Fundamental Conditioning

November Homework

Pre-class food & drink:

• Avocado
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 10-oz water

During class notes:

• Still some burning in the quads after the pushup/alligator hybrid and squat jumps. Conditioning stuff just sucked all around, although I did not die like I did Monday morning. And then had recovered enough by Open Mat to (semi) keep up with Justin.

Fundamentals Class, nogi

Andrew decided to hate us tonight and kill us with conditioning drills. Warmup started normally. Then on the wall: alligators with pushups at the end, single legs, squat jumps with sprawls.

Then partnered up. One person started in guard & held on; the other stood up and lifted then. Did everything… er… timed? Dunno. Next, one person in guard; other stood up; one on the bottom then had to do a situp. (I nearly fell over every time Bobby did a situp.) Next, one person went on their hands and knees; other switched sides 3 times then slid in both hooks, all without using hands. Next, one on hands and knees; other person sat on their back, facing backwards, and put their hooks in (from the wrong side, so it was kinda odd), and then did negative situps over their partners’ head. Surprisingly, that hurt a lot, and being on the bottom was worse because when they dug their hooks in as they sat back, you had to tighten your lower body to keep from being pushed away, and your arms had to stay tight and bracing, too. When Bobby finished his first set, it took me a bit to get my body out of that position!

Finally (finally!) finished and moved in to drilling for the rest of class. Plan B sweep from half guard. Drilled with Bobby.

Open Mat

No one extra showed up for Open Mat. I got to roll with Justin. He alternated between letting me play and crushing me. Quite fun.

NaNoWriMo

No change since this morning.

Well, that wasn’t as bad as I expected

On May 31st, I’ll close on my house. 🙂

So I woke up this morning a year older. Turning 29 was rough because my head kept rounding up. Turning 30 was Ohemgee, I’m old now! This morning was, Eh, not as bad as I expected.

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Finally, after a week in which I did nothing but eat myself into the next weight class, I was able to get back to class. I’m still on antibiotics for a few more days, but the rash part is gone so at least I can train again. I ran around like a chicken with its head cut off yesterday morning, trying to remember everything I needed to do to be ready for class. Did get it all together (though I nearly forgot half of it today, doh).

And to everyone who has suggested in recent months that I take some time off: okay, you win, you were right. I feel rested, I feel better. I’ll promptly forget that I said that, though, and will be just as stubborn next time. 😉

Had a chiropractic appointment after work. Shoulders were still giving me sputters of contrariness last week, but I’m sure the rest did them good.

I stopped off before class and ran in to Tim. He promised that class would be hard. Great. My first night back, and he’s gonna kill us… So not ready for this…

After I got dressed for class, I stood there in the locker room for a last check, knowing that I was forgetting something important but unable to figure out what. Finally: Belt! Right. Need that.

Class started with a real-live warm up. Oi. Jogging, high knees, heels back, bear crawls. Circled up: jumping jacks and burpees. Then several technical movement exercises (that don’t have names, so far as I know). On the wall: alligators down the mat with 5 burpees at either end. (Lots of alligators. My shoulders did not like. Neither did my quads.) Then lunge jump/switches down the mat (except we weren’t supposed to move forward? I had a million troubles with these.) That may have been all there was there; may not. Lots of little muscles were in agony, and my throat was raw from unexpected heavy breathing.

Paired up next for grip fighting. With Theresa for a few rounds and then Guillaume for one.

Then Tim grouped us up for round-robin rolling. With Theresa and Guillaume. I have no idea how many rounds we went, but it felt like a lot; Tim said it was about 45 minutes total. Theresa’s new orange belt has come with a large dose of vim and vigor. 😛

My body was not pleased at having to move so much and told me more than once that it missed sitting at home in front of the TV. Yeah, is too bad; not doing that now. Several times I went nearly entirely blank on this “rolling around on the floor” thing, yet at other times my brain & body made a connection that they’ve struggled with before.

On the wall again. (!!) Wall sits. I thought I was doing okay with those — and was surprised by that — but then when I tried to move afterwards, my legs were stuck. Oh. Heh. Then it was holding the “down” pushup position, which was not something my body could do for more than half a second. Ugh. Then a lunge hold/stretch/owie thingy that reminded me quite a bit (in all the painful ways) of a TKD front stance, and finally a short stretching session to end.

This morning, my joints are complaining. Muscles will follow by tomorrow, I’m sure…

Thursday, September 16, 2010

I forgot last night, I got the Galvao roll warming up! But he says it’s a 360-degree roll. I can only get 90 degrees. Hmm. And then I tried it again tonight, and couldn’t figure it out again. Doh.

I got about 30 minutes of loosening up and drills. Pulled BOB down and tried to drill armbars from mount on him, but it doesn’t work too well because he doesn’t have arms… And I kept landing on his shoulder stubs, which meant I couldn’t sit on the mat, which meant I kept pitching backwards. Oh, well, we’ll just pretend he’s trying to stack. Also did some knee-on-belly switching drills on him, and then some on the heavy bag using no hands.

Justin had to miss last night because of work, so he came in early tonight and wanted to roll. Thirty minutes of getting my butt kicked all over the cage. Awesome! 🙂 He let me set the pace, mostly, so we worked slower until we were warm, and then the last five or ten minutes were a bit faster.You know it’s a good roll when you can even have fun tapping. He let me work some passing the guard and half guard, knee-smash style, and then a bit on top. My base isn’t in the right place, though, because he could easily stiff-arm me and roll me off. Happened a couple of times, and I couldn’t quite figure it out. I got him in guard once on a restart; he postured up so I went for a bump sweep, only he wouldn’t let my arm come over, so I slid it on the far side of his neck and bumped anyway; when he posted back to stop the sweep, I went for the triangle Adam showed during morning classes a few months ago. He immediately postured up and I didn’t have a shot at finishing it, but he started laughing and laughing — he’d done that to me just a week or two ago. I like when I can remember things, even if I can’t quite do them yet. 😛

(Lots of smiley faces already. I had fun tonight. I don’t think I’ve had fun in a while…)

Then class. Warmup. Geez, oh Pete, I’m exhausted. Absolutely no energy. This is going to be a problem. At work today, we went out for an Italian buffet — nothing but carbs. My poor body didn’t have a chance; it’s not used to being overloaded like that. I had to drop to only one run on everything about halfway through. Weak sauce…

Partnered up to roll. With Theresa first. I’ve been trying all week to let her practice that armbar from mount, but I always end up getting myself to mount. Doh. Not too bright sometimes, eh? Tonight I finally managed to get her in mount, though it took getting a little stiffer on defense when she got to knee-on-belly; she likes that far-side armbar and will dig after that thing.

Then a round with a co-worker of Justin’s, Vitali (?). Seems like a nice guy, but he wanted to rip my head off. Meh. Strong, too, and intent on grabbing and squeezing. So I let him squeeze until he had to relax his arms for a moment, and then I’d move out. Figured out quickly that the bottom was no place to be, and so spent most of the round in mount. Hit the spinning armbar from there once. Came close to a few more armbars and triangles, but he was Hulking out on me (just the flexing and trying to crush me parts, not the full-on rage stage). Caught quite a few fingers and elbows to the face. *le sigh*

Drilling was a different side control escape that went through deep half. But my brain failed on deep half. I could get there, and then couldn’t for anything follow what Tim had shown or figure out how to sweep any other way. Brain went blank.

One more round, with Big John. Also fun. 😀 He got married back in July and has only recently started getting back in; and even he has said that he’s going too hard. But I figured he’d remember how to slow down if I rolled with him, and he did. We spent the first few minutes trading single legs from side control and deep half transitions, lol. (He said during drilling that he was rather annoyed that no one had ever shown him this before. He already likes it.) Then he worked around to my back, and I was defending for a good while. He rolled me over to flatten me out but crossed his ankles as he did, and I managed to catch that and finish it before he could choke me. We went back to trading side control and deep half transitions until Tim called out, “Three minutes!” Then he started cranking up the intensity. I had a moment of “Whoa!” because I’d forgotten how quick he is and heavy his pressure can be, but then caught back up and tried to match him. (Not that it worked too well — I was mostly just along for the ride, lol.)

I’d already planned to do kettlebell swings after class, and some of the guys stuck around and did some, too. I did 7 x 10 with the 20-lb kettlebell. (I thought it was 25 lbs. Not right.) I was a little stiff and sore today from the ones on Tuesday night.

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Hillary Williams posted today about collecting gis to take the Brazil.

I think I had something else to say, but I’m yawning and my eyes are trying to close on their own. So, must be time for bed.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

I got to go see Dr. Tom tonight, hurrah! He had them e-stim my middle back, which felt great.

At class, I did some more loosening drills. I’m still trying to work out how to do the very first drill in Galvao’s Drill to Win: it looks like it should be just like a Granby roll but starting from the knees, but somehow when I’m on my knees trying to do it, my brain and body go, “Huh, wha–?” Bah. The leg swing drill hurts my middle back so badly. I thought that I was doing them wrong by making such a big arch to avoid bending my back too much, but when I checked out the book for the former drill, I noticed that Galvao does make it a big movement. So, good. I got a few other solo drills in, and then Perry joined me in the cage. We drilled the armbar from mount, the side control escape, and the choke from yesterday a couple of times each. I was doing a little better with my technique tonight.

Small class tonight. I think everyone got worn out last night. Starting with rolling. With Theresa. Then drilling — armbar from mount and side control escape. Will was coming around to help, and he let me drill the armbar on him a few times. And I could actually drill the side control escape with Theresa, though not against any appreciable pressure.

Two more rounds of rolling. With Theresa first, and then Will let me roll with him. He let me make lots of tactical errors, capitalized enough to remind me why I shouldn’t have done that, and then let me work myself at least out of immediate danger (which was usually followed by another tactical error, doh).

I did some APC. I have almost until Yoshi’s next fight to get back in at least basic shape before Tim takes over my tournament conditioning. Eep. I’ve been putting it off because my back, knee, shoulder, and toe haven’t quit hurting. They still haven’t — and I even had to wear my knee brace again tonight during class — but I don’t think I can wait on them much longer. Did 5 rounds of 10 kettlebells (25lbs) and 5 pushups. Starting small. The pushups especially hurt my middle back, and I had to take a break between the later rounds to stretch and loosen it up.

And some more funnies from this weekend:

1. After Yoshi beat his guy and had come out and was sitting with us, the guy and his coach (?) came over and started talking to Yoshi. “I’ve never seen anything like that,” said his coach over and over again. And then the guy followed Yoshi around the rest of the night and wanted to be his best friend.

2. Tim and Scott were heading backstage at some point later in the fights, and they ran into a kid who had fought as an independent out of Christiansburg, the town where our school is located. It’s a small town. They start talking to him about his fight, and then he noticed their shirts, which both had the Team Mannon logo on the front.

“Oh,” says the guy, “ya’ll train there. Yeah, I tried to train there, but I talked to that there fella–” pointing again to the logo–” and he said the class was all full.”

“Really?” said Tim. “You talked to Tim Mannon, and he said that?”

“Yeah,” said the kid.

“That’s funny,” said Tim, “because I’m Tim Mannon, and I’ve never said that to anyone. You should come by and train with us. We’ve got plenty of room.”

Busted…

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Lots of new guys tonight, some returning. Lots of guys total, even with several going off to work in the cage.

Warmup — jogging, knees up, heels up, turning in, turning out, two in/two out, bear crawls. Circled up for jumping jacks, lunges, squats, mountain climbers/pushups. Two short rounds of rolling, with Theresa and with Will. Will found my waving feet again. And despite injuring his knee such a short time ago, he was twisting his knees all around every which way. That just looks painful to me, and I know my formerly injured (and sometimes still tweaky) knee wouldn’t like it at all.

Drilling, same as last night. Theresa asked at some point if I could really, if I wanted to, move my arms and get out; I said yes, and demonstrated by pushing straight up even when she had her weight on them. Oh. Then she asked if I could, if I wanted to, pick her up at any point during a roll and move her (I’d done it when we rolled earlier to avoid some all-over-the-place wrestler types who were rapidly covering distance in our direction). I said yes, but that I only do it if I think someone around us might spazz and land on top of us, so then I’ll get a good hold on her and move her. Then she asked what spazzing meant, lol.

On the wall. Lots of stuff. Let’s see: bear crawls, squat jumps, forward rolls, crab walk feet first, crab walk hands first, alligators. Circled up — 30 burpees each and done. (Psst, dude — when each of my burpees is faster than yours, and I’m not shaking my legs out between them, and then you “finish” before me… Tsk tsk.)

I’m off tomorrow and Saturday for my sister’s wedding. The academy is closed on Monday, but hopefully someone will show up anyway and I can get at least a little bit of training in. I’ll probably be ready to choke someone out by then. (Although, considering the usual suspects for bonus training days, I’ll be the one getting choked. Still, would probably be therapeutic, too.)

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Lots of links:

Check out Jiu Jitsu Links, which is (unsurprisingly) a page of links to all thing jiu-jitsu.

Hey, look: it’s Elyse in a video about her women’s class.

Also, I’ve found several new blogs and have added them to my Blogroll page. Eventually I’ll get the ones marked “New” integrated with the rest of the bunch…