Mizblog

Greggo taught this Thursday morning class. I came after heading up to the Ventura County Office of Vital Records to get death certificates for my dad. My right lower rib was still tweaked from last week, so of course I was apprehensive going in.

Today’s class was all about the arm bar, and how to set it up from everywhere. Starting from closed guard, get the arm across the body and put your head on the side you’re pulling the arm to. Use your crossed ankles to springload your movement, swinging your leg around the head while you pull them down with your near leg. Clamp together on either side of their arm and down on the neck and back to finish.

From the mount, we did the basic pushup armbar. They’re pressing you up, you put your hands on their collarbone area in a way that one of their arms is between your arms. This is the arm you’ll attack. Push down on your CPR hold on their chest in order to lift your body and swing your legs around to the armbar position. Then remount and do it again and again for the drill.

Arm bar from side control on the near started with them turned away, just like the last 2 week’s lessons. Reach under and isolate it. Hold their head down while you bring your rear leg parallel and close to their body, and your upper leg over their head. You basically sit on their head to hold them down as you sit into position, then clamp both legs down and around the arm to finish.

Arm bar from side control on the far side involves getting the far arm wrapped around your neck. You can then lock it with your head-side arm, use it to lift them onto their side, step behind their belt, sit on their head, and squeeze your legs together on the arm as you pull back for the finish.

Then we rolled.

First I rolled with Phil. He started in bottom side control and locked up a kimura from the bottom. He showed me how to do it – grab the wrist with your hip framing hand, then dive over with your other hand to lock up the arm. He submitted me. Only one of the day who did!

Next I rolled with Dave. It was a wild, back-and-forth roll with lots of guard passes and recoveries and back takes and escapes. It was crazy. And fun!

Next was John, the old blue belt that Greggo finally convinced to get back on the mat. I promised him a light roll, but we got pretty competitive. I did express my reserve about doing a heavy baseball slide pass, but he said go for it. I did, and he swept me. Doh! I didn’t get him, he didn’t get me, and he survived. Barely.

Next was Carlo. I heard a story about him before class that he split Steve’s scalp open trying to swing his leg over for an arm bar. Anyway, he’s very dangerous for a 2 stripe white belt, because he’s also a Krav Maga instructor. He started on top of me in side control and put too much weight on me so I rolled him over and got on top. He recovered guard, and I tried to stay safe but eventually he went for an arm. I defended and he transitioned to a triangle, which I also defended and used it to pass to side control as the round ended.

Last round was Phil again, and I asked for more pointers on the kimura from bottom side control. It was leisurely and instructive, and I survived for the lineup and picture time!

Greggo led this Tuesday morning class. I came in with very little energy after Saturday’s death class, and I was apprehensive. With good reason, as it turned out, but I’ll get to that.

Warm up went okay. No dings. A little awkward. Then we got straight into the first technique, which was a review of last week’s hand grab from rolled away side control. Grip the meaty part of the top hand with your underhooking top hand, chicken wing them as your lower hand grabs their top collar, and use the hand leverage to pull their hand under them and roll them on top of it as you mount them and choke them out. Fun times. I drew Rick as a partner, and he was really gentle except when he was pulling me into position to start a drill. He leaned on my right side, and I felt a twinge of pain that would later blossom into difficulty sleeping, but I’m getting ahead of myself again.

The next technique we learned was another entry into the bow and arrow choke. Same setup but instead of mounting them, put your shins behind their head and back, grab their top pants leg above the knee, and just lean back to finish the choke.

Suppose you were unable to reach around and grip that upper collar. Well you can grab their lower sleeve instead. You can pull it under their head as you mount them, then reach under their head to trap it there, and then you can roll them onto their forearm with their elbow on the mat, and you can control them very well from there. When you’re ready to finish, loosen their arm that’s wrapping around their head, so that you can reach your free arm through and grab your own wrist of the hand that’s trapping their arm around their own head. That sets you up for the arm bar. Step over and keep your foot right at their neck, or Greggo puts it on their lower arm, to keep them from sitting up. Lean sideways to lever out of their saving grip, and finish.

You can also do another thing after grabbing the lower sleeve from turned away side control. You can pull your arm out from under their neck, and pin their neck down with your arm and their arm together (since you’re gripping their sleeve.) Then you can mount them, pull their arm from their neck to their triceps, thus pinning their other arm to their torso. Reach down with your free arm to grab the elbow of the arm whose sleeve you’re gripping, and turn them flat on their back under your mount. Then you can twist their arms into a propeller!

After all that goodness, we rolled. I started with Matt, and we had a competitive roll. I started in bottom side control, let him mount me, and upa’d him. I did all the stuff I wanted to do in re-establishing the guard! I stayed low, obtained biceps control, and then postured up. I was able to neutralize his guard with good posture and frame until the end of the round.

Next was Colt, and he came hard. I again started in bottom side control, and was able to hip escape to open guard, and then to a technical stand up. We dropped to the knees, and I tried for a guard pull into an arm drag sweep, but he stuffed that and I ended up in half guard. I got my underhook, and also underhooked his leg, but he smashed my shoulders and head to the ground. I struggled (at the urging of Cowboy, who kept telling me to roll him over) and tired excessively, having no energy and a sore side by the end of the roll.

Then I quit and went home.

First time since June that I made it to two classes in the same week! This is a milestone in the ramping up process!

Coach Greggo taught the class. I got a bit winded after some very strenuous hip escapes across the mat, which was maybe a little bit surprising. I did well on the forward rolls, and tolerably well on the rolling breakfalls.

The first technique Greggo taught was the same technique as we learned last week, trapping the guarding arm when you’ve got someone’s back, and then putting them on the rack for the RNC. I felt a lot better doing that this time than I did the first time. It’s good practice. I have to remember to keep my head tucked into that side of their head, keeping them stuck in the elbow of the choking arm.

Next we learned the bow and arrow choke, using the back arm trap from the previous setup. It’s a collar grab, but after you trap their arm under your leg, you reach up and grab their pants just below the knee. Your opposite side leg then goes to their hip, and you lay them down on that side, but not on top of you! You can then lean back and pull them into a U shape to finish, or you can take your top leg and put it on the same side of the head as your other leg and your collar-gripping hand, so you’re trying to pull their collar around their neck and between your own legs.

We then proceeded to practice the hand grab from the side, pressing them onto their stomachs and pulling the hand around to encourage them and keep them from basing out with it to foil your roll. You can then back mount them and sink a RNC pretty easily.

Next we learned a technique from Coach Kevin. From the same setup of pushing them onto their front and having them defend by posting, you can sink your front arm under their chin and around their neck, grabbing it with your rear hand in an S-grip. Then you press their shoulders into the mat as you get up on your toes and walk your body away from them and toward their head, tightening the choke and putting more pressure on their shoulder and neck.

The last technique we learned was a side control escape that Kevin likes. It starts from framing their neck and cross facing arm, which allows your to shrimp out away from them, get your top side underhook, use your vertical elbow to clear their shoulder, then dive on their near side leg. You reach through their legs with your far hand and grab their ankle, lifting it off the mat to destabilize them and control them via their bent knee. From there you can dump them across, or if they’re based out across you can twist that knee and dump them back, ending up in side control.

Then we rolled. My first roll was against Carlo, who’s a handful. Very mobile and aggressive, and has some Krav Maga skills (he’s a KM instructor in the valley) so I was surprised and proud that I survived a roll with him last Tuesday. Well, I survived another roll with him, extending my streak to two! He again tried his omoplata on me, but I saw it coming and defended. He tried a collar choke on me from mount but I upa’d him and then defended the choke by pressing his elbows together until he gave up on it.

Second roll saw everyone else switch partners except for me and Carlo. I started in side control bottom. I realized that when framing his neck, I’m leaving my elbow sticking out, and that’s bad, but he never took advantage of that flaw in my technique. He ended my streak by tapping me out with a collar choke of some kind. I spent a lot of time on the bottom, but after the submission I got on top and it was so much easier. Good roll. We commiserated about our messed up toes.

My next roll was with Dave. I usually do pretty well against Dave, but today he was wrecking me. It was back and forth, but he was putting me in jeopardy a lot. It was a VERY entertaining roll.

After that I went against Colt. He wrestled me onto my back, proceeded to mount, and then smashed my head into the mat for a bit. I waited for him to get bored and move, and I upa’d him. I should have been more careful how I secured my position in his guard and then controlled his biceps to posture up, but I was lax. He didn’t capitalize, though. He went for an arm bar and I stuffed it. Rick was coaching him to go for the other arm. He tried again, and I was able to smash him and pass his guard before the roll ended. He told me I’m getting good.

Class ended with the best show of camaraderie I’ve seen. Handshakes and hugs with everybody. Good class.

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.

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.

My first class back since I separated my rib on July 4th. I was apprehensive. Came in a little early to warm up and test the rib on some rolls and shrimps and breakfalls in the back room, and it held together alright.

Warm up went okay, with a lecture about mentally imagining the utility of the shrimping drill in actual rolling situations (escaping side control or mount).

Then we got to the lesson of the day – getting up in a contested situation. It started as hand fighting from a rear bearhug. Grip the wrists/hands/fingers, push down to straight arm, push your hip forward to break the grip, grab the fingers, put one hand in your back pocket as you turn away from it. Your incoming elbow slices downward in front of their face to stop them from trying to tackle you.

Next was the whole system of how to get up there to do the hand fighting. From separated open guard, turn turtle and quickly jump up to tripod with your head up, then push up from your hands and base out to start hand fighting and turn to face your opponent.

Finally my Navy service gave me something I wanted – free access to a BJJ seminar on July 4th!

The first series of moves we learned were the fireman’s carry takedown to knee-on-belly, then following that up with a D’Arce when they try to push your knee off. Then you can finish it on the side, or by transitioning to mount, or if they push you over you can finish it in the closed guard. That’s as far as I got before, as I was being pushed over from mount, I rolled over my belt knot and broke my rib.

The rib popped when I was on top of Chris trying to choke him (right arm wrapped around his neck) and he rolled me over onto my back. The drill was to practice finishing the choke even if you get rolled onto your back like that, and I had just executed it correctly and was doing it again. The last time, however, I rolled over onto my belt knot and *pop*. It didn’t hurt, but it felt so weird! I could feel a protrusion under the skin of my lower right rib. I was very surprised and pulled off my gi to examine this oddity. TJ got me some ice and I sat down with that for a few minutes. I kept playing around with the rib to see if I could figure out what the separate pieces were, but it just felt like there was a bump on it. I could at least breathe normally. I could even breathe deeply with a little discomfort.

Then the adrenaline started to wear off…

Over the next few minutes, the pain started to build up. I decided that I should probably go to Urgent Care and get an xray, so I packed up my stuff and went to my car. Driving was painful, but not that bad. Jamming my messed up toe was probably 50x more painful, but it only lasted a minute before it got better. This was getting worse.

At the Urgent Care facility, I expected to have to wait for a while, but the place was empty of customers. I got straight in to the xray room. The doctor then talked to me before looking at my xray and telling me he thinks I cracked a rib. He asked if I wanted to see it, and of course I did, so we went into his office to the computer. On the bottom rib there was a dark line, which could be a crack or could be the shadow of my diaphragm. He said he’d send it to a radiologist to see what they thought, but that he thought it was broken.

I kind of think he’s wrong and that the rib just separated from the cartilage, but that might be wishful thinking. Recovery time for a separated rib can be half that for a broken rib.