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IronMan's Log

48K views 318 replies 33 participants last post by  IronMan 
#1 ·
I'm not the biggest fan of "blogging" but what the hell.

June 20, Combat day:

2 hours of freestyle grappling and takedowns practice. Also practice for groundnpound and for guard passes.
1 hour of boxing and clinch-striking, mostly knees.
Simulated fight: 3 rounds of 5 minutes each with the first 2 minutes of each round purely striking and the last 3 of takedowns and submissions.
1/2 hour submission training

Cooldown:

Bench press: 3 sets (each set 12 reps)
Kickpress: 3 sets
Shoulderpress: 1 set
300 situps
 
#289 ·
I think Ari Bolden's explanation is pretty good.

He doesn't get into this, but it's basically impossible to crank the neck, because the arm is in the choke. Any attempt to crank the neck isn't going to be that effective, because you're also going through the shoulder, which is much thicker than you'd need it to be in order to crank effectively. Usually neck cranks demand isolating the neck (you can see this in the case opener and versions of the twister that attack the neck).

It's really a choke. It just feels like you're cranking because there's so much space. between your arms and your chest (as opposed to, say, a guillotine or an anaconda, where you're using your chest as a part of closing off the choke). But it's really a head-and-arm choke that should get the tap.
 
#292 ·
Attacking the Armbar off of the Back

When I started training, I absolutely loved taking high-point positions. But as I've gotten more experienced, I've actually become disinclined to taking the mount and hanging onto the back. There are lots of positions I take the back from, but it's really not my favorite place to be.

More than anywhere else, I like to be in side control. I'm aggressive from side control and have an easy time maintaining the position.

Now, I don't mind being on the back, so when were working techniques and ultimately drilling from that position tonight, I was down, and it worked pretty well. I really don't like attacking from the mount, since most of my training partners are bigger and buck hard, so unless I get under the elbows into a really high position, I have to post my arms out and work slower than I'd like, and spend a lot of energy just holding the position.

That said, there's one part of controlling the back that I really like, and that's the feeling of popping the elbows out, establishing control with the underhooks, working the hips out and locking up the armbar. I'm a joint-lock guy (though I have a few chokes I love; the guillotine, the anaconda and the gogoplata) so attacking the armbar is just the natural attack.

I kept finding myself in the same position, over and over again, while I was attacking from the top, and that's a position that I've been seeing in judo a lot against turtled opponents, too.

When you've locked up the hammer lock (or whatever grip you like) on the armbar and are ready to swing your leg over the head finish the armbar, and your opponent bellies down, tries to hide their wrist, and leaves you with a position where you have to choose between (a) throwing the leg over the head and attempting to muscle out the armbar, (b) using the foot that will eventually go over the head to hook behind the head and force them to roll over and (c) bailing on the armbar and trying something else.

I did all three, though since the purpose of the drill was to submit from the back, there was a question about whether it was ok to actually switch once I had been rolled over. I don't much care about that, though it obviously matters for the purpose of the drill.

Option A (a.k.a. trying to be a big, strong guy)

I'm a small guy, and so I'm physically smaller than most of my training partners, and when I try and straighten the arm out, if I don't have the grip with my hips high on the tricept, with my knees close together, I tend to lose it. Now, that's made me pretty efficient at getting a very tight technique, but its worth mentioning that, unless you're really tough, this is not really a good approach.

Still, if you're going to do it, and you feel your opponent shrugging you off, adjust your grip on the arm so that you have a good position above the elbow, try to scramble your hips up to close to the shoulder, keep the feet curled in and pinch your knees. The one thing that I've drilled in armbars (though not at sparring speed, for the most part) is trying to maintain the high position on the arm without using my hands.

it's good to drill if you're just training with a friend. Lock in your armbar, make sure your position is good, then let go of the grip on the arm and try to maintain control of the position by curling your heels and pinching your knees. It engages the abs really well, and trains the legs for armbars and triangles.

If you can maintain the position, you can finish the armbar. That has to be priority #1 if you're just going to attempt to rip the arm loose and finish the match.

Plan B (a.k.a. the good idea)

Personally, I like trying to roll my opponent. It's really easy to just slip the arm over and take a traditional position that you'd get during an armbar attempt from the top, and though people often loose a little control of the arm, often you have a second to adjust during the roll so that the loss isn't substantial.

The one thing that almost all of my competitive opponents, in judo and BJJ, have tried to do from this position, is roll up on top before I slip the leg over. My realization has been that just turning it into a race can win a lot of the time. It's never going to be 100%.

My personal choice from this defense is to maintain a tight position on the arm and, as they roll up, go for what would be a belly-down armbar from the guard. Basically, I'm doing a gramby roll, maintaining the armbar position without the leg over the face (though, again, I have the option to swing the leg over for an armbar, as I do with the belly-down version; or I can hook the head and roll them again until I feel that I have a sufficient lead on them to lock up the armbar and finish). Usually rolling them once more is sufficient to ensure that they can't posture and follow you to their knees again. Often, just going to the belly down armbar is fast enough to ensure that they can't do anything.

Plan C a.k.a. not a real plan

There are a number of really good attacks from this position. Triangles work really well, though I don't particularly like them. I like trying to look for an inverted triangle when its there, and caught it once tonight. I also like moving to the triangle position and, often, since they're trying to bend the arm, you can force it into an omoplata, though against better guys that's a fight.

Or you can release the grip on the arm, turn the grip with the lower hand into an underhook and sprawl the legs back, though this one can get precarious if your fighting a wrestling. I love to bait the guillotine, so I particularly like this move, as I find I often get ridiculously high guard position after this move (they tend to reach for the legs and panic pretty hard.

Anyway, that's all for tonight.
 
#293 ·
One of Those Nights

I was amped going into class tonight, because Vernie, who teaches Tuesdays and Thursdays, told me ahead of time that we were going to work takedowns. Even though it was just double and single leg stuff (which is kinda boring) often that leads to standup sparring, which gives me a chance to throw people, which I love.

That didn't happen, but I did have my best night of rolling since I came back from the summer. I continue to learn new things about my body type, and the way that my build is changing as I continue to get older (turning 20 in September) and thicker. I'm not getting any taller, but I'm putting on some muscle in my legs and back, especially, which makes me really happy.

As I mentioned, I killed drilling today, which was an awesome feeling. Drilling from he closed guard is always rough for me. I have long legs for my size, but I have a lot of... well... fatter training partners that I can't really close my legs around. And I don't really like the closed guard much anyway, anymore, so I tend to go immediately to half, bail to my knees (since I'm good at working from the bottom of turtle) or go to a butterfly or X-guard style position.

Tonight, though, I didn't have any issues attacking from the closed guard. Jeremy Adkins, one of the brownbelts, who was teaching last night (since Eduardo is in Europe doing seminars) was taking requests and I managed to get him working on attacks from the closed guard off of the underhook, which is a good start for me.

But I was on point, which I haven't been for a while with my closed guard. My hips were coming up into the armpits just the way that they need to against bigger guys who try to stack me, and getting above the elbow near the shoulder for the armbar, and I'm finally getting the feel of the triangle back, as far as stuffing the arm for the setup. Once I get the position, I'm pretty good at finishing with either the triangle or the straight armbar (which I prefer to do by just straightening the arm over my thigh) or finding the omoplata against resilient opponents.

On top, I'm very patient, and try hard to keep the elbows in, chin tucked, back straight and all of the other fundamentals of a slow closed guard. The one thing I have trouble with is smashing bigger opponents without committing too much weight to their upper body. Still, the guards were opening for me, tonight, and one I get control of a leg, I usually secure the pass to side control easily. I get swept by one of my 200+ partners who sat up on me, but that was the only instance that night.

Moving to traditional sparring from the knees, where I'm more comfortable, I was pretty dominant. Very few of my training partners, even the bigger ones, stay on the knees with me very long. Most immediately look to pull a guard, which is fine with me.

There were a few guys who decided they wanted to test my clinch a little bit, since I'd been joking about it with some of the other, more experienced guys. In the opening of the round, I just let them lock heads and go to the over-under before throwing them with a lateral throw, a go-to for me. It's hard to get too judo-esque off of the knees, but I really will attempt the lateral from any position.

My first night hanging out with the club wrestling guys at Fresno, one of the army ROTC guys and I were rolling, and I threw him four times in a row with the lateral throw, and the coach (an Olympian in freestyle) called me over to show the technique. It's one of my proudest moments in my training.

Still, the night was a great one. I hit armbars on the big guys with ease, which is a new feeling, since I usually have to fight really hard to maintain control of the position. I can feel that I'm keeping my legs tighter and my hips are deeper, and my control of the arm is getting a lot better.

The other submission that I was finding a home for tonight is one that I had pretty much backed off of since I started judo, and that's the guillotine. I love it from the top of side control, since I can hit it as I transition to mount, flatten my opponent out and squeeze them like a tube of toothpaste. I like going to the butterfly position from the mount with the legs and trying to do a headstand while I apply pressure to the choke, it's a powerful move.

I caught it four times tonight, and only got turned over once, and managed to finish it from half-guard, transitioning to a butterfly hook with the inside leg to go back to butterfly.

What I realized was that my forearms are getting really big. Proportionally, they're big, and they're getting to the point where I can grab the neck and squeeze and if I get my grips deep enough, my opponent has to react really quickly or they're done. I think one of my projects for the fall is going back to basics on the chokes with my judo instructor and really mastering the use of the forearms on all of the chokes with the gi (and some without the gi).
 
#294 ·
Guillotines and Neckties in Judo

I realize it's been way to long since I posted on this log. It's not that I've given up training, it's just that my training has hit the backburner for a little while because of the research I've been doing the last few months.

But now that I've been getting back to work with Sensei Imamura and the rest of the Judo team, I've been revisiting the applied newaza a lot and thinking about ways to put people under in competition. Sensei has told me that competition in judo is something I should think about more seriously and whenever sensei Imamura tells me to do something, I do.

The last night at newaza, I tore it up. It's been a while since I gone into newaza with the intention of working a competition style game for judo, as opposed to being experimental and working on the stuff that I feel needs work to round out my game (like the inverted guard and faster butterfly and half guard sweeps; which have been an experimental focus for me lately).

There were two moves I found myself sinking on a few bigger training partners: Jeff (a blackbelt who outweighs me by about 30-40 pounds) and Kevin (an experienced whitebelt with some jiu-jitsu and wrestling experience who has about 50-60 pounds on me).

The first is the Peruvian necktie.

I've waffled a lot on how I feel about this move for a long time. I'm not really sure that it's a great submission in terms of reliability and I always worry about burning out my forearms on trying to maintain the grip only to lose control and end up in a horrible half guard position.

But the more I play with it in judo, I've realized that if I recognize that the most important factor is sinking the submission quickly, then the necktie is really a great move, because it is so fast and easy to lock up. Most opponents feel fairly comfortable in the front headlock position, so they don't fight that hard to break the grip as much as they try to grab the legs and put me on my back, and that's exactly the reaction that I like in fishing for the necktie.

Also, I've been finding that I have a lot of power in those forearms and I haven't really been in danger of burning out on the choke yet, which has given me a lot of confidence. I don't really lift weights anymore, so I'm always unsure of the upper body strength that I have, but since the necktie seems to revolve more on the pressure applied with the legs, its been just fine. Anyway, it's finally starting to work reliably for me.

The one I kept tapping Jeff with last night was a guillotine. Any time I put someone on their back, I instantly think about how Marcelinho controls the north south, controlling the neck, and the amount of times I sink a tight north-south choke or an awesome guillotine as they try to squirm out has really been surprising me.

The guillotine gets a lot of flack among the guys I train with as "not a very technical" move. Maybe it's not. But, in my experience, finding ways to set it up and learning how to finish it effectively has been one of the most rewarding areas of focus. Among judo guys and jiu-jitsu guys, I feel like the move is sold short, not because its ineffective, but because its something that you can slip on a bad wrestler even if you have no skill.

But landing the guillotine in newaza has been pretty devastating, and finishing from the top or from the bottom has given me a lot of options in terms of using my weight and always makes it a relevant thing to think about whenever I get my arm in position for it.

I remember watching Marcus Hicks use it in his run towards a WEC title and its stuck with me as a move that works so perfectly from so many positions (north south, side-control, the top of turtle, the guard, etc.). I'll probably keep talking about it as I keep messing around with it.

I've been trying to work on my reverse-triangles, but I'm still struggling with getting the angles just right in various positions. It doesn't seem to translate well from one position to another, or at least I haven't been able to figure it out yet, but it's always an ongoing project.
 
#295 ·
I've seen that Peruvian Neck-tie in a WEC fight and it was completely sick man.

I'd say if you can pull it off effectively focus on learning how to sink it as efficiently as you can.
 
#297 ·
Sorry for the slow response. I have to update this more.



It's actually not a move that gets pulled off very often because it is a little risky in the setup and does require some manuevering that is not preferable.

Personally, I don't dedicate a ton of time to it. But it's alright. It works effectively under some circumstances, so building the grip strength to finish it more easily has been a part of my training, but most of the time people will move to the guillotine and d'arce style moves instead.

Iron Man, if I'm not mistaken guillotine is banned in judo competition.
If it is, I haven't been called on it either in practice (where I use it all the time) and competition (where I've used it once).

I wouldn't be surprised, but it's not a rule I have heard of yet.
 
#299 ·
I haven't posted in this thread in a while, because I haven't been training. I was in judo as of basically the last entry (mid-to-late November) but then had to deal with finals and spent the new year in London.

I made the decision that, as much as I love training judo and working with Sensei Imamura, my mat work really needed more work.

One of my friends suggested a BJJ place that isn't too far away that I checked out. I went in to roll today after basically an entire month without working out and six months of not training in BJJ. I expected it to be painful, and it was. My cardio is awful and my technique is not as sharp as it used to be, but I'm still feeling pretty good about getting back into training.

We drilled (passing and maintaining control) individual positions (guard, then mount, then back control, then half guard) for short intervals, rotating partners, and by the time we got through half guard, I was burned out. I managed to get in a few open rolls, and those went fine.

My top control is still good, but my hip flexibility needs work and so does my aggressiveness while playing guard and working to pass. Hopefully that'll come back after a week or so.
 
#300 ·
300th Post

This is my 300th post in the training log, which is really more a testament to how long I've been on the forum. It doesn't say much about the quality of my jiu-jitsu, which I'll explain in a second.

Overall, I'm getting back in shape. I've been running and doing some weights, resentfully, but I feel really good. My abs are slowly coming back and my back and tricepts feel strong, and since those are the muscle groups that I use the most rolling (besides, obviously, my legs) I find that feeling good about the strength there is really important.

I went in to train today (and got set up with a payment plan which will leave me almost broke, but that's another story) and was working on half-guard with the instructor running the morning class, who's a purple belt and a terrific guy, as well as very knowledgeable.

We were working through basic techniques for taking the back and some basic passes, and I was happy to find that my ability to pass the half guard is actually still very good. I've always been hard on my guard passing, because I felt like as a smaller guy it was always going to take a back seat to playing off of my back, but the last months of training judo, especially, really taught me that the little guys can have aggressive, powerful topgames and effectively use closed body passes from the half-guard and crossface positions that I really thought were just not going to work for me.

We did a few variations on the standard passes establishing the underhook and the cross-face and then working the legs through to pass. I found those coming back to me really quickly, which was great given how terrible I felt at the last class while rolling. My ability to take the back from half-guard is not where I like it to be, but I was finding the substantial half-guard positions, with the hip out and the ability to locate sweeps, pretty easily.

During rolling, I felt pretty good also. I was working with some of the heavier whitebelts, which is always good for me when I'm getting back in, as it forces me to really use my techniques to deal with the power difference.

At one point, though, one of the instructors came over and corrected what I was doing while taking the back, pointing out that I hadn't established control of the hips well enough. This is the kind of stuff that drives me nuts, because I know that I know better, I know that it's not a mistake I should be making, and I know that it's something I've thought about a good deal both on and off the mat. I even posted about it in here not that long ago.

I was very frustrated with my own game, and realized that I wasn't doing a very good job protecting my neck from when I was one the bottom in half-guard. It's a habit that I thought I had gotten rid of, but apparently it's back. I made some adjustments and seem to have tamed it again, at least for now, but we'll see if it stays that way.

Overall, though, my rolling felt really good, especially after I got comfortable with my body again. I'm definitely not as flexible as I was when I left, which is really frustrating given that I had a few opportunities to catch omoplatas and even one chance to catch a mounted gogoplata where my leg was just not turning over the way I needed it to. Hopefully, though, the flexibility will come with time, since I know that at least those techniques are still something that my body is aware of.

My use of the triangle today was very good, and particularly surprising since it's a move that, while I'm reasonably good at it, I've never been able to really catch and hold on to as reliably as someone with my build is really supposed to. That said, I caught one of the back that was very, very slick, a reverse triangle that let me isolate the arm, and then I caught a textbook triangle from the guard. Against bigger opponents, especially who have wrestling experience, I'm always really happy when I can finish a triangle, even if it burns my legs out.

The best part of my game, though, was my guard passing. I was able to open the guard fairly easily and pass the open and half-guard better than I have been in a while. I don't know if that's the judo (though I think it probably it) but it feels very good and it's something that hopefully I will be able to keep doing.

This is my 300th post in the thread. I realized that it's also been about 4.5 years since I started the training log, which makes me really happy. I am so fortunate to have a place like MMAForum to talk about MMA and to log my thoughts. With that thought, I'm off to go get lunch. I've been trying to eat less, and it seems to be making me less hungry. I've also decided, since I've gotten back from London (where I had more beer than I'd like to admit) that I'll only be drinking water for a while.
 
#301 ·
There isn't that much to say today. I did fairly well during rolling. I was rolling with a bigger guy who has some experience but was getting back into training and I pretty thoroughly destroyed him. His cardio was pretty rough, which is what I usually expect when guys are just coming back. I didn't have serious problems passing his guard (my ability to pass the half-guard has really impressed me; I knew that I could usually kill the half-guard before, but I've been feeling really good about closing off the hip and locking my opponents in the cross face and finishing the pass) and that is reassuring, since it makes me feel like my game is slowly returning.

I was working with another guy, closer to my size, who is a competitive grappler, and caught him in a triangle position a few times, but couldn't quite finish it. I realize that I wasn't really effectively closing off the space by grabbing my own ankle and utilizing what I refer to as the collar, the control that the top leg lets you exercise over the posture of your opponent. It's very frustrating to not remember these things that were, for a while, reflexes for me. But it's like riding a bicycle, the higher belts keep reminding me, and it'll be back.

I was working with Jeff, a very largely and very technically skilled brownbelt who's game (and teaching style) I'm really coming to enjoy. I was having a little trouble closing off the hips after freeing my legs from the closed guard, when I was passing by stepping out of the guard and over the legs, and one of my issues is that I try to get around the arms of my opponent by turning my hips, moving side to side, rather than moving in and out.

What Jeff explained to me, and this was incredibly helpful, was that when my opponent was putting his hands on my hips to push me away and shrimp out, if I just backed up and collapsed the arm, it wasn't difficult from there to close off the hips and maintain a good side control. So, it's a thought, and something I'm going to keep working on.
 
#302 ·
Some Notes on the Half Guard

I've been training BJJ for a while now and one of the positions I've come to love and admire the most, largely because of my exposure to coaches who are really phenomenal at it, is the half guard.

I've had a lot of great guys work through the half guard and impart little gems of wisdom that I've puzzled over. Of all of the people who have influenced my half guard the most, though, I think the most significant is Jeremy Adkins (now a brown belt under Eduardo Rocha), who really taught me the ropes when it comes to weighting, setting up hooks and using the legs and hips to set up sweeps.

I'm not training with Jeremy at the moment, since he's still based out of the bay area, but I was rolling a lot today and jumping half guard periodically, and I was finding myself, despite still being in a state of returning to jiu-jitsu, finding things and thinking to myself, "Jeremy told me that this is how it's supposed to work," and then getting the sweep.

The first thing is to remember the positioning of the hips, keeping one hip off of the ground. The second the hips are flat, the options for the half guard become much slimmer. Now, this is significant in that it gives you the distinction between the top hand (where you're fighting for the underhook) and the bottom hand (which you're trying to keep control of so that you don't get flattened out).

The second thing is to connect the elbow of the top arm to the knee of the top leg as you fight for the underhook, keeping the elbow on the inside of the knee, protecting the arm from being collapsed. One of the brownbelts where I was training now brought this up with some of the other guys, it seems like a fairly universal point. It also allows you to kick through and ensure that you get the underhook, as the leg can open space for the arm to go through, if you decide you want to pop up and attempt a sweep or just ensure that you can threaten the back whenever you want.

The third thing is to not be afraid of compression. This is what I mean, since it's very abstract. In the closed guard, if you get stacked up by a big, strong ogre who can compress your body and make you uncomfortable, you know that you're going to have to alter your position in a disadvantageous way, or open your guard and bail to something else. In the half guard, its important to become comfortable with that compression, and remember that if he's pushing down, it's acceptable not just to threaten to go underneath and lock up the sweep, but to use that as a way, generally, to tighten up the half guard position, as you attack the leg that is not in your guard.

Attacking that other leg with your arms can be dangerous, since it requires reaching, but if your opponent is trying to compress you, committing his weight (especially if he's committing to your shoulders and trying to flatten you out, rotating your hips towards the inside, letting him compress and looking for the sweep can be pretty devastating, as the half guard that it puts you in when you come up is very, very easy to pass.

I've gotten pretty good at attacking the half guard, because most of the guys that I trained with learned their half guard from Jeremy and Stephen and (obviously) Eduardo, and that means that you have to know the passes and execute them well. It also means that, when you're on the bottom, you get to be more acutely aware of what little details you have to look out for on the passes. Pinching the knees in around the thigh of the bottom leg can be very tough to escape. Getting that bottom arm ripped out so that you're flat on your back can be very tough. Whether an opponent keeps his hips low or high when he passes makes a big difference in how you choose to defend.

There's a lot going on in the half-guard, and it's a terrific position for those looking to develop a really challenging game. It takes a lot of time and, because all of your opponent's weight is on top of you, it's not always the most fun position to drill, but it is incredibly useful, sometimes even more than the full guard, especially at the lower level where guys are used to the full guard, but not used to the half.
 
#303 ·
I'm still feeling a little sore from yesterday, and I'm busy working on a bunch of stuff for work, so I haven't been posting much, generally. But I have been trying to get in to train some jiu-jitsu. I'm trying to get back in shape by going to the gym (lifting weights, which I really don't like) and making as many BJJ classes a week as possible.

I'm sore from my workout in BJJ on Monday, but the upside is that it reminded me to post a Training Log entry.

We were working butterfly guard in class on Monday and Jeff pointed out that most guys starting to use the butterfly (and most guys generally) have a habit of falling backwards as they load their opponent's weight up. This really is a horrible habit, and you feel it against bigger guys, as you just get smashed all to sh*t a lot of the time.

One of the things that Jeff had everyone working on was falling to the side, in order to control the angle of movement in the standard hook sweep and to ensure establishing better control in top position. That part I felt like I got alright.

But then he started working on defending against the standard method of passing the butterfly as you attempt the sweep, which is to post out, apply pressure and try and crush the guard. I don't know what my issue was, and is, with dealing with this particular attack, but I have a very hard time maintaining the stability of the butterfly guard, keeping my legs out, when I'm under pressure like that.

Jeff pointed out a few details. The first is that I tend to ball up in the butterfly guard, instead of extending my torso, which I think is a product of my being more comfortable in half-guard then spider guard, so I tend to treat it like half guard and try to get in under my opponent, which is a mistake when they're trying to crush me from butterfly. This is the major thing I'm going to work on.

The other is that being on the hip allows for very good transitions to the knees and, if they've secured the whizzer, its easier to sweep from that side position just by using the knee tap. I'm very uncomfortable sweeping from this position (Eddie Bravo calls it the "dogfight" position, if I remember correctly) because I'm a smaller guy and have long arms so I get stretched out a lot and put on my back in side control. Jeff is a big, strong guy but he pointed out that if I keep things compact when I turn out then it's easy to get the sweep as I come up.

Jeff was very helpful, and I felt the movements a lot better as I was rolling. I really feel uncomfortable in butterfly guard, which is not good. But I find the half guard really well from there, and my half guard seem to be coming back to me, as does the x-guard and the ability to get top position from rolling my opponents off of the pass.

I did a good job getting the back against a lot of opponents and Matt (who I think is a blackbelt also, but I'm not sure) had given me a few pieces of advice about establishing back control from the turtle that were working really well.

Matt's advice was really helpful:

  1. Keep the hips low. (I knew this already, but I have to hear it over and over again, especially as I'm coming back to jiu-jitsu; jiu-jitsu means having a more conservative matwork style than judo, so this is important)
  2. Don't be afraid to take the legs out to adjust the hips. In many scenariors, this will score you an extra four points. Often, it will also keep you from ending up on the bottom with him in your guard. (It's not that it's bad to have him in your guard, just that you'd rather have his back about 95% of the time.)
  3. Constantly keep working the hooks in. (Again, this is something that I knew already, but it's been really helpful to hear reiterated repeatedly, because it really is everything when it comes to controlling the back.)
  4. Use the double underhooks first, then transition to the over-under. Often, guys overcommit their hips when they're trying to get the overhook on the back, and since I've been back I've caught myself slipping off the back a few times because I was looking for that Marcelinho-esque backpack position. I have to remember that comes later.
When I start really getting patient, which you should do in the turtle and on the back, and remembering these things, I find I have much more stable position. It's not that I necessarily have a higher rate of submissions (though I probably do, it just doesn't feel that different) but that I don't lose the back because of stupid stuff. And, in my experience, not losing is 70% of winning.
 
#304 ·
Grinding 'em Down

I had a good workout today, working through the basic positions with Troy (a purple belt) from the top and maintaining control of the high mount position.

After the standard portion, I was rolling with Marcos, who's not in great shape, though bigger and stronger than I am. I had him in guard and he kept backing out and letting me sit up and attack, or drag him back down and work my guard up high, and then fighting to get out. I kept reversing him and then falling back to my guard, because I really need to work on sweeps from the closed guard (especially the flower sweep, which I have always struggled with against bigger guys) and working on defending the pass, though I've always been good at preventing my opponent from getting their points.

There was a point where, after I popped out to my knees and swept Marcos over, landing in his half guard, he just tapped from exhaustion.

I have never had that happen to me in competition, but it does happen periodically in training. Marcos admitted that I was going to get him anyways, but then he asked how I managed to stay so comfortable on the bottom, and not use very much energy, while he was all burned out.

This one, people who have done jiu-jitsu for a while know the answer to: I was getting the superior positions and letting him struggle to get back to his position. Instead of stopping me where he was strong (postured up in my guard, pressing down on my hips to keep me from sitting up and attacking) he was letting me break his posture. Everybody makes this mistake when they start. Literally everybody thinks that you can rest when you're broken down in guard. You can, if your opponent isn't doing anything, but the reality is that at some point you have to get back to the postured up position, and that's where you're going to expend all of that energy, rather than on passing.

The moral is this: When you need a rest, don't rest in a position where you can't do anything; rest in a position where you can do everything, because while you're resting, chances are your opponent is going to start setting up a preemptive defense, and that allows you to choose how you want to attack. Going second in jiu-jitsu is great, especially when you can use the time that your opponent is on the defensive to set something up.
 
#305 ·
Brought to you by the Letter Armbar

I was back on the mat today after about a week off, due to personal conflicts. I really hate taking time off from jiu-jitsu, because I feel like it's a great stress reliever and because I love the energy boost I often feel the morning after I've had a great workout.

Anyway, I was back on the mat today, drilling some basic stuff from the bottom of turtle (where I've found myself a lot lately) and I was escaping fairly effectively. I am still struggling, to some degree, with breaking the grip, but I have worked out some tricks that help a lot, in terms of breaking the hands apart.

Rolling was great. I started off rolling with the son of one of the instructors. He's a great kid, very athletic and aggressive and bouncy. He kept ending up in armbars. He likes to extend his arms a little too much, and it's one of those moves that I really like to exploit. He learned a little bit, and I did too.

One of the good things about working with younger people (he's 15) is that they tend to come up with some interesting stuff. They also tend to really go after the moves that they want. The techniques he attempted weren't all great, but a lot of them were good for me to practice defending, as he was strongly committing to them.

Hopefully I'll be more active in here again, though I won't be around the gym next week. I will say that my forearms were really worked hard in the workout yesterday. It's a great feeling, and hopefully I'll get that little residual sore feeling in the morning.
 
#306 ·
Moving Home for Summer

I'm heading back to Oakland for the summer tomorrow. Hopefully I'll be back at Rocha BJJ for the summer. I'm going to try to get a good deal of mat-time, though with my work schedule, that is not always really possible.

Personally, I like the idea of getting three or four nights a week.

On the down-side, if I increase training to more than three times a week, I need to get another gi. My judogi was stolen when my girlfriends car was broken about a month ago. I think I'm gonna replace it with another Keiko (since I love the two that I've had, one of which I still use), but I'm not looking forward to dropping a chunk of change on a new gi.

Still, I'm optimistic about my training. I know that I'll be training more in the fall, since I've set up my schedule so that, if I choose to, I can train five days a week. Hopefully I'll make that happen, since I could really use the workouts. I'd love to be back in fighting shape, especially as I start to wind down college and look towards graduate school.
 
#307 ·
Feeling Weak, Being Weak

I had a curious thought being back at the gym today. I have missed training at Rocha BJJ, and I was happy to work with Vernie my first day back. It was a good day, generally, though the first day on a new mat is always challenging, in my experience, regardless of whether I have been training (and I have been, fairly often).

The curious thought requires some context: I got through the conditioning and technique part of the class fairly easily. The techniques were something I was fairly familiar with, omoplata and scizzor sweep, with some basic guard passing. During sparring, though, I hit a mental block. I felt like I couldn't move people, and was getting worn out from the contact. Part of this had to do with my self-consciousness about what is becoming a recurring injury in my left leg (in the knee and, now, in the calf) but mostly it was the psychology of not being able to impose my will when I felt that I should be able to.

I felt like I was weak, and it was discouraging, so I stopped fighting as hard and gave up positions looking for tricky, resistance free ways out. Now, that's a perfectly reasonable approach to jiu-jitsu, I've been told, but it is not mine. I like to fight for positions. I'm a young guy, I'm fast and have reasonable cardio, but I didn't feel like I was winning any of the fights. I stepped off the mat after getting swept during a guard drill, and I thought through the last few rounds, and it was only in hindsight that I realized what the issue was.

It wasn't that I actually was losing those matchups, I was just frustrated because I wasn't winning them easily, in the way that I had intended. I suppose that's a stupid thing to think, in hindsight, because we realize that, in jiu-jitsu, we often have to improvise, we often have to give up on fights, and that doesn't mean that we're losing. But the psychology had put me on tilt.

As soon as that occurred to me, I went back out and did fairly well for myself. I was passing guard well on some of the other veterans, and while I wasn't at the top of my game, I felt far more confident in my ability to do the things that I need to be able to do, both in training and competition, namely: establish dominant top position by passing the guard, exercise patience and restraint in advancing positions from the top position, fight by adjusting weight with my hips, and remember that there is always a place open to go as my opponent looks to escape.

Once I was able to get myself off tilt (which happens everywhere, not just at the poker table) I was able to focus, and the jiu-jitsu was much better. I was still over-committing my weight from side-control against much bigger players, which is a bad habit that I've had for a while, and have been working on breaking. I also caught myself chasing ahead on some techniques, moving too quickly from a double leg to an attempt to pass the guard, and losing positions as a result. But that is really a matter of calming down and breathing, and I suppose that will improve as time goes on, and I start to regain some confidence.
 
#309 ·
Note lately. I'm going to try to get back on a workout schedule at the end of this month. I've been swamped between getting ready to graduate, working and applying for Ph.D. programs.
 
#310 ·
Back to Work

I've been getting back on the mat for a number of reasons. Primarily, I need the workout and the stress relief, and there really is nothing better the jiu-jitsu for that. The last few days back have been rough, physically, but I'm actually feeling fairly good about my technical skills in returning.

I've spent the last few days drilling half-guard, which is a lot of fun for me, and one of the most useful positions in terms of application in drilling. Working with Jeff and Troy (two of the instructors) on some theory, I'm finally starting to feel like I'm getting somewhere with the position.

Hopefully there will be more entries. I'm a little slammed with work, but I think its worth noting that I'm getting back to business in terms of my ground game.
 
#311 ·
Into the Wild

I get bored with weights. I get bored with running. I try to avoid doing these things as much as humanly possible, so I like to come up with fun ways to work out. I don't necessarily have access to awesome things like giant tires, or even kettlebells, on a regular basis. This weekend, I found myself out in the woods with a group of eighth graders working on leadership training.

During the weekend, I realized that I had a few extra hours to kill while some of the other adults ran the program. I wasn't needed and, in fact, really needed to get out of the campsite. I also realized that there was an axe that was going to be used to work on some wood skills during the weekend. So I went for a short walk out of the campsite, and took the axe with me.



There are a few things that I really love about working out in nature:
  1. The air.I live in a city that smells like cow ass. I was raised in a city that, while environmentally friendly, is still a city. I don't like the smell of the tailpipe anymore than I like the smell of agriculture. Being able to open up my lungs without closing my nose is nice.
  2. The loneliness. I don't like working out around other people. I find them a constant distraction when I am trying to advance myself. The solitude of a workout keeps my focus where it belongs, on me.
  3. The quiet. I leave the volume up on my iPod to keep myself from listening ot the sounds of other people working out. I deeply appreciate having the opportunity to listen only to the sounds of my own breathing and whatever it is I'm doing in the workout.
  4. The aesthetics. I really do love the space in the wilderness. Being able to take a breath and do something other than bathe my ears in the music from my headphones is a really important aesthetic experience. It also makes it much easier to lower my heart-rate as I take a breath.
There is also something nice about taking an axe to a piece of wood. After the workout is done, there is something that has been broken. There is a task that has been accomplished. The problem with my workouts at home is that I don't find the numbers that motivating. I also don't like to keep track of those numbers.

They feel arbitrary to me. Why am I doing 12 reps per set rather than 14? Why am I running three miles and not four? When I have a task, I can focus on the work at hand and not think about the numbers. I find that the absence of this distraction makes my life much easier. Also, the presence of the task acts as a particularly useful motivator and a good opportunity to explore my own motivational methods.

Anyway, I don't get the opportunity to work out like that very often. I likely will never have that opportunity more than rarely, though I may periodically create that opportunity for myself, as I did this weekend. It was a wonderful experience, and a good reminder of what it feels like to have a successful workout, and what the muscles feel like afterwards.



I should also say that I appreciate the woods as a wonderful place to think. I pride myself in having embraced a philosophical worldview that includes the body and mind in the project of living a productive, happy and healthy life.

While I was out in the woods, I found myself considering some of the approaches to martial arts and philosophy that I had not pondered in a few years. It reminds me why I appreciate, so deeply, the project of an individual style of martial arts; the codification of a series of ideas (which is what a martial arts system ought to be; what matters are ideas and not techniques) is not a simple task.

It is similarly not simple to pass that series of ideas on through generations o practitioners, and allow it to evolve. There are some groups who hand down techniques: the idea that there is a way that a move should be done, and a certain set of moves that work. This isn't something I've ever been able to empathize with.

Anyway, I figured I would share, as I haven't posted nearly enough on here the last few months.
 

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#313 ·
Sometimes Offense is Defense

I'm back at Rocha BJJ or, as I've come to think of it, home. I really do love that place, and its been a wonderful thing to come back to while I'm living in the bay area. A lot of folks there have left, but those that are still there are really family to me, as are many who have gone.

My first few days back were pretty rough. I took a little over a month off to finish my undergraduate degree (graduate cum laude from Fresno State; will be pursuing a masters in the fall, probably at San Francisco State) and do some academic work. Now that I'm out of classes, though, I have time to get back to the grind. I've been spending 4 or 5 days on the mat for the last two weeks, and I'd like to get back to multiple classes a day on my days off.

Anyway, I'm working tonight, so I went to the open mat this morning. It was a very small group, as the size of the open mats is always sporadic during the day. It was me, one white belt, and a female brown belt who is one of my favorite people to talk to, Heidi.

My game is getting back to where it was, and I was getting good easy passes against the white belt, and establishing side control pretty firmly. Locked in a few armbars when I decided he should be on top for a while and started pulling guard. Overall, that was a nice drill for me. I've been trying to get my guard passes back, since my side-control has been pretty solid lately, and in competition that's a good route for me.

Anyway, I was working with Heidi a little bit and she was, as always, kicking my ass. The point she made to me is that when I was passing and she was threatening submissions or sweeps, I was taking my weight off to set my base back up on my knees.

Instead, and this is a fairly common piece of jiu-jitsu theory that I had forgotten, she suggested I actually commit more of my hips to my pass, keep my weight down and just play more aggressively. This is a particularly good piece of advice for training, since during training there are times when it is ok to play a little more aggressive that we might in competition, and developing comfort with attacks and staying aggressive over the course of the technique can be very important.

The point was this: When defending a submission, there are times when it feels intuitive to be aggressive. It is common knowledge for most jiu-jitsu guys to stack in various armbar positions, but there are lots of positions where it is not intuitive. In some of the positions where we wouldn't intuit an aggressive, heavily weight response, such a move might be wholly appropriate.

Anyway, that was my piece of jiu-jitsu theory for the day. I'm starting to feel really good about getting my game back. My goal is to spend every weekday on the mat for at least one class, since my work schedule will likely allow that, and get myself back up to fighting fitness. I'm starting to already feel the strength and power in my legs and arms again, perhaps even more than I did when I was younger, and it is very rewarding.

Also, a treat for those who actually read this thing, a video I ran across on a particular training program in MMA, the Black House gym. Those who know that I'm interested in the politics and the lifestyle (though always secondary to the history) know that these are the sorts of things that catch my eye:

 
#314 ·
My life has been in a state of flux. I thought I was likely to go and do my MA at SF State, in south San Francisco, but that didn't happen. Instead, I got accepted to a much better program at NYU, and decided to travel all the way out to New York to take full advantage of the opportunity.

At any rate, I'm very happy with my new life in the big city, though I've only been here about a week, and I'm still adjusting.

I found a gym that I liked: Mendez Boxing. The gym is a very traditional boxing gym, but [realistically] that is probably a good thing for me right now. The last few years my body has deteriorated in some important and troubling ways. I'm experiencing a lot of joint pain, especially in my neck and back and knees, and I think that a lot of that had to do with judo and jiu-jitsu. Those are still forms that I love, but I think that giving them a break for a while will be good for me.

Anyway, I did my first day at Mendez boxing today, and I'm feeling the burn in the cardio already. I worked with one of the trainers, Hector, and he was very helpful, though most of the form we were working through was fairly basic. He did have me drilling some new approaches to the uppercuts, and using them in rapid succession, which is something I've always thought would be very useful in boxing, but hadn't really drilled properly.

Overall, I'm looking forward to a new start in NYC and some time training in something a little more focused on the hands, with a very different understanding of conditioning.
 
#316 ·
So, I'm working out at Mendez Boxing four or five days a week right now, which is good. My hands are beat to sh*t, and I have some early-onset arthritis problems already, so I'm trying to take fairly good care of them right now. Going from primarily grappling-centered workouts to boxing full time does a toll on the hands, but the change in muscle groups getting worked on is nice, also.

After my workout, there were a couple of big heavyweights sparring and most of the gym was standing around watching. I watched about three rounds of the session, and was really struck by how few punches were thrown by these two guys. Neither of them really were as interested in hitting the other guy as they were not getting hit. I didn't really comment on this to the coaches, but I think the coaches were well aware of this problem.

One of the things about boxing is that the guys do hit so hard that there's this major concern with defensive boxing. I don't think that "defensive boxing" is necessarily bad, I should say, but I do think that timid boxing is something that has to be discouraged, and there's a fine line there. I also think that recognizing something many MMA fighters know [which is that sometimes you're going to have to make yourself vulnerable to create an opportunity] is important for a lot of boxers. Historically, this has been a part of professional boxing, but it does seem to be an unpopular thought right now.

The lesson that I'm working through with Ivan, one of the coaches, is actually about staying off of the balls of my feet. I tend to lean in a bit and leave my shoulders a bit out in front of my toes, because of my grappling background. I really like that position, and I find it well balanced and powerful. The point that Ivan keeps hammering me with is that I need to be more concerned with mobility and the versatility of a position than with being a hammer on the inside.

As we work through how I work angles and slip punches, it becomes pretty clear to me that actually what I want is something more straight-backed and on the centers of my feet than what I'm used to. I'm still adjusting to the feel of that position, but it is certainly one that is working a lot better for pad work and general head movement. I have fairly quick hands and my punches pop well, but its become good for me to focus on not worrying about hitting so hard.

The other concern is about keeping the movements sharp and quick. One of the things that it is easy to get into the habit of as a grappler in MMA is that it is acceptable to hang your punches out a little when setting up shots, in part because you're trying to bait the strike that you're working off of. I particularly like doing that when it comes to set up the clinch, especially off of the left hook. In boxing it is a terrible habit, and one that I'm working on breaking to improve my awareness of how I'm throwing my punches and to make sure that the punches are crisp and the punch defense is staying strong and together.
 
#317 ·
Back to Grappling

I'll try to start posting a bit more. The last few months of boxing were great, but I didn't really find it all that fulfilling. I miss grappling a lot, and I'm back on the mat rolling again at New York Combat *****. "***** Steve" Koepfer is a legend in American martial arts, and so that's what I'm doing.

Spent a good portion of last night working on throws, and I didn't realize how much of my judo was still built into my body. The same for my ground game. I had no trouble sinking some submissions on some of the somewhat experienced students, and getting my ass kicked by Steve. There are a lot of lessons to come; I'll try to post some of them.
 
#318 ·
As I get more into ***** with the new coaches, I'm realizing more and more how impoverished my knowledge of leglocks really was, and how much I'm able to figure out from general grappling principles. We had a guest instructor on the mat tonight walking us through a 10th Planet variation on the deep-half guard that I really enjoyed, and attacking some toe-holds and calf-compressions off of the technique.

It was the first time I'd played with toe-holds since starting working in *****; I've been drilling the straight achilles just to get a feel of the various positions to lock in control of the legs and get a feel for the fight there. But in working the technique on the toe-hold I realized that I'd been torquing them in an awkward way, one that works but is not as effective, rotating around the ankle instead of compressing the toes more directly. The change in effectiveness was huge. [I've noticed similar changes in the effectiveness of my straight ankle, too.]

Anyway, there's a lot there to learn, and it definitely helps with generalizing out principles.
 
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