Mizblog

Quick change after KM40 and back on the mat. My comment was “This one is going to be hard.” because the whole morning I wasn’t feeling strong, and I’d just finished a grueling Krav Maga class. Other class members were Cosmo and Daniel. Cosmo’s real name is “Bill” (I think) but his last name is long and complicated so people in the Oxnard PD just call him Cosmo. He’s the guy who tweaked my neck previously.

Warm ups started with shrimping, hip escapes, elbow escapes. We did person balancing and straddled shrimps. We did hook takedown/getups followed by reverse hip escapes across the mat. Oh yeah, and we did rolls back and then forward onto our knee with one foot up. You know the ones I mean, right?

It was during the warm ups that I smelled the mildew on my gi. When I washed it on Tuesday, I forgot to take it out of the washing machine until the next morning, and it was in there with kitchen rags. It was subtle, but it made me want to sneeze. It also made me want to go home. I don’t like being the smelly guy.

Then we did the roadmap. Side control to half guard to butterfly guard to full guard, then back to butterfly, then half, then top person passes back to side control and start over.

The lesson for the day was the butterfly sweep. How to set it up, how to execute it, and eventually how to recover if you try it and it doesn’t work out.

Then we rolled. Daniel and I had a very good flow. Neither could get the other in too much advantage. I’m impressed with his wiggliness, and he knows to go after a kimura but he’s never pulled it off against me.

Cosmo is a beast, and he again cranked my neck. Made me tap to a jaw crush, which didn’t suck so bad but I didn’t want to pay for it later so I eventually tapped as he kept pulling it. After that I got in his guard and held him down for the remainder of the roll.

After class I bought an 805BJJ patch for my gi, and an 805BJJ t-shirt (size XL). It fits tight before washing, so I’m worried that it’ll be too snug after washing/drying. We’ll see…

My neck stiffened up on the way home. It’s bugging me even through 2 ibuprofen and an ice pack. Can’t wait until I toughen the hell up!

Christian was supposed to be watching TJ’s awards ceremony today, and Renee was supposed to teach KM, but schedules change and Christian ended up teaching the KM class. Oh well.

Still wrapping my hands because of my right thumb. It’s still very sensitive.

We started class with mouth guards in. Taking turns punching each other lightly in the face with our top two knuckles. I worked with Jeff. No problem. Then we went to the body. Still no problem. Even the sore rib was fine. I may have to stop calling it the “sore rib” if it keeps not being sore.

From there, we worked on inside defenses (high and low) and I got better. Hard to be worse than I was at inside defenses vs. straight shots to the body. Thomas drilled that into me and I improved. Thanks, Thomas.

After that, we started mixing in outside defenses, which I’m way better at (though Christian reminded me to try to make the block at the striker’s wrist). It’s really hard for me to make inside defenses and move in at the same time, because I don’t see it in time to get my body moving. If I try to anticipate it with body movement, I tend to move right into the other straight which I didn’t anticipate. Anyway, awareness training will make my perception quicker.

We ramped it up by having the striker don focus mitts and use them to strike, then have the defender flurry at the end of the round. Then we made it hotter by mixing in combos, rushes, and sprawls. Fun times.

Then we did boxing sparring. Christian showed me the effectiveness of putting a double jab in your opponent’s face to keep him off you. I used that technique effectively against Thomas. Jeff got me in the head with a nice hook. I punched Thomas in the eye. Fun was had by all.

We did front and side chokes too. Pluck, strike, etc. Pairs and then with a stress drill where we would punch the target until we decided to choke him, at which point he’d have to do the defenses and get gone.

Closed the class by mounting a kick shield and trying to flatten it. 4 rounds of about 10 or 15 seconds with short rests in between.

Got through the class with a sore left bicep and a few twinges from the sore thumb, but fine otherwise!

Scrambled to get changed after KM39 and line up. Christian taught this class too, and we had Rick and Daniel as well as myself. Started in with warm ups. Back rolls kind of tweaked my rib right off the bat, but it settled down and I continued.

Part of warm up was arm bar from the guard. I really felt the strain in my groin (weak, tired muscles) and doing the left arm felt very very awkward.

Then we learned a couple different guard passes. The guard break, the leg staple, the other leg hooked and pulled up on the shoulder, and then crush it to their chest. From there, either slip over the staple side and quickly solidify side control, or slip around the outside of the shouldered leg and complete the pass that way.

Then there were the free rolls. First rolled with Christian, then Daniel, and then *gasp* Rick. Rick stopped me and urged me to stay calm and be heavy in the side control position while not panicking. Very helpful.

Got out of the whole day of training without any major injuries.

Christian’s Tuesday morning class. Started with just me and Thomas, but Jeff jumped in just as soon as we started warm-ups.

Once we got the warm up and stretch done, we got on heavy bags and practiced our 1-4 combos. Then we partnered up and did those combos either in the guard or while holding the pad holder in our guard. It was exhausting. Then we did a mount drill where the person on bottom tried to defend strikes while scooting to keep the top person from trapping their arms with a high mount. I got Thomas at the end with a high mount, and he was very unhappy about it. When Jeff was on top of me, I was able to keep him almost constantly off balance.

After that we learned shrimp/elbow escape from mount. Make space, get your leg out, shrimp the other way, kick them off and get to your feet. I felt very comfortable doing that. Jeff was impressed with how quickly I was able to hit the escape. Like a wizard!

Came in sweaty from KM38. Jumped into the end of shrimping warm up. Got plenty more warm up and stretching.

Learned to go from side control to mount, and then back to side control.

Learned to go from under side control to half guard, and from there back to guard. The key is to move the hips away.

Then we did some situational rolling. I got paired with cops a lot. Three big burly Oxnard PD cops were guests for the class, and they kind of spas’d out. Then we did 2 free rolls (both with cops again) and got my neck solidly cranked. Still, except for that neck strain (and a mild quad strain) I came out feeling pretty good.

TJ’s Thursday class. Feeling good. Started jogging, then shadow boxing, and a little shoulder tag. Moved into stretching, and then did bursting in punches with focus mitts. After that it was bursting in elbows with tombstones, then turning/bursting elbows to the rear with tombstones, and then front kicks. My thumb got dinged a few times.

We wrapped it up with gun defenses from front/back. Had to go in the back room to finish, as BJJ class was starting up. Had a surround drill with all level 1 chokes plus guns front and back.

I survived. Need to work on explosiveness of my defenses.

As I was getting ready for class, transitioning from KM37 to this class, Christian told me how to use my hand wraps to tie my thumb to my hand and pad it up. It really helped!

I guess on Friday they had another school come in and roll, and it showed up that our students were really vulnerable to the arm bar from guard. So we went over the arm bar setup from guard and how to do that, and then how to defend it and use it to pass the guard. I felt pretty good at doing that.

Then we rolled a bunch of times. I rolled with Tom, who had trained for a year (about 2 years ago) and was real rusty. I was able to take his back a couple times, and Mark had to stop us to show Tom how to get out of it. I wasn’t able to get a good choke because my hand was mummified.

I rolled with Daniel a couple times. He tapped me once with a crucifix Americana. Good work. Early on I was able to hit a half guard sweep on him every time, but he cleaned that up by the end and I was stuck. His side control was tough too. I learned a bunch.

I sat out the last roll. Mark was understanding. “Listen to your body.” He won’t be back until next Thursday.

I think Christian took my other hand wrap after showing me how to wrap it.

Christian taught this Tuesday morning class. I came in early to wrap my hands, but Christian said I wouldn’t need the wraps.

We started with partners, one holding the other’s single leg and moving around, so the “hopper” would have to hop around to keep balance until the timer dinged. Both people, both legs. Then we did the hip twisting hop, turning the hopping leg 90 degrees and pivoting the hip to turn the held knee in and down.

Next was thai pads, front kick, round kick, all the way down the mat and back, then switch pad holders. Then we did front kick, round kick, knee down and back. Then we switched stances and did it all again.

After that we did ground stuff. Pad holder bumps non-pad-holder, who falls and does a fall break, and moves into ground fighting stance. Pad holder walks around and grounded fighter has to track them. Pad holder moves in and grounded fighter throws a kick to the pad. Once, twice, thrice. Then grounded fighter does a get-up from the ground and becomes the pad holder.

Next ground drill was the same, but after throwing the first kick, the pad holder dropped the pad and mounted the grounded fighter, raining down punches. Mounted fighter does punch defenses and then bridges to knock them down. Buck, trap, and roll. Throw punches, break guard and get up. I dinged my thumb on Thomas’ knee throwing a fake groin punch while getting up. Ouch. I didn’t want to do that.

Lastly we did gun defenses, which was not fun with my injured right thumb. I held lefty. It went okay. Then I iced my thumb.

TJ’s Saturday morning class. I started with hand wraps. Typical jogging warm-up followed by shoulder tag. I was very careful with my right thumb. Susan gave me lots of sympathy (apparently she’s been hurt by Rick too) but Eric (Thor) chastised me for too much backing up. So I touched his shoulder and he touched mine and he was happier.

We did some focus mitt work. I paired with old man Mike, and he showed me some stuff and I got better.

The rest of the class was ground stuff. Getting up off the ground, and getting out from under the mount, and getting up from the guard. I really struggled with the nuances of getting up from the guard. I kept wanting to raise the front knee instead of the rear one. Gotta practice that.

Saranya waited for me, spending the hour doing 4 pages of Kumon and getting ahead of her KMX homework.

Just 3 in the class today: me, TJ and Daniel. So we did a bunch of quick drills of top/middle/out where two would start in a position while the other watched. First it was full guard, and later it was full mount, then prone, then prone with a choke. I hurt my jammed thumb, jammed my right big toe, and got hit in the mouth. Learned some good practicals, like mount escape and don’t trust your neck. TJ had to leave early so Daniel and I rolled for 6 minutes.

My rib held up fine, but my thumb and toe are dinged.