Mizblog

Well, Saranya and I are. And I’ve got an itchy face, a rash starting in my left arm pit, and the sniffles. Saranya has diarrhea and stomach cramps. Sangeeta stayed in Nepal to take care of family stuff.

Milan got us to travel to Nepal at short notice.

Saranya got her green belt last night.

TJ’s Saturday morning class was not one I approached enthusiastically. After a week of neck and shoulder problems, I was very apprehensive. But I had to take Saranya to her BJJ class so I suited up at the last second and took my place on the line.

I knew I was in trouble right away. My cardio wasn’t there anymore. The early jog around the mat was causing my left ankle to twinge and complain. I felt unbalanced during shadow boxing. Unbalanced and awkward. We pulled out the bags and did a circuit, moving from one bag to another, landing a variety of strikes on each before moving to the next. I did okay but was seriously gassing out on the second time around. Then we stretched, and I sweated all over the mat.

We gloved up and did Thai pad work. I teamed up with Thor (Eric) and had a good learning experience. Again, I was gassed. Very low energy reserves.

Gloves off, we learned ridge hand strikes. We also learned mouth hand strikes. These essentially both strike with the injured part of my right thumb, so I had to use my left, and it hurt my elbow and biceps. Very awkward.

We did vertical forearm defenses against high kicks and straight punches to practice for knife defense. Straight knife, and backhand knife defenses. Ended with a drill.

When I got off the mat, I just leaned my head on the TRX post to relax my strained neck muscles. Saranya was sitting on Ivan and crying because she’d hit herself in the eye with her own knee. We were both hurting. Eventually she wiped her face and calmed down enough that we could go home.

Mark’s Saturday morning class started with warm ups that almost killed me. I went nuts on the shrimping, and wanted to quit before I was done with them. Finally they were over and we got a long talk about Friday no-gi classes are cancelled, and instead we’re going to have 2 weeks of no-gi-only training. Mark said “Out of 14 days, you should be able to make 8 or 9 of those.” Haha, yeah. If I make 6 I’ll consider myself wildly successful, even if I can’t train for 2 weeks afterward. He also talked about the JJM Christmas tournament/camp in Marina Del Rey, which I have no plans to attend.

So the technique drills were attacking someone in turtle position again, apparently building on what they went over yesterday in the final no-gi class. I didn’t go to that class (I was at work) so I had no idea how it related to the no-gi stuff, but whatever. The first technique is to jump up to the cowboy mount, which is knees-on-hips. Grab the back of the collar, step back off them, and pull them into your lap. Get hooks and lapel grips, go for a quick choke with an arm across the back of the neck, and if that fails, reach that back-of-the-neck arm around to pull the lapel down for a standard lapel choke. It’s easiest to get when the choking arm is on top, and when your thumb isn’t weak and unable to grip the gi.

The second technique started from cowboy mount, but this one involved grabbing the belt, dismounting forward, lifting the turtle so you can get your hooks in, then rolling them. Chokes as before.

The third technique is when the turtled opponent instead flattens out on their bellies and hides their elbows and head. Just lift them up by their belt and you can get your hooks in, then roll them and go to town.

Rolling started early. I rolled with a blue belt guy whose name I asked twice and forgot twice. Howard? Larry? Anyway, he started sitting and I stepped to half guard, and spent the entire 5 minutes there. He tried to sweep me and I defended successfully most every time. It was a very slow and easy roll.

Second roll was with Shabbar, and he’s big and heavy and smashed me, took my arms and bent them until I tapped. I jammed my thumb sometime in the vain attempts to defend myself. That was my only injury, except for what are going to be some exceptionally sore muscles.

TJ’s Saturday morning class started without Saranya, as she’s at Gigi’s house for a sleepover.

TJ got us running while he showed off his swollen cauliflower ear. Ouch. We did shadow boxing, shoulder tag, team calisthenics, and stretching. Then we geared up and did Bas Rutten combinations (the Thai Boxing tape) on our geared up partners while they defended. I did a poor job of defending against old man Mike, but at least I improved as the session went along. He defended well throughout, and his combinations were crisp and fast.

After a few rounds of that, we got into boxing sparring. I started with Mike, and immediately landed a good body blow after a jab to the face was blocked. He thought that was so good, he did it back to me a few times, and I did it a couple more times to him. We were pretty even.

My next sparring partner was Alex, who’s starting to warm up to me. Last time, he lit me up from the outside, but this time I had far better head movement and made him miss a lot of his punches. I was able to land quite a few of my own, and I felt I got the edge on the contest.

Finally I sparred with Ray, who had a sore ankle. A couple times I found myself standing on his right foot. I wasn’t doing it on purpose, it’s just that he’s a leftie and so he stands with his right foot forward, next to my left foot forward, so an advance means I’m standing on his foot. He stepped on my foot again later, and I did his once also. I found I was able to pressure him and get him dodging too much, but he was able to land a few good punches to get me to back off. I felt bad later for standing on his sore foot, but I did tell him it was unintentional. I didn’t want to hurt him.

After sparring was over, we got down to gun defense. Mike and I reviewed gun from the front and from behind, then we did gun pressing the back of the head and gun pointing to the face. We also went over gun to the side, both in front of the arm and behind the arm. Mike started bleeding out of his little finger, dripping all over the mat. He joked with me, saying “You animal!” and I retorted with the not-so-witty “I didn’t do that!” Anyway, it was little and he got a band aid, but it took time to clean the mat and we just moved into a drill with A’s and B’s, one group closing the eyes while the other group came around and did gun threats, and the threatened had to open their eyes, assess the threat, and make the defense.

Christian also taught the morning BJJ class. There were 3 other students aside from myself, and I got there late (I was ruined after KM75). I jumped in just as we were finishing the warm up, bridging and limbering our necks.

Then, surprise, we went into the back room and did wall rolls. I was able to pull it off pretty quickly, but still had a few hiccups as I tried to repeat my success. Oh yeah, and I tried to tape up my black nail but the tape pulled off immediately. Then we went back into the big room and did the berembolo roll with a partner. This one I got right away and knocked out some shoddy reps.

We then did a guard retention drill where we’d advance around our partner and they’d then post, scoot, and recover an open guard. Across the mat and back the other way. Next round we upped the intensity and pressure. Last round was a counter-stacking drill, putting pressure on the stacking leg while using the opposite leg on the hip to get space, then circling the foot around the underhooking arm to recover an open guard.

After that it was noon and time for rolling, and I bailed out. No gas left at all, but not injured as far as I could tell. Had to rush home to take my antibiotics (2 hours late).

Christian started his Tuesday morning class by pulling out bags, tying belts between them, and laying out ladders on the ground. I came in with a padded thumb guard strapped to my right hand, and being unable to properly grip things with my right thumb. I was a little nervous that we would have to do choke defenses, but Christian reassured me that we’d just be punching each other in the head, so I relaxed.

Class started with me, Thomas, and Melissa lined up behind the first row of bags. Then Thomas and I alternated at one station while Melissa got the other one to herself. I started doing bobbing/weaving and advance/retreat with punch combos under a pair of belts tied between two heavy bags. Thomas and Melissa started doing L-R-L-R kick combos on a heavy bag – Left front kick, Right round kick, recoil to Left side kick, then turn and look for Right back kick. After 30 seconds we switched, and I was kicking. 3 rounds of each exercise, getting more intense during each stage, and I was already sweating and breathing hard and panicking. After the last phase of the 3rd round, we did 30 seconds of sit-ups, then rested while Christian explained the next circuit – floor ladder fighting stance footwork and a reverse stance version of the kick combos we had done before. The footwork drills were easy to do slow but I messed up a few times as they got faster. My last of 3 rounds of Right front kick, Left round kick, Right side kick, and Left back kick had my dying, but right after that was done we got into the stretch and I just made my little sweat puddle on the mat.

We cleared off the circuit apparatus and put in mouth guards. Then we stood still while our training partner punched us in the face and in the body. I got paired with Christian, and I survived. He didn’t hit my face hard. I might have hit his too hard once, but he got payback on the body right afterward if he wanted it. I weathered it okay. I’m a soft body target.

Then we gloved up and did focus mitt combos. I need all the practice I can get on focus mitts, and this was the first time Christian had as do a round of Bas Rutten’s boxing exercise tape with focus mitts. I’d never imagined such a thing. Anyway, I was dying while throwing the punches for my round, and I screwed up a few of the combos. I survived again, and got to hold for Christian. I screwed up a couple of those combos for him too, but mostly I did okay. Surprisingly okay!

Then we did 6 rounds of boxing sparring. My partners were Melissa, Thomas, Christian, Melissa, Thomas, and finally Christian again. I feel I did really well. I got smacked a few times, but I was laying down some smack of my own. I punished Melissa for turning away from me by repeatedly tapping her head until she turned back and smacked me in the face. It was worth it. I was also able to sit back and play defense when I got tired, instead of panicking and just getting lit up like I used to. My defense has improved a lot, and so has my footwork. I was moving and using combos and movement to try to create openings, and I was sometimes successful.

After sparring, we lost the gloves and headgear. We did kick checks in the mirror from both stances for a bit, then put on our leg guards and I paired with Thomas to defend some kicks with my leg. We both went mercifully easy on each other and survived without incident. Then class was over. I dragged my butt over to my bag and laboriously changed outfits for 805BJJ30.

In an echo of one of my very first classes, we did collar chokes from behind, using it to attack an unwise turn-away from side control and take the back, or to tip a turtle. I teamed up with TJ to practice and we both managed to make one another dizzy with our chokes. It took me a while but I started getting it again. It started coming back and feeling normal.

I left before rolling, and I’m glad I did. Even with the relatively light duty, I had sore muscles everywhere come Sunday.

TJ’s Saturday morning class was nervous time. I came with my BJJ gi anticipating a return to ground training later. I also wrapped my hands to try to protect my right thumb, which I jammed on a focus mitt the week before.

Things started smoothly with shadow boxing and level 1/2 defense technique review. I teamed up with Jeff and Mike. These 3-man teams don’t give you as much practice but they also don’t wear you out as much. Still, I dinged my right thumb a couple times and thought about icing it, but didn’t.

We gloved up and donned focus mitts for combos followed by a bursting punch, then transitioned to a turning, bursting elbow to the rear (anticipating gun from behind defense). I alternated between striking the pad and striking the bag, and I came out with a big ol’ bruise on my right elbow from landing so many heavy shots.

Then we reviewed gun from the front a bit (covered last weekend) before we got into gun from behind. Turn body/arm to first see what’s in the other hand, then continue to redirect the gun, burst in to underhook the gun arm while delivering that elbow, trap their wrist to your chest while you land some combatives, turn into them to loosen the grip and control the line of fire, reach over He-Man style to grip the gun from the top, and pull up to disarm. Strike with the barrel and whatever else to disengage, and keep the damn gun. Don’t give it back!

Gun from the side (behind the arm) is supposed to be basically the same technique, but in front of the arm is another thing altogether. It’s the wrist scoop, step into horse stance while bringing the other hand to underhand grip the barrel, twist the barrel over the top to use the gun takeaway as the attack, and finish with a face strike or whatever.

Class ended with an A/B eyes closed gun/other defense drill.