Mizblog

Brandon was teaching this Saturday morning class. I warned him ahead of time that I’d been out for over a week, and that I was on gout medication that might make me have to go to the bathroom suddenly.

We started with shadow boxing, shoulder tag, kick shield ground and pound, and various aerobics. I ended up being paired with Victor when we went to the partner drills, for which we used thai pads and gloves. Basic combinations 1-4 followed by a round kick. Then we did bursting elbows.

At the end, we did a stress drill of just burning out on front kicks, punches, and elbows while being surrounded by pad holders.

What is happening to my feet? When I wake up, they’re very painful. It feels like the big toe joint. I had to sit out from training today.

When I had plantar fascitis, the pain was more in the ball of the foot and the arch. This feels a little different, and it’s probably sprains in the tendons from bending my big toes too far backwards in BJJ.

I talked with Christian briefly about the no-gi seminar, and he said it’s been delayed. That gives me more time to recover from overuse of my feet, and build strength and endurance everywhere else, before I put Krav Maga on hold and focus on the no-gi BJJ after the seminar.

Christian’s Tuesday morning class started late because he was on the phone taking care of business stuff. I came in with a tweaked left elbow and delicate feet. Our warmup was a circuit of tombstone straight punches, ladder footwork drills, and calisthenics. The ladder drills had me contemplating a tapout, but not seriously.

We moved on to bursting punches, then bursting elbows. I found two things – 1) throwing the left elbow works great with a stance switch, and 2) holding for a left elbow really hurt my left elbow. Christian suggested doubling up the focus mitts to support it so it wouldn’t have to take the whole force by itself.

Then we did a kicking drill, where we were throwing front kicks with the ball of the foot (teeps), and then we expanded that drill to follow the front kick with a round kick from the same leg. A focus of the drill was the recoil of the kicks.

Next we did knees to the kick shield across the mat. Then we went into one on one side control security. Diego has some wrestling experience so he was almost getting me, but Christian didn’t want him doing a drop step so he never went all in on my legs. I was able to control Yas very easily by grabbing the hood of his hoodie and continually driving forward on him.

After that, we took it into the alley with some sticks. I got to demonstrate the baseball bat swing on Christian, and he demonstrated the defense on me. Then we did it on each other. I was surprised that I was able to remember and execute it so well. I tend to skip the elbow strike after the initial defense, instead going into stretching out their weapon arm and delivering knees to the face when they bend over. Yas was impressed with my fluency anyway, and I found myself coaching my two noob partners.

I then did a quick change for 805BJJ40.

I went to SVKM this afternoon to watch Saranya’s BJJ and KMX training.

First was the BJJ class at 4pm. TJ was doing police officer stuff (Jack asked “Like what? Sitting at a desk and eating donuts?”) so Christian taught the class. They learned snap down to single leg takedown. They did lots of little drills and ended with sumo competitions and takedown competitions. At the end, Saranya got promoted to a 4th stripe. Next time, she’s going to get a yellow belt! That’s a belt I’ll never get in BJJ, because it’s reserved for intermediate pre-teens.

After that was a quick change and a jump to the big mat for KMX. Brandon lead the class, and they started with some shadow boxing. It looked to me like Saranya was looking at the ground, though she says she was pretending to look at her opponent’s chest. She must be used to fighting much shorter opponents. They did practice of choke defenses and bear hug defenses, and I noticed her throwing some blind elbows behind her. Best to look before you strike, huh?

Then then moved to the back room and practiced front and back rolls. Saranya needs help here. Her forward rolls were somersaults, and her back rolls looked like tipping over sideways. I’ll have to sit down with her sometime and teach her the right way to do those without getting herself hurt. Anyway, they then practiced rolling into ground fighting position and quickly turning to face the way they came, as though addressing a threat that had sent them to the ground in the first place.

Christian’s Saturday class almost started with me the only student, but Ronnie showed up at the last minute, and Diego continued from the Strikefit class prior. We got right into it by pairing up and punching a tombstone pad. Diego hits HARD! We also did legs-up toe touches (upper ab work) and front kicks (Diego is much softer at these) and lizard push ups and hammer strikes and lateral shoulder-hip mobility.

Then we broke for water, got our boxing gloves ready and put our mouth guards in. The first exercise was getting punched in the face. This is one I’ve done a few times. Christian used me as the example dummy. Then I paired up with Ronnie and he punched me in the face. He was better than Andrew because he didn’t put his knuckles into my eyeballs. Ronnie took my light punches with stoic resolve.

We then gloved up and did punch combinations for a few minutes, using our boxing gloves as focus mitts. I found out the hard way that my left elbow is still messed up, because every hook punch I caught with it caused me some real pain. I worked with it and it didn’t really get worse. We then added some evasions at the end. After a 1 or 3 we’d slip a straight punch from the pad holder, and after a 2 or 4 combination we’d bob and weave around a followup hook. Ronnie and I got after it, and we did a good job once we got into the swing of it. I even was able to take angles after some of the evasions.

At the end, we put on headgear and we boxing sparred. 90 second rounds. First against Ronnie, I found myself with a couple bad habits. First, I was flinching and trying to throw punches in while keeping my head averted and out of range. Dumb! Against Diego, Coach Mark told me to use my footwork to circle out instead of just leaning away. Last round with Christian, I put it together, but I wasn’t able to keep my chin down and see him at the same time. I’m resolved to adjust my headgear to ride a little higher on my head from now on, so I can tuck my chin and still see. Christian said I did pretty well at everything else. Pretty good head movement and footwork. Still tons of room for improvement.

After class, I was sweaty and beat. Saranya told me that she got 3 stripes on her BJJ white belt, so now she’s way ahead of me!

TJ’s Tuesday morning class started inside for warm ups. We did laps, shadow boxing, and medicine ball circuits before we took our gloves and focus mitts and thai pads outside.

We started with focus mitt combos on uneven terrain (3 minute rounds) and then we did thai pads with kicks and knees (4 minute rounds) and we ended the class with pluck choke defenses.

It was a comfortable class. I didn’t learn anything, but got to work on my form and conditioning.

Christian’s Thursday morning class had 3 girls in it. Woo!

We started with footwork squares around a kick shield, shadowboxing. Then we mounted the pads and did ground strikes. Up and footwork again, this time squares and circles and more strikes. Then we took the pad in our guard and struck it. Then back up and higher intensity footwork and strikes shadowboxing, which I was not so great at. Then mounted strikes, then guard strikes, then we were done.

Mouthpieces in, and then we paired up and took turns punching each other in the face. I had to remind Jeff not to hit me in the eyeball. 2nd round was exchanging 5-for-5 body blows. Jeff’s abs are hard as a rock!

After that, we put on focus mitts and did simple combinations. Then we paired up in groups of 3 and did an awareness drill where we had to throw strikes while watching the person behind the pad holder hold up fingers or tap their foot. I did not get it, but Jeff did great. At the end of the drill, we did the exercise where one partner holds the leg of the other partner on his thigh while the hopping partner twists and hops, turning the hips over. My calf almost died. I took 2 breaks on the first set.

With that done, we moved on to the self defense techniques, which started with rear naked choke defense. The first thing we did is lock the choke in on one another and see how long we could last before we tapped. My group included Yas and Josh, and none of us lasted a second. Then we learned that to defend that, you really need to prevent it from being locked in. Turn your head toward the direction of the fingers, and tuck your chin to your raised shoulder at the same time as you pluck at the thumb/hand and wrist. A little shoulder bump should make you some space, then you can turn under and get out while possibly still holding an arm lock.

To compliment that, we then went over defense against front headlock. Pluck with opposite hand while the close hand SMACKs the groin. I always forget the SMACK part. Then you get the returning up-elbow (elbow #5, for those who are counting,) step through under the arm and turn to strike. We moved into the back room, and the BJJ players left to start changing into their gi’s. We did an A/B drill where we applied the two attacks on each other and did the defenses. As I mentioned, I kept forgetting the groin strike. There was a funny moment when Yas was trying to wrap his arm around my head while I was spinning, and I kept just turning out of it and he couldn’t get the grip. LOL!

I intended to do Krav Maga this morning, but upon entering Simi Valley I realized that I was not wearing a cup. No cup, no Krav Maga. I went home and changed into my BJJ gi (and a cup, just in case). Made it to BJJ class early.

Warm up was run by Christian, as we jogged and wiggled our hands around. We alternated that with pummeling drills for a bit. Then we stretched, I put in my mouth guard, and we started learning to keep our elbows in when on the bottom of side control.

Next drill was standing, no gi, windshield wipering to underhook. We started standing, and then switched to working it from bottom side control, going to deep underhook and using it to get to our knees or whatever.

Finally, we rolled. 6 minute rounds, and I started with the big, no gi wearing Diego, who was an ex-wrestler and who was out of shape. I started a kimura on him but ended up letting it go. TODO: Learn to finish a kimura from guard. I also tried an arm bar from guard, which worked!

Next was Brandon the smaller. I managed to do the technique of the day on him to get out of side control bottom. He goes to that tipped turtle position (Hedgehog?) that I don’t quite know how to attack.

After that was coach Greggo. I tried a Kimura from side control on him, and didn’t know what I was doing, so he walked me through the steps. Other than that, it was eye opening feeling him be able to apply so many techniques on me where I had no clue how to defend. He had his way with me.

I also rolled with big Brandon, who tapped me basically from side control pressure and a choke threat. I had no answer to his top pressure and control. TODO: Learn to get out from under Brandon.

Last I rolled with Sean, who started off tearing me up and choking me out. I was able to get out of some of his submission attempts, but I always fell right into a trap for the next one. After he had established levels, he eased up and let me get a sweep and a slow, methodical arm bar from the top. At the end of class, he got his 5th white belt stripe. What a great guy!

Got in early and saw Brandon behind the desk. I started moving around on the mat and noticed a couple dust bunnies and grabbed a broom to start sweeping. Brandon said he’d pay Saranya a KMX buck for my efforts.

Class started and we jumped into jumping jacks, push ups, sit ups, and shadow boxing, doing it as a circuit 3x. The shadow boxing included limits on strikes, including left arm+left leg, right arm+right leg, left arm+right leg, etc. Interesting. I need to work on my push ups.

Then we moved across the mat doing front leg kick, burst 1-2 combo. Next time across was the same but with switched stance. Next time across was focused on footwork, with step left, right, and burst forward in a 1-2. Then back again with reverse stance. Last 2 times across were spinning hook kicks. I NEED to work on my hip flexibility.

Drink of water and put on gloves while Brandon pulled out heavy bags. We did two 3-minute rounds of Bas Rutten’s boxing workout. First round orthodox and second round southpaw. Trying to interpret the commands was tricky, and I failed a few times, but tryign to reverse the combinations on the fly was really hard.

Next was MMA gloves and a single focus mitt. Yas and I practiced the combination of front leg kick + bursting cross, then front leg kick + bursting elbow + liver shot. Brandon corrected my posture in that after my burst, I was not recovering my fighting stance to throw the liver shot. I tried to correct it, but I didn’t do a very good job of it. Need to focus on bursting and throwing left that hook to the body with proper stance.

After that we did inside defense and following with the combination we just drilled (or something like it, whatever). After a couple rounds of that, we did gun from the front and saw how it was a lot like inside defense and counters.

I felt like I could have trained BJJ right afterward but decided to hold myself back and keep building steadily. If I can get 3 classes in this week, I’ll try a back-to-back next Tuesday.

It was a very cold morning. I got to class just in time, but their clocks are slow so TJ was still sweeping the mat. I told Thomas that I’d never felt less like coming to train, and then actually made it to class.

Warm up was slow, with lots of shadow boxing and some low speed calisthenics. I have a real struggle with push ups. I need to start adding those to my daily routine, so I can get stronger. Anyway, I got my sweat flowing and warmed up my joints.

After a stretch, we got gloves and thai pads and got right into a couple of two minute sets. Combos ending in knee and push away for the first round, and then combos ending in a kick for the second round. I held the pads first, and Thomas was my partner. My kicks were solid, my combos kind of sucked, and Thomas made it “interesting” by making up a bunch of awkward combos. I finished the rounds without dying.

We then moved on to headbutts. Forward with/without hold, side, back, and upward. Thomas and I practiced and we did okay.

After that, we did the buck+trap+roll maneuver, and used headbutt to escape if they were holding our neck after the roll. I found I like to do an elbow to the face, some punches down the gut, and then a few to the groin as I stand and make space.

The last drill was applying headbutts during the sit-up+sweep maneuver. Thomas never tried to put weight back on me, so it was always easy for me to land the sweep. However, on the next-to-last sweep, I came down and landed on my kneecap strangely, and it really hurt. Feels bruised, but hopefully not too damaged.

The high point of the class was when TJ was surprised that I only had an orange belt, and insisted that I needed to test for green belt. (!!!)