6.29.08 #65.6

Gi with Ferret

Tonight's main objective was to work defense - open and loose guard. We didn't have any hard, fast rules I had to follow so it becomes just getting use to defending. One of the few rules that we covered was if your opponent gets an underhook on your leg, you have to push up on his elbow and get your foot back to his neck/shoulder. I spent 15 minutes defending my guard and then I went on the attack for 5 minutes, we did this for 50 minutes and spent the last 15 or 20 minutes rolling. It didn't take Ferret much to pass my guard when we went live. In fact, it didn't take Ferret too long to submit me tonight. More stuff to work on.

6.23.08

I changed up my training today. I started doing some swimming in the pool at the Y in the morning. Also, due to the summer, I am taking the boys to Karate on Monday nights, so I will be missing class at Gracie Tampa. Instead of wasting a night of training, I decided to take the kick boxing class at my kid's Karate school. It is by no means as technical as the striking classes at GT, but it should be good cardio for me and help me get into better shape.

6.22.08 #64.5

Gi with Ferret

Sunday was one of those training sessions that is going to be a foundation to elevate my game to a new level. Ferret wanted to teach more offensive tonight, but I wanted to go back and work on some basics - guard pass and guard defense. Except instead of focusing on closed guard and butterfly guard, I wanted to focus on passing the guys with very loose, open guards who play in-between and make things for you to pass very different. While at the same time, work on my open guard and get my legs better, get my defense better. It is hard to have any notes after a class like this, because we spent the whole time drilling and going through the motions. It was one of the toughest classes I have been through because we did not stop from the second we started. When I got tired, I went to the ground and worked my defense after a few minutes back up and trying to pass again.

The biggest thing in playing against these loose guards is to get my hips in and head back. After that you ride your opponent's legs and hips to allow you to close the distance and take away the space. From there you have two passes, the first is the knee around pass. You have to be real light on your feet and really "feel" your opponent having his hooks in, then just kick your knee around and pass. The second pass was the knee through pass. Here, you smash your opponent with your hips and keep the pressure on him, then just collapse a leg into his forcing your knee to the ground for the pass.

Over the next few weeks don't expect any fancy moves or notes, because we are going to drill this and work more on getting better.

6.20.08

Open Mat

I am not going to count tonight as a training session. Not having anything scheduled on Friday makes a long trip over to GT for me... some nights open mat is packed, other nights not so much. It seems the summer months seem to slow down. I got there about 6:30 and there were only 4 guys rolling and Jeremy was working with Andrew on his stand up. I rolled for about 10 minutes with Rob, not THE Rob, but another Rob. 235 pounds or so, blue belt, Rob is really strong and powerful, especially his hips. His game has grown leaps and bounds since the last time I rolled with him. He was able to throw his sweep from guard and then go to mount and begin working s-mount arm bar. His position wasn't quite perfect on those, but pretty damn good. Before he just worked out of guard, triangle, arm-bar, etc. Once you passed his guard he was out of his comfort zone. Now, his guard is much, much better and harder to pass and his obviously more comfortable getting off his back.

After rolling for a few minutes we watched Jeremy's brother do some amazing jits. Then I went to the boxing class with Badger. Since it was Friday night, nobody was there. So I spent an hour or so of one on one time with Badger. We worked on my stance - which still isn't right. Then we worked on some left jabs, then moved to right cross. I worked into a solid 1-2 combo. From there we added the left hook and I fell apart. I need to work on the left hook. After 30 minutes or so of glove work, we moved over to a heavy bag to work on some kicks. We did right and left front kicks. Then things got sloppy. Right and left roundhouse kicks... needless to say my 7 year old son kicks harder with his left leg then I do. It was a fun class though, I am looking forward to going every Friday now. Badger was an amazing coach and showed lots of genuine concern and patience for me.

6.17.08 #63

Advanced class with Rob

Tonight's class was 3 moves to take mount. It was a laid back, cool class, and it was something that I needed to review. Rob started off showing us a move from side to mount that I hadn't seen before - double under hook to mount. You smash your opponent's head with what-time-is-it and then move that under their arm to establish the double under hook. Then from there put your fist to the floor and do the patented Rob "smash the head" then take mount. The second move was the mount that Ferret taught me awhile ago and I thought I had down pat - not the case. I was putting my foot to much to the floor and not hooking with it enough and spinning off it. This is one of my favorite passes when I work out of half-guard into side. The third pass is one that won't be added into my game any time soon. You go to knee-on-belly, but with the wrong knee and the spin around your opponent, using your hand on his knee to push you and your knee to spin on. A little too "finesse" for me.

After the three moves, Joey suggested we drill. Great idea! I love when we drill. Rob put 4 guys down and we had to take side and work towards mount. The down man was to put us back into guard. I ran the drill about 6 times and wasn't able to take mount, but it was great work going against some of the better guys at GT. I went against 3 different body types and different levels from high blue to brown. It was a great class. On a side note, I took Leland to the kids class tonight and he got a little beat up. It was good to see him on the mat. I look forward to taking the boys to class with me on Wednesday nights.

6.16.08 #62

Advanced Class with Joey & Beginner Class with Ferret

Tonight were two very contrasting classes. Joey taught 9 different neck crank variations in under an hour - it was impressive. I missed the first few moves and then didn't have a partner to work with until the last few moves. So not much sunk in tonight. The moves were vicious and painful, and of course we learned the "midget twister". Did I tell you I hate neck cranks?

In between the advanced and beginner class, I rolled with Original Mike. I took his back twice after going to mount and the second time I was able to finish with rear naked. The next roll, Mike was able to take control and take mount on me and I put him back into half guard before Ferret called us for class.

In Ferret's class, we learned only one move - triangle choke. Even after 15 or 16 months of training, I still can't do a triangle choke very well (and I thought I was able to defend them fairly well, more to this story in a second). We started with the very basics step and for an hour we went deeper and deeper into landing a good triangle. When open mat was called I asked Wally to roll. After a few minutes and several failed attempts at passing Wally's loose guard, I dropped back on my back, hoping to be able to sweep Wally and catch him during a transition. Wally easily passed my guard and took side, we bounced back and forth between side and half guard, with some minor sweeps on my part but nothing that I was able to mount any offense. After 10 minutes or so of back and forth grappling, Wally was able to catch me well in a transition, put his foot to my hip and sink the triangle choke. I know Wally has been training for a long time and is very good at the triangle, but it was pretty sad getting caught in the move of the night in front of about 20 on-lookers. After our roll, I asked Wally a few questions about my guard pass versus his open guard and Ferret came over and we talked about the roll and a few things I need to work on. I don't have any "medium" or "high" passes as Ferret put it. I feel more comfortable passing on the ground. I also tend to have issues passing guards of long limbed, flexible people and that is just something I need to get used to. Lots of things to work on after tonights training.

6.15.08 #61.4

Gi with Ferret

We spent a good 30 to 40 minutes of just rolling tonight. The 15 or 20 minutes I spent learning tonight was a lot moves off of one set up. The move starts from guard, trapping your opponents arm and then feeding his gi collar into that hand, from there you have a myriad of submissions to work into - gi chokes, shoulder locks, oomoplata, triangle, the list goes on and on. We mainly worked two moves tonight, the gi choke and oomoplata. We plan to work this series a bit more over the next few weeks, so I can get more reps in and add this to my gi game. The set up can be used in no-gi too and is commonly used to set up triangle.

The reason we didn't review the throws from last week was I didn't want to re-injure my hip and sit out another week. We stayed away from those until the end of the lesson tonight. We did review the footwork for just a few minutes, I didn't want to throw my hip around too much. I won't be able to go to the Gi class Wednesday night this week due to work obligations - I am bummed.

strained Piriformis

After training with Travis on Sunday, I got up Monday and ran three miles, Tuesday morning I got up and ran another three miles, but my hip was bothering me. I decided to go see Dr Jeff at Trinity Chiropractic and get adjusted and have him look at my hip too. Back and hip adjusted well, but then my hip pain got worse. Then on Wednesday when I woke up it was so bad, I could barely walk. We went out on the boat and I sat down most of the time and complained about my hip the whole time. When we came back in, I stopped at Dr. Jeff's office again. He had me do some movements and said I strained my piriformis muscle (see below). It was due to all of the reps of rotating my hips and turning in to do the hip tosses. Jeff suggests I take a week off, but after doing lots of therapy last night it felt great this morning. Instead of running this morning, I did 3 miles on the bike. I hope to be able to train Sunday night.

The piriformis muscle begins inside the pelvis. It connects to the sacrum, the triangular shaped bone that sits between the pelvic bones at the base of the spine. The connection of the sacrum to the pelvis bones forms the sacroiliac joint. There is one sacroiliac joint on the left and one on the right of the low back. The other end of the piriformis muscle connects by a tendon to the greater trochanter, the bump of bone on the top side of your hip.

The piriformis muscle is one of the external rotators of the hip and leg. This means that as the muscle works, it helps to turn the foot and leg outward. Problems in the
piriformis muscle can cause problems with the sciatic nerve. This is because the sciatic nerve runs under (and sometimes through) the piriformis muscle on its way out of the pelvis. The piriformis muscle can squeeze and irritate the sciatic nerve in this area, leading to the symptoms of sciatica.

6.8.08 #60.3

Trained with Ferret and Travis

Travis was working with Ferret when I came in on loose guard, so when they started rolling, I joined in for 5 minute matches. Travis tapped me a few times, his jits is impressive. I rolled with him 3 or 4 times before we started our lesson for the night.

I learned some names of the throws tonight too! We started with the Ippon Seoinage - one arm shoulder throw. From there Travis showed me a variation by attacking around the neck instead of taking the other arm into your opponents armpit. When you come with the right hand, you punch behind your opponents head, hitting him with your bicep. This generates a more powerful hip throw, if you miss this move, you are going to lose your back. We repped this a few times and moved on. We reviewed Hane Goshi - the spring hip throw and Uchi Mata - the inner thigh throw, again getting in some good reps with my footwork. Travis said I need to relax and be more fluid, especially when working take downs. After 45 minutes of work with Travis on throws, I was beat. Travis threw me to the mat a lot, a few times with some serious force. I was relieved when Ferret took over for us to spend the last 15 minutes reviewing gi chokes. The biggest thing to take away from my time with Ferret, was the "second hand". You can't waste your time and effort and defending the first hand. You have to focus on the second hand and make sure that you are aware of it, the first hand can't choke you by itself.

6.4.08 #59

Gi with Joey

Went to the advanced class tonight, but rushed out of there due to a work engagement. I can't say I had much focus on class while I was there. Joey showed us a few more sweeps out of the butterfly guard. The first was the standard butterfly guard sweep, but instead of holding the arm to prevent your opponent from bracing your wrapped the bottom of their gi around their elbow and trapped the arm to do the sweep. The second move was a little bit tougher, you picked your opponent up and then went into a bit of an x-guard to sweep the opponent into a heel lock or ankle lock. The last move was a butterfly position choke where you grabbed the lapel with your hand that has under hook, your hand that has over hook you find the bunched up material of the gi on the back of the neck and then go to a what time is it grip for the choke.

After that we paired up and rolled for 6 minutes. I was paired up with Jeff, a solid blue belt that tips the scales at 235 pounds. He was able to catch me with last weeks move, the arm bar against the turtle at about the 4 minute mark or so and then wasn't able to catch me again. I was not able to do much against him, his jits is pretty solid and is a bit stronger and a 30 to 40 pounds heavier then I am. I do hope to spend some time working with him, because I think that is better for my bjj then rolling with some of the smaller guys.

6.1.08 #58.2

Gi with Ferret

Tonight we reviewed the arm bar against the turtle Joey showed us Wednesday, then we spent about 20 minutes working take downs. I like the throws Ferret showed me and we are going to keep practicing them. I want the throws to become second nature. I need to spend more time working on my foot work, but its coming along and I am starting to get better with the hip toss. After that we spent the rest of the class rolling and reviewing the roll. Ferret caught me three or four times tonight in about 45 minutes and I made him work. I caught a few sweeps and got myself in some good offensive positions. I wasn't able to run any of the chokes I was having a hard time getting my hands in, I did try a few arm bars but with no luck. Because I wasn't able to get the chokes to work, Ferret showed me how to use the back of the gi and wrap it around your opponents neck and use that with a thumb in grip instead of getting inside the gi, it seemed to work pretty well. That is one more thing for me to work on.