Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’ November 10, 2009
Posted by leslie in Training Log.Tags: belts, choke, gi, pass, position, sweep
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Tim was in a relaxed mood tonight, so we rolled a lot. Tim kept stressing technique, nice easy jiu-jitsu, control, no headhunting, good jiu-jitsu.
Buddy #1 first. We played. He let me pass several times, and even go to knee-on-belly, before reversing me. I dropped myself in to several triangles, though he let me work out of those. Trying to remember that I know how to pass half guard by going backwards, instead of always trying to drive forward. This round felt good, nice easy jiu-jitsu, good pace.
Steve next. More of the same, though I did have to make all my own passes and escapes. And so I did. Good jiu-jitsu again, and active. He could get my back and his hooks in; I’d get Saulo’s “scoop”; he’d get to mount. Realized later I was dislodging both his hooks, so he was free to move around me; need to let him keep that one to control him.
Big Jesse next, and he let me practice tapping. Kimuras, RNCs, armbars, triangles — lots and lots and lots. He also nearly finished me off with a few body triangles. 
After a while of losing position straight off, I tried to pull guard; got my legs in place, but couldn’t close my guard! Then tried to fight to the top when we reset, but not much luck there. Did some things decent; did most things not quite well enough. Tim was also rolling this round, so this was a looong round.
We stopped for a water break, and I thought, “Oh well, no one’s getting promoted tonight.” Tim started to have us drill, but then sent us back to find another partner and another roll. I knew then that something was up.
Steve again. Tim’s still repeating no headhunting, nice easy jiu-jitsu, good positions. I nearly had a standing guard pass — couldn’t quite get past, but had all the pieces right.
End of that round, Tim promoted Yoshi the Energizer Bunny to blue belt. He was stunned and could hardly talk straight the rest of class.
Drilling. Sweep from half-guard. Get to your side. With your bottom hand, grip on their pant leg, palm up. The elbow there comes to your hip and stays there. Hips go back so your top foot can hook inside their knee. Bump your hips under as if you’re going to go to X-guard. Instead, do a sit-up toward your hooked knee and drive them that way (where they have no base). You come up on top, holding the pant leg of their far leg and hooking over their near leg. (Be careful of coming up too far and into their half guard!) Transition to side control.
We also worked a variation: once you’ve got them up and floating, kick your free leg around and drop them in your guard. They’ll probably go a little toward the side you were hooking. Hip out and come up to take their back.
Drilled with Steve. Very helpful, since he’s probably the closest to my size, which means that bump over at the beginning is easier to do. I’ve tried it on guys with 50+ lbs on me, and I really have a hard time getting under there unless they first give up the space.
One more roll, with your drilling partner. Hey, there, you look familiar… I finally remembered that we’re rolling gi, and that I can use mine and his. Got my lapel out after being unable to get his out. Didn’t do much with it at first until I got back to guard and managed to trap his arm with it. I want… a pendulum sweep. Had tried it the other night and concluded that my hips hadn’t been out far enough, so focused on that. Took a few tries because I kept messing something up, but did finally get it right and to mount. Squee!
All night long, I was also working that single-under pass. Even had one that went to the inside! Still flaring my elbows, as Jesse pointed out many many times.
Afterward, Tim was saying that while it’s good that we roll hard and aggressive so much, that sometimes you just need an relaxed but active night, to which we all whole-heartedly agreed.
Off tomorrow as usual. Will probably make it to Thursday’s class (will depend on cars — I’ll have turned my rental in at that point), and then taking off for wild & crazy adventures on Friday.
And I’m spent… November 9, 2009
Posted by leslie in Training Log.Tags: choke, gi, grrls
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I woke up Sunday and could hardly walk down the stairs — inside of my legs and my hammies, ow. Then later in the day, my arms got in on the soreness. And today, my shoulders and quads joined.
Adam led class tonight. He likes crazy warmups. We did crazy warmups.
And I was done at jogging. Uh oh. This is gonna be a long night. (At least Will and Jesse were feeling it, too.)
Jogging, high knees, butt kicks, side-to-side, alligators… Alligators?! Around. The. Whole. Mat. Crap. Then to bear crawls. That is one tough transition. Then to army crawls. Then I’m a little mixed up. Maybe: circled up, jogging with high knees, sprawling when he called it; eventually stayed down and did mountain climbers; then stayed in that position while, one at a time, ran around the circle and jumped over everyone else. … Yeah, that sounds good.
Somewhere in the alligators/bear crawls, I think, I landed oddly on my left wrist. It was not happy all night. Really not good during the holding position part of that last one. Also, shoulders were really complaining by then.
Then partnered up on the wall, pistol-grip the sleeves, and gi drags. When I got home, the inside of my fingers was all cut and scratched up; it must be from this. An odd number, so I sat out the first rounds and then dragged Will when he was done. I did one trip, and ohemgee so tired. I wanted to stop then, but Adam said, “C’mon, one more,” and the guys started cheering for me. Ack. Must do. Got him down, turned around, and couldn’t get the momentum to get going again; he had to help me by pushing with his legs. So. Tired. Collapsed. Finally got up; legs were shaking.
Rolling. Adam said I could sit out… except, oh, wait, one of the guys can’t roll yet (he had LASIK a few weeks ago), so I’m in. Seriously? I mean, sure, I got technique, but I still at least have to be able to move around.
Rolled with Will. He just swept me around and could do nearly anything he wanted to. He caught something, I can’t remember what. I flopped like a fish all night. So bad. But so tired. I think I had moments of pretending like I could play spider guard, but my legs couldn’t keep up any pressure at all.
On the wall for shrimping.
Then a round with Big Tom. Adam started calling out 30-seconds bursts during the round, where you both went as hard as you could. Erm… yeah, this is all I got. Then at the end, he called out “Submit and done!” Sudden death. Loser owed pushups. Tom wasn’t pressing nearly hard enough; he should’ve finished me much sooner. He’s too nice. He went to catch a kimura and accidentally dropped his elbow in my temple instead. So I didn’t tap out, I nearly got knocked out. We stopped, though.
I think we drilled next. Gi choke from side control. Pull out far lapel; bring it under their arm and behind their head. Come up to knee-on-belly; switch hands on that lapel. (They’ll probably bridge in to you and drop you on your knee next to them.) Reach across with the now free hand and grab on their shoulder. If they didn’t bridge and drop you, drop your knee for yourself back down on the near side, right by their ribs. Pull your elbows to your hips and try to drop all your weight on their face. Walk around a bit toward their head if you need to, to finish.
More rolling. Guillaume first. And… nothing. A few moments of control. Possibly a sweep? I think I mostly flopped on him in half guard. Saw mount for a little bit, but couldn’t finish the armbar. Several other near finishes, but just had no energy or strength for that last bit.
Then we did partner lifts. You start in guard and grip their belt; they grip your lapels. Bring one leg up, then the other, and then lift. 10 each. I could barely hold my guard around Guillaume, and then I could hardly get any lift on him. I could get a good base and pretended I was deadlifting and could feel my muscles straining, but he didn’t budge.
One last round. Got Scotty. More 30-second bursts. He was going harder in those, but still letting me work. So much tired. He said I’d rolled good, but I’m not really sure I what I did, if anything. I think I tried some spider again, though it did nothing for me.
Nearly everyone crawled off the mats, which made me feel a little better. At least it’s not just me thinking that was a hard workout.
Car update: My car is fixed! It’s also still in Philly. But, my best friend, who lives near Richmond, is in North Carolina on a business trip and is coming back this way on Thursday night. And, because she’s super awesome, she volunteered to drive me to Philly to get my car, provided I go back to RVA and spend some time with her on Saturday and Sunday, since we missed that last time. So, if this wild and crazy adventure works out as it should, we’ll drive up on Friday, possibly spend the night with a friend of hers or drive back to Richmond; then she has plans Saturday morning so I’ll go train with Chrissy, leaving us Saturday afternoon/evening together; and then Sunday, church, maybe, followed by more jiu-jitsu. And I hear there are lots of girls coming in for the weekend. Sweet!
Needs a title November 7, 2009
Posted by leslie in Training Log.Tags: choke, circuit, CrossFit, nogi, omoplata, triangle
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Came in early to watch the guys spar. Adam, the guy from RAM, was back today and brought a teammate, Caleb, who has a fight in two weeks. So the guys rotated through light rounds with him. Then since they were there, and everyone was dressed out nogi to spar, class ended up being nogi, as well. The one day I don’t bring shorts… *sigh*
Short but intense warmup. Tim pretended to forget about us while we were doing duck walks around the mat. Ooo, not funny. Then some partner stuff — shoot/leapfrog followed by jump-overs (partner on hands and knees, put hands on their shoulder blades, jump from side to side).
Drilling, a choke from the back.
Then rolling, with arbitrary round lengths. I think most were about 10 minutes.
Started with Steve. Right off, he caught a triangle. I must’ve fallen asleep or something; totally didn’t even see it coming. Had a few sweeps in there and got to the top a few times, though couldn’t pass his half guard and would get swept.
Then Justin, and I felt so slow and dumb. I could see most of it coming, but couldn’t do a thing about it. Omoplata, twister, D’Arce (probably, though not sure), and many more. I might have escaped my hips right once and come around to the open side once instead of battering at his defense, but that was all.
Yoshi last, and more D’Arces. I guess I need to ask someone to look at my defense there, because I really thought I was doing it right. Might have had half a pass at one point. Felt like I was always half a step behind again.
On the wall for single legs and alligators. (Maybe one more? Don’t remember.) Then circled up for sit-ups to finish it out.
Big Jesse wanted to do some APC, a version of mini-Cindy. Me, Will, and Justin joined him. 3 pullups, 6 pushups, 9 kettlebells swings, 5 minutes x 3 (1 min break), for rounds. (We just got a new set of kettlebells, so there are a bunch of 20-lbs ones. I used one of those. Justin used the 52+-lb one.) I lost track of rounds real fast, though I know I was going slow. Might have had 5 rounds per 5 min segment, but maybe even less by the last one. I was very tired very quickly.
I’ll trade you a submission for an escape November 6, 2009
Posted by leslie in Training Log.Tags: DArce, flow, nogi, Open Mat
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Sometimes I read the “search engine terms” that WordPress gives me — a list of things people searched for and then clicked on a link to me from — and I wonder 1) who was looking for that, 2) how’d it direct to me, and 3) what else did they find?!
Not too many of us there today, and the first four were already paired up and going when I got there. So I just warmed up and stretched until Buddy #1 got there and was ready to go. Got to roll with him twice (really, once with a ~5 min break in the middle), and both times for a good long while, maybe 45 minutes total. We played! Fast-paced and fun. I had some good escapes and passes in there, and some good moments of getting to top and even sprawling well. Also got caught in a lot of D’Arces, among other things (triangles, arm triangles, a RNC). But he said at one point that he’d just really gotten the D’Arce down and so was taking every opportunity to work it.
I was still underneath a lot, but I was really, really working my escapes, mostly turning in for the single leg, which he was giving up for the chance at the D’Arce. He turtled for me several times; I kept trying to work the Peruvian necktie, I don’t know why, but never really had it well enough to try to finish. Should ought to have tried to take his back, but didn’t think of it. And I even had a couple of pretty good elevator sweeps, though he wasn’t defending them too hard. Oo, and I fixed a hole in my basic guard passes that I’d noticed the other night, finally getting my head in the right place. Lots of little things that I was very happy with.
Also worked the von Flue guillotine defense. He caught that guillotine tight, though his guard wasn’t quite closed, so I thought, Well, I can at least practice the defense for a second or two until he finishes it. I could get my arm around to his back, but my shoulder was nowhere near his neck: my elbow was just over his shoulder; but I went through the motions anyway. And then he let me out and we went on until he caught me in something else. When we reset, he said that had been a good guillotine defense; I asked if it had really worked, because I was so far away from his neck that it seemed as if I had no pressure. He said that yes, that all that pressure had been in one spot on his chest and had kept him from being able to finish. (Unspoken: without resorting to extra strength.) So, add that back in the arsenal. I’d set it aside for cases in which my shoulder would reach their neck, but now it appears to work without that. Not that I’m gonna go around looking for guillotines to stick my neck into to practice…
Just a really fun “this is why I do jiu-jitsu” kind of day. Yay!
I’m watching my weight November 5, 2009
Posted by leslie in Training Log.Tags: back mount, escape, flow, nogi, RNC
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and it’s going up, and up, and up…
Currently, I’m out of my weight class. Usually I’m toward the middle or low end. I’m at nearly the same weight I was when I started jiu-jitsu, and it’s not that I put back on muscle. Part is just water retention from all the chicken noodle sodium soup last week when I was sick. And Thanksgiving is between me and Sub Only VI. And my manager’s wife bakes. A lot. And sends it to work. And we’re going out to eat a lot since we have remote workers in the office the last three weeks.
Oh dear.
So… I guess I need to cut hard for Thanksgiving 
so I can not worry too much, and then Sub Only VI the following week. (And then US Grappling is switching to IBBJF weight classes next year, so I’ll have to aim even lower.)
New guys are just silly. What is it, some ego thing? Why the need to “prove” that you know jiu-jitsu? You don’t; you’ve never been on the mat before. So why this need to “impress” everyone? All you end up doing is ticking everyone off because you’re being rude and intentionally trying to injure people, and so they’ll stop rolling nice and introduce you to the not-so-gentle side of the gentle art.
I just don’t understand.
Medium size class. One visiting guy (salesman, I think, so he travels a lot; he’s been here before. Brown belt in judo apparently, and Tim said after class that he’d be a blue belt if he could ever stay anywhere long enough to get it awarded). One idiot new guy.
Warmup. *le sigh* What is wrong with me? I can’t breathe. There were knee-to-chest jumps. And then burpees. (Hmm, that might explain it.) So slow. Missed many reps on down the mat drills.
To rolling. Big Jesse first. I think I did something right that I was happy about, but I forgot what it was. Pooh. Felt as if I was moving okay. Was trying to stay on top when we started, though once I get under him it’s tough to get out. Not only is he much bigger, but he’s also good and tight.
Then Steve, who I’ve been meaning to roll with for a few weeks. The last time we rolled, I was surprised at how good his technique had become, and I wanted to make sure it wasn’t a fluke. He’s closer to my size (I think, though I’m terrible with guessing) so it would be great if I could get a good training partner. And it was no fluke — technique, no muscling, hurray! … Well, rats, I know I was thinking during my rolls tonight, and I was acting and reacting and I knew what I was doing… but I can’t remember any of it now. Oh, well. At least I know I have a good training partner. (He did bellyflop on my ribs once, which knocked the wind out of me for a moment, though he paused and apologized and let me catch my breath. Then right back to it. I appreciate a partner who is paying enough attention to know he just potentially hurt me and who pauses to check instead of taking advantage of the moment and ripping off my arm.)
Then we did some positional rolling. Justin had been talking to Tim before class and saying that he’s started letting guys take his back so he can work escaping from there, since no one can get there unless he lets them, and he was now remembering how hard it is to defend and escape from there. So we worked that. One partner sat up; the other put both hooks in and started over/under (seatbelt grip, maybe? I dunno the name). In front had to defend/escape; on the back, to submit.
Worked with Steve, Yoshi, and Adam. I managed one escape over all 3 rounds. Got caught multiple times with everyone, and never managed a submission of my own; they got away lots.
More rolling. Started with Jesse again. And remember nothing. Again. I think I had some moments where my hips moved well. And again fighting to top and to maintain it, though it was shortlived. Oh, and I hit several single-under passes! All night long! And only one ended in a triangle (here, against Jesse).
Then got stuck with the guy who injured my ribs. Fabulous. But he was focused on trying to get X-guard from all the wrong ways, so it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been, and I did get several passes and to top for a good portion of the round. I thought at first he was trying some 50/50 variation or maybe some funky Eddie Bravo stuff (this guy loves to watch stuff on the interwebs and then come try it out even though he still doesn’t have basic jiu-jitsu down); I had no idea what it was, but my knee and ankle wanted no part of it. He was trying to set it up with me in Sitting-Up Guard and him on his butt. Nothing doing. He laughed after he failed many times and told me what he was doing; I pointed out that his legs were backwards and that he probably needed to enter it from half guard, but he didn’t bother to change them.
Last roll with Steve again. Very similar to before. He doesn’t try to kill me if I get a sweep or a position. Huzzah! In a scramble, this time he elbowed me in the face; apology again; I said I was alright, but thanks for checking. (Must reinforce good behavior.) Quite an active round, too, and we were both escaping well. He also doesn’t Hulk out on me and actually does the proper escape. I think I might have managed to maintain top position for the majority of the round. Wowzer.
On the wall for single legs and alligators. Then circled up for running in place, with random sprawls and single legs as Tim called them out. Getting… tired… legs… so… heavy…
There was a lot of gurgling going on all night — no one seemed to want to tap to anyone. Even in the positional rolling, lots of guys holding their breath to avoid having to tap.
Pout: My car won’t be ready until next Tuesday or Wednesday.
On the bright side, that Charger is rather fun to drive.
Funny story, passed on from work (not us or any of our clients): So every time Company A started the system, there would be a couple of error messages about one particular component of the system. So they contacted the makers of that component and asked them to take a look. Company B came back and said they fixed the problem. So then when Company A started the system, hurray, no error messages. Except… it still didn’t work. Hmm. So Company A checks some more and finds out that the problem with the component is still there… Company B just removed the error messages…
*headdesk*
