Monday, December 30, 2013

Stripe II - The Stripening

So the holidays messed with my BJJ schedule a bit. I had planned on doing two classes, plus a seminar over the past week. However, I found myself battling a two day migraine and only (barely) made it to the seminar.

It was a great course. We went over half-guard passes, a couple of which are very awesome. I'm interested to put them into action, since I find myself in half-guard quite often. We continued into positional sparring, where we covered all the major positions. We probably did that for an hour or so, then went into live rolling for the remainder of the day, which culminated with stripe promotions for everybody. So, I don't mean to scare you guys or anything, but I'm a 2-stripe white belt now.

Friday, December 20, 2013

New Gi!

I tried my new gi out last night. It was amazing.

For one thing, its just gorgeous. Everybody was envious of it awesome color and lightweight material. The light fabric breathes so much better than the fuji. I felt so badass wearing it, and I actually performed better in class last night. So far, I highly recommend the 93 Brand Goose.

Proud moment of the night: Catching the Irish Strangler in a legit bow and arrow. I've never really subbed him before, and I transitioned so smoothly. He tapped and just looked at me. He told me aftewards how smooth and fast it was, and that he didn't even have a chance to fight.

We're doing belt/stripe testing next weekend. I expect Rodney to get his blue belt, because he's just a badass. The Irish Strangler MIGHT get purple, but he's only got 3 stripes on his blue. Brian sometimes skips stripes, because we test so infrequently. I'd like to see him get his purple, because he's very good. I expect everybody else to just be striped.

Back at it tonight, since next week is going to be harder for me to get in there. I'll probably only be able to do Thursday and Saturday next weekend, but the weekend is a 3 hour seminar/test.

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Quick Notes

Just wanted to make a quick note that I plan on training at least four days this week. I feel that if I write it down and put it out there, I am more likely to do it.

Today at class we're giving Darin his club Christmas present, a new Carlson Gracie gi. I ordered a new gi too. I got the 93 Brand Grey Goose from BJJHQ for $100. It should be here tomorrow, so I'm very excited. I love my Fuji gi, but if I pick up my training pace, I probably need to have more than one.

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Slow Down

So, after we finished rolling last night, Darrin (our black belt) and a few of us were sitting around the mat. He tends to get philosophical at points like this, and it is always good to hear his outlook on this sort of stuff. After a few minutes, he looked at me and said "Hey, you need to slow down when you roll." I looked and him and said "what do you mean?" He told me that I didn't need to slow down in the sense that I was spazzing or being unsafe, but that I needed more deliberation in my movement. He told me I'm excellent at transitioning, but I don't create anything. According to him, I'm an excellent white belt, but to transition to blue belt I have to look past behaving in a soley reactionary manner. I have to be able move logically. He told me I'm close, but I don't have that yet. And it is absolutely true. I react. I don't really think about what I'm doing. I don't know how to get around that. I kind of get tunnel vision when I roll. Darren wasn't telling me to slow my body down. He was telling me to slow my mind down, and think before I act. He also talked to all of us about resilience. He used one of our blue belts, who comes maybe once ever two weeks, as an example. The dude is strong, but he's also tough as a bootheel. Darrin has talked about absolutely not behing able to get him to submit, because of his resilient mindset. Jiu Jitsu is about survival, and part of that is not giving up position in you're getting crossfaced for knee of belly'd. I like these talks with Darrin, because of how evaluative he is on everybody. Its just a good overall experience.

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Still Rolling

I know, I haven't been posting much. I have been incredibly busy, and I don't want to be the type of blogger that spends more time blogging than rolling. I also have a full time job and I have finals at school. I just took one final that I bombed enough to screw my GPA for this semester (which means I'm getting a 3.5 instead of a 4.0). I'm still attending BJJ Classes on average of 2.5 session a week. Basically, I'm aiming for two, and I'm really happy if I get 3 in. I've been very steady in my progression of skill, but I'm also a bit of a flake. One night, I'll be subbing blue belts, and absolute on fire...the next I'll tap to scarf hold. One of my larger sparring partners absolutely man handled me the other night. Usually we're about even, with sometimes me edging him out. Not last week. I beat me like a rented gong. We have a new guy that came in, weighing quite a bit. He's not just a muscular dude (he is), but he's also very...erm...corpulent. He got me in side control and I literally felt ribs creaking and popping. The good thing about rolling with guys that large is that they force you into playing open guard, which normally I don't do. I like to get out of my comfort zone and learn stuff...but damn. What else? Two guys from my school did a tournament in WV this weekend, which was apparently an ADCC event. They did well, with our purple belt getting 1st in Gi and 2nd in No-Gi, and our blue belt getting 2nd in Gi and 3rd in No-gi. Our purple belt was worried, because he's a small dude. His walking weight is like 140, and the weight classes were 150 and below. His main concern was people cutting from like 170 to fight him. He did well though, and made a couple of the purple belts look like they were new to jiu jitsu. I haven't seen any of the blue belt matches. I've also been using Defense Soap, since they generously sent me a free sample. The free sample was very generous, containing a full sized bar of soap, a full bottle of shower gel, and a container of 40 wipes. I wouldn't call this a review, but I will give you my impressions on the product. I like the smell, and it seems to get me cleaned up. I haven't had any skin infections, but that isn't necessarily due to their product. I didn't have any skin infections prior to using it either. You can't prove a negative. I will say that it is perfectly good as a free product, and I would use it if it were cheap and easier to obtain. A 4oz. bar of soap is $5 from MMAwarehouse. That is a bit pricey for me. If it were $2 a bar, I'd probably use it quite frequently.