Mizblog

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.

Brandon’s Saturday morning class, and my first since injuring my rib on July 4th. Two KM classes this month, woo!

Easy warm up, thai pads, front leg front kick and round kick, with followup combos.

Sparring sucked. We were limited to straight punches + body hook, and front leg front/round kicks. Going to the body feels dangerous if that knee might come up into your face. I spent the whole time covering up my rib and turning it away, so my left side took a lot of beating. At least I landed a shot or two against everyone I matched up with, but I feel like they all got the best of me.

I remembered a part of a dream I had last night. The snippet started after Brandon had been the victim of an aggressive driver on the street. Some guy had done something dangerous and had acted like Brandon was intentionally messing with him by using the street. Anyway, the guy stops at the next traffic signal and Brandon pulls up next to him, parks his car, gets out, and goes over to this guy’s car. Brandon opens the door and pulls the guy out onto the ground. The guy’s a short thin man with wavy light brown hair and a beard. Brandon is huge, weighing in north of 300 lbs, and a trained self defense instructor. Anyway, Brandon carefully drags the guy out and onto the hot pavement, where the guy ends up lying with his legs under his own car and his seat belt wrapped around his neck. Brandon calmly sits in his driver’s chair, secures the guy’s car so it won’t roll off, puts his foot on the guy’s chest, and calmly starts to explain to him that his behavior is unacceptable and that it could have dire consequences.

I was very impressed with Brandon’s calm, gentle violence and teaching method. Even though the guy he taught isn’t a real person, and I would never be able to pull off that maneuver, I bet it would go over well in a movie.

Today they called me back from Urgent Care to tell me that the radiologist had looked over the xray and determined that there was no crack in the rib. I’m expecting a 3 week rest and recovery period that should end July 25th.

I also saw my regular doctor today, who admonished me to not stress my ribs until they’re pain-free. He’s going to recommend some physical therapy to see if there’s something they can do to rehab my upper back, which is still tight and messed up after my two years of displaced ribs. He checked my toes and recommended an xray to see what’s going on with them. He checked my rash and accidentally rolled his chair over my toe! Right after he finished looking at it! Haha! I think I need to see a doctor. Anyway, he said that the rash looked like healing contact dermatitis and was nothing to worry about.

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.

After KM109 I changed (with sore toe and all) and jumped into the running around backward line of the BJJ class that TJ was warming up. We then spread out and did the hula hoop and arm circles and such, then did shrimping.

Coach Mark interrupted the class after that to show us why we do cross over shrimping at all. It lets you ratchet out from under side control, get to turtle, and push through to the far knee to get a takedown.

Then we practiced judo foot sweeps, going backward and then going sideways. The sideways version we also learned to end with an arm bar. I hurt my toes twice on that crap. Then I quit and went home in shame.

Brandon’s class started just as we got there. Saranya’s BJJ class started late too, thank goodness. Class started with 2 straight minutes of jumping jacks while Brandon figured out the sound system. Then it was a quick warm up circuit before shoulder tag (I jammed my thumb) and the kicking combo game (Ray and I got to 9, the lowest in the class).

Next was thai pads and boxing gloves. We did 1-4 combos followed by a kick, then 1-4 combos followed by a sprawl. Then we did boxing sparring for a couple rounds, then we did the same with one puncher and one who could only do a front kick. The last round I went to kick Dave and he blocked with his forearm and my toe went straight into it, jamming it and dropping me to my knees. It was very painful.

Last was defense/attack combos against straight punches. I did not do great.

I came in a few minutes early to warm up, but a few rounds of the small room turned my soles black, so I ended up sweeping the mat instead. Then the Krav Maga class moved outside so I swept the big mat.

Warm up went quick. My rolls were good. For the fall breaks, I did all left side for the practice.

Techniques were the butterfly guard setup to the arm drag. Cross collar and sleeve control, squeeze the knees while you open the guard, put the collar grip side leg on the ground (still pinching the knees) and hip out to put feet on the hips, push to sit up, put your non-gripping hand and the foot on that side on the mat so you can scoot your butt that way, put your other foot on the thigh above the knee, and pull the collar as you push the knee, dragging them down into the space you just scooted your butt out of. Continue to hold them down with the collar grip as you move onto their back.

The next variation we learned was to do a technical stand up from there, and maneuver right into wrapping their gi collar around their neck for a choke.

Then we learned the pendulum sweep from the closed guard. Take an elbow and knee grip with a high closed guard. Squeeze the knees and open the guard, putting the elbow-grip foot on the mat. Raise the knee-grip leg into the arm pit while lifting the knee and collapsing the false wall made by your other leg to perform the sweep.

Then we rolled. I started rolling with Christian, who was coming back from an injury. I managed to sweep him but then he swept me and got me with a paper cutter choke. He then explained that getting a near-side underhook is a bad idea, and if you get stuck that way, use that arm to block the bicep so they can’t get it under your shoulder.

Next was Tom, who’s still nursing a tweaked rib. He proceeded to hand me my ass with a couple of clock chokes (which I need to learn to defend better if I’m going to play turtle against him) and smashed me with knee-on-belly. Holy shit! He did not go easy despite his request to baby his rib. I was a bit surprised.

Then I rolled with Dave, got him in a solid kesa gatame eventually and didn’t let him out.

Next roll was Josh (cowboy). I tried a hip bump sweep but he posted his arm and stopped it. I jumped on it for a kimura and he protected it, so I finished the hip bump sweep and got on top of him. I did a slow and heavy guard pass to side control, but I kept removing the pressure and he’d start to recover guard. He told me to keep more pressure, which for sure is something I’m going to need to practice.

Last was Rick, who made me completely lose my Jiu Jitsu mind. I was in full chicken headed panic when he got on top of me, and he submitted me a bunch of times. Then he gave me some tips that I was too addled to absorb. That dude scares me stupid.

I got to class about 30 minutes early to get warmed up. I took my time, with plenty of breaks to watch the Krav Maga folks sparring. Then Chris showed up and we did some light warm up sparring.

Class started with 15 minutes of warm up. It kept going and going. Then coach Mark sat us down and told us about his visit to the Renzo Gracie academy in NYC, where apparently they’re very aggressive, and the black belts stick around instead of starting their own academy because rent in NYC is so high (Renzo pays $40k/month to rent his 3-story training studio) and they’re skilled in judo and wrestling as well as BJJ.

Anyway, we finally got around to a technique. Butterfly guard, grab same-side collar and the other knee, tip over toward the knee grip while lifting the hook on the opposite side, and turn your hips over to secure side control.

We did a few refinements on that technique, then learned about another technique – hip scoot your butt away from your same-side collar grip, then put your foot on the knee as you pull the gi over to where you just scooted away from, then scramble onto the top of them.

First roll was with new guy Ryan. We did a warm up minute, and he wrecked my open guard. He had some good sweeps from the knees too. I impressed him with my turtle defenses. He arm barred me from mount.

Next roll was with Dave. Good back and forth.

Next was Dave’s friend Ryan, who I submitted with a paper cutter choke, and mostly was in teaching mode the whole time, talking through every move.

Last round was with Rick, who submitted me about 4 times. The last time I trapped him in his butterfly guard for over a minute before he kimura cartwheeled me and submitted me.

Jumped on the mat after KM108 just in time for shrimping and rolls and fall breaks. I did well at those. Then Christian carried Saranya to the mat, and we got to the lesson, which started with a review of Wednesday night’s class, which was also reviewed on Thursday morning. A tight grip on the cross gi armpit gives you a lot of control over the shoulder and upper arm. From there, it’s relatively easy to lock up an arm bar or get to the back.

We also learned that you can feed the opponent’s gi around their arm, punch through to get an overhand grip to wrap the gi around their upper arm and pull it across their body, then scoot around like you’re taking the back. Get on your elbow and feed that gi tail to your other hand, then sit back with it and roll them over, finishing with your choice of choke or arm bar.

Saranya and I left before rolling. Good thing I did, because after I got home I got so stiff and sore that I was getting angry and panicked. I took a 2 hour nap and that helped a lot.