Mizblog

It was a small Tuesday morning class with Mark, Greggo, and Christian. Mark decided that we were just going to warm up and then roll, and that’d be it.

We started with running and shrimping, then we did a 10 minute warm up roll. I started with Phil, and he taught me the uppercut defense to the kimura. He was going on about keeping weight on, but I was leery of the sweep.

Then we went to 4-minute rounds. I started against Greggo. He did a Z-guard sweep on me, and wrecked me. We started over, and he coached me through a guard pass. I got on top, grabbed his arm, and he fought it off. I used my leg to separate his hands, and he pushed my legs up over his face. I tucked my bottom leg behind his head and locked his head down with my top leg, then pried his hands apart for the tap. I was pretty proud of my finish, even though he mostly let me get there.

Next round was with Mark. He started leaning on me and I pulled guard. He stayed low and heavy and controlled my arms and prevented me from controlling his arms. Whenever I got too wiggly, he’d advance position until he passed my guard, got side control, threatened a bunch of submissions until he locked in an arm triangle. I defended it for a while by answering the phone, but I wasn’t getting out. He finished by just smashing through my defenses.

Next roll was with Jeremy in his 4th class. I taught him how to do side control and how to do an Americana.
Next roll I had off, so I helped Phil help Jeremy. Then I watched Christian destroy Brandon.

Next I rolled with Brandon, and I saved time by letting him start on top of side control. I tried to escape but nothing worked. I couldn’t unbalance him toward my feet, and I couldn’t get my knee under to recover guard, so I was stuck.

Next round was with Phil again. I told him I had 2 goals – train again on Thursday and learn something today. He told me to pick one. I said “flip a coin”. Anyway, Phil started in my guard, stepped up and stacked me. I underhooked his leg and, with a little leg momentum, got the pendulum sweep! I got mount, Phil started recovering half guard, I moved to side control, he grabbed the kimura near side, I postured up and grabbed my gi, then I tried to uppercut to escape. He blocked me for quite a while, but eventually I got free and went back to side control. He immediately grabbed my arm again, but the round ended.

Next round was with Greggo again. He did a spider guard sweep on me and it made me laugh how easily he took me over. I ended up turtling and he went for a Japanese necktie but let my head slip free (maybe minus some hairs). I missed a bunch from this roll but whatever.

Last round was with Christian. He let me start in mount, but that didn’t last long. He recovered half guard, then scrambled out and got to mount, and eventually arm barred me.

EDIT: I was not able to train again on Thursday. I had a strained muscle connecting the right side of my neck to somewhere down the inside of my right shoulder blade.

Mark’s Saturday morning class. TJ warmed us up, and I had a little bit of panic when I started breathing heavy, but I focused on my breathing technique and was able to calm down. The calming down lasted all through the stretching, actually.

So we got down to the meat of the class, but not before a little bit of gym drama. Mark told everyone that Skyler’s dad had been calling parents of other kids. Also, he was trying to sign Skyler up at Kings MMA and asking them to not tell Mark. Also, Skyler’s dad once shot and killed a guy. The message Mark tried to hammer home was “don’t get lured into this guy’s garage.”

Anyway, the techniques covered were things you can attack from side control. Paper cutter choke involves you reaching under an arm and gripping the collar at the label, then leaning back to trap the arm down. From there, you grip with an overhand, thumb-in grip the far side of the front collar and lock back into your full side control while getting as heavy on that arm as you can for the tap.

Next technique was the north-south choke. For this, you get your arm around the head, then reach your other hand under their far arm and behind their neck to “put the saucer under the cup” which means put your hand under the fist of your choking arm. From there, it’s just scooting your hips back to pull their chin up. You can get a quick and dirty north-south choke without the cup and saucer, just using your choking arm, but then you need to stop them turning toward you so you block their hip.

After that, Greggo taught us the baseball bat choke, which Mark called a cross choke. It starts from knee-on-belly, which you get by gripping the collar at the label while also grabbing the belt knot. From there, you put the knee on their belly and let them push on it, meanwhile you use that deep collar grip to lift their head off the mat and open their lapel so you can slide your belt knot hand (after you let the knot go, of course) into a palm-up grip of the far collar. You put your elbows together and drop them down low as you slide your knee off their belly into a sort of neck-grip kesa gatame position. You should be using your shoulder on their belly to keep them down. From there, you do a hip heist to get yourself into a tripod position. Step your top leg over their head, then move your own head to the mat on the side you started side control from. With that tripod, you can pull your elbows skyward and push your wrists in (cross choke) to finish the submission.

Then we rolled. Started with Dave, and we had a competitive roll. Next was TJ who’s on day 6 in a row of BJJ training. He got me in the paper cutter choke after exhibiting patience. Then I got on top of him north-south but wasn’t able to do anything before time ran out. Next I rolled with Greggo, and got him in a side control kimura, which he walked me through. Then he choked me at the buzzer. Next I rolled with the deaf guy, whose name I can’t remember. I had a great performance against that guy. He started on side control, I recovered guard, he attacked my arm and I took out his leg and took his back, he turned that into a mount, I got his arm and finished an Americana after jumping off to side control. Next was Colt, and he was gassed from rolling with Greggo. I caught him in the dirty north-south choke. Last round was going to be with Jose but Greggo stole him from me so I rolled with Desi and she kept me trapped in her half guard for most of the time. I passed to side control once but she recovered, and I got to mount once but she recovered from that too. Great defense. Reminds me of Jen.

And that was the class.

Mark and Greg taught this Thursday evening class. I hadn’t made it to the morning class but I snuck out of work early to do this one. It was chock full of techniques. I partnered with Ray for the drills. We started with a straight ankle lock.

You get the ankle lock when you’re tangling with an open guard. Overhook a leg, put your opposite side leg under their butt on the side of the caught leg, wrap your other leg around and put it on top of their abdomen, fall to your shoulder on the side of the trapped ankle, slide your overhook down to the heel, use a gable grip on your own hands and hip into it to finish the lock.

The knee bar is done from a knee slice, only you slice the knee all the way around their leg (like sliding down a fireman’s pole) until your leg is under their leg and your foot is in their crotch to control their hip. You then hip into the knee for the tap. If you don’t have enough play, you can tuck it behind your shoulder for more.

The triangle we went over very briefly. The key points were that you have to lift your hips off the mat to lock them behind your opponent’s head, and you need to get your head off line so that your choking leg crosses along their shoulder line behind their neck. Perpendicular to their spine, if you can. The choking surface is the crook of that leg.

If you can’t get their arm across because they’re hiding it on the same side, you can rotate around and hit the omoplata. Get your leg in front of their face, pivot around until you’re 180 degrees rotated and your feet are pointing toward their head, parallel to their spine, with their arm tucked into your belt line. Bend your knees outward and sit forward on that shoulder to get the tap.

No-gi rolling was a lot easier for me. I was slipperier and able to escape a lot easier than with the damn gi on. I had an easier time controlling guys in my guard too, because they couldn’t hold me down by my gi.

Greg taught this Tuesday morning class. It was my first class back in a week. We warmed up and then got into a warm up flow roll. I rolled with Scott, who’s a 2nd degree black belt after 22 years of BJJ training. He was surprisingly not that smooth at flow rolling, but maybe that’s just because I suck so bad.

Greggo taught us how to escape mount and defend against the collar choke. When the first hand comes into the collar, your cross hand blocks it out while your near hand reaches inside and does answering-the-phone. At the same time, you turn on your side and scoot their legs apart so you can escape the mount with one leg. With one leg out, you establish half guard by turning into them. From the half guard, you can get an underhook, and use that to pull them up high, then also underhook their far leg and use these two to roll them over. Step out of their half guard in the process to establish yourself on top of side control.

We also learned the collar choke and the arm bar from mount. Arm bar involved getting the collar grip deep, then pushing the opponent’s grip-side arm across their body, sliding up into S-mount, and sitting over to finish the arm bar. The collar choke was for when you couldn’t get the arm across, so that meant they weren’t using it to defend the other side of their neck, so you slide your own hand over and rake it elbow-to-wrist across their jaw to turn their head, and so you can situate it against their neck as you grip their collar bone/shoulder area. You go head down to finish the choke, and even if they roll you over, you can finish it easily from closed guard.

Then we rolled. My first roll was with Randall, and Cowboy (who was out injured) kept coaching us. I did okay but he’s crafty and strong and good at controlling hands by gripping fingers. I did okay. We ended up rolling about 3x and I only pulled off one good sweep on him – a scissor with kicking his leg out from his base.

Tuesday morning BJJ! There were 3 students today – two guys who were doing their second ever BJJ class, and me. It was weird being the senior student.

Greggo started off by a long warm up, teaching us step by step how to do rolls and fall breaks and shrimps. Then he got into some self defense, including a punch block to body lock to hip toss to straight arm lock combination that we practiced a lot on the crash pad.

Then we went back to the middle of the mat to practice Americana from mount on one another.

Then we did a few rounds of rolling. First was Randall, who is intense. He gripped one of my fingers, but fortunately didn’t pull or twist.

Next was Derek who was really nice.

Last was Chris, the guy who got his black belt on the same day that Christian did 5 years ago. He threw me around before teaching me 4 really important things.

1. basic north-south position defense
2. arm bar defense – put the leg over their head
3. half guard sweep – grip their cross face sleeve and bury it in your hip, then let them pass, reach over their back to their arm pit, hip into them and roll them onto their back
4. side control sweep – deep hook their cross face biceps, crunch your elbow down to your waist, reach over and get a back grip, wait for them to push in and hip into them as you pull them over you

Saranya went to 10am kids’ BJJ class. Rolling with Payton, she bent her left wrist back and sprained it. Ouch!

Adult class started with TJ’s standard warm up. I had to step out briefly to hand Saranya off to Sangeeta and recommend urgent care. Then I paired up with Shabbar to do the spider guard drills.

Shabbar does not like it when I try to coach him. Also, he has bad breath, he cheats during drills, and he’s big and strong and skilled and he wrecks me. Still, he’s a nice enough guy. I like him. He had real trouble with the spider guard break, but he could just smash me anyway. One time he told me “Really try to sweep me, so I get a real look at what’s going on here” so I swept him. He scrambled out and my stupid spider guard grips twisted my fingers as he violently pulled away.

Anyway, the techniques.

First we learned how to establish the spider guard, and how to use it to sweep. From the closed guard, get double sleeve grips. Open your guard while pinching at the knees still. Hip out to the side to get the opposite side foot on the hip, and tuck your same side knee under the arm to get that foot on the hip as well. From this position you have a decent open guard, but for real spider guard control you need to move your foot or feet from the hip to the crook of the elbow, then rotate on your side so you can put that leg high up. Pulling their opposite sleeve while elevating the top elbow, you pull them over you while tipping them over, coming on top. As you do so, keep that grip on the top hand, as an advantage toward submission and control.

The spider guard pass we learned first was to grip the pants at the knee so you have control of him too, tip the bottom guy onto his side, and step out so that he doesn’t have that vertical advantage anymore. At range, the spider guard isn’t very dangerous or effective. So you line up their top heel (which is inside your elbow at this point) with your knee (you step out farther than your knee for base and stability) and peel the foot off your arm enough to circle under and plant that leg on the ground, breaking their grip on your sleeve. You then staple that leg to the mat and commence your passing.

We also learned a counter to the lasso guard, which was to stay heavy on it, pull your hand back, then circle it under toward their butt, outside, then up toward their knee to break the grip. Then press the knees to the ground and pass.

That done, we had a spider guard drill. Four guys down, the rest along the wall, filling in as guys became available. I started on Greggo. Spider guard, pass or sweep. Well, Greg went easy on me, and I ended up passing! Then I was down, and I swept two guys with the move of the day, before Shabbar came up and smashed me. Back in line, I was paired up next with TJ. I passed his guard and then Andrew passed mine. Next was Matt. I passed his guard and then Shabbar passed mine again. Lesson learned – I suck at guard retention, but I’m better at guard passing.

Then we rolled. My first round was with Sean, who went very easy after rehabbing a 50% tear of his patella tendon. He tried his mounted triangle on me but I scooted out the back.

Next round was with Ray, who was able to pass my guard like butter, but I was able to keep him from properly mounting me by building the elbow-knee cage and hiding in it.

After that I rolled with Greggo, who slowly and methodically passed my guard, mounted me, and arm triangled me. He showed me that by separating my arm, while maintaining mount pressure and a wide base, he was able to advance to a high mount where I was unable to escape or defend.

Next I rolled with Corey, who had just gotten 2 white belt stripes. He started in my guard, and I managed to tip him to the side and take his back like Greggo showed me on Thursday! He recovered enough so I was just mounting him, but I was eventually able to secure a collar, threaten an arm, and then finish the collar choke for the tap. That was thrilling. My only tap of the day.

Then I rolled with Andrew. He passed my guard, mounted me, and got a high mount that I again couldn’t get out of. I tried the two-on-one arm trap, but I didn’t have the leverage or angle to tip him over. I should have snuck out the back, but on well.

Last roll was with Matt. He started in my guard, so we were both in shitty positions we need to work on. He was able to pass, but I got to my knees and blasted him back. He recovered guard.

I came away with just a little mat burn on my right foot.

I did not want to train today. Twice, I decided that I would just stay home, but after each time I’d look at my pile of gear and look at the clock and decide that I still had time and I could make it and that it’s the days that you don’t feel like it that you should really make it a point to force yourself to go. So I went.

Got to class and met Jeremy, who’s also a parent of a kid student, and it was his first day ever in BJJ. He didn’t train with us at all, but instead got a private lesson with Christian to get him oriented.

Meanwhile, we did a quick warm up and got right into rolling. Had a 10 minute warm up roll with Greggo, and he must have watched my roll last Tuesday with Ronnie because he walked me through taking the back from someone trying to Americana me from inside my guard. You hold them down with your outside arm across their back, as you sweep their far leg out from under them and dump them on their face. Your head is the last thing out (aside from your Americana’d arm, which will no longer be in danger) and you can move that across their neck or use it to occupy their hands as the other arm comes around across the neck. Good stuff! Anyway, that was slow and flowy. After that we ramped it up.

I rolled with Matt and was able to roll him off me while he was in my half guard. Competitive roll.

Andrew came late and Mark paired him up with me to do a warm up roll because, as Mark said “You’re the coolest head in the gym” which I interpreted to Andrew as “I’m least advanced in the competitive curriculum.” We had a nice flow roll, and Andrew gave me feedback about sometimes you can’t lace the legs on the guard pass, so just wrap around both, hop next to the knees and bring the grip around the thighs as you plaster the hips down, then move up to the torso.

After that I rolled with Mark, who let me work but he put me in some very threatening situations to see if I’d recognize them. I always feel like such a dunce when I sit there stupidly in a choke setup and don’t even know what to do.

Then I rolled with Cowboy. He started the roll by undoing his gi top, so I pulled it over his head like a cloak and pinned it there as I sat into his guard. It was fun. At the end, he advised me to move my whole body to get leverage in prying arms away from my opponent’s body.

I sat the next round out, and talked with Mark. He told me to check out Jocko podcast 119.

Then I rolled with Mark, starting from the feet. He dumped me gently and I put him in my guard. He passed and got on me, and I had trouble getting out again.

I rolled with Matt. This time I got stuck on bottom half.

I rolled with Andrew. Passed his guard and got on top of him. He gave me a tip to finish the Americana, which was similar to Cowboy’s tip – use your forehead and drive your body across to separate the arm from the body.

Tuesday morning on the mat, 10 bodies, 3 of them black belts in BJJ, 3 of them Krav Maga instructors, 6 of them cops. I was the only body who was none of the above.

We had a couple raw noobs from the police, so I was not the lowest on the line for a change. Still, I was the oldest and weakest, for sure.

We warmed up with a 10 minute flow roll. I paired up with TJ and we did okay once we got used to it.

Greggo taught us the upa with the 2-hands-on-1-sleeve grip approach to securing an arm (good for when they base way above your head) then hold it to your chest with your opposite side hand, reach up and grab the back of their gi with the near side hand, look in the direction of that hand and roll them over. They can’t base out that way because you’ve held them down and blocked their arm on that side. We also learned how to do it with the overhook to the elbow to trap the arm, then small hooking the free arm, or shooting a tight and momentum-generating underhook under the free arm to get them over.

Once you reverse position, you come up into guard. Keep your head low, block their arms, and quickly posture up.

Next we learned how to break the guard open. Bottom knuckles dig into the sternum and the hip to hold their upper body to the mat, then slide your hip-hand-side knee back and scoot the other one into their tailbone. Blade your body so your side breaks their ankles apart. From there, bring your tailbone knee up and connect it to your kickstand elbow. This is home base. If they try to push your blocking leg, you can staple it down and pass. If they push you toward the down knee side, you can step back over their leg and pass.

Then we rolled. I started with TJ. He guillotined me out of turtle. Next I rolled with Coach Mark, who let me work and I got him into my guard and we basically rested the round there. Next was Andrew, who spine cranked me. Then Brandon, who Americana’d me, elbowed me in the eye, and basically wrecked me. Last roll was with Randall, one of the brand new students. I started in his guard, passed, mounted, and let him do the upa on me. After that I just tried to keep my guard closed. He tried Americana from inside my guard, and I threatened his back, so he let go. Eventually he spazzed out and broke my guard open, so we ended the roll with him in my open guard.

Sangeeta went running this Saturday morning, and she took with her Saranya’s mouth guard and belt. She told us she’d meet us in Simi and deliver the hardware, so we headed over and waited in the parking lot. While we were there, Leo went in (about an hour before the adult class). Odd. Anyway, it turns out Saranya’s belt wasn’t in her bag either. She headed to the back, and emerged from the bathroom later with her belt tied around her waist. Must have found her belt in the lost and found.

Before class started, Mark told Leo “I need to talk with you” and they made their way over to the Adams machines. The had a discussion, and Leo left. Then the kids wrapped up and we lined up for class. Mark told us that he had to kick Leo out of the school because he kept coming to class with alcohol on his breath. He said that the school does not tolerate training under the influence of alcohol or marijuana.

Anyway, class started. TJ warmed us up. He tried to bait Mark into a fit by using tantric yoga terminology, but Mark was intently talking with Christian and ignored TJ. It turns out that Mark was kicking Kerry out, and banning his son Skyler from the school. It seems Kerry was a problem with other parents, and Mark had to shut him down in the parking lot by threatening to kick his ass. He came back in muttering “Fuck that guy.”

Then Christian taught us some De La Riva guard sweeps that were sort of judo-flavored. The De La Riva guard is an open guard where your near leg hooks around their leg and pulls their knee forward, while your other leg pushes their far leg away at the thigh. Grips are variable, but we went with sleeve grips. For the sweeps, first you push them off balance by pushing their far thigh away, then you sit up, trap one of their arms to their near leg with a big hook, post opposite hand and foot, and scoot your leg back as you press forward with your chest.

We did a drill where we went 2.5 minutes of just repeating the takedown, then switched positions for the next 2.5 minutes. My thighs got tired from standing up so much!

Then we did a chain roll from open guard. I passed Shabbar, swept Cowboy, and then I let Aiden pass on me. From then on, I was garbage.

We ended class with 8 minute rolls. I started against Shabbar, getting demolished consistently. He got regular takedowns despite my lessons against Brandon on Thursday. He put intense pressure on my ribs. I realized I need to work a lot harder on getting out from under big guys, but I just had no energy today. Might be from the pie last night, huh? After that, I had competitive rolls with Logan and Cosmo. I had to sit out the last round.

Mark was so impressed with the Krav Maga drills that TJ put his class through in the previous class, that he taught us how to get up from a body lock, and how to defend against a body lock takedown. Basically, get a whizzer on the side opposite his head, then use that as leverage to put him down. If he doesn’t let go or give up, get your close knee in and twist him forward onto his back.