Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Week of 6/26/12

Monday: I have been fighting a serious case of burnout. I don't know if it's from too much drinking on weekends, too much food, or maybe too much training, but I just felt like sitting on the couch.

Tuesday: Despite Mike's (and my own) recommendations, I decided to do both boxing and bjj today.

BOXING:
We jogged to warm up, maybe a round. Then we did circuits consisting of the double end bag (timing bag), jump rope, shadow box w/ weights, hitting the heavy bag, uppercut bag, and a round of mitts w/ Jamal. Each have their own 'goal'. timing bag is good for timing head motion, moving, attacking quickly and from different angles, heavy is for big body shots, heavy combos. And the uppercut bag is awesome because it spins and swings in big arcs, forcing you to use jabs and hooks and movement to get around it and control it. Mitts with Jamal is always difficult, because he pushes me to the limit of my concentration, doing combos I've never done before. Lots of double body shots, double jabs, jabs to hooks, long strings of 1-2's with head movement. A note about my jabs... I have the bad habit (I think always trying to do a 'falling jab' is to blame) of lifting my front foot and stepping with the jab, to make it stiff and heavy. Jamal kept swinging his right arm over the top, and slapping my head. He said that the jab is for range and once you're in range, it doesn't have to be used in a hard manner, just a space keeper.

BJJ:
more closed guard passing: open guard the same way as last week. as soon as guard breaks, put weight on the bottom leg, and try to get an upright 1/2 guard on that leg. As the guy tries to get his foot back in for a hook, UNDERHOOK his thigh, reaching for his belt. This nullifies that outside leg and hip. Sprawl and control to pass to the same side.

if he stops you by pressuring down w/ his thigh, reach deeper under his thigh to get the lapel, sprawl, trying to put his knee to his face, and go to other side of above pass.

if he stops you by putting a knee across your belly (I'm extremely guilty of this, and will fix it), just jam it down and hop over to the side.

if he stops you mid pass w/ a butterfly hook, using non belt grabbing hand - pop his knee, and therefor the hook out, and hop over to same side.

Raph talked about getting a competition team together. I'm obligated to be on it, I think. Both for myself, and for the gym. It's going to be good, and something to look forward to.

Wednesday: No juice to train, feeling pretty burned out. 187lbs AM weight

Thursday: BJJ
Keylock from mount; 2 on 1 grip, elbow bracing between hand and their head, other hand under, spread base out to stay stable, tuck elbow back in towards body (tightens it up big time), paint the floor with their fist, while lifting their elbow.

Kimura from guard: break grip (along lapel), 2 on 1, push arm away, grip wrist w/ same side hand, reach up and over (armpit to his shoulder), build grip, escape hips to the side that you control, pass that same leg over his back to control posture, pull arm taut, try to hide his arm behind his back.

if he defends Kimura by grabbing pants, drop that leg to trap him on that side, use that side arm to post on the mat, lift hips, and step over w/ far leg, sweeping to full mount

Guillotine from kimura/sweep: work the kimura, then if he commits to defending, release grip and pull guillotine.

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Week of 6/18/12

Monday: 189 lbs

MT: Knees and parry drills
combos: 1, 2, lk lk block step, rknee rknee
1,2,3 rk rk block lknee lknee
1,2,3, bob, weave, 2, 3 rk rk
1,2,3, bob, weave, 2,3,2, lk, lk
drilling: off jab, use right hand to parry, 'climb hands' left hand behind shoulder while stepping w/ right hand, and left knees to body
off cross, use left hand to parry, rt knees to body

Sparring was good today. Big Mike mentioned that my footwork gets me introuble quite a bit. So more shadow boxing w/ an eye for footwork and positioning. I'll also keep concentrating on that in sparring, as well as entering the clinch, and offbalancing/knees

Tuesday: 183lbs

BJJ:
arm drag:
cross collar, same side sleeve grip, open guard, trap legs to ground using opened guard. get 2on1 grip on sleeve, and opposite foot on hip. drive off that hip and escape hips to 2on1 side, as he pressures back, slip that foot off hip while pushing 2on1 away and post on that arm, keeping it on the mat. come to seatbelt grip, work the back.

collar choke from back:
from 2on1, reach around w/ near arm to under opposite arm, use close arm to open lapel, and grab w/ near arm, then grab w/ far arm the opposite lapel, pull to rear mount and finish, or work clock choke.

rolling:
We drilled open guard, I rolled like a bag of dicks. Very disappointed in my performance. Constantly getting swept from open guard. I think it's my shitty combat base or something. I need to watch some videos and figure out what I'm doing wrong. I got scissor swept like 5 times. fuck.

Wednesday: rested due to burnout feeling. Drank a lot of Gin and Tonics. Feltgoodman.

Thursday: BJJ
Opening guard: lapel hold, belt hold, elbows tight and in, knee in butt, other leg sprawled back and down, side w/ knee in butt should be side that has lapel hold, keep downward outward pressure on that hip/leg, turn hips away to increase pressure, pop guard open, keep good pressure on that bottom leg, pass a knee over, and get to 1/2 guard or side control.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_fcJi04vYk this isn't what we did, but I need to study it.


1/2 guard pass: from gable grip behind head w/ underhook on far side: pass near arm over body, under his far armpit, switch hips to face away, drive his legs down as you shimmy your knee out. if possible, get ankle out and get full mount. If you get stuck, turn hips back towards his face while scooping far elbow up, and gable grip around his head and arm, sticking yourself to him and nullifying his arm. Use free leg to help pry ankle free.

nogi:
opening guard: staggered arms, keep hips on ground, knee in butt, other leg open like a door, pry that leg down on the side of 'open' leg, get center leg up

pass: if he goes to butterfly hooks, push hook in, and step around to foot up in middle, use that center knee to cut either across or to same side. get underhook on leg where it helps, keep peeled knee down and use that to step other leg over.

if he gets knee in: shove knee out of the way., go for underhook on far side to retain control.

The fight comes in from gaining the underhook, if bottom guy gets it, he can get to the back, if top guy gets it, he can flatten out bottom guy. That's the fight. Also, I can't be stalling in scrambles, I have to keep moving.

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Fusion MMA - Saturday No Gi.

I had the pleasure to go train with my buddy Sean B. at his home gym, Fusion Fitness and MMA in Marietta. http://fusionfitnessandmma.com/

It was a good time. The grappling class worked sweeps. I'll write more about the head instructor later, since I was really impressed with his teaching style and his patience with me and his ability to monitor the whole class and give pointers. He deals in frameworks and themes rather than a 'random moves of the day'. The teaching method is very much counter to the Brazilian way I'm accustomed to.

We worked sweeps this class:
Scissor sweep, wrist control, off balance forward (swim hands through and make him base out), get knee across belly, pull wrists away while scissoring, end up on top.

Bottom guy gets elbows in, and recomposes guard, then he sweeps.

If he bases, you can quickly switch the direction of the sweep by getting other knee in, etc., also can run subs off of this transition phase, triangles, arm bars, etc.

Stuffing this sweep: You have to kill the knee and hook that across your belly, sprawling and pinning that leg to the ground helps this. You can then walk around.

Sweep from open guard: feet on hips, shins on inside of biceps, if he bases, get a butterfly hook under that leg, bring weight on top, use hook to sweep to 1/2 guard.

Bump sweep- base off arm, attach other arm pit to his shoulder, lift hips, step over and sweep.

Did some shoots and double/singles, no knee stomp, but instead a good level change, and back of knee grab to finish. Good street safe takedown.

SITOUTS! off of a failed shot, if he sprawls, IMMEDIATELY base leg on side that your head is trapped, then step other leg under, sit out, apply head/ear pressure, get to top/back. Hook always goes on bottom side. I need to make this a standard part of my game. I can see this being super powerful and take away some of the fear of attempting take-downs.

Rolling with the instructor:
arm bar defense, grab own bicep w/ attacked arm, then use non attacked arm to hide behind the thigh to further lock it up.
Did wrong: putting leg up in his guard, where he could attack my legs (lack of leg locks bums me out in our school), didn't stagger arms when in his guard.
elbows tighter, keep knees tighter, think of it as guard on top, don't let elbows splay out, stagger hands in  his guard.
Needed to keep hips lower, follow his movement more, make a 'cross' sign out of myself. no space between hips and floor, nor between his body and my body.

Noted I was relaxed on the bottom and tensed up on the top. He recommended that I work a lot of sweeps and escapes to improve my top game.



Monday, June 11, 2012

week of 6/11/12

I'm going to try to do more 'writing' this week, rather than just record keeping. It's been an emotional month. First I found out that my wife was pregnant, then two weeks later, we thought she miscarried, then two weeks after that, we found out that she didn't miscarry, and was(is) still pregnant. Then my mentor and friend Paul Gomez passed away unexpectedly. On top of that all, it was also my friend's birthday, then my wives parents birthday, mothers day, soon father's day. So my (selfish) excuses have been piling up. It's hard to keep motivated, but I know the day is coming when I can't train regularly, so I keep pushing.


 So all that led to celebratory eating, emotional eating, drinking, staying up too late, and all sorts of dampers on my mental game. There were days that I wanted to just quit everything. I find myself losing interest in shooting in recent weeks. I don't know why I'm losing interest in that, I think it's just because I haven't gone to shoot for fun in so long. I need to go do an IDPA match soon. Relight that fire a bit.

AM weight - 189 (!!!)
Post MT weight 185 My diet has been shit for the last two months. It was a slow gain back to 185ish, but I know there's a few lbs of fat in there. I'm going to do some subtle meal composition tweaks in addition to IF to try to bring it back in range.

MT: jump rope 3 rounds 20pushups/squats between, check to knees around the gym
1,2, lk, lk, block w/ left, step, 2x right knees
1,2,3, rk, rk, block w/ right, step 2x lft knees
mitts:
1, 2, slip, 6,7,3, 6, 7
sparring: positional sparring, boxing and clinch range only. AWESOME. I suck at this, and need tons of work on the entry, and on the clinch itself. I asked Anthony if we could work it, and he said he would work us in.

BJJ: Bump sweep- bump, trap arm/ trap same leg, bump again.

armbar from mount (Rickson armbar) - put pressure, as guy pushes off, plant one hand around arm and other hand inside. put weight into hands and lift hips. swing leg around and finish

variation - go inside w/ throat pressure, as he resists and reaches for the defense, plant other hand, spin, and finish.

choke from side control - as he pressures w/ hand on your throat, get lapel out, feed to headhold hand, pop to knee on belly, reach w/ other hand inside (palm up), turn hand over and down, while lifting w/ headhold hand, and go to N/S to finish.

Rolling was good, the guys who have recently arrived are easy to sweep and choke. B. and JR. are my only skilled opponents now, but luckily, I think they're both better than me. That's my gain.

MT:
Warmup was beast. 3m round rope, 20/20, x3 rounds. Combos for one round, yellow sash 1 and 2, second Combos, block, knee, block step knee.
Same combos as monday. on pads and mitts
sparring
abs; vertical scissors, out and up, situps, crunches, squat hop thingies.

BJJ:
cross collar chokes. small finger sleeve grips. trap arm between leg and with a tight grip, then reach across with other arm for deep cross lapel hold, switch hips, use same leg as the arm that's gripping to climb back and offbalance to get angle for other grip. Can grab a bunch of fabric, and finish. OR you can slide thumb under lapel, and finish.

scissor sweep. same grips as before, cross collar and sleeve, escape hips, and either use shin across belly, or swing leg over while chopping base on far side. or the stomp the knee variation.

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Week of 6/4/12

Monday:
MT: muay khaw (sp?). The forward driving style. Lots of forward checks to knees. A forward pressure.
combos:
1,2,3, rt kicks, block, step through, 2x left kicks
1,2 lt kicks, block, step, 2x rt kicks

Tuesday:
BJJ: Raph is back. Douglas is gone to teach at his own gym.
We worked arm bar setups and variations.
Standard arm bar: control sleeve, cross grip at elbow. foot on hip, trapping the attacked arm. use other leg to off set balance and pull over opponent. use foot on hip to pass over and attack arm.

Sneakier setup:
cuff control, put foot down to block base on trapped arm side,  and knee control on other side (either gi or knee). Use pant control to help get hips out and swing leg over head while pulling sleeve controlled arm across body.

Sweep from same grips:
instead of pulling the sleeve across body, or if it slips out, you can pull the sleeve up and away, and use the off-balancing leg to sweep, end up on top.

If you lose control of that sleeve, and he bases using that arm. use whatever grips you can get to push him off balance in that direction of travel. There are omaplatas, escapes, back takes, arm bars and lots of stuff available.

Wednesday: 183#
no MT for me. Rested and relaxed w/ mom to be.

Thursday: BJJ
side control escape: put elbow across throat and on shoulder, and bridge to make space, shrimp, get hook in, recompose.

Side control top, when guy does above move, sneak his lapel out of his belt, and pass it under his neck. grab bottom of lapel w/ bottom arm, shift weight forward, roll arm over, elbow down. then take a big step over his head, baseball bat choke (can grab own hand).

Some other choke from the same grip... I can't remember it, though.


No GI:
double/ single leg take downs- penetration step, put other foot BEHIND nearest leg to block base, head inside, grab both legs behind knees, lift legs and drive to side, take down.
single - same steup, head inside, grab leg, suck leg between your legs, apply Shoulder pressure to hip/leg, walk back and spin
escape from guard to guillotine, clinch head, escape hips, use outside arm to drive head to mat, until stiff armed, get up on other elbow then hand, escape hips, pass far leg back through to base, suck down into over under (arm in guillotine) grip, play top or suck back in for a guillotine.

escape from guard to sweep to mount - if leg gets stuck trying to get back through to base, just hip bump sweep and end in mount

escape from guard to ompalata. if guy tries to keep you in by hugging your hips, escape bottom leg and work the omaplata.



Saturday, May 26, 2012

Week of 5/28/12

No Gi on 5/26/12

Back techniques.
How to maintain back mount if guy tries to put his back on the ground, get underhook on bottom side and pull him back on top.

arm bar to recompose back mount drilling
Control arm that is nearest your underhook side, can go for armbar on that arm using kimura grip. Pass overhook side overhead and block head while getting kimura grip. get legs out and pass over for arm bar. If that fails, you can pull him back to center from that setup.

Sunday:
ran 4.7 miles

Monday: dead inside, rest day

Tuesday: 190!!!lbs in the AM

Boxing: warmed up and drilled for 1/2 an hour until my arms felt like they were going to fall off. Lots of jabbing. I clearly had too much alcohol and rich food over the last 2 weeks. I felt it tonight.

BJJ: LOTS of new guys, probably 15 in the class. We worked arm bars for technique. both the "arm trap, posture control, swing leg" variant, as well as the leg underhook more explosive variant.

Also we drilled for about 30 minutes, open guard, and I won 85% of the time or so. Lots of sweeps, and guard  passes. I felt good about this. I bonked during the rolls, but I blame all the wine I had yesterday on that.

MT: beast warmup, then 6 rounds of sparring. Emphasis on recovery of heart rate. I also got outboxed by a few guys, but was proud that a few of the times I was getting flurried, I punched back. And the result was good, as guy ran into my jab and his flurry stopped. Lesson learned on that.

Learned how to throw a jab without stepping forward. Just lift front foot, and pop w/ rear foot. Also, a note on movement and being ready to strike back... keep rear foot toes pointed at opponent, and keep rear leg stiff. You can pop back off that stiff leg very quickly. Concentrated on rolling shoulder and pulilng it away. Anthony really stresses this.

BJJ: duck under from guard. same side sleeve grab, use legs and grip to tug back and and across your body, while swimming loose hand under that arm, and grab that belt or back, escape hips while keeping the underbody hook behind leg, swing over and get other hook

arm drag from closed or open guard. same side sleeve, reach across and grab bi/tri and pull w/ that arm across body and scoot out and take back.

rolling was good. Pulled off some moves I've been thinking about a lot. After reading the TPI thread about 'street smart' bjj stuff, the blood chokes were my goal, as were improving positions, and sweeps. Jr and I got our green belts tonight. 18 months. I didn't think I'd stick with it this long. I must be falling in love with the art.

Roufus' Gym in Milwaukee


I was visiting my grandmother in Milwaukee this week, and decided to pay a visit to Duke Roufus' gym and get a workout in. So I took the short drive up 76th street and found the spot.

The guy I talked to on the phone (can't recall his name), was super nice and accommodating. The front desk girl also was very professional and helped get me checked in.

I took their no-gi class. It was structured similarly to ours. Their warmups were the same for ALL classes. Run circles, shuffle in and out, leg cross side shuffle thing, and then 10 pushups/20 crunches/10 squats. This was much less conditioning work then I was used to. It was mostly just a warmup, I guess.

The no-gi class techniques were 1/2 guard passes.

recomposing guard from mount. Keep elbows in and tight, upa and get elbows between his legs, try to get on side, elbows as frame, hip escape, frame, hip escape, until you can trap an ankle and get him into 1/2 guard, or full.

first was a top position pass.
get bottom arm over torso, under armpit, switch hips so they're facing his feet, pop up, and insert bottom knee inside, use that knee to pry the trapped leg out. go to scarf hold, then switch back to proper side control.

kickboxing.

switch kick, check, switch kick, 3, 2, 3, rt kick was the final sequence we worked up to. It was definitely focused more on techniques than on perfect form. Roufus is clearly an awesome coach and has very good experience to share. The idea of this combo was play at outside range, quick kick to bait a counter kick so you can check and switch to kick again, then hop in for the hook, cross, hook, which sets up the rt kick nicely. He kept correcting that I was putting my left foot all the way back in preparation for another kick. He showed me that a good kicker would just kick my inside right leg constantly. I'm going to try it sparring on Monday and Wednesday and see how it works. I'm not a fan of tricky combos or anything, I prefer my attributes and ability to 'see' combos as a more valuable skill. But baiting a kick so you can counter kick is certainly a valid technique. He also mentioned that after throwing a hook, I am bringing my left arm all the way back to my chest before throwing my right leg. I think this is a training scar from waiting for pad holders to set for the kick. I am diffusing my power by unwinding myself after the hook. These two tips were worth the trip, imo. It would be fun to train a few months here, for sure.

The makeup of the students was certainly younger than Madhouse. My guess is most of those kids were 18-25 probably. It was quite full. Probably 30 people in the combined kickboxing classes. I loved seeing another approach to coaching and how the classes were structured. It was a good experience, for sure.