head. In the past, I've tried to heave him across me to my left, which didn't work.
So we practiced that escape and two other ones, where I can suck my elbow back in. I certainly could do with extra practice on those as well :-)
It was pretty warm, not to mention humid, and it was a hot sticky evening for everyone on the mat. I was thoroughly tired when we were finished. But what a way to spend a birthday!
Oh, and it happened to be the day when my new Zero-G gi arrived from the UK. It looks very smart and I hope to be able to try it out soon. Then I'll report back!
Monday, December 13, 2010
assorted interesting stuff
Another fantastic belt demonstration from RDA
Ah, nothing like a Sunday morning fix by watching yet another fantastic purple belt demonstration by one of Roy Dean's students. These guys are all so fluent!! THAT's what I want to be like. Yeah!
Brian Sortor shows some great combinations. They are so smooth, so a few times I stopped and stepped through to figure out how he actually did things. There are a couple of techniques I'll definitely try, as they fit in with my own game.
Colds, flus and time off
It's only a couple of weeks since I had a cold and needed to take some time off from training. As one who hates missing training, I'm always torn between giving myself enough time off and getting back into it. I'm getting wiser, but I probably still rush too much. For some thoughts on the same matter by someone who is as fanatic about cycling as I am about BJJ, read this insight on Grit & Glimmer.
Eating
On the subject of what's good for us and how to eat more of that sort of food, I found this post on how to eat more fruit and veggies on Stumptuous.com.
I know I don't eat enough greens and fresh stuff. I'm a lazy cook and my inner bastard has a habit of taking over when I come home tired. It's one of the areas I really need to work on. There are some good ideas in that blog post and I'm going to try some of them out.
I can't very well expect my body to perform well if I'm not feeding it well, can I??
Exercising - more ideas for the pesky grapple-free summer recess
There is some information on the RossTraining site on tabata training. Anyway, check out the rest of Ross' Blog for more ideas and some good motivational stuff.
Ah, nothing like a Sunday morning fix by watching yet another fantastic purple belt demonstration by one of Roy Dean's students. These guys are all so fluent!! THAT's what I want to be like. Yeah!
Brian Sortor shows some great combinations. They are so smooth, so a few times I stopped and stepped through to figure out how he actually did things. There are a couple of techniques I'll definitely try, as they fit in with my own game.
Colds, flus and time off
It's only a couple of weeks since I had a cold and needed to take some time off from training. As one who hates missing training, I'm always torn between giving myself enough time off and getting back into it. I'm getting wiser, but I probably still rush too much. For some thoughts on the same matter by someone who is as fanatic about cycling as I am about BJJ, read this insight on Grit & Glimmer.
Eating
On the subject of what's good for us and how to eat more of that sort of food, I found this post on how to eat more fruit and veggies on Stumptuous.com.
I know I don't eat enough greens and fresh stuff. I'm a lazy cook and my inner bastard has a habit of taking over when I come home tired. It's one of the areas I really need to work on. There are some good ideas in that blog post and I'm going to try some of them out.
I can't very well expect my body to perform well if I'm not feeding it well, can I??
Exercising - more ideas for the pesky grapple-free summer recess
There is some information on the RossTraining site on tabata training. Anyway, check out the rest of Ross' Blog for more ideas and some good motivational stuff.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Geelong visit
Being annoyed with the short BJJ week, I decided to venture to Geelong for some extra fun. That was the first time I went to Black Belt Studios all by my little self. So far, I'd always tagged along with one of the senior guys.
As always, I was made to feel very welcome, and had a great time. Same as the last few times, I joined the advanced class and then stayed on for the intermediate class as well. That amounts to over two hours of training with plenty of rolling. Too good :-)
In the advanced class, for a warm up, we ran a few laps and the did 40/20 tabata intervals with burpees, mountain climbers, squats, situps and pushups. For technique, we drilled a double leg takedown, using the foot that steps in as a hook. Then we worked on a fireman's carry. There were two versions, one starting from having a whizzer on our partner's arm, the other with a grip over the head.
Then we did some work on back control. That was funny, really. I've lately been having a lot of luck getting backs and was thinking it would be great to spend some time on back control and attack. Voila! Wish granted :-)
We were shown a few alternatives for getting the arm across to attack with a rear choke and variations on how to finish. Then we did light positional rolling with several different partners to experiment with those and defending against the choke. We were also shown how to use a hook behind the knee if our partner is threatening to roll into us to escape.
Then we did some rolling into the beginning of the intermediate class when the white belts came on the floor. So there were some 15 minutes for them to roll slowly to warm up. Good to see white belts with so much control and so little spazz :-). After that, all the other coloured belts left.
There were three guys new to the intermediate class, and as a "welcome" they had to roll with everyone until submission. As it wasn't a small class, they were rolling continuously for quite a long time. I was near the end of the line up and by the time I got to roll with them they were getting a little tired... One guy in particular was really suffering. So I went light and moved, moved and urged him to just keep moving. No stopping and starting, go slow but keep going and feel for the path of least resistance. He did good! I know what it's like to roll at that level of fatigue...
I winked at the instructor and asked how come I didn't get that sort of "welcome" when I joined that class for the first time some time last year. He just laughed. Well, he didn't take that class anyway, and it was tough enough, from what I remember!
Anyway, then we did a couple of laps of hip escapes followed by the hip escape, butt scoot escape, technical get up drill along the mat. Then it was hip escapes until we are face down in the opposite direction, come to knees, fade back and repeat. This was preparation for the side control escape to knees we practiced last.
By that time, my legs felt like jelly. My thighs were still a bit sore from the Friday night workout, and all the take down entries and hip escapes were starting to add up. But they held up :-)
We did no-gi all night. I'm actually enjoying all the no-gi stuff, especially now it's getting warmer. I don't mind either gi or no-gi, and love mixing it up. Where I live, it's been warm and a bit muggy lately. Occasionally pretty warm, but the hot time of the year won't start until January. But down in Geelong, right next to the sea, there is a lot more humidity all year around. And though it wasn't that warm on Tuesday, the humidity certainly made it feel like a sauna at the dojo. I was dripping by the end of the warmup (same as the locals :-) ), and was glad about not having to wear a gi.
On the way home (nearly an hour for me), I dropped in on a friend who has recently moved to the Geelong area. I rocked up in a sweaty mess at her place after 9pm and she fed me cups of tea and biscuits and cheese. So we sat and talked horses and I tried to explain BJJ to her. I finally left pretty late and made it to be by 2:15. Guess who didn't look too bright the next day ;-)
As always, I was made to feel very welcome, and had a great time. Same as the last few times, I joined the advanced class and then stayed on for the intermediate class as well. That amounts to over two hours of training with plenty of rolling. Too good :-)
In the advanced class, for a warm up, we ran a few laps and the did 40/20 tabata intervals with burpees, mountain climbers, squats, situps and pushups. For technique, we drilled a double leg takedown, using the foot that steps in as a hook. Then we worked on a fireman's carry. There were two versions, one starting from having a whizzer on our partner's arm, the other with a grip over the head.
Then we did some work on back control. That was funny, really. I've lately been having a lot of luck getting backs and was thinking it would be great to spend some time on back control and attack. Voila! Wish granted :-)
We were shown a few alternatives for getting the arm across to attack with a rear choke and variations on how to finish. Then we did light positional rolling with several different partners to experiment with those and defending against the choke. We were also shown how to use a hook behind the knee if our partner is threatening to roll into us to escape.
Then we did some rolling into the beginning of the intermediate class when the white belts came on the floor. So there were some 15 minutes for them to roll slowly to warm up. Good to see white belts with so much control and so little spazz :-). After that, all the other coloured belts left.
There were three guys new to the intermediate class, and as a "welcome" they had to roll with everyone until submission. As it wasn't a small class, they were rolling continuously for quite a long time. I was near the end of the line up and by the time I got to roll with them they were getting a little tired... One guy in particular was really suffering. So I went light and moved, moved and urged him to just keep moving. No stopping and starting, go slow but keep going and feel for the path of least resistance. He did good! I know what it's like to roll at that level of fatigue...
I winked at the instructor and asked how come I didn't get that sort of "welcome" when I joined that class for the first time some time last year. He just laughed. Well, he didn't take that class anyway, and it was tough enough, from what I remember!
Anyway, then we did a couple of laps of hip escapes followed by the hip escape, butt scoot escape, technical get up drill along the mat. Then it was hip escapes until we are face down in the opposite direction, come to knees, fade back and repeat. This was preparation for the side control escape to knees we practiced last.
By that time, my legs felt like jelly. My thighs were still a bit sore from the Friday night workout, and all the take down entries and hip escapes were starting to add up. But they held up :-)
We did no-gi all night. I'm actually enjoying all the no-gi stuff, especially now it's getting warmer. I don't mind either gi or no-gi, and love mixing it up. Where I live, it's been warm and a bit muggy lately. Occasionally pretty warm, but the hot time of the year won't start until January. But down in Geelong, right next to the sea, there is a lot more humidity all year around. And though it wasn't that warm on Tuesday, the humidity certainly made it feel like a sauna at the dojo. I was dripping by the end of the warmup (same as the locals :-) ), and was glad about not having to wear a gi.
On the way home (nearly an hour for me), I dropped in on a friend who has recently moved to the Geelong area. I rocked up in a sweaty mess at her place after 9pm and she fed me cups of tea and biscuits and cheese. So we sat and talked horses and I tried to explain BJJ to her. I finally left pretty late and made it to be by 2:15. Guess who didn't look too bright the next day ;-)
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