Thursday, October 24, 2013

Another Happy Landing

I went to class again tonight. I was looking forward to seeing our brown belt instructor, because he just started coming back after a couple months hiatus. That was not to be, it seems he was injured pretty badly at work today, something like a detached bicep. Its likely that it'll require surgery and will have a significant recovery time. The good news is that we've had a lot of new people coming in. One of the guys came in, its his second day. Says he's never trained anything before, but is in phenomenal shape and was giving a purple belt a run for his money. I kinda call bullshit on the "i haven't trained" before thing. Tonight we went over knee on belly positions. We drilled the position first, then transitioned to an armbar. After that, we covered escapes. It turns out, I'm pretty good at locking in that arm bar. Rolls were pretty intense. I rolled with Nick, a blue belt, and really held my own. I was particularly proud of how I rolled with him. I actually dominated most of the round. I rolled with everybody except the new guy, because I wasn't particularly interested in being newb smashed. One thing that happened is that I caught in a weird sweep from the purple spaz, and I ended up landing on my head and it cranked my neck when he came down on top of me. My neck is pretty sore right now, and I'm sure in the morning its going to be a bastard. After class, our instructor sent me a message telling me he was impressed with my transitions tonight. I'm super happy, since he doesn't hand out compliments like candy. Anyways, I'm going to put a heat pack on my aching neck. Later.

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

10/23/2013

Sorry I haven't written in a bit. Judging by my page views, I have a few readers that I'm disappointing by not saying anything. I'm still training, I just haven't had a lot of time to write. There has been a lot of drama at work, and I've been very busy with school. Even now, I'm only writing because I'm procrastinating on an essay assignment. Actually, i'm waiting for Office to load on this computer. I have a full version on my old laptop, but I don't move it out of my office. Right now, I'm sitting with my one year old daughter, and I don't like her playing in there. Anyways, last week I trained twice and went to a tournament. I'm starting to noticeably improve my skills by focusing on things I'm weak at. It helps that I've been rolling a lot with a 2nd degree black belt. Last week, he told me that I'm starting to move really well, but my balance is my biggest weakness. That makes sense, because I have trouble maintaining dominant positions. I didn't participate in the tournament I went to, I was just there for support. It was a small, local event. We had two guys enter...and a whopping five people showed up. One was a big guy from our sister academy. Anyways, they organized it so everybody got at least three matches, but still split it into two divisions. One of our guys one the small division, and our sister academy guy won the big guy division. I think i'm going to try the next local tournament, now that I have an understanding of how it all works. Tonight was my first night this week. I intended on going last night, but I got stuck doing homework. Our black belt instructor really likes to do practical drills that emphasize the self-defense aspect of BJJ. I really enjoy this, because it adds a bit of gravitas to our training, and helps you understand that this isn't just a sport. We had a lot of white belts (a couple of new guys!) in class tonight, so I wasn't constantly getting man handled. I got man handled a little, but not nearly as bad as usual. I credit one thing for this: I ate a snack before class. I usually don't eat, but I was a bit hungry when I got home. I also drank a lot of water. From now on, I'm eating a snack and drinking lots of water every day I go train. So my first roll was with our black belt, and I got a lot of good info out of it. He's playful when he rolls, and lets you work. He let me get him in a cross-collar choke, and when he tapped he said "good, I was checking to make sure your elbows were in...if they weren't I was gonna fuck you up!" I also noticed that I was better with my balance tonight. I rolled with both of our new guys too. One needs a serious talk about hygiene. When I rolled with him, I kinda just let him work. I don't like to "coach", since I'm a white belt too...but I've also been training nine months. He kept trying to attack my neck while in my guard, so I just told him that if he keeps doing that he's gonna get armbarred. Then I armbarred him. lol. The other "new" guy, is actually a super heavyweight that trained for a year at our sister academy. The dude is huge. I made a mistake by trying to play closed guard against him....but my lets couldn't lock around him. By the time I was able to transition to an open guard, he'd already smashed me and went to cross-side. I have to point out that this guy had the heaviest side control I've ever felt in my life. He literally just sat on my chest for two minutes until I purposely offered up my arm for him to attack...I didn't want to have to tap from side control :P (Is that bad?) Somehow, after we reset, I was able to get him in triple threat and transition to mount. He was so big that my knees didn't touch the mat. I think he was too tired, because he could have easily bucked me off. I was able to sink an americana right as the buzzer sounded. My other rolls were pretty good too. I went with the guy who won the tournament this weekend, and he let me do a bit of work too. He caught me in an omoplata that I was able to defend by framing up. Then I somehow got an omoplata on him. The thing I'm most proud of is that I was able to stay mobile and counter all his guard pass attempts. I even got a knee shield sweep. So, tonight I learned that food is important and that mobility is a good thing to have. I plan on going back tomorrow, however I'm hesitant. There is a purple spaz that likes to come Thursdays, and last week he hurt my ankle and ribs (he's 60 lbs heavier than me, and likes to very aggressively go Knee-on-wherever it lands). I'm not letting that deter me though, because as fucked up as it is, he actually really tests my defense. Anyways, I'm off to do homework. Peace out.

Friday, October 4, 2013

Still Training

I haven't written in awhile. I've been very busy. I'm having a rough semester at school. Not rough in the sense that the course work is beyond me. Its just that there is a buttload of it. I'll be so glad when I graduate in May. More time to train BJJ!

I also haven't really had anything specific to say. I've been working on getting better in general, nothing specificly. Our main instructor, a purple belt, had to give up the Wednesday class because his fiancee wanted to spend more time with him. It was taken over by a good blue belt, who specializes no gi...so Wednesdays are now no-gi glasses.

I've been averaging two days a week. Its not good, but i've been pretty consistent with it. I want to do three days, but right now it just isn't feasible for me. I've been doing a lot of school work, and my niece is doing basketball right now. I try to go to one of her games per week. Its good to support kids in sports, as opposed to watching them play video games and send text messages.

Last night Paul let one of the other purple belts run a class. I'm not a huge fan of this guy, but it was a decent class. We worked guard passes. This is the same guy who spazzed on me a few weeks ago when a bow and arrow choked him. He's super nice off the mats though. Apparently somebody talked to him about how rough he is, because he made an offhand comment about how one of the other white belts said felt abused by him.

It was a small class, so I got a lot of high level rolling in. Good stuff. I didn't feel like I was doing particularly well, but I managed to hit a lot of escapes and even a few subs. After class both Paul and the other purple belt complimented me, lamenting that I wasn't competing in the local tournament on the 19th.

I'm not really interested in competition though. I don't have a lot of time to train for it, nor am I a really competitive person. Plus, we have a really advanced white belt competing and he's in the same weight class as me (they only have over 180 and under 180 lbs). We have another white belt, curt, competing as well. He's like 250 now, and has been training his ass off. I think those two will represent the school just fine :)