Mizblog

Saranya got in at about 10:15am to start warming up and learning some things to do about side control. She really struggled with the back roll over the left side. She also taught me a very nice subtlety about osoto gari – the push-pull setup. Push them away real quick before pulling them in, stepping to their side, and sweeping the leg.

Krav Maga was doing kickboxing sparring during our warmup, but eventually they came to the back room and I grabbed a broom and swept the mat quickly. We did our warmup and again Saranya needed help with the left shoulder back roll.

The first technique we learned was using a two-handed hold on one arm to transition to an open guard. Cross-sleeve and same-side-outer-armpit grips, open the guard and plant the grip-side foot, hip back and get your other foot on the hip, then put your planted foot on the hip and sit up. From there, if they have a grip on your gi, you can throw up a triangle, and if they let go, you can push them across and get up to get on their back.

Speaking of triangles, we learned a hack to finish even a loosely locked triangle: get up on your elbows and lift your hips off the mat, then scoot back until you get the tap.

Then we rolled.

I first rolled with Dave. He got on top of me and smashed me, but I kept my cool and avoided all his submission attempts, eventually getting back on top.

Next I rolled with Dave again because everyone else already paired up. He had an arm bar attempt on me and I bent my fingers sideways to escape. I knew it was a bad idea as soon as I finished doing it.

Then I sat out a round. Saranya was sitting out and I invited her over. She had a bloody thumbnail and I told her to wash it.

Then I rolled with Greggo. I did the move of the day on him, and at the end he walked me through an arm bar finish.

Then I rolled lightly with Aaron to finish things off.

Saranya made it to her first adult class today! Hooray!

We went about 25 minutes early, so we could warm up in the small room and Saranya could learn the moves for the big class. We went through running and shuffling, shrimping, reverse shrimping, somersaults, and fall breaks. Coach Greggo stepped in to break down the rolling fall break some more and give us some pointers. It was very helpful. Then he started showing me the butterfly guard sweeps he promised to show me last week. They both involve pinching the hooks and planting the head in the chest to put the guard player’s back to the mat. The first one involves reaching under with one hand to grab one of the butterfly hooking legs and pull it across. This opens that side for the pass. The second one involved unhooking one of your legs by kicking out, and then tucking it under the remaining butterfly hooking leg, allowing you to pull your other one around for the pass, or push the knee down and slide your hips over for the pass. Something like that. We were interrupted halfway through by the Krav Maga folks moving it to the small room, so we continued on the big mat until class started.

Warm up was usual, except that Saranya was in the bathroom. She joined class as we were running around. We did all the warm up exercises that I showed her (except reverse shrimping) and we also did backward rolls, which I forgot to show her. She spoke up and asked Greggo for help though, and he broke it down for her. :)

After doing fall breaks in the warm up, we did synchronized fall break practice. 10 back fall rolls and 10 side fall flops. Then we stood up and practiced snap downs moving backward across the mat. I paired with Greggo and my fingers hurt from the grip. I kept trying to do the Navy finish to the snatch single, but I couldn’t get it right. I kept forgetting to get my head to his chest!

Then we did randori in a chain method. Dave, Tom, Greggo and I went to the small room and did 3 minutes each with rotating partners. Dave went first and kept trying to stick his leg in for a trip. He was not too successful. Tom was next, and when I went with him he headbutted me in the face, right on the bridge of the nose. I saw stars and had to sit out. My turn was next, and I did alright. Got Dave down once countering his wild trip attempt. Greggo eventually got me down. Now my nose is bruised.

Then we circled up on the big mat to learn mount escapes. The key details I picked up was to frame with your hands, get your leg flat on the mat and use it to scoot their foot out on your frame side to disrupt their base, then push their leg to make a hole for your knee to come out, then recover guard or whatever. Again, paired with Greggo for the drill, he taught me some really awesome subtleties.

Then we rolled.

I first rolled with Taco. He started on top, I upa’d him over and stayed on top for the rest of the round. He had good arm and neck defense, but he couldn’t get me off the top of him very well.

Next I rolled with Aaron, who just finished his Krav Maga blue belt test. He’s always elusive. He scissor swept me hard onto my left shoulder and had me evaluating my wellness. Good enough. I survived.

Then I rolled with Colt, who I did okay against. Played a little half guard and he kept trying to coach me the whole time.

Next was coach Greggo, and he walked me through upa, then swept me, then walked me through mount escape from the lesson, then through a back take and choke.

Last roll was with Dave. I got a baseball bat choke locked in and had to dismount to finish it, so I jumped off and spiked my left big toe straight into the mat. Stupid! That was it for me. I sat out the rest of the round until we bowed out.

Saranya sat out all but one of the rounds. She spent that round in side control bottom and was unable to escape. Now she’s on a mission to beat Skyler!

Brandon’s Saturday class was tuned to the five new students on the mat. We did tombstone pad punching and kicking, then we did thai pad combos with kicks. Saranya hurt her back attempting a double leg takedown when Ella sprawled on top of her, but she was alright.

I woke up after a bad night’s sleep, still very sore from Tuesday morning’s double leg circuit. When I got to SVKM, I was glad to find out that even Dave and coach Greggo were very sore after that training, so I didn’t feel so inadequate. Rick also brought up the experience of walking out of a martial arts class so wrecked that a kid could take you out, and how you have to question yourself in those situations. It got a laugh.

Warm up went quick under coach Mark. 10 minutes and we got down to business. We were visited by coach Drago from the main academy, and coach Mark put him on the spot for Q&A. Rick asked him how you deal with someone who’s got a knee-elbow shield against your guard leg. Drago ducked under his arm and pulled him past, taking his back. I got to practice with Brandon Sherman. He was messing me up by getting a cross collar grip and putting his forearm in my face so I couldn’t duck under. I guess it was my bad for not getting an underhook on that side so I could boost his arm up and over my head as I pulled him back and across.

The next technique we learned was the arm drag. Break posture with the collar grip, then relinquish it to pull the arm across, then take the back. Again, Brandon made my life difficult by gripping my gi above my shoulder. Much more amenable to the previous technique, but this time I had to break down his arm by folding it downward and rotating my body away while I ripped it across with my opposite hand. Very dangerous and violent technique.

After that we learned the baseball bat choke from side control top. Use your cross face arm to grip thumb-in the back of the collar. Then rise up to knee-on-belly, lift their head with your collar grip and sink the other hand into the far side collar, palm-up thumb-out. Bring your far hand over the neck and your elbows together as you step around and lower your head to their near-side hip. Very effective!

After that, we rolled.

I started with Andrew. I think I ended up on top but he recovered guard. I tried to pass but he scrambled to turtle, then when I was attacking he scrambled and I had to turtle. He almost got my back! I had to really work to get out of that, but I did. He got mount, I upa’d him over and again passed his guard. Round over. It was a good one!

Next was Ryan. I had my way with him, pretty much. I got him in an Americana and an arm bar before I decided to coach him a little bit.

Next was Matt. Again, a good roll. I got the better of him positionally but he put up a good fight and had good defense.

Next was Cosmo. I was scared of being crushed, to start off, and I told him so. He went to knock me over at an angle, and I rolled under to get into side control, stopping him from getting on the concrete. We restarted. I mounted and set up a collar choke, which was impossible to finish because Cosmo does not have a neck. I eventually got bucked off and we scrambled to me on the bottom of half guard, where we ended.

After that I rolled with Ryan again, and I just basically talked to him about BJJ and the early learning process. I gave him tips on what to do when mounted, like protecting your neck and tucking your elbows. At the end of the roll, I sunk in the baseball bat choke that we’d learned earlier in the class.

After we lined up, coach Mark thanked Drago for teaching. He chastised some of the people for not showing up. Then he gave me another stripe, as well as Andrew and Matt and maybe Brendan? 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 another stripe, but I did it in only 9 classes. I’ve been getting better very quickly lately, like it was all pent up and it’s finally starting to come together.

After class, coach Mark told me I looked good on the mat today. He again complimented me on losing weight, which according to the scale I have not done. He also told me “Your daughter is going to be a beast!”

I got to class late because of lingering issues following a server Ubuntu LTS upgrade that went pear shaped last night and into this morning, plus insufficient sleep from being woken up to try to help a bratty daughter who didn’t want help but instead wanted someone to do her homework for her. I couldn’t go back to sleep so I got up when the girls left, got coffee, burrowed back into work, and didn’t finish until 10:40am.

Got on the mat while Dave was warming up the class. We did shrimping and tumbling and fall breaks until coach Mark stopped us and told us that our fall breaks sucked, and that we should practice them right from the beginning so we don’t get addicted to bad technique. I was guilty of the following sins: crossing my feet on the fall break stand up, coming up to my elbow on the fall break, not cupping my hand when slapping the mat, and slapping the mat too far away from my body to be effective. I have to work on all of those bad habits. Oh, and not rounding my body and rolling a little to dissipate energy when I land. That too. Especially on the side fall break, which I barely learned in Krav Maga for my orange belt test.

Then we did some broken down practice drills solo before going back to trying the shoulder roll fall break again. I found it very awkward to get back to my feet without crossing them, so I guess I just need more momentum.

Anyway, that took a half hour, and then we were on to side control and far arm isolation. Use your underhook arm to make a shelf under their shoulder. Use your other hand to backhand windshield wiper their far hand and staple it onto the mat. Then turn that hand over to a monkey C grip as your underhook turns over and hooks your own wrist under your opponent’s arm, and then pull the elbow down toward the hip and lift.

For side control, it’s all about controlling the hips and maintaining an over/under of some sort. I learned two new grips. One was pants grip at the butt cheek, and the other was between-the-legs pants grip. Both of them, you grip the fabric and pin it to the mat. I also learned how to control the hips in reverse kesa.

Then we rolled. I got regular top-ups from the Goo tube I brought, so I was ready to roll. I started with Greggo and he gently dominated me for the first 4.5 minutes before tapping me with a fist in my jaw. Very excellent hip control from top side control on his part. No more letting me have dominant grips to start off. I’m moving up!

I next rolled with Cowboy. I again got him in the bow and arrow choke, and coach Mark thought I was closer to finishing than I was, so he urged me to just keep cranking on it. My grip gave out after a couple minutes and Cowboy escaped.

Then I rolled with Cosmo. I frustrated him a lot in my closed guard, but he did eventually break it and I tried to turtle and go for a single leg on him. I don’t know why I try to do that to him, because it never ever works.

Then I went with Ryan, who I took down from the knees and tapped with an arm bar. As we restarted, he expressed frustration at being taken down so much, and he swore I wouldn’t take him down again. 3 seconds later, I had taken him down again, and he was laughing. I can relate. I used to get taken down regularly too. Now I’m doing my share of the takedowns.

After that was Phil. He let me get top side control and then tried to lock up a baseball bat choke. Instead of mounting him, though, I rotated to north-south and un-twisted his grips for him. When he tried to switch them up, I secured one of his arms for an arm bar, and applied consistent pressure to try to get him to let it go and give me his arm. He eventually did, but as I was trying to lock up the arm bar he went belly down, so I followed, and he did a sky cartwheel to escape and end up on top of side control. Wow.

I had a dream this morning. In it, Saranya and I were visiting a house in the valley. It was like Greg’s house, kind of. Across the street, there was a jet airplane pulling up. They were gunning the engine like a hot rod after driving it through the valley streets from the airport.

Inside the house, Saranya and I had to do a quest. We had to go out the back and through a dark alley. Guarding the way was a statue with a spear. I grabbed the spear and was able to pull it, but the statue kept its grip and walked around me. When I pulled the spear into the light, it came free and the statue disappeared. That’s when I realized that the statue was really the Bogey Man. It was only visible in low light. It was invisible in darkness, and was incorporeal in bright light.

Across the alley was a lantern store, and Saranya had the bright idea of going over and lighting a bunch of lamps. That lit up the alley, and we could go down a ways. But Saranya was sloppy, and left a bunch of dark areas. I tried calling her back (I was too scared to go into the dark with her, apparently) but she was off doing her own thing for a bit. Eventually she came back, but by then a dining crowd had come to the alley and were sitting outside a restaurant next to the lantern store. She made her way through the crowd, and then started going the OTHER WAY through the alley, into pitch blackness! I was petrified. I could see footprints being formed in the dirt on the dark hill next to the alley. I ran out to get Saranya and get her turned around, but when we turned, we saw the shape of a short, bearded caveman guy rushing us at the edge of the illumination from the lantern store. Saranya surprised me again by launching into a flying side kick, which knocked the Bogey Man sideways and made him stagger. I jumped in and cut into his neck with my khukri.

He started arguing with me about the effectiveness of cutting the Bogey Man, so I cut his head entirely from his body, which then started stumbling around reaching for me. I did the Black Knight thing and cut off the arms and one of the legs to render him harmless.

Then I woke up.

Christian’s Tuesday morning class. Saranya came with me and sat at a table in the front, because Sangeeta was off running in Moorpark and didn’t make it home before I had to leave for class.

Our black belts went to a Ralph Gracie seminar last Sunday and they were really excited to bring back some of the ideas they picked up there. So we did a warm up where we were starting from an open guard position, and the top person would scoop a leg and try to go for an over-under pass, while the defender would get heavy on that leg (preventing the pass) and then transition into a sweep. Next we did a drill where we’d do a kick sweep on one side, then a scissor sweep on the other side when they got back up.

Then we did a standard stretching sequence before getting down to the lessons.

And the lessons today were centered around kesa gatame, which I first learned a freakin’ year ago (sort of). We did modified and standard, and I had the most trouble transitioning to the standard kesa. Giving up that far side underhook was difficult. I had a relatively easy time getting the arm bar and the americana, as I’d seen them a bunch of times.

We did sparring, and I started rolling with Chad (whose wife ran with Sangeeta this morning in Moorpark) and of course today we started in side control. I started on bottom. It was a good roll. I managed to sweep him but he recovered guard. He locked onto my collar, but I got 2 hands on it and would not let go, at the same time maintaining pressure and trying to pass so he couldn’t move around to a solid submission. That lasted to the end of the roll. I survived!

Second roll was with Em. It was a little scrambly, and I was able to muscle some stuff, but she was able to recover guard a lot. I did manage to get half guard on her a few times, and mount once, but no subs of course. We had a funny conversation mid-roll.
Em: You have hair like mine.
Me: You mean on your stomach?
Em: No, on your head.
Me: Gray?
Em: No, long and curly. It’s annoying.
Me: At least yours is falling out slower than mine is, so you’ve got that going for you!

Next I rolled with R/N whose name I had to keep practicing. I was able to easily sweep him once I let him get into kesa, because his base was awful. I had him restart on top again and coached him to have a more solid base.

After that I rolled with Dave, and that was an adventure. I was able to mount him and go for a gi choke, and when he defended that I latched onto his arm and went for an arm bar in a crazy roll that saw him keep going belly down and stacking me to try to get out. I never did get it, and ended up tapping when he dove for an arm bar while my fingers were tangled up in his gi. I was hoping the dive would dislodge them, but they remained stuck and I verbally tapped. I fixed my belt for the remainder of the roll.

Last I rolled with Aaron, who was suffering with a bruised knee. I found him impossible to hold down, and kept ending up under his north-south pressure. At the end, I was turtled and managed to roll under him, but his arm was trapped and he both wrenched his shoulder and hit his head. I was actively trying not to hurt him, but it didn’t work out that way. Poor guy. Hope he recovers quickly.

Last Wednesday I started feeling sick. I went home a little bit early. Thursday it got worse, but still not bad, but it was still worsening, so I took Friday off and stayed home. Good thing I did! Friday night was horrible, and when I woke up Saturday morning I felt like I was dying by choking on thick phlegm. It took me quite a lot of effort to feel like I had coughed it all up. I took Saranya to BJJ, where she was awarded her BJJ yellow belt. I went home and suffered, trying to distract myself from the awful congestion.

Saturday night was worse. I slept for an hour and woke up choking. I decided I was done trying to sleep at night. I stayed up and played Minecraft, Empire, watched Youtube videos, watched a movie. I was cold but I didn’t want to wake Sangeeta up by running the heater so I just wrapped myself in my bathrobe. I did get a couple hours sleep in the morning, but Sunday was another awfulness. Sunday night I got another hour of sleep.

Monday, again, no work. I slept 3 hours in the morning. Starting to feel some improvement in the congestion! Stayed up until about 8pm, when I finally crashed out. Woke up at midnight, still congested but not dying. Went back to sleep at almost 4am and slept until almost 8am, so that makes two stretches of 4 hours each.

So Tuesday morning dawns and I’m feeling slightly congested but rested and optimistic. The scale says I gained about 5 pounds during the cold, and I’m not sure what that’s about. Probably all the salt from soup and pretzels.

Saranya just went running to the bathroom, saying “Gotta go now! It’s a turtle.”

Cracked me up!

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.