tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6861904900651464722024-02-20T21:42:12.357-08:00Mike's Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu LogLog of my journey through the awesome world of Brazilian Jiu-JitsuMike O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01866800247104191172noreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-686190490065146472.post-25516893266968074552008-11-11T14:47:00.000-08:002008-11-11T14:48:56.799-08:00Taking a BreakSo it's been awhile since I've updated this blog at all. I've been taking a break from BJJ for a bit for various reasons. I'll be getting back into BJJ soon (hopefully), at which point I'll start to update the blog with more lessons learned.<br /><br />Until next time... :)Mike O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01866800247104191172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-686190490065146472.post-71083254496149455362008-10-10T07:47:00.000-07:002008-10-11T20:36:10.701-07:00BJJ No-Gi Class - 10.9.2008<div>Another night of *ding* light bulb moments. I'm very happy with the way my mind has been working lately while training. I'm starting to become more aware of what techniques to use when, and starting to be able to read my opponents. It's very exciting. It makes me smile everytime I think about it :-) Especially since the light bulb moments continued onto a no-gi night. I'm finally starting to get the hang of the underhooks and overhooks, and starting to smartly use my weight while in side control and what not. All this is happening without thought too, so I don't have the delays of "ok, so here we are...I have these options...nope, that won't work...ok, how about this" - then by that time I'm too late. Anyways, more about rolling after this...<br /><br />Warm-ups were a bit different than usual. Greg led them while Mel took a phone call. We did the usual jogging, side skips, stretches, etc, then moved onto ones I haven't done before. One I can't remember the name, and will probably have a hard time explaining, but here goes nothing... So you lay down, back on the mat, next to a partner who's also laying the same way, but your feet are by their head while your head is by their head...that make sense? Then bend your knees to create a triangle between the back of your legs and the mat. If your partner is laying to your left, then reach your left hand under their legs and lock grip with their right hand, while your partner does the same. Then you'll shoot your legs straight up into the air going up onto your shoulder blades and pivot to the left before bringing your hips back down to the mat. Repeat this process for about 30 seconds or so. It really gets your core burning. Then we did the widely known armbar drill, so you're just pivoting back and forth putting in armbars on each of your opponents arm. This <strong>definitely</strong> gave my abs a workout. The we moved on to the armbar-to-triangle-to-omoplata from guard drill. I'm not even going to try to explain this, just watch the video below...<br /><br /><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/JilWwimXzBE&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/JilWwimXzBE&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></embed></object><br /><br />I've seen that drill quite a few times online before, but have never done it myself. It's a great drill for warming up, but also practicing the application of the submissions. Mel noticed a few things on the armbar that people could work on, so he stopped us and went over the armbar from guard. I was one of the ones having trouble being that I've never learned an armbar from guard with no gi on...I didn't have any sleeves to hold on to haha Here's what I remember...</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>Armbar from guard</strong> - We're going to attack the right arm... First thing you want to break your opponent's posture. Securing an armbar while their postured up is going to prove very difficult. You can do this by grabbing around their neck or the back of their head and pulling them down. You'll then grab their right wrist with your left hand, then shoot your right arm under their left wrapping your right hand over their right elbow, then suck the right arm into the middle of your chest. With the left foot on their hip, push off while putting your lower right leg across their upper back. This will help keep them from posturing up, and help keep their right arm straight and laying up the middle of your chest. Then swing the left leg over their head, squeeze the heels as if you're trying to bring them to your butt, squeeze your knees together, and lift your hips making sure their thumb is on top. One thing to keep in mind for us beginners is to not cross our legs once we get the armbar secured. Crossing our legs, our knees will have the tendency of opening up giving our opponent an escape option.</div><br /><div>Then we moved on to passing the guard. A few things to remember:<br /><ul><li>Never put your hands down on the mat beside your opponent. You can't really do anything with your hands there anyways, and you also open yourself up to kimuras and various other arm and shoulder locks.<br /></li><li>This sort of plays off of the last one, but don't keep your elbows flared outward. It plays off the last one seeing as how if you have your hands on the mat, your elbows are exposed. This is how they're able to pull off the kimura. But the same goes if you have your hands on the chest or stomach, you don't want your elbows flared. This will take away some of their options when it comes to the various arm and shoulder locks.<br /></li><li>Your posturing up makes it more difficult for your opponent to submit or sweep you. Looking at it from your opponents point of view, from the bottom one of the first things you want to do is break your opponents posture.<br /></li></ul><strong>Passing the guard</strong> - You want to get your hands on your opponents chest or stomach with your elbows in; doing this your elbows should be either on or inside of your opponents thighs. If you're unable to get this, one way to create space is to put your hands into your opponents armpits and push back. Be sure not to put your hands on their biceps as your opponent can easily swim his arms under and up in between your arms to slide your hold off of their biceps. One way of securing that hold in their armpits is to hold your hand out 4 fingers together and thumb out. Turn your hand so your thumb is pointing toward the sky, and put the 4 fingers under their arm while the thumb is over their arm, crossing right over the armpit. Once you're able to create enough space, get your hands on their lower chest and shift your elbows in. Then shift your lower body a little to the left and get the right knee under their butt. Then the right hand will move down right below their rib cage, giving you something to push off on. Then move the left hand to the same position and push off again. Once you get your elbows into the inside of their thighs, you can start pushing down on your left elbow to break their closed guard. Make sure you keep that pressure on your hands. This will help keep their hips pinned to the mat. Once you get the closed guard broken, continue pushing on the left thigh until it lays on the mat, then move the left knee over the thigh. At the same time you want to "windshield wiper" the lower portion of your right leg underneath you. This will keep your opponent from hooking your right leg with their left leg. Reach out with your left arm and either hook it over your opponents head or over their shoulder. Then pulling with your left arm, slide into side control.<br /><br />One thing to take note of for that guard pass, when you push off their armpits to create space, some people's torsos are just too long for this to work. In that case, you just have to work to get your hands on them and your elbows in to push off.<br /><br />Rolling was a whole lot of fun. The technique learning portion took awhile, so I only got one session in, but I was glad to have been able to roll with my instructor, Mel. One huge thing that I'm sure most beginners struggle with is passing the guard. The break down of passing the guard tonight helped me <span style="font-weight: bold;">a lot</span>. I definitely needed this. I was so much more confident just after the 15mins of working on it then, and it showed while rolling with Mel. I executed it successfully several times (given that he was taking it "easy" on me, I executed each step successfully). One huge thing that sticks out in my head that everytime I think about makes me smile, is that I've <span style="font-weight: bold;">finally</span> successfully executed a guard pass underneath the leg! Everytime I've tried to do this before, I find myself getting stuck in a triangle. Mel was starting to give me a little more challenge while passing over his leg, so I decided to attempt going below. As soon as his leg came up, I knew what was coming. And without a thought, I shot my left arm across his body and over his left should, stacked, and passed! I'm sure Mel saw the huge smile on my face as I landed in side control haha Overall I felt I did very well from the top. Not only am I more confident in my guard pass, but I was able to secure side control better than usual. Time on the mat is definitely helping with that.<br /><br />Umm, well, that's all I can think of right now. Until next time... :-)<br /></div>Mike O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01866800247104191172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-686190490065146472.post-47708377637842132172008-10-09T07:07:00.000-07:002008-10-10T00:39:30.604-07:00BJJ Gi Class - 10.8.2008So I got my new gi in the mail today, yay! I ordered a Howard Combat Kimono last week from <a href="http://www.howardliu.com/">Howard Liu</a>'s website. I went with a blue <a href="http://www.howardliu.com/catalog/bjj/single.htm">standard single</a>. I've been wanting to get a new one for awhile now. The <a href="http://www.budovideos.com/shop/customer/product.php?productid=21840&cat=491&page=1">Gameness single weave gi</a> I bought when I started jiu-jitsu never really fit me right. The pants are good length, but a little baggy; and the jacket sleeves are just a tad too long, but overall just baggy on me also. Definitely not made for the tall, skinny types. I've also been wanting a darker colored gi as my white Gameness is starting to get light stains on the back, knees, and elbows. I was looking at <a href="http://www.jiujitsuprogear.com/-c-21_24.html">Koral</a> and <a href="http://www.jiujitsuprogear.com/-c-21_44.html">Vulkan</a> gi's as a couple other guys I train with who are of the skinner builds use these. But checking them out online, they both are expensive! I recently came across a blog post posted by <a href="http://www.roydeanacademy.com/">Roy Dean</a> (<a href="http://www.roydeanacademy.com/blog/2_years_in/">this one</a>). His academy in Bend, OR has been open for almost 2 years now and just moved to a new space...<br /><blockquote>Last night, members of the Academy surprised me with a thoughtful gift to celebrate the new space. It was a shadowbox displaying the 5 belts of BJJ, all neatly tied and all HCK of course, as Howard Liu was in on it too. I was touched, and it was a beautiful marker for this stage of the journey, nearly 2 years in.</blockquote>I had to go look-up HCK after reading that. I found that the HCK gi's were around the same price as my Gameness single weave, and had some very good reviews on various sites you could purchase them from. I set out to Google to see if I could find any reviews on discussion forums or what not. Everything I came across was positive: the gi's were awesome and Howard Liu is one hell of a guy to purchase products from. That sealed the deal right there. I found that the gi's size differently that most; where my Gameness single weave is an A4, the HCK I ordered after checking the size chart is a 5. After trying it on right out of the box, this one fits way better for my build. Not bulky or baggy at all. The sleeves could shrink a tad along with the pants, and it'll fit perfect. I couldn't wait to wash it before using it, so I practiced in it tonight haha It's such a light gi, but feels very sturdy and tough at the same time. After practice I purchased a patch from Mel to put on the back to represent the school. His wife is going to sew it on and I'll have it back on Monday when I show up for practice that night. I can't wait to roll in it again :-)<br /><br />Anyways, tonight was a fun night. It was the all adult class, and it was smaller - 5 of us to start, then John showed up (who just got his blue belt this last weekend, congrats to him!). So there were 3 white belts and 3 blue belts. Two of the white belts, John and Chris, are competing this weekend at the <a href="http://www.subleague.com/oregonopen.html">Oregon Open</a>, so we left them to roll with each other so they could work as hard as they wanted to. So that left me with 3 blue belts to leach experience from :-P<br /><br />First, Mel went over a few things he spoke with the tournament organizer about, mainly some scoring questions. His daughter competed in a tournament before where her opponent had her in side control. The opponent would post her leg out, his daughter would pull half guard, then the opponent would escape half guard...then do it over and over again. The referee of the match continued to award the girl points for escaping. That's pretty cheap if you ask me. Variations of this situation were what was discussed.<br /><br />Then we moved on to some techniques...<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Escape from guard pass #1</span> - So you have your opponent in closed guard. They break the closed guard hold and attempt to pass under your left leg. Plant your left foot into the floor and begin shrimping away from them until you get into a four quarters position, then switch over to your stomach and come up to your knees (aka "threading the needle").<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Escape from guard pass #2</span> - Same as before, you have your opponent in your closed guard and they just broke it to pass. This time you'll sit up, and with your left hand grab the same side lapel, and stiff arm it. This'll keep your opponent back as you scoot your lower body out and either come up to your knees or stand.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Cross choke from mount #1</span> - So you're leaning forward and to the left. Bring your right arm to the left-side if it's not already there and put the right elbow to the right side of their face. Then move the forearm across their face, and with your right hand get a deep collar grip with your thumb in. Then reaching under your right arm and get a deep 4-finger grip on the left lapel, and squeeze a walnut between your shoulder blades.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Cross choke from mount #2</span> - Same as above, except you're going to reach over your right arm and get a deep thumb in grip on the other lapel, and squeeze a walnut between your shoulder blades.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Kimura from blocked cross choke attempt</span> - I can't remember all the details of this, so I'm going to hold off on this one until I can get it cleared up a bit more.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Ezekiel</span> -One way to set this up is to push your opponents head to the right when your right elbow. This will keep him occupied and blind to the left arm you're about to slide right under his head. With your left hand, grab the bottom of the right sleeve, then slide your forearms to the left to bring the sleeve up against their neck as you put your right forearm across their neck. Bend he right wrist down to grab your left sleeve or forearm, then squeeze "the box" (the shape you've made with your forearms, hands, and right sleeve) for the choke.<br /><br />Rolling was a lot of fun. The first guy I rolled with I believe his name is Chris. Yeah, there's like 3 or 4 of them I train with lol This one is a blue belt (I'm pretty sure all the others are white). He's a very laid back guy, likes to go slow and take his time. So it was great rolling with him as it gave me time to think. Which, I've come to realize recently, has been one of my major hurdles in my jiu-jitsu. I've learned various techniques, but when it comes time to roll, it's just a scramble in my head. This week though, I don't know what it was, but I'm starting to think more clearly and see opportunites and have the technique at the forefront of my mind, right when it's needed. It's been a very exciting week with this happening :-) Chris and I never submitted each other. It was just one sweep after another for both of us. I found myself in positions that I know of, but have never been formally trained in: spider guard mostly. Tried a few sweeps I've watched quite a few times online, but was only able to get one of them to work. Then I rolled with Greg. Greg is another guy who I train with that has at least 40lbs on me. Just a short, stalky guy with a very large neck. Mel set rules on our match since he outweighed me by so much haha He said that he was only able to submit me from the bottom, or execute a successful sweep to submit me from the top. This way he couldn't just plow into me sending me straight to my back. Greg is a really good blue belt, and is really good at taming it down just enough to give me a challenge, but not dominate me. I was never able to execute a proper sweep on him because I was couldn't get the proper positioning. A lot of this had to do with him outweighing me and me just being so damn scrawny lol I was able to roll him a few times as he tried submitting me from the top though. My side control is improving since going over the side control escapes the other night. I'm able to keep one step ahead easier now, having a better idea as to what my opponent is trying to do. He ended up submitting me once with a triangle choke from the top.<br /><br />I received my first stripe tonight, which was a great way to end the night :-) It's a good feeling knowing that while I get frustrated at times, my instructor recognizes progression in my jiu-jitsu skills.Mike O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01866800247104191172noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-686190490065146472.post-6170332039813013662008-10-06T21:00:00.000-07:002008-10-09T14:53:04.947-07:00BJJ Gi Class - 10.6.2008It was great being back on the mat after more than a week of no jiu-jitsu. I've read on other peoples blogs how difficult it is coming back after taking a break when sick or what not, but never thought that after only a week off it'd be that much of a difference. I got burned out way too fast heh Matt led the class tonight since Mel was going over some stuff with those who are competing at the <a href="http://www.subleague.com/oregonopen.html">Oregon Open</a> this weekend. We worked on techniques all starting from full mount. One big tip to keep in mind while in mount is to never come up nose to nose with your opponent. Meaning you want to have your upper body leaning towards one side or the other, with that same side arm posted out. This'll make it more difficult for your opponent to sweep/roll you. On to the techniques...<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Cross choke from mount</span> - Starting with your weight leaning towards your left, usually with your forehead into the mat to keep that weight down. With the right hand, get a deep 4-fingers-in grip on their lapel on the right side of their neck. Reach under your right arm with your left and get hold of the other lapel with a 4-fingers-in grip. Shift to a chest to chest position, rotate your hands towards you, and "squeeze a walnut between your shoulder blades."<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Variation of cross choke from mount</span> - After you get the grip in with your right hand, instead of reaching under your right arm from that position....rotate your upper body from leaning to the left to leaning to the right. Then reach down with your left hand and grab fabric on the left shoulder. Then squeeze the choke as said above.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Bread cutter</span> - Instead of putting in a 4-fingers-in grip with your right hand, get a thumb-in grip. Reach under the right arm with your left and get a grip on the lapel just like before, then put in the squeeze. It gets its name from the way your right forearm lays across your opponents throat with the thumb-in grip.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Bread cutter to armbar</span> - So you've got the thumb-in grip with the right hand, but they're defending that left hand from coming under and gripping the other lapel. As you slide your left knee up into their armpit, you're going to pull up with your right hand and shift 'em onto their left side. As you shifted them to their left side, a few things should happen: your left knee should be up behind their shoulder or even behind their head; your right leg should've shifted from being down on that knee to standing on the foot, and you'll want your right foot tight into their side to keep them from shrimping out and creating space; and you'll have wrapped your left arm around their right arm, holding it to your chest. This is the arm you're going to attack. Then you'll do what they call "sit and spin". Sit down onto your opponents side and lean forward a bit. As you do this you'll swing your left leg around over your opponents face, then roll back to your butt. Make sure their thumb is on top, squeeze your knees together, and lift your hips.<br /><br />I rolled with a guy whose name I can't remember at the moment. To say the least, it was very frustrating to roll with him. He's a fellow white belt with not a whole lot of experience. And instead of taking it 50% or so to concentrate on technique, he straight went balls-to-the-wall 100%. The guy was bigger than I (my estimate is about 30lbs more than I, but I've never been good at estimating people's weight), and after he passed my guard and secured side control, he'd go belly down on my face. I thought in my head that this would be a good time to work technique on an opponent who was bigger than I and using all strength...until he did that. Then I couldn't think straight at all. I was able to escape side control and get to his back and submit him with a gi choke. When we started again he went straight for side control and proceeded to lay on my face again. He sandbagged until I couldn't take anymore and submitted me with an Americana. It was at this time he admitted to being "tired of losing." *rolls eyes* I wanted to say something, but I had to nurse a major headache. Luckily Matt did.<br /><br />Until next time... :-)Mike O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01866800247104191172noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-686190490065146472.post-28859677372519339822008-09-29T22:17:00.000-07:002008-09-30T01:16:58.902-07:00Sick...ughI've been sick since Friday night, so I wasn't able to attend the Rylan Lizares seminar at my school yesterday. I was pretty bummed... I was really looking forward to my first seminar at my school, and meeting and learning from a Pedro Sauer black belt. Mel's been talking about getting Johnny Carlquist up here in a month or two though. And I think Pedro himself is going to be up this way soon. I did, however, over the weekend get the photo my friend Chris took of Marcelo Garcia and I at the seminar I went to last weekend.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixx44eOdfQAyeckCyU5Op3tqSpqBOFi2c-Xm_vHCsq_uij0ygRzouWtJFzgBaIWyIZkn80NdjJMBOTgjMs8j2b20a288Jmez3jZrOEDA7K0NvFH4wK5cxB0jYpu2MsyyUvi7Rn0ayczDyE/s1600-h/marcel_garcia_seminar.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixx44eOdfQAyeckCyU5Op3tqSpqBOFi2c-Xm_vHCsq_uij0ygRzouWtJFzgBaIWyIZkn80NdjJMBOTgjMs8j2b20a288Jmez3jZrOEDA7K0NvFH4wK5cxB0jYpu2MsyyUvi7Rn0ayczDyE/s320/marcel_garcia_seminar.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5251695753364253282" border="0" /></a>Mike O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01866800247104191172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-686190490065146472.post-14040687568456479442008-09-26T11:27:00.000-07:002008-09-30T00:23:54.711-07:00BJJ No-Gi Class - 9.25.2008So I found out that not only is the last Wednesday of the month a free roll class for the gi class, but the last Thursday of the month is a free roll class for the no-gi class. Mel wasn't there tonight, which I was hoping for. I wanted to buy another pair of shorts and possibly a 2nd gi.<br /><br />No-gi is still frustrating. I'm having a hard time grasping the concept of underhooks and overhooks, and not having fabric to grab on to. I've found myself grabbing onto shorts quite a few times haha I rolled with James, who is always fun to roll with. He's a new guy who really soaks up whatever it is you try and help him with. Rolling with him I try to work on the nitty gritty details of my techniques. And because we roll so much slower than I do with other people, I'm able to analyze the situation easier and I'm starting to see my options better. This helps me when I roll with others who are more experienced. I also watch for mistakes he makes. I've found that the more I help other people with technique, it helps to instill it in my brain better.<br /><br />Also rolled with Frank. I only see him on no-gi nights. I know he's been training with Mel for awhile, I'm just not sure how long. He's the same build as me, so I like rolling with him to see techniques that work for him. I don't really remember much from rolling with him, but I remember feeling good after the roll, as if I did better than previous times :-)<br /><br />I rolled with Chris (different Chris than the one I trained with at the Marcelo Garcia seminar) a few times. The first time we just started out on our knees. The 2nd we started doing positional sparring, to help me out (he's an advanced white belt, I think up for his blue here soon...he's really good). First positional spar was me having him in side control. I have a hard time keeping a side control position in no-gi. No fabric to grab onto to keep that left elbow out of your hip, and the sweat makes it very easy for the person on the bottom to slip right out. He ended up slipping right out every time. I was able to keep him from taking my back, but ended up in his guard everytime where he'd either submit me or we'd just stalemate heh So the next positional spar I started in his guard to work on my guard passing. This didn't last that long as he was able to arm-drag my right arm to his right shoulder and reach around my back getting a hold of my left arm to basically twist my upper body towards him. My right arm/hand was trapped between us, so I wasn't able to tap. I began to verbally tap, but the way my upper body was facing, my voice projected away from us. By the time he heard me, it was a little too late - my pectoralis had stretched beyond its limit. I hadn't stretched my pec that far before, and really wasn't sure the angle my arm had stretched back, so I was more surprised than anything...sort of in shock I guess. It was a pretty sharp pain, so I headed home shortly afterward. I jumped in the shower as soon as I got home to get some hot water running over it while I massaged it. After awhile, the pain went away for the most part, but it was still pretty tight. I'm going to have to make sure to stretch it through out the day for the next few days.Mike O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01866800247104191172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-686190490065146472.post-60249277232144617472008-09-25T08:54:00.000-07:002008-10-09T07:07:46.209-07:00BJJ Gi Class - 9.24.2008Last Wednesday of the month - free roll! But there was only 3 of us (4 including Mel). John, one of the 3, is also planning on testing for his blue belt come Sunday when Rylan Lizares (Pedro Sauer black belt) is up here conducting a seminar, so we just worked on the technical aspects of various moves that he'd be tested on. There was quite a bit, and if I try and give my in detail descriptions as I usually do, I'll be here forever lol So I'm going to try and sum it up as quick as possible, and possibly come back and fill in gaps as I see them.<br /><br />So we started with stuff from the feet...<br /><ul><li>"Comb the hair" block, T-up with opponent, hip toss</li><li>T-up opponent, wrap your right leg around their left leg, step forward with left foot, pull your right leg back sweeping their left, come down onto right knee high up in their left arm pit, pull on their right sleeve and slide left knee in getting high mount</li></ul>Escape from mount<br /><ul><li>Hip heist (AKA oopa)<br /></li><li>Double shrimp back into guard</li></ul>Sweeps<br /><ul><li>Scissor sweep (if you're using your right leg across their stomach, and they sit out or post their right knee out far enough that you can't execute the sweet, post your left foot on their right knee and push it out as you pull on that right sleeve with your left hand. This will flatten their right side on the mat)<br /></li><li>Flower sweep</li><li>Half butterfly / half guard sweep (can't scissor (right knee it tucked), butterfly hook your right foot, and sweep)</li><li>Spider guard sweep</li></ul>Escape side control<br />Shrimp away from opponent, bring right knee between you and your opponent, hook their right leg with your left leg (keeps them from mounting), shrimp into your opponent (to create room to get right leg out), then close your guardMike O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01866800247104191172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-686190490065146472.post-59329920244186938582008-09-22T16:38:00.001-07:002008-09-25T23:25:18.717-07:00Marcelo Garcia Seminar - Day 2 - GiAlright, so this post is a little late. I wish I could've done it sooner, like right after the seminar, but I just haven't had time. Had to travel back home after the seminar, then work yesterday, and the 3-hour <a href="http://www.nbc.com/Heroes/">Heroes</a> season premiere event last night (definitely couldn't miss that). I've been going over the Sunday seminar over and over in my head. Let's see what I can remember...<br /><br />First off, that seminar was AWESOME! I know I said in the last post how awesome it was, but I just have to say it again. Being such a big fan of Marcelo, it was surreal seeing him in person, let alone meeting him, shaking his hand, and getting my photo with him (photo coming later...I didn't walk to lug my DSLR there, so my friend took a photo of Marcelo and I using his camera). Robert, the instructor over at BJJ Olympia, mentioned how he's hoping to form a lasting relationship with Marcelo to keep him coming back for seminars. I really hope that happens. I'd love to go to a Marcelo seminar twice a year or so :-D<br /><br />Ok, as mentioned before, Marcelo said he'd work from the top on Saturday (no-gi day), then from the bottom on Sunday (gi day). So let's see what I can remember...<br /><br />Marcelo started where he did yesterday, with one of us on our butt's while the other is standing. Some of the main point Marcelo pointed out:<br /><ul><li>Knowing where your opponents hands/arms are at all times -When you're doing doing "hands fight" (trying to get the upper hand with your hands), you want to have the inside position; have your hands inside your opponents. So when you do get the inside position, if you can you could scoot in underneath them and work some magic.<br /></li><li>Knowing where your opponents feet/legs are at all times -Don't let your opponent get to close under their own free will. If they step too closer, use their knee as a post and push off of it. Create space and start working again to get that inside position.<br /></li></ul>X guard - Get the inside position with your hands/arms inside of his, then scoot in. When you scoot in you'll shoot your left leg between their legs and get a butterfly hook with your right foot, and grab their right leg with your left hand, around the outside. Then bring your foot back through and secure a butterfly hook with your left foot hooking around the front side of their left thigh. After you've placed your legs/feet where they need to be, you'll reach across with your right hand and grab the fabric on their right leg, then switch your left arm from wrapping around the outside, to wrapping around the inside. One good thing to do from here, as you push out with your legs, pull the right leg up and over your left shoulder. From here you can secure a gable grip just above their knee. There's a variety of sweeps you can do from the X guard.<br /><br />Now sometimes you're unable to secure an X guard. Maybe the person's left leg is just too far, or they rotate it back behind them when you scoot in. If this happens, instead of trying to secure both their left and right legs, we'll attack the right leg. So you'll get the same wrap around the outside of their right leg with your left arm. Except this time,<br /><br />What if you're scooting on your butt and your opponent is on their knees? You won't be able to do the X guard or the alternative I just explained. What you can do is fight for the inside position with your hands again. Once you get the inside position with both, scoot forward into them, securing underhooks with your arms, and placing your feet between their knees. Make sure when you secure the underhooks, you post your elbows out and up, away from your sides. This will keep their arms from wrapping and them securing a grip behind your back. Them securing a grip behind your back is bad news for you as you won't have as much control as you'd like. From here you'll roll back and lift them into their air when your butterfly hooks, then you'll point your left leg and allow them to slide down your shin. While their sliding down, slip your left arm under their leg...yes, just as you would secure it when establishing the X guard as described above. Then again, as described above, slide that left foot back between their legs and secure the X guard completely.<br /><br />Another option from that lift is instead of attacking the legs to get X guard, you'll attack an arm to secure an armbar. After you've lifted them, pick an arm. I've found that I usually attack their left arm. So you've got the underhooks, scooted in, and lifted them up and into the air. Remove that left underhook and bring it out and over their left arm. As you lower them back to the ground, push out with your legs as to create space between you and your opponent while sitting up. Your right forearm is going to be across their right arm, just above the elbow and you can just secure an overhand grip (back of right hand into your left palm), and put pressure on the elbow.<br /><br />A common situation to come across, usually when grappling with somebody who isn't as experienced or when rolling with wrestlers, is when you scoot in they'll bull rush you - charge full force with their shoulder into your chest in an attempt to lay you back onto the mat. This is a pretty cool move for that situation. Say when you tried to scoot in, you were able to get your feet in between their knees, but were only able to secure one underhook. When they bull rush you, as you're going to your back, secure the arm that you have overhooked - this is the arm you're going to attack for the submission. Place your feet onto each of their hips and create space, or onto their knees and flatten them out. Then rotate their elbow to have it point to the ground, the bend in their elbow facing the sky. Lay back the rest of the way if you had to sit up a little to rotate their elbow, then bridge your hips to the sky.<br /><br />Again, this blog is a few days late...way later than I wanted to post it (I've gone to 2 classes at my school this week since the weekend). The seminar is something I'll always remember, and hopefully I have the chance to meet Marcelo again in the near future :-)Mike O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01866800247104191172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-686190490065146472.post-44856164572206587592008-09-20T19:07:00.000-07:002008-09-23T10:28:14.398-07:00Marcelo Garcia Seminar - Day 1 - No-GiSo about a month ago I came across a post on a BJJ blog I read that said Marcelo Garcia was heading this way. I posted about it a little over <a href="http://mikebjjlog.blogspot.com/2008/09/tonights-practice-9112008.html">here</a>.<br /><br />Anyways, day 1 was awesome! It's crazy to have actually met Marcelo Garcia, a guy I've idolized in all the online videos I've seen since starting Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. The guy is just so good! And he's an awesome person. Soft spoken, a great sport, loves what he does and loves sharing his knowledge with others. All of this showed all throughout the seminar, too. Day 1 was a no-gi day, tomorrow's going to be a gi day. But Marcelo emphasized at the beginning of the seminar that what he was going to show us wasn't go to be "this is for gi, this is for no-gi." What he would show us can be used for either. Maybe with a few minor changes, but could translate between both.<br /><br />It started off with Robert Owens, the head instructor at <a href="http://bjjolympia.com/">BJJ Olympia</a>, introducing Marcelo and talking about him a bit. Then Marcelo thanked everyone for coming out and we got started! Marcelo said that Saturday he'd concentrate on working from the top, while on Sunday he'd concentrate on working from the bottom. So he started out by explaining that from working from the top, you want your opponents back on the ground. You don't have as much control over an opponent when they're on their edge or even sitting up. And so this is where we started out: you're standing and your opponent is scooting around on their butt. He showed us one technique he uses to get the opponent on their back, then stemmed from there.<br /><br />Alright... So you're standing and you're opponent is scooting around on their butt. You're going to grab their right ankle with your left hand, and your right hand is going to push on their right shoulder. Once they have their back to the ground, you'll more than likely have your right leg between their legs and your left leg outside of their left leg. Then you'll re-position your right hand to their sternum and put most of your weight on that right hand. This'll 1) help hold the opponent down, 2) make it very uncomfortable for your opponent and make it a little harder to breath, and 3) with most of your weight on your hand, this'll help keep you light on your feet so that you can manuvuer left/right around your opponents guard. If your opponent was able to get their right leg outside of your left? Then simply step over their right leg with your left. Once here, you'll move your right hand from their ankle up to the knee. As you pull on the knee to straighten their right leg, swing your right leg back and around toward you, then put the right knee on their belly. If they try to move away, shrimp out, you'll follow them until you find the right time to move into belly down side control (making sure you get that underhook on the far side).<br /><br />But what happens if they lock your right leg up with their legs? From there you can use that same swing around kick from before, escape to pass guard, you're creating space in the leg lock. After you create the space, drive your right knee up your opponents right side, freeing your foot and sliding into side control.<br /><br />What if you're unable to drive your knee up to free your leg because you're opponent is blocking your knee with his hands. In this situation you can push your opponents right knee with your left hand, shifting his hips to his left. This'll cause you to drop to your knees and lay across your opponents outter right thigh. If you act quick enough, you can kick/straighten your right leg to escape the lock. Then swing your legs around and secure belly down side control. If you weren't able to act quick enough and kick that leg back to break the lock though, then you can just straighten the leg as much as possible, then reach up with your left foot and peel the lock off. Then move into belly down side control.<br /><br />Now, let's take a couple steps back... What if when your opponent gets your right leg locked, they start turning their body to grab your left leg with their right hand? It depends really on which way they attempt to grab it. If they just and grab your ankle, then you'll lift your foot and spin the bottom portion of your leg in a counter-clockwise motion, breaking the grip. It uses the same principle as break a grip around your wrist: follow the path of least resistence, the thumb. Now what if they get in little deeper and wrap around the outside of your left leg? Pick up the foot, and pull it out of their attempted wrap. But what if they try to wrap your leg by going in between your legs and hooking toward the outside? Pick up that left leg and "baseball slide" across their chest to their left side. As you slide in, your right foot should slide out of the lock. Make sure you secure that underhook with your left arm as you slide in, too.<br /><br />Now taking it back all the way to the beginning: you're on your feet, your opponent is scooting around on their butt. What if when you push their back to the floor, your right hand post didn't have enough weight on it to hold them down? Or you never got a chance to get their back to the floor and they scoot in and try to hug your right leg? This is where the guillotine choke comes in handy. Put your right wrist into their neck and cup your left hand around the back of their head. When doing this, you want to put that wrist straight up into their neck, don't slide it in. You want to make sure you get it in there below the chin. Trying to slide it in, you'll be telegraphing the move. The left hand on the back of the head is to make sure they don't back their head out. Then lean over and replace that left hand with your right shoulder. Reach down and put the back of your right hand into the palm of your left, and lift up.<br /><br />But, someone who's every grappled before is not going to get close enough to just let somebody put that in. So he showed us another way, if the person is just close enough to reach to put it in. Reach out with your left hand to cup the back of the head and put the right wrist into their neck, then do a judo shoulder roll over them. Doing this, you'll both end up on your back, but you'll have the choke in. Then simply bridge up to tighten the choke.<br /><br />From there we did some free rolling. Now, I'm normally a very shy person, and this was my first BJJ seminar. So I wasn't just walking up to people asking them to roll. But one guy came over and asked if I wanted to roll, so I accepted. On our way to finding an open area on the very crowded mat (seemed there was at least 50 people there), I asked him where he was from and how long he had been rolling. He said he had been rolling for about 2 years, then asked how long I had been rolling. "3 months," I said haha So we kneeled down and began to roll. You could tell he had way more experience than man, but I held my own for a bit. I got a few sweeps in, but could never get a submission. He ended up getting me in a triangle. I was hoping to roll somemore, but you could tell he was there for a "real challange" and he ended up saying thanks and walked away to find somebody else. That sort of killed it for me, so I went and watched Marcelo roll for the rest of the time. It's one thing to see him in the videos on YouTube, but wow...in real life it's a whole 'nother thing. The guy is just so relaxed and so smooth with his game.<br /><br />Marcelo closed out with some words of wisdom. Talked about how he would've never gotten where he was today without the great people doing BJJ also. He travelled a lot to learn from various people who were more skilled than he was. And told us not to get frustrated or discouraged if something doesn't come to us right away. He's been training for a very long time, and he's put a lot of hours into getting where he's at today. And don't be hesitant in trying new things while rolling. That's the whole point of it - to try these new techniques on a resisting partner.<br /><br />In all, the seminar ran about 3 hours. It was an amazing day and I'm TOTALLY stoked for day 2 of the seminar tomorrow. Tomorrow, as I said, will be a gi day. I have more experience with a gi, so hopefully when we free roll at the end I won't have people walking away because I wasn't enough of a challenge. Also, Mel said that there was supposed to be another guy from my school up here. Hopefully he's here today so I can practice all the techniques with him. Yesterday I had to roll with a guy who I didn't know. Which I didn't mind, but the dude wouldn't stop farting...Mike O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01866800247104191172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-686190490065146472.post-10001684873885592032008-09-18T22:12:00.000-07:002008-09-19T23:21:19.536-07:00Tonight's Practice - 9.18.2008Tonight was a no-gi night. I've been trying to get a little more no-gi experience before the Marcelo Garcia seminar this weekend (2 day seminar - one day no-gi, one day with the gi). I still don't have much (only a handful of no-gi classes), but at least I have some now. I won't be flopping like a fish now...much haha Tonight we worked a lot from the back, both from the back and having somebody on your back. I've learned a couple chokes from the back during a previous class with the gi, but haven't learned how to escape when somebody had your back. So I was soaking it up like a sponge heh We started off with a basic escape from when somebody has your back...<br /><br />So your opponent has your back, foot hooks in, and their right arm around your neck. This can work whether you have your hands up and crossed protecting your neck and they wrap their arm, or they have their arm wrapped and youv'e tucked your chin and are pulling down on their forearm with both hands. You're going to want to push and slide up, and put your back on the ground to the left side of your opponent. A good way to remember which way to go is to go the direction their fingers are pointing (of the arm wrapped around your neck), or go toward the opening, not into the bend of their elbow. Once you get your back onto the mat, whizzer with your right around their right arm, post your left hand on their right knee and shrimp out (facing toward them).<br /><br />From here it depends on what your opponent does. You might get butterfly guard, half butterfly, maybe get full guard. If your opponent is experienced, they'll know to sit back on their bottom to keep from getting sweeped. If you're able to pull butterfly guard and your opponent sits back, you can push your feet out and create space. From here you can get this sweep:<br /><br />If when you pulled butterfly guard you weren't able to get underhooks, when you push your opponent back with your foot hooks, get those underhooks. From here you'll bring your left hand up to your ear trapping your opponents right arm. Once you do that, stretch your body out as you lay back, and roll your opponent to your left. Sweep successful!<br /><br />Now, what if you have an opponent that's not as experienced and is really aggressive after you get the butterfly guard and underhooks, and he wants to push into you and get face to face? Then just execute the same sweep. Left hand up to your ear and sweep to your left. The sweep is a lot easier to execute this way since you're able to use their momentum to roll them.<br /><br />Just a quick note regarding defending the choke when an opponent has your back. The "old school" way of defending it was to pull down on the forearm with both your hands and tuck your chin. But do you really want to allow your opponent to get this in before trying to defend? heh I don't. So a "new school" way is to cross your arms at the wrist, palms facing out, put your face between your hands and tuck your chin. After seeing this I asked Mel, "which arm crosses in the front?" He explained how it's a numbers game. Most people, when they take your back, they're going to wrap their right arm around your neck. Going off that, you're going to want to cross your left arm over your right. It makes it a lot easier to get that whizzer in with your right arm. If you cross your right arm over your left, then when they wrap their right arm around, you'll be blocking it with your right hand/wrist/arm, then try and switch blocking hands so that you can use your right arm to get the whizzer in.<br /><br />After working from the defense, we moved to the offensive side of things. Now, this move is if you're losing the position, your opponent is getting the leg hooks out and getting away. While your opponent is going to try and slide toward the direction your fingers are pointing, when you the back you're going to want to roll your opponent back in toward the bend of your elbow. So if you have your right arm around your opponents neck and the left arm has an underhook under their left arm, you're going to want to secure your hands together (say with a gable grip) roll them back and toward your right. When you start to lose your leg hooks, remove the left leg hook and move it behind their left leg in a butterfly fashion, then push off with that left leg creating space. Once you've created the space, you want to remove your left arm that's underhooked, secure the gable grip again this time over their left arm, and post your left forearm into their left shoulder. While doing this your right forearm will end up across their throat. Then sprawl your feet out, rolling to your left from your right side to your belly, into a north south position. When rolling you want to make sure that left forearm stays in their shoulder, this will help roll them to their back. And there's the choke.<br /><br />So let's say you're opponent doesn't allow you to roll to your belly after creating the space? Keeping the gable grip secured, switch your body from their right side to their left by throwing your body over their back. Once you get to the other side, do a sort of baseball slide to get your feet out from under you. And there's <span style="font-weight: bold;">that</span> choke.<br /><br />We did positional rolling, starting with one on the back of another. I was able to successfully execute the escape a majority of the time, but was only able to get the sweep in once. As for the offensive side of things, I need to work on keeping position heh<br /><br />In between all this, I talked with Mel and another guy named Gino. Gino's been training with Mel for a long time now, and is pretty knowledgeable. I was talking to Mel about how I was trying to get in an armbar from the mount the night before, but the person had their hands locked keeping me from finishing it. One thing I never thought of was which foot to use to put into the far bicep to break the grip. Trying to think back, I just just used whichever without giving it much thought. Last night I was sitting on the left side of my opponent putting the armbar on the left arm. When trying to use my right foot to break the grip, my opponent stopped me and showed me that I should use my left foot instead. Keep my right leg down to keep their head down. While talking to Mel and Gino about this, Gino showed me something. In the situation where your opponent gets their head out from under your right leg, you'll take your left leg and weave your foot between their right shoulder and head. Can you see it yet? Then lock up the triangle! I was really excited to see that haha<br /><br />Anyways, tomorrow I'm heading up to Olympia for the Marcelo Garcia seminar on Saturday and Sunday. I'll try and remember as much detail as I can to share with the Internet! :-)Mike O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01866800247104191172noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-686190490065146472.post-22402111651528456672008-09-17T22:11:00.000-07:002008-09-19T00:11:49.878-07:00Tonight's Practice - 9.17.2008Tonight was a good practice. I like it when we get to work at least one takedown. Tonight we worked on a takedown I've seen before, but wasn't disappointed in seeing again as I really like it. I checked my previous posts, and it seems the last time we went over this specific takedown was before I started this blog. So here's a description of the takedown.<br /><br />So you and your opponent have an equal/equal grip: right hand gripping your opponents left lapel, then your left hand gripping the fabric behind their right elbow with your right foot forward. You'll step forward with your left foot while pushing your opponent backwards, which will cause them to step backwards with their right foot. Their instinct will then be to push back at you, stepping back forward with their right foot. As they're stepping forward, you're going to pull up on their lapel and sleeve fabric throwing off their center of gravity and do a sort of shuffle, placing your left foot where your right foot used to be, then hooking their right ankle with your right foot. When you hook that foot, you're going to put your right foot deep in between their stance, lower your center of gravity, and scoop up that right foot you just hooked. Then you can proceed to sweep that left leg to take them down to the ground.<br /><br />Then we worked on a choke using the main coat portion of the opponents gi (one of the "flaps" that overlaps" - I'll call it a flap from now on haha). This one will be a little harder to explain, but I'll try my best...<br /><br />So you're in belly down side control on their right side, and you have a overhook with your left arm that goes under their head, and an underhook with your right arm. As you reach down with your right hand to pull out the left "flap" of their coat from their belt (or say, your 2-3mins into a match and the "flap" is already untucked from the belt), you're going to grab fabric on their left shoulder with your left hand, as to keep their shoulders flat on the mat. Once you get the left "flap" all the way out, you're going to pass it up to your left hand (between their left arm and the mat) getting it up as high as you can past their head. Then sit up and put your right knee into their belly, and pull the caot flap under their head towards you; it should pull all the way across so you can see/grab it on the right side of their head. Then switch your hand grip: right hand switches with the left to grab onto it on the right side of their head. Then reach across your opponents chest with your left hand to grab fabric on their left shoulder. Lean forward into your opponent putting your opponents head into your chest, and "crack a walnut between your shoulder blades" to tighten the choke.<br /><br />And then there's a variation to this. Say that when your each across your opponents chest with your left hand, they block your hand with their left hand. If this happens, grab onto the fabric on their left sleeve and pull it across their body toward you. Then lean down toward their head, securing that left arm across their throat. Then hook your left arm around the back of their head and squeeze, giving you another choke.<br /><br />Rolling at the end of class was a lot of fun. I can feel myself starting to relax way more compared to what I used to. I had the chance to roll with blue belt Dave again. He's great to roll with. He has the tall and thin build like I do, so I tend to study his game more than others. Dave's the only person I've rolled with who uses wrist locks. He's gotten me in them the last two times we've rolled, and did it again this time. This time it went down like this: we started on our knees. I reach in and grab his left lapel with my right hand. He reaches out with his left hand and cups my right elbow, then reaches in with his right hand and grabs my right tricep. Then pulls it in while leaning over, bending my wrist against his chest. He observed that I'm not keeping my wrists straight when I secure the lapel, keeping them too limp. I've always had bad wrists though, really weak. He told me that doing push-ups on your fists helps strengthen them. So I'm going to try and fit some push-ups into my daily life to help strengthen them up. He also showed me over and over again that I'm thinking too much and/or not thinking enough while rolling. I tend to get really narrow minded while rolling. Example, when in side mount, submissions I know are arm bar...hah that's all I can think of right now. But aside from that, I'm looking to mount. Quite a few times he'd put his arm up on my back. He stopped me one time and asked if I had noticed; I did not. He showed me how to power down the arm with my head and secure an Americana. One more to my side control submission bank :-)<br /><br />Anyways, that's all I can remember for now. Until next time... :-)Mike O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01866800247104191172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-686190490065146472.post-30352186590599607702008-09-17T14:51:00.001-07:002008-09-17T14:55:57.907-07:00The FightWorks Podcast - 9.14.2008<a href="http://thefightworkspodcast.com/">The FightWorks Podcast</a> had another great episode this last Sunday. It was part 2 of the "changing schools" segment. This time they interviewed <a href="http://www.onthemat.com/gumby/">Gumby</a> from <a href="http://www.onthemat.com/">OnTheMat.com</a>. So we got to hear the perspective of an instructor on changing schools, which was cool. And they also had <a href="http://www.pedrosauer.com/pedrosauer/default.asp">Pedro Sauer</a> on there for their Black Belt Corner segment.<br /><br />Go <a href="http://thefightworkspodcast.com/2008/09/14/changing-jiu-jitsu-schools/">here</a> to download the episode.Mike O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01866800247104191172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-686190490065146472.post-29647105385393482802008-09-12T00:15:00.000-07:002008-09-14T00:08:56.358-07:00Tonight's Practice - 9.11.2008So I strayed a little from my normal Monday/Wednesday jiu-jitsu schedule, instead going on Monday/Thursday this week. At my school, Monday and Wednesday are gi nights, Thursday's are no-gi, while Saturday switches back and forth. September 20-21 I'll be attending a 2 day <a href="http://bjjolympia.com/seminar.html">Marcelo Garcia seminar</a> at a school up north; one day is gi, the other is no-gi. So I thought it best I get a little more no-gi under my belt. I'm really stoked for that seminar. If you don't know who Marcelo Garcia is, I <span style="font-weight: bold;">highly</span> recommend you head on over to YouTube and start searching for videos. I'll post a few of my faves here for starters :)<br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY8JlJZBgCk">Marcelo Garcia highlight video</a> - The title speaks for itself....<br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wTAdM9tLWc">Marcelo Garcia vs Mike Van Arsdale @ ADCC 2003</a> - I love this video. It perfectly illustrates what Marcelo re-iterates in his training DVDs: Your opponent may be pushing your head back, shoving your head side to side, pulling your legs out from under you, it doesn't matter. You must stick to your game. And that's exactly what he did...<br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_8O-fq-NI4">Marcelo Garcia vs Vitor "Shaolin" Ribiero @ ADCC 2003</a> - Shows how lightning quick Marcelo is, and another great example of how he's able to get an awesome choke in from pretty much any position heh<br /><br />Then the next weekend, September 28, I'll be attending a Rylan Lizares seminar at my own school. Rylan is a Pedro Sauer black belt, and there's a few videos of him on YouTube as well.<br /><br />Anyways, on to tonight's practice. As I said, it was a no-gi practice. It was only my 2nd no-gi class, and wow is it different haha As I predicted before I went, I was lost without any fabric to grab on to. Trying to learn the overhooks and underhooks, I realized just how often that I do in fact grab on to fabric to assist me with various techniques, or simply to gain a more dominant position. We started off with basics warm-ups (jogging, stretching, shrimp drills, etc), then went into drills.<br /><br />First drill was the pummeling drill, where you're fighting for underhooks (as soon at the beginning of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ23GRes_S0">this video</a>). It was my first time doing the drill, so it was a little difficult at first, but I caught on heh One thing we did different than that drill was whichever arm had the underhook, that same side foot was forward. So we were constantly switching stances while pummeling.<br /><br />Then we moved onto a self defense technique from that same position: blocking attempted knee strikes to your stomach/groin. This was done with each of us having an underhook and an overhook. A proper knee would come from the side of your body that has the overhook. This way, when you're kneeing, you can pull on the underhook you have on the opposite side of of your opponent to pull them into you and into your knee. Also, you'll have better balance. So you each have a right underhook and a left overhook. This means your opponent will be kneeing with his left knee. When the strike comes up, you'll move your left hand (the overhooked arm/hand) from their elbow/tricep down between you to block the knee. And that's it! haha Remember that after you block that knee strike to bring that left hand back up onto their elbow/tricep as to not allow them to get a quick fist/elbow strike in.<br /><br />Then we moved onto a takedown from this position: the sacrafice throw. This one uses your opponents momentum against them. So you're back into the clinch, each of you have a right underhook. Start to push forward and let your opponent react by pushing back into you. When they push back, sit back over your right foot and extend your left leg out forward and to the left. As you fall backwards, use that underhooked right arm to pull your opponent over your body, and you should end up in side control. A variation of this that works for those of use with long legs, is instead of just extending that left leg out to have your opponent roll over, stick your left right into his right ankle. That way when they try to catch their balance by posting their right leg out, it'll get stuck under your left foot.<br /><br />Then we worked a butterfly guard pass. So your opponent has you in butterfly guard. You'll reach down with your right hand and cup your opponents heel underneath. So when you extend your right leg to swing it into their guard, they won't be able to extend their leg to keep the left foot hook in. When you bring your right leg in, bring your leg all the way around their right foot hook also, so that instead of their right foot hook being on the inside of your left leg, it'll be on the outside of your right leg. And you'll put your weight down into their right leg to put it flat on the floor. Then you'll reach down between you and your opponent with your left hand and grab his right ankle. Now you're going to roll your body up towards their chest, bringing your right leg over your left. You should end up in a rear facing side mount. Then slide your right knee up under their left knee to get their knee out of your side and get "regular" side control. That one was sort of hard to explain. I hope that makes sense to others who read this...and me when I come back to read this for review later haha<br /><br />And since this was my first class, I asked Mel about the principles behind no-gi jiu-jitsu. One of the main things being differences in technique since there isn't a gi to grab on to. He elaborated a lot more on what I had heard before: use the underhooks and overhooks. He concentrated most of his explanation from the bottom (guard, half guard, etc). Utilizing the underhook, whizzer, wrapping the back of the head to break down your opponents posture. There were some other things too, but I'm having a hard time remembering at the moment. I'll come back and add more to this post as I remember...<br /><br />Rolling was a lot of fun (as always). I rolled with Rhet, and another guy who's name escapes me; it's been awhile since I've seen him at the school. Rhet pretty much dominated me the whole time. I had a really hard time trying to switch my mind from trying to grab fabric to getting underhooks or overhooks. By the time I remembered, Rhet was already on his way to submitting me. I was able to successfully execute the butterfly guard pass we had just learned though, so that was good. Then I rolled with the other guy. The other guy has a history of wrestling 4 years in high school, going to state, etc. I've rolled with him once before, and really like his style. Going slow, working on technique, etc. He's been training jiu-jitsu for awhile too, he's one of the more experience white belts. I felt more confident rolling with him as I actually had time to think about technique heh As we went along, he'd stop me if I passed up a submissions, too. For example, after slipping into side control, I was able to get his near side arm between my legs. From there I'd always keep the arm trapped there while reaching over and trying to work a Kimura or Americana. He showed me how I was able to sit back and put stress on the elbow with it trapped between my legs still. Another was when he had an underhook with his near side arm. I was able to get a modified armbar from there. I guess I'll go ahead and explain those while I'm typing hehe<br /><br />So you have side control, facing forward, on their right side, and you get their right arm in between your legs (over your right leg, under your left leg). Reach down with your left hand and keep their arm posted between your legs. While keeping it posted down between your legs, bring your right foot up and over their arm. From here you can push your foot towards the floor, putting pressure on their elbow. In addition, you can bring your left leg over your right ankle and lock it up much like a triangle.<br /><br />As for the "modified" armbar as I called it... So you have "regular" side control on their right side: overhook with your left arm (arm under their head) and underhook with your right. Hmm, now that I think about it, I can't remember the setup exactly that I was doing while rolling, but off the top of my head... Pull your left arm out from underneath his head and put in a whizzer on his right arm. Then sit up making sure your left forearm stays above his elbow, up on his bicep, and plant your right foot flat on the ground, right up against his right side (shin in his side). Then as you lay back, throw your left leg over his head as you would a regular armbar. But this way, instead of holding his wrist with both your hands, his lower arm (hand, wrist) will be trapped underneath your left armpit.<br /><br />I'm gonna go ahead and post this. I hope I didn't forget anything. This took me a couple days to put together as things were pretty busy since Thursday night.<br /><br />Until next time... :-)Mike O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01866800247104191172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-686190490065146472.post-11500510512339817572008-09-09T15:41:00.000-07:002008-09-09T15:48:23.304-07:00The FightWorks Podcast - 9.7.2008I finally had the chance to listen to the latest <a href="http://thefightworkspodcast.com/">FightWorks Podcast</a>, and another great show (<a href="http://thefightworkspodcast.com/2008/09/07/changing-bjj-schools/">download here</a>). Segment regarding changing schools (which I was always curious about), another segment with Doc, and a segment regarding the World Team Trials of Submission Grappling US team.Mike O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01866800247104191172noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-686190490065146472.post-51025416847386603432008-09-09T07:54:00.000-07:002008-09-09T15:49:01.963-07:00Practice - 9.8.2008Didn't get a chance to blog about last night's practice last night, but I'm hoping I can remember everything *crossing fingers*<br /><br />After finishing a light warm-up, we sat down on the mats with Mel. Mel said that he'd take requests before moving into the curriculum, and proceeded to go around the circle to see if there was anything that anybody wanted to work on or had questions about. One guy asked if we could review or be shown another takedown/sweep. While that was supported a few times, I then asked to be shown a triangle from the mount. We were shown this before, but not in so much detail. We were being shown another technique from the mount (which one I can't think of right now) and the triangle was another option. So I wanted more detail, a better explanation. Another suggestion was what to do after you've taken somebody's back.<br /><br />So the first takedown was one I haven't seen before, and I don't remember the name. So you start off in the normal "equal/equal" hold - Right foot forward stance, right hand gripping your opponents left lapel, leg hand gripping fabric at about your opponents right elbow. Your opponents grip is the same on you, hence the "equal/equal" name. Step forward with your left foot, placing it even with the opponents right foot, or even slightly past, and not right next to it either. As you do this you're going to pull down on your left hand (the hand that's gripping the elbow fabric) causing them to be a little off balance. As you do this your right shoulder should end up in their right shoulder, and your head should be looking down their back. Then bring your right leg between your left leg and your opponents right leg (that gap you left when you stepped forward with your left foot earlier), and hook your opponents right leg. Then you'll lean foward sweeping that right leg back, think of it as trying to kick up to the ceiling and you'll get a good sweep with good follow through. As you lean forward, you're right shoulder will be pressing against their right shoulder, and at the same time your left hand will be pulling down their right elbow and your right hand will be pushing on the left side of their chest. This is a really cool sweep if you get it down. If done properly, 1) if in a match, this could knock the breath out of your opponent, giving you the upper hand. Or 2) if on the street, could do the same but worse since you'd more than likely be on pavement or something harder than a mat, give you the opportunity to run away from the attack.<br /><br />Then he reviewed the <a href="http://mikebjjlog.blogspot.com/2008/09/todays-practice-962008.html">leg hook takedown</a> he showed us on Saturday. I learned another detail for this one too. When you hook their left ankle with your right ankle and push, make sure you're not pulling/pushing your opponent sideways as if you're trying to lay them down across in front of you. You're actually pushing them backwards, and that ankle hook you have will keep your opponent from being able to step back and regain balance.<br /><br />One day, I'll remember the actual Japanese names for these haha All the takedowns he's shown that I've seen so far have all been from his Judo training. Mel actually has a poster with the 5 groups of Judo takedowns at the gym, Gokyo No Waza (techniques seen <a href="http://www.judoinfo.com/gokyo1.htm">here</a>).<br /><br />Then we moved onto my choice, the triangle from mount. Triangles work great for me because I have really long legs. So I thought it'd work best for me to find different ways of getting 'em in :-) The rest of the class on the other hand, is made up of shorter people. So really I was the only one who was able to get my legs locked in the triangle while still on top haha Anyways, to the technique. To get this triangle in you'll be basically walking your opponent right into it. This is setup I was taught for it.<br /><br />So you have the full mount. One thing you'll want for this is an arm under your opponents head. One technique that uses this: an ezekeil choke. So once you have your left arm under your opponents head, you start to bring your right arm in to put in the choke. Instictively your opponent will bring in their left hand to try and block it (they're unable to get their right hand in because it's blocked by the position you have them in). When they bring in that left hand, grab the wrist with your right hand, pin it to the ground, and put their left wrist into your left hand (the one that's underneath their head). Then you'll start to weave your right arm under your opponents left bicep to make them think you're going to put in an Americana (which to do right, you wouldn't want your left arm under your opponents head, but in the heat of the moment your opponent might not realize this detail). To defend against the Americana, they'll try and straight out their arm, and this is the momentum that you'll use. When their left arm starts to straighten, it'll move from a 90-degree angle facing up, to a 180-degree flat line from their shoulder to their fingers. Grab their left wrist with your right hand and keep that momentum going. At the same time you'll weave your right leg under your right arm and over their left arm, picking up their head with your left arm that's already underneath their head, and swing your right leg underneath. Then you'll grab their right arm (fabric, wrist) with your right hand and bring it across their chest, making your right foot available to hook that left leg around.<br /><br />Now, as I said, I was pretty much the only person who could get a good triangle lock while still in the top position because of my long legs. But if you aren't "blessed" with this, or if you weren't able to get your right leg in as far as you would have liked, then you have another option. This technique can also be used of your opponent decides to oopa and roll you onto your back. If this happens, then you can reach your left hand down to grab your right ankle. Then you'll roll to your right shoulder, rolling onto your back. While doing that roll, you'll take your right foot and place it on the right hip of your opponent. Once you make it onto your back and take the angle (in this case, shifting your upper body right so you're looking into their left ear...this'll make that triangle even smaller), then you can lock up the triangle.<br /><br />After all this, it was either work stuff after taking the back, or a little time to roll so that we could put into practice what we'd gone over already. We opted to roll. I rolled with a guy smaller than I, but has been at jiu-jitsu for awhile longer (3 stripes). I feel I did really well. Neither one of us got a submission, but we both did well technique wise I think. Sweeps and overall control were good. I watched a Gracie Insider video the other day on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWs63-ghiVY">taking the back from the guard</a>. I end up in guard a lot while rolling, and my guard is pretty strong. Haven't had a white belt pass my closed guard yet. Most often, the person will then resort to cutting their forearm into my throat. At first I'd try and push their arm back to the side it came from, but found that they'd usually grab my collar and it'd just stop there. Then I found that I could push on their elbow and force their arm to follow their hand. And then I could hug them and catch my breath. But I'd stop there. After watching that video though, I've taken advantage of this technique quite a few times, especially last night. Now I just need to work on rear naked chokes and various collar chokes from the back. I've been shown some in the past, but they've slipped my mind. Next time we get a night to have Mel show us whatever technique we want though, I'm definitely asking about working after taking the back.Mike O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01866800247104191172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-686190490065146472.post-30428187939403190002008-09-06T23:02:00.000-07:002008-09-19T06:23:30.948-07:00Today's Practice - 9.6.2008Today was my first Saturday practice. I usually go on Monday's and Wednesday's, but since Monday was a holiday, I had to shift my 2nd class of the week to today. Which was great because Saturday's are 2 hour classes instead of the 1.5hr classes during the week. Since Saturday's classes are longer, the warm-up was a little longer than I'm used to, which I thought was nice though. I like making sure my muscles are warmed up beforehand and can get a better stretch in (which is another thing I'm trying to improve aside from my jiu-jitsu skills haha).<br /><br />So on to techniques. Today we went over a takedown (leg hook, leg sweep, can't remember the proper terminology), escape from side control (same escape we went over on Wendesday, so was a great review), triangle escape (2 variations), and a scissor sweep from the guard.<br /><ul><li>Leg hook takedown - I'm really starting to like this one... So both you and your opponent are in a right-foot forward stance. You have a hold on his left lapel with your right hand, and your left hand is holding material at their right elbow. As you step forward diagonally with your left to the outside of their right foot, you're pulling back towards you and up with your right hand. This 1) brings their center line along your right side, and 2) makes them step foward with their left causing them to straddle your right leg. Then you'll bring your left foot next to your right and quickly hook your right ankle behind their left ankle. And as you're hooking it back, you're pushing forward. And remember to keep that left ankle hooked as to keep them from stepping backwards to regain balance. This will usually bring you into their half guard, but if you work it right, you can get side control (baseball slide onto their right side).</li><li>Side control escape - This one is going to be a little harder to explain, hence why there was no explanation for it in Wednesday's blog post haha I tried to find a video on youtube, but no luck there. I'll try my best with words... So they have side mount, coming over your right side; they're left arm is over your head with their left elbow backed into your left ear; they're right arm is on your right side with the hand posted at your right hip. So what you'll do is take your left arm and it'll lay between their hand and right shoulder onto their back (you can grab fabric if you want to, but not too much at first or you'll telegraph the move). Then you'll take right hand off of their hip (because this is where it was in the first place, right? ;-) and shove it underneath them, moving it along your right side until it is between your right hip and their right hand that is posted beside it. And all at once you'll oopa up and spin counter clockwise. If you do this correctly, you'll have a hold of their right arm with your right hand and can swing right into a triangle. If you don't get right into the triangle though, at least you'll have them in your full guard. Do that make any sense at all? haha</li><li>Triangle escape (1st variation) -So your opponent has you in an ol' classic triangle - your head and right arm. Put your right hand up into their left armpit and put your right elbow to the floor. Then reach up with your left hand and grab fabric on top of their right pant leg. While pulling back with your left hand, pulling back on your right elbow, push your chest out as if you're trying to push it through the triangle. This'll relieve pressure off your throat from the triangle. More than likely the person will try and reach with your right hand across their chest to grab that right hand out of their armpit to bring it across their chest to tighten it back up. Just as they reach (timing this just right) you'll move your left hand across their chest and up over their left shoulder grabbing fabric or the shoulder muscle there as leverage. While you'll pulling using that left arm you'll sort of "stack" them and pass around their right leg.</li><li>Triangle escape (2nd variation) - So you're back in the same triangle hold - your head and right arm. This time you'll take your right hand and put it on the right side of your face (careful when doing this though as they don't reach up and grab that hand spinning it clockwise (as you're looking at it) putting you into an armbar). Then you'll post your left hand on their right bicep, keeping it posted to the floor. Stand up on your left foot, then you're right, then replace your left hand on their right bicep with your left foot while rolling back and straighening your body. **the part where you posted your left hand on their right bicep was a pretentative measure to keep them from hooking your left leg when you stood up on your left foot there.</li><li>Scissor sweep from the guard - I found a video pretty easily with this one, so I'll just embed a video here, and then add some notes...<br /><br /><a style="left: 0px ! important; top: 15px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-02703752199589631 visible ontop" href="http://www.youtube.com/v/6KSsrYRTRrY&hl=en&fs=1"></a><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/6KSsrYRTRrY&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/6KSsrYRTRrY&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></embed></object><br /><br />My only thing to add is that when you complete the sweep and you have the mount position, do not come up nose to nose when them. Then trap your right arm that's still grabbing the collar and simply oopa up and use your momentum to roll you right back over. One thing Mel showed today was flowing two things together. He mentioned how from the bottom, always go for the neck first. This is where you reach up for the cross collar, then attempt the cross collar choke. But what if they jam up that left arm trying to get in the other lapel? This is what you just grab fabric on the right arm or cup the right elbow, then proceed with the scissor sweep. One thing my game lacks is flowing things together. And I'm sure this is something everybody who's just starting lacks. But I'm finally starting to move from the "just learning various techniques" to "blending one technique into another into another."<br /></li></ul>Working on the techniques went quite a while, so I only had a chance to roll once. I worked with Russ all day today, the techniques and rolling. He's a pretty aggressive guy, all the time. One of those guys who can be told to slow down, but just can't do it haha But overall it was a good, fun roll. And I'm happy to say that I was tapped 5 times! Yeah, I know, that may sound weird to some, but others will understand. Up until recently I've been one of those guys who tries to fight through everything, even when doing light rolls. I've recently come to the realization that I can be tapped multiple times, while not even tapping my opponent, and still learn things. And that's exactly what happened, I didn't even tap him. But I'm definitely learning to slow down and breath, and have patience. Wait for the opportunity instead of trying to force it. Or make them make a move, opening up something for me to take advantage of.<br /><br />All in all, I'd definitely have to say that this was probably my best practice yet. I realized a lot of things today :-)Mike O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01866800247104191172noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-686190490065146472.post-27952264892001264342008-09-04T20:24:00.000-07:002008-09-09T15:48:38.021-07:00Podcast and an Awesome FAQAs part of the <a href="http://thefightworkspodcast.com/2007/03/24/a-clarification-on-our-listenership-and-the-mighty-600000/">Mighty 600,000</a>, I feel it is my duty to share the wealth. That wealth being <a href="http://thefightworkspodcast.com/">The FightWorks Podcast</a>. This is a great podcast, everything Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. They discuss everything from major competitions to health and nutrition, and interview some of the most well known BJJ players in the world! I highly recommend you subscribe using your favorite RSS reader (my favorite being <a href="http://www.google.com/reader">Google Reader</a>) or iTunes (but I subscribe to the podcast through <a href="http://www.apple.com/itunes/">iTunes</a> hehe).<br /><br />In one of the FightWorks podcasts, Caleb mentioned an .xml file he uploaded to the website of all the blogs he follows (over 60 blogs, which can be found <a href="http://thefightworkspodcast.com/2008/07/15/blog-bjj/">here</a>). Amongst those blogs is one entitled <a href="http://slideyfoot.blogspot.com/">Slidey's Training Log</a>. This is one blog I've grown to like very much in the very short time I've started reading all those blogs Caleb shared. Slidey's was another blog that encouraged me to start my own and track my own progress. He does a nice job describing all the techniques he's learning. Anyways, Slidey replied to one of my comments and directed me to a <a href="http://slideyfoot.blogspot.com/2006/10/bjj-beginner-faq.html">beginner FAQ</a> that he put together, and I'd like to share it with you. It answers all kinds of questions that may be going through your head as a person looking to start BJJ, or a person who's already started. Awesome stuff there, thanks again Slidey :-)Mike O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01866800247104191172noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-686190490065146472.post-69138683197708866562008-09-03T22:35:00.000-07:002008-09-04T10:04:39.522-07:00Tonight's Practice - 9.3.2008Tonight's practice was a little frustrating. I was brainfarting left and right, forgetting all kinds of little details (ie posting your knee up against the opponent when they have side control as to make it more difficult for them to get full mount). As for techniques, we learned:<br /><ul><li>A sort of "last resort" to get half guard back from the bottom when your opponent has you in side control.</li><li>A side control escape regaining full guard using a 270 degree spin (fun stuff hehe)</li><li>A side control escape (when both the opponents arms are on your side nearest them) using a roll out</li></ul>Rolling is when I got frustrated. I'm still learning to relax and be patient, but it's slow going. And all the little mistakes I was making...frustration just took over and I started making more mistakes and tiring myself out way more than I should have. And then I rolled with Mel, my instructor haha Once practice was over, I took a few breathes to settle myself down...and then a major headache hit.<br /><br />I learned some stuff tonight. Techniques, minor details I'm still forgetting when rolling which end up getting me into a horrible position, and what it is that makes me "tick." It may not have been a "successful" as a practice as I wanted jiu-jitsu wise, but I'm learning more about myself...and that's a good thing.<br /><br />Until next time... :-)Mike O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01866800247104191172noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-686190490065146472.post-23233826771242548342008-09-02T00:37:00.000-07:002008-09-02T12:42:39.797-07:00Free Roll - 8.27.2008So this post is a little late. Some personal stuff came up last week and I had to put off posting until the weekend was over. But I learned something new last Wednesday - every last Wednesday of the month is a free roll! Work on whichever techniques you want, ask all kinds of questions, all night (ok, well not all night, but for the 1.5 hrs that practice is going). I rolled with a few different guys. Rhet was there, so I started rolling with him. I think each of us got a submission on each other - he got a choke and I an armbar. Then I rolled with a guy who comes in every once in awhile. He's an older guy whose background is wrestling, so most of my time was spent on my back in guard heh It was fun and challenging though. He's very good moving around while on top, was very difficult keeping him in my guard. He's a shorter guy though, so I was able to use my long limbs to my advantage. Then I rolled with a blue belt whose name escapes me. "Dave" comes to mind, but I can't be sure. He helped me a lot with pointing out small details as we rolled. Kimura and Americana, keeping my weight down on the guy when I get side control, and some other things that escape me at the moment (which I why I started this blog in the first place, to document as to not forget heh).<br /><br />Overall it was a lot of fun and VERY tiring! Until next time... :-)Mike O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01866800247104191172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-686190490065146472.post-70484902630802710682008-08-25T22:56:00.000-07:002008-09-02T07:46:05.351-07:00Tonight's Practice - 8.25.2008Tonight's practice was a lot of fun. I practiced the new techniques with Rhet (not sure of the spelling heh) tonight and rolled with him also. I really like sparring with him as I feel he's better than me, but doesn't totally dominate me whenever we roll. He's a white belt like me, but been there awhile longer.<br /><br />Anyways, as for what we learned tonight. It started off with escaping from an armbar using a move called "the hitchhiker." Gets it names from how you point your thumb when you bridge and roll. Sort of hard to explain the whole technique, so I found a video instead! haha<br /><br /><a style="left: 0px ! important; top: 15px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-03101437362441394 visible ontop" href="http://www.youtube.com/v/wIvdU00BdtU&hl=en&fs=1"></a><a style="left: 0px ! important; top: 15px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-03101437362441394 visible ontop" href="http://www.youtube.com/v/wIvdU00BdtU&hl=en&fs=1"></a><a style="left: 0px ! important; top: 15px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-03101437362441394 visible ontop" href="http://www.youtube.com/v/wIvdU00BdtU&hl=en&fs=1"></a><a style="left: 0px ! important; top: 15px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-03101437362441394 visible ontop" href="http://www.youtube.com/v/wIvdU00BdtU&hl=en&fs=1"></a><a style="left: 0px ! important; top: 15px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-03101437362441394 visible ontop" href="http://www.youtube.com/v/wIvdU00BdtU&hl=en&fs=1"></a><a style="left: 0px ! important; top: 15px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-03101437362441394 visible ontop" href="http://www.youtube.com/v/wIvdU00BdtU&hl=en&fs=1"></a><a style="left: 0px ! important; top: 15px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-03101437362441394 visible ontop" href="http://www.youtube.com/v/wIvdU00BdtU&hl=en&fs=1"></a><a style="left: 0px ! important; top: 15px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-03133503453787482 visible ontop" href="http://www.youtube.com/v/wIvdU00BdtU&hl=en&fs=1"></a><a style="left: 0px ! important; top: 15px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-03133503453787482 visible ontop" href="http://www.youtube.com/v/wIvdU00BdtU&hl=en&fs=1"></a><a style="left: 0px ! important; top: 15px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-0370935342867148 visible ontop" href="http://www.youtube.com/v/wIvdU00BdtU&hl=en&fs=1"></a><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/wIvdU00BdtU&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/wIvdU00BdtU&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></embed></object><br /><br />Here him mention the thumb? That's "the hitchhiker" part of it! Then we moved to a whizzer from guard, and branched off into a few submissions from this position.<br /><ul><li>Collar Choke - If you have their right arm in a whizzer (using your left), reach through to grab their left lapel. Then use your right hand to grab the fabric on their right shoulder. Put your right forearm across the neck while pulling down on the left lapel.</li><li>Triangle - If they block the collar choke, throw your right leg up over their head and put them into a triangle. You already have control of their right arm...</li><li>Omoplata - If they wrap that right arm back around your thigh to protect against the triangle, then roll them right into an omoplata.</li></ul>Rhet and I were playing around with these and asked Mel about the defense against the omoplata in this situation. He showed us that if you extend your right leg behind the opponent, then roll them back over your leg, you can escape from it. It works like a charm (as long as he hasn't got it deep enough to put your flat on your face and stomach). Found a video for this too (click <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngxxRdzPD40">here</a> to watch - embedding was disabled by uploader)<br /><br />Rolling overall was a blast. As I said before, rolling with Rhet is a lot of fun. Lately I've been watching a lot of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Bravo">Eddie Bravo</a> (<a href="http://www.submissions101.com/eddiebravo.htm">videos</a>) stuff, so I've been messing around with some rubber guard. It's been a lot of fun to experiment with. I'm really excited to work it into my game as I get more experience. One thing I tried to work on last night was half guard. For some reason, I cannot seem to get that leg locked. It's so easy for my opponents to slip their leg out. I tried Eddie's Lockdown, but couldn't seem to get it to work either. Oh well, I'll play around with it more at the next practice.<br /><br />Until next time... :-)Mike O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01866800247104191172noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-686190490065146472.post-70604062436776909122008-08-25T21:47:00.000-07:002008-08-25T23:36:41.364-07:00First post!So here's the first post, exciting stuff! I've created this blog to keep track of everything I'm going to learn over my course of training <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_jiu_jitsu">Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu</a>. I decided to do this after coming across Steve's blog over at <a href="http://www.stevebjj.com/">SteveBJJ.com</a> (great read btw).<br /><br />I guess I'll post a little about my martial arts experience. I started about a year ago doing <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaolin-Do">Shaolin-Do</a>. I've always been interested in kung fu, watching Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Jet Li, etc. Not just the flashy moves, but how old the art was interested me very much. I loved the tradition aspect of it. So I find a kung fu school near by called the <a href="http://www.shao-lin.com/">Chinese Shaolin Center</a> and started. I did that for almost a year. I advanced up to 3rd degree brown, and learned a lot of stuff. I was really proud. But then I opened my eyes and started looking at some of the people who were being advanced to black belt. I couldn't help but think "how in the world??" And then I started looking into the actual history of the art. Originated at the Fukien Temple (whose very existing is debated). When the temple was attacked, masters fled to various parts of the world. One master fled to Indonesia. This is where they switched to the Japanese Gi (because the practice of Chinese martial arts was banned in Indonesia) and where they added "-Do" to the end of the name (for the same reason). Then I had a sudden light bulb one day - we're even practicing Japanese weapons. And the sparring was "air sparring," meaning you couldn't actually touch your sparring partner. I don't know...things just started adding up and I was liking it less and less, until one day I just stopped going.<br /><br />I took a break from martial arts for about 5 or 6 months, but I was missing it all the while. Training my body to do new things, challenging my mind/thought process, etc. So I started looking into schools again after movingn to a new place. That's when I came across <a href="http://www.universalmartialarts.biz/">Universal Institute of Martial Arts</a>. I've been training there for about 2 months now and I'm absolutely loving it. The instructor, Mel Locke, tototally rocks and knows his stuff (he was trained by <a href="http://www.pedrosauer.com/pedrosauer/default.asp">Professor Pedro Sauer</a>), and the other people who train there are really cool too. A lot of fun to roll with. I grew up with 2 younger brothers, wrestling all the time...the air sparring just doesn't compare to actually rolling heh<br /><br />Anyways, that's all for the intro. Until next time... :-)Mike O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01866800247104191172noreply@blogger.com1