Visited Some Old Friends at Gracie Barra Sorrento Valley

Paid a visit to some old friends. Thanks Gracie Barra Sorrento Valley for the welcome. I met Professor Dominic and Professor Justin 14 years ago when I started Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

Professor Dominic's school was the first school I trained BJJ. I got my blue and purple belts there.

4th Stripe Blue

Still wearing my mouthpiece for this photo...

Baseball Bat Choke With Magid Hage

I wrote about getting Baseball Bat Choked from the bottom last week and how cool it was to see Magid Hage pull it off on someone in a big competition. Well... Magid Hage IV stopped by Gracie Barra San Diego to teach a Baseball Bat Choke seminar. It was awesome! Apparently, Prof. Dominic has known Magid for at least 8 years and keeps calling him "Little Magid". Magid is not very little anymore.

He taught us different variations:

• Starting with both people kneeling.
• From Half Guard bottom.
• From Half Guard top:
• Passing to North South
• Kicking over to Scorpion
• From opponent's Closed Guard

I also had the pleasure to roll with Magid during interval training. I got Baseball Bat Choked from everywhere!! Even knowing about the technique after the seminar I couldn't prevent it, his hands are huge, and this grip is deadly!

Of course my eyes are closed! :P

Reflections Of Training This Week

Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2013 - Advanced Class at GB San Diego

Professor Dominic Parker taught two (own) lapel chokes from side control.

1. The first choke uses your own lapel closest to your opponent's hip. You cross feed it to the other side of your opponent's neck. The most important part is to pull them close to you to make the choke tight and then you quarter stop to North South and straight your arm while trying to put your shoulder to your opponent's hip.
2. The second choke uses your own lapel closest to your opponent's neck. You feed it across their throat then you behind. Same as the previous choke, you want to pull them close to make the choke tight. Then you want to use your other hand and grab your own wrist/forearm and then straight the arm gripping the lapel to choke.

Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2013 - "Super" Class at GB Encinitas

Professor Rafael "Foca" Ramos was disappointed in the "Super" Class turn out, but taught 3 techniques for while your opponent is in Turtle before having internal sparring. I really learned a lot rolling with new guys.

1. Armbar from top of turtle. The key is to bait your opponent to stick out their arm by tugging them. Then trap the arm using your legs. If their arm is on your far leg, you can hip into their elbow for the armbar.
2. Omoplata roll your opponent into side control while having their arm trapped. The setup is different from the previous because your opponent's arm will be in your close leg. When your opponent ends up on their side, you must pressure them with your arm across them so they can't get up. To finish, hip out and up. It's basically a Kimura using your leg.
3. Taking your opponent's back by rolling them back so that you're sitting and trapping their close arm. Then finish with a choke.

Things I learned from internal sparring.

1. Purple Belt Miles likes to foot lock. I learned that to defend the foot lock you need to grab their lapel and then put on the "boot" by sticking in through their arm so that they're hugging your calf.
2. Purple Belt Fernando tapped me by a choke from behind.
3. Black Belt Brian Franklin swept me all over the place.
4. Blue Belt Jack tapped me 3 times, 2 were from the baseball bat choke from the BOTTOM! I know the choke from the top, but he got me over and over from the bottom with that choke. He says even if you don't finish the choke, you can end up sweep your opponent over. It's a great setup from half because if they pass, the choke tightens itself.

Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013 - Advanced Class at GB San Diego

Prof. Dominic continued the 2 (own) lapel chokes. Someone tapped me using the close to the neck lapel choke. His pressure was so intense even when I saw the lapel choke coming, I couldn't move from his pressure. Dominic also went into maintaining side control.

1. Don't just maintain control of their upper body but also keep your knee close to your opponent's butt to block their knee from getting back in.
2. Going to knee on belly when your opponent bench presses you. Use their push to go to knee on belly. The key is to use your foot to block their knee from coming back in by having it close to where their leg meets their hip.

Things learned while rolling:

1. Almost got an upside down invert triangle. I couldn't finish it. I couldn't see my leg setup or my opponent's arm, but I just couldn't close my leg. I asked Dominic afterwards and he said to pull their arm over next time or pull up with both arms to go to a mounted inverted triangle.
2. I need to learn how to maintain mount on bigger guys. I need to not give up reverses and sweeps so easily.

Don't Let Someone Use You As Their Stepping Stone

I usually train Tues/Thursday nowadays, but this week I had to switch to Mon/Weds this week because of family dinner tomorrow. Anyway, it was a good training night. I got to roll with Prof. Dominic and he didn't tap me 3 times in a roll like the last time I rolled with him. He also complemented me afterwards by saying something along the lines of, "Good job tonight." I think what happened was slowing down and thinking about what moves I'm making instead of going 110% just because I'm rolling with a black belt. I need more days like this.

I'm currently watching "Benson Henderson: Rising Up" presented by UFC. I thinking about Ben Henderson and how hard he trains because of how hard his mom works. Somewhere in the beginning of the show, he says something like: "I'm not going to let someone use me as their stepping stone, they're mine stepping stone!" I found this very powerful and need to think this more when I roll. I also need to remember Marcelo Garcia's quote about giving 100% instead of just 80%.

1st Stripe - Blue Belt!

Alex awarded me with my first stripe for my blue belt. Alex has been teaching class this week because both Professor Dominic Parker and Steve Gable are out due to broken legs. Dominic was in an motorcycle accident and Steve fought in Bellator 55 against Ricardo Tirloni.

Here's a link to the fight.

What we learned this week:

• "Steering Wheel" one leg takedown
• Half-guard escape to side control.
• North-South choke

Things I Need To Work On

Yesterday was my first time rolling with Professor Dominic. I could tell he was going easy on me. He kicked my ass twice and after the roll he said, "Good hip movement though."

I got caught in a Triangle and Armbar while trying to escape from guard. So I need to work on the following:

1. Triangle Escapes
2. Armbar Escapes