wildernessVoice

I feel as if my training has gone back a couple of months. I had a good training day on Monday and felt pretty good. Sickness set in rapidly on Tuesday and I found myself taking several days off.

I managed to get into the gym yesterday to train arms. Man! I felt so weak, it was pathetic. My energy level is pretty much at zero right now. Despite that, I’m gonna attempt to hit my legs and shoulders in a few minutes. And if all goes well, I may even go to the Fundamentals class at noon.

I suppose one piece of good news is that I weighed in this morning at 195 lb. again. So at least I’m consistent that way. What’s especially good is if I can get back to hitting the cardio hard in Jiu Jitsu, I should be able to at least drop another pound. I’ve been feeling so fat lately that I thought for sure my weight had spiked back up to 198 lb. or something like that. So this was encouraging.

However, I still have 5 lb. to lose and less than a month to do it in. Even at a pound a week, it’s gonna be a close one.

And I won’t get much training in this next week either. I’m literally traveling every day except for Thursday. Traveling always puts weight on me for some reason, no matter how little I think I might be eating. At least the hotel I’ll be staying at on Tuesday has a fitness center. I usually don’t use them. But I’ll force myself in this case.

When I hit San Diego on Friday, I know there will be some good BJJ schools around. Specifically, there is a Gracie Barra school in Temecula. I have never trained in a school other than the one I am actually a member of. For me, this will be a huge step, much like my first competition was. I tend to get very self-conscious and am sure I will find numerous reasons not to train. But with competitions right around the corner, I do not wish to fuel the excuses for not doing well.

So this week, will be focused on not going backwards. It’s gonna be grueling for sure.

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BJJ, darkhorse, gracie barra, mike young

July

Grappling-X in Denver, July 11th

Fight to Win Nationals in Denver, July 24th

RMBJJF National Cup in Denver, October 16th

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BJJ, mike young, tournaments

Last night we worked on a new submission from the top of half guard. In the position, it feels a lot like you’re in side control, except one of your legs is tied up.

To get in the position, lay cross body against your opponent. When I was on the bottom of this position, I found myself with somewhat of a side control defensive posture. In other words, one hand was on the hip and the other was near the armpit.

You’ll need to make sure you’re applying good hip pressure with the side that’s closest to his head, not the side closest to the legs. And you’ll want to drive your elbow to the mat, preferably so his arm is on the outside. You want to get it in between his body and his arm.

Once you’ve got your arm in place and you’re applying good hip pressure, put your other hand on his hip. You’re going to press against his hip at the same time you drive your opposite elbow back towards his head. The closer your elbow is to his elbow, the easier it will be to move his arm.

As you move his arm back, it will get weaker and weaker and quite uncomfortable. The tendency will be for the arm to try to go to the opposite side in order to relieve some of the pressure.

Once the arm’s back, use this opportunity to get your knee up and above your opponent’s half guard. You don’t have to get the foot untrapped. You simply need to have it so it won’t get stuck.

Now, drive his arm all the way back until you can wrap his neck from the inside. Don’t wrap it from the outside or reverse wrap. This is the same kind of wrap you would do from side control or if you were trying to control the head normally from half guard.

At this point, his head should be wrapped and his arm draped across his throat like for an arm triangle.

Now, rotate your hips so that your freed knee can drive to the mat. This should leave you in a 3/4 mount position. You can try to free your foot for the full mount. But 3/4 mount works just fine as well.

With your wrapping arm, reach for your opposite bicep as you close your choke and tighten. I like to take my hand and start wrapping back toward his face to really tighten this choke.

This was really a fun and effective choke to learn, but in live training, I couldn’t land it a single time. This is probably because everyone knew what was coming.

Your opponent might very well do everything possible to avoid letting his arm get trapped like this. If he does so, he will very likely release the half guard. Or he may turn into you. Either way, be ready for it and take advantage of getting the mount or taking the back.

During our up, down and out training, I couldn’t win a single position from top or bottom. It was a tough night last night. After class, however, I did do some rolling and that was a different story. We literally rolled all over the mat during one session. I regard my partner as really good with his technique and flexibility. He also has really good cardio. The match went long enough that he eventually called it quits to rest. This was a huge accomplishment for me. But in his defense, he was also rolling with one of the other guys quite a bit before letting me in.

My buddy sort of jumped me from behind to start off round 2, which was fine. I’d rather have him do that than have us both start from knees. I never seem to win the initial position anyway.

I wish I could give a replay account of what he did and how I reacted. We tried to show Professor Jubera, but could never reproduce the positions or moves. In the end, he was face down, in some form of side head lock. But he wasn’t facing me. We were both facing the same direction. Eventually, I got the tap as I drove his face into the mat while tightening the choke. I’m pretty sure it was more of a crank than a choke. At one point, it felt really tight as he turned the wrong way and I felt my arm slip underneath his chin.

That was pretty much it. Too few guys after class to get more rolling in. I had to wait a while to get these two sessions in.

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BJJ, choke, dark horse, half guard, jubera, mike young

Yesterday was off to a rough start. Had a shipment that needed to go out via UPS and so I went to the UPS Store near my BJJ school. I figured I’d go to my Saturday noon class. Well, I managed to find a guy with an incredible chip on his shoulder, the moment I stepped through the door.

To make a long story short, I ended up driving 30 minutes the opposite direction to the only other UPS Store in the area. By the time I got back to the school, class was over. So I decided to take advantage of open mat time.

Had a really good time working on some different techniques with one of the guys who got his 2nd stripe the same time I did. Most of the time, when I train, I have really solid blue belts or purple belts to train with. It’s not a bad time to work on my defenses and a possible escape, pass or such. But it’s hard to try anything more dominant because they seem to know what I’m going to do before I do.

We didn’t start from knees or anything like that. Just did some positional training. To kick things off, I started off in his closed guard.

Needless to say, I began by trying to frustrate him with my double kickstand to keep him from posturing or rotate his hips. I had no intention of staying in this position long term. I simply wanted to setup a natural transition for the under hook and arm wrap.

I seem to be working out the kinks in my Tozi pass and getting more efficient at it. The first time I tried it, I noticed I was once again having problems with my partner rotating with me as I walked my feet around in a circle. So I concentrated a little more on keeping his wrapped arm in once spot. And I tried something new. Since I was tripoded, I started to press my head against his to make it less desirable for him to turn into me. Together, these minor adjustments allowed me to flatten his leg so I could switch my hips.

At this point, passing his guard was pretty easy and I found myself in side control. We did this a few times and each time seemed to get more efficient for me. That was quite encouraging.

One of the things that I need to work on more is what to do once I pass his guard. Each time I passed, I found myself in a very dominant position with a sort of scarf hold position and with one arm trapped under my bottom leg.  I say it was dominant because he simply could not get me off him. And I was able to maintain the position with very little effort.

The downside of this position was that I couldn’t figure out a decent submission without risking the loss of such control. I tried several times for different collar chokes, but none of them had decent tightness and for obvious reasons. I was essentially blocking my 2nd arm from coming in to assist the choke. So the collar simple rotated about his neck.

I could have gone north south on him or tried pulling my knees in to get me in better position. I do realize that, and I knew that at the time. We were doing 60% effort or so and I felt that I’d have to exert more effort if I tried something else. I didn’t want to risk injury to myself. And I felt it would be pretty bad form to tell him to roll light and then I go ballistic on him.

I did try to isolate either arm to setup for an arm bar. But he was good with his defenses and always looking for an opportunity. It was a good series. And he was a great partner.

I had some opportunities to train from the bottom of closed guard too. I was hoping to be more dominant and threatening than I was, but I still felt pretty good.

The first round, he started with a double kickstand and his grips tight on my belt, just like I like to do. I tried my grip break and it was very effective. I simply dug in 4 fingers into his sleeve, came under his arm with my same side arm and grabbed my wrist. I then quickly drove up and outward to weaken his thumb.  Immediately, I pulled his arm back across my body and then back outward and to the floor. I did this in hopes of confusing him.

I quickly postured up for the kimura and he defended well, but put his head down. So I didn’t hesitate to go for the guillotine.

While I had him wrapped up pretty tight and even got the tap, my guillotine continues to suck. The only reason he tapped was due to the crank I was applying. I hate hurting my partners so I go zero satisfaction from the submission. Perhaps if it were an actual match, I’d have been happy.

On a couple of other occasions, from bottom, I got two different sweeps. The first one was obtained by shifting my hips over one of his knees. I then planted a foot and then swept him with the other while landing in mount. It was the first time I ever tried that move and stuck it.

The other sweep was the back sweep. I let him stand up for his standing guard pass then I grabbed both ankles, dropped my hips, moved my knees together and then extended my legs. This had enough momentum to pull me up for the mount.

We tried doing some half guard work as well. I wanted to see if I could nail my entrance into deep half guard that I just wrote about. Instead, I got the sweep right away. So I just went with it.

After that, I had him sit so I could easily get into position so I could show him that cool counter I had learned a couple of days earlier.

It was really nice to roll with someone my level for a change. I have to admit that I get a little intimidated to roll with this guy. I’ve watched him with others and he’s good. He has good defense and technique for a white belt. And he can move fast when he wants to.

In many ways, rolling with the higher ranks offers me a lot more security. If I suck, I have a natural excuse. They’re a lot higher ranked than me. They’ve been rolling for a year plus longer than me. You get the idea.

And I know things shouldn’t be a competition when training with classmates. But that’s human nature. I tried to be a good partner by showing him different things that I had picked up, but with the caveat that he couldn’t use my tricks against me. We’ll see how well that goes.

Oh, I did try a new reversal from the bottom of mount. I postured up, grabbed my partner’s pant leg and then swept him over and landed in his closed guard. I nailed it the first time I did it and that was it. He knew how to avoid it on subsequent attempts and knew to attack my back. I later asked Professor Jubera for any tips on this move. His suggestion was to not use it. Some guys have gotten really good at this move. But it’s very easy to leave your back open for attack, as I found out that day.

All in all, I’m starting to feel really good about my training and my progress. I’m starting to notice those opportunities. I’m doing a much better job of playing my game, as opposed to reacting to my partner’s. And I’m getting a lot more submission attempts.

My technique still requires a lot of refinement, which is to be expected. And I am not finishing nearly enough submissions. This tells me that I’m probably rushing them and not doing a good enough job setting things up.

Regardless, I’ve been training for 9 months. I’m in no hurry and have no expectations on rank. Right now I’m a 2-stripe white belt. I just want to be the best at my current rank.

The professors have mentioned on several occasions that they will be graduating the guys in the advanced class and establishing a distinct intermediate and a distinct advanced class. I have mixed emotions about this. I really enjoy training with all of my more senior friends. And just like when I first joined, I’ll lose that opportunity in class.

At the same time, I like the idea of advancing my game. And to do that requires me to be able to be more assertive. I am taking advantage of open mat time to roll with others. Together, I should have a good foundation. Both of my professors are excited for me when it comes to the move. They’ve been doing this for a lot of years and I regard them to be nothing short of exceptional. I’m really lucky to be training under the two of them. And I simply need to trust them rather than feel as if I’m about to be set back.

You know how they say, be careful of what you ask for?  Well, being allowed into the advanced class been a blessing and a curse. I’ve learned a lot. But it’s been at the expense of drinking via a fire hose. And it’s been at the expense of increased injuries and being on the defensive.

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BJJ, closed guard, dark horse, grip break, guard pass, guillotine, jubera, kimura, mike young, tozi