Mizblog

Greggo’s Tuesday morning class. I had to go back home for my wallet and phone, which I didn’t realize I’d forgotten until I was accelerating up the hill on the 23 and saw a cop flashing his lights on the shoulder.

I paired up with Phil and we learned a trick with back control. Peel the defending arm with your under-hand and grab their hand by the meaty part below the pinky. Lift their elbow with yours, and you can tuck their arm behind your leg. Then you have access to their undefended neck. You can also tuck their elbow behind your knee and lock it in by reaching your hand under your own leg to grab the lapel, then use your leg to pull your arm down to finish the choke. I didn’t feel very comfortable doing it to Phil.

Then we rolled. I had a competitive roll with Dave, starting in half guard bottom. We exchanged positions a few times, and I finished the round with perhaps my first ever butterfly sweep! I also rolled with Cowboy, Andrew, Carlo, and Brandon Sherman. Both Cowboy and Andrew advised me not to hang out in turtle, because there are just so many ways to attack it. Sherman just crushed me, did the move of the day, and submitted me.

Curtis taught this Saturday morning class. We started with NASCAR again – everybody running in a left turn. Typical warm up with shadow boxing and shoulder tag, then a few lunges and crawls across the mat, then stretching.

Next was gloves and focus mitts. I paired up with Susan, and she showed off her superiority at holding the pads. I really need to practice that more. Anyway, I did okay, but every time she ended a combo with a body shot, it hit me. I blocked maybe 10-15% of them even after I decided to focus on doing that. That’s a big hold that I need to close up.

After that, by Susan’s request, we did gun from behind. Look over your shoulder to identify where the gun is, turn your body to clear the line of fire, then burst in deep and underhook the gun arm while delivering an elbow to the face. Clamp their arm to your chest with the gun pointing out, then turn your shoulders toward them to twist their shoulder, keep them in sight, and open up your angle of attack. Attack them to soften them and get their minds off the gun, then reach over and “ice cream scoop” the gun from their hand, being careful not to point it at yourself. Once you’ve removed it from their hand, you can hammer fist them with it as you break contact and make space. Back up, tap and rack the gun, and get ready to use it if necessary.

Greggo’s Tuesday morning class started with me forgetting my flip-flops. Oops. I warmed up on the small mat and practiced my rolls and break falls. I talked to Carlo and found out he’s a Krav Maga instructor! Wow! That explains why rolling with him doesn’t feel anything like rolling with a one stripe white belt.

So class started. Almost all blue belts, except for Phil (5 stripes), me (4 stripes), and Carlo (1 stripe). I paired up with Chris, and we practiced the arm bar techniques that Greggo brought back from the BJJ camp. We learned to transition from closed guard to open guard with a deep collar and sleeve grip. We learned to transition from that open guard into the arm bar. We learned how to overcome a bunch of defenses and strip the arm loose of grips and such. Or scoot your butt closer under the shoulder to get better leverage to pull the arm free.

Rolling went okay, I guess. I scraped off a part of my left ring finger. I got submitted twice: once by Chris (1 stripe blue belt) and once by Carlo (1 stripe white belt). Survived against Jen and almost got her in an Americana. Rolled twice at the end with Aaron and mostly stalled and rested during the 2nd round.

My 2nd class back in BJJ. Lots of Mark talking. We did a typical warm up, then congrats to Cosmo for helping with Stranger Danger yesterday, then a quick, light, warm-up roll with Matt (who is also a 3 stripe white belt like me).

After that, coach Mark called out Colt to challenge for blue belt. He paired him up with blue belt Dave, and they went at it for 6 minutes. Colt had just come back from Texas, where he was helping people recover from the flood there, so he was not in top form, but he survived for 6 minutes. Then he was immediately paired with Andrew, who submitted him from kesa gatame with an Americana. Colt will be able to challenge again next Tuesday for blue belt.

Greggo taught us how to scoop up an arm from north-south, with heavy chest pressure pushing them over while windshield wipering your arm under their elbow. Get a monkey figure 4 grip on that arm, then step over the head to kneel with your junk teabagging them. Step your back foot up to keep them tipped on their side, and at the same time clamp their upper arm to your chest and deadlift their arm up. If they’re holding their belt and won’t let the arm up, you can get more leverage by sitting on their head and leaning back for the arm bar.

Then we rolled. I started with Matt, and we had a competitive roll. I jammed my right big toe on the mat, however, and it aches. I just had that thing fixed, and now I’m messing it up again already.

My next roll was with Dave, and I was able to get on top and keep attacking throughout.

Then I rolled with Colt, who started coaching me again on my guard pass. I was trying the standing pass as done by Rick, but I got the grips wrong, and he told me just fold his legs down and lean over for the pass. It normally doesn’t work that easy, but if he’s going to give it to me under the guise of coaching, so be it. So I got side control. He tried coaching me more, but I told him I was going for the move of the day, isolated his arm, and got to the part where you have to deadlift it, but he wouldn’t let go. I sat down for the arm bar but didn’t put enough pressure on his head and he was able to get his legs involved and the round ended with me inverted and holding his arm in that figure 4 monkey palm grip. Next time I will not leave so much space.

My last roll was with Andrew and his new blue belt. He tried to get me with the same takedown he used on Colt during the challenge, but I took his back, rubbing my ear all the way across the back of his gi. Coach Mark said “It’s good for you!” and I responded “Toughens up the cartillage!” Andrew and I then had a competitive round.

I went the whole class without being submitted, and threatening submissions of my own for most of the time. I was conserving my energy, using my weight to my advantage, and usually had pretty good awareness of my position. Even when Andrew or Matt was smashing me, I stayed calm and was usually able to sweep them.

After class, coach Mark awarded several people another stripe, including me! Also including Colt, which was funny. 6 stripe white belt is your coach’s way of telling you that you suck at BJJ. Haha! Anyway, 3 1/2 months, 16 classes since my 3rd stripe. The first stripe took me 21 classes, and the 2nd one took me 33 classes. At that rate, it would have taken me 44 classes to get my third stripe, but I did it in only 9 classes. At that rate, I would have gotten my 4th stripe in, er, well it’s hard to infer a rate from such an oscillating signal, but 3/63 is about one stripe per 21 classes, so 16 classes is faster than average. That second stripe was by far the most difficult.

Today was the day that Saranya quit BJJ. I am disappoint.

Curtis’ Saturday morning class started with running. And more running. It felt like NASCAR. I was getting dizzy. We phased into shoulder tag, alternating with different exercises.

Once that was over, we partnered up and grabbed a tombstone pad. We did three rounds of straight punches or palm strikes alternating with flurries of the same. I paired with Eric Maas and we explored the limits of his cardio. We also discovered that my palm strikes are a lot harder than my punches, because I don’t need to stabilize my wrist or align my knuckles for palm strikes.

After we were both worn out, we got focus mitts and practiced bobbing under a right hook, then added a left hook counter, until we were almost dead.

Then we put on headgear and got down to sparring. 40-50% power. I started against Eric, and we both knocked each other’s heads around a bit. Then I paired up with Ray, and he got a lecture from Curtis about not just playing tag, but landing solid punches. After that I went against Calvin, Daniel, Richard, and Ivan. Saranya said I did pretty good, and against the smaller and less experienced guys, I did. However, I got chewed up by Eric and Ivan. I was able to hold my own against Eric for some of the time, but Ivan’s a lot better than me, and he staggered me with a body shot as I was getting too aggressive.

My first time back since my first time back! Two training sessions since June and it’s about time I got back into the gi and onto the mat. I knew the excuses would just get easier and easier if I didn’t go, so I just went. Almost forgot my mouth guard. Did forget my knee pads. Oh well.

Greggo taught this Thursday morning class. I guess he’d taught the material at last night’s class, so he decided to do it again for us since we hadn’t been there. It was a lot of the stuff that Rick had taught me in the past, about standing to open the guard, sitting low to freeze the free leg while elbow-to-knee framing on a deep step to freeze the other leg, grip the other leg side lapel, and then you can pass to either side.

Rolling went well for about 7 minutes. Then I ran out of energy and strength and I got submitted a couple times. Then Cowboy got his first blue belt stripe and it was over. I went home with sore obliques and a few mat burns on my feet and ankles.

Pam taught this Saturday morning class. We started with running around, shuffling inside and outside, high knees and buttkickers. Then we switched to lunges around the mat. After that was across the mat and back with inchworms, lunges with knees, and side lunges with pivots. Loads of lunges, but I was the first finished most every time across. I pushed myself hard and paid for it afterward, but that’s how it goes. At least I didn’t get dizzy like last week.

After that, we put in our mouth guards and took turns punching each other in the face. I paired up with Corey, and he went easy on me, so I went easy on him too. We did a session of 5 for 5 to the face, then 5 for 5 to the body, then 5 for 5 kicks to the upper legs and to the body. Easy.

After that we split the class in half (actually a group of 5 and a group of 6 with me in it). We took turns with one victim and the rest attackers, applying level 1 chokes and the defenses, for about 3 minutes each. Even going slow and light, it was very tiring. I went 2nd, and it took me halfway through round 3 to recover.

When that was done, we went out back with chairs and simulated being attacked from behind while sitting, and trying to apply the principles of the defenses even in a disadvantaged position and caught by surprise.