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.

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.

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.

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.

11/14/13

I only got to train one day this week, because of an extended reserve drill period. We have to make up the days we were off for the government shutdown, so I'm here for four days instead of my normal two.

I've also been overwhelmed by homework. Luckily, I only have one more project due this week. Its large, but I think I can get it done before Sunday if I put a lot of work into it tomorrow. School is really starting to grind me down, and next semester is only going to be worse. Right now, I have B's in all my classes, which is actually kind of horrible for me. I just can't really bring myself to give a shit about it. I know that degrees are important, but I honestly can't rate my college experience very highly. I'm going to school through the VA's GI Bill. If I had to pay for this stupid shit out of pocket, I'd probably have quit a long time ago. The only reason I keep going is that I'm getting a free* education. (*=I spent most of my late teens and early twenties in places that qualify as "hazardous duty")

I really have started getting into the groove of BJJ. I'm getting really excited about how my performance plateaus for a bit, and then increases dramatically overnight. I'm getting in better shape, and best of all, I can think clearly while rolling. I'm starting to become somebody that blue belts don't easily submit. All of my instructors have been telling me I'm starting to get good, and that I'm light years above where I was just a few months ago. I have a feeling that I'll be getting striped in December when our affiliate black belt comes to visit, but I don't even really care about how many stripes I have. If I was promoted to blue belt tomorrow, the same people are still going to be kicking my ass. Though, I have heard some people are getting somewhat frustrated with the lack of rank progression in our school. We affiliate from a gym an hour away. We do have our own 2nd degree black belt, but he came in after we had already affiliated with the other black belt. He feels like if he promotes people, he's stepping on toes. Our affiliate doesn't like brown belts and purple belts giving stripes, so we are reliant upon him holding seminars or us going to his school for evaluation. Like I said, I don't really care. I'm just at a very happy place in my training right now. I've been going three days a week, so I'm going to try to dial it up to four days a week.

I've also decided that I'm going to do the tournament in February.

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.

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.