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%.

Things on my Mind

I took last week (Mon/Weds) off from BJJ last week. Funny thing is a few people got promoted and it makes me feel like I am being left behind. I feel like I'm in this slump with BJJ, especially after rolling with Professor Steve and getting half-guard swept twice, which he then yelled at me for making the same mistake twice. It has made me started thinking, what am I doing with this art? I'm a 30 year old, 5' 6", and 160 lbs software engineer and I have yet to answer myself. My heart is not into anything much lately: bjj, work, working out... I'm starting to wonder if my job is taking the passion out of me.

I also don't want to get a promotion (another stripe) until I deserve it. I tell myself I need to work harder, but the harder I work, the more frustrated I feel when I roll poorly.

I just have to keep telling myself that the journey of BJJ is like the journey of life, and I must not let it end so easily.

I hope this week off makes me hunger for BJJ again (hasn't yet) because I want to compete at the San Diego Grappling X. I figure since it's so close in my neighborhood that I should just go and roll. It will help keep me honest with my skill. Plus, truthfully, until I competed in the last Grappling X, I didn't know how bad my takedowns were and where I needed to improve.  However, the last time I competed, I was hungry.

I need to work on passing guard, especially after I get stuck in half-guard.

Notes to Myself

Dominic was on the mats for a couple weeks in March because Steve was out on travel in Thailand. During his time back Dominic went over some "old school" techniques on not letting your opponent pass your guard by playing a "sitting guard." The idea basically calls for you to have your legs on your opponent's hips to follow them or use your legs to block their legs to prevent them from getting around your legs. You are usually either fully sitting up, on your side with one elbow, or on your side with one arm down. Dominic also went over a loop chock and front chock from the sitting guard; both can transition to and from each other. Another possibility is to have a collar grip which can set up a collar pull to take someone's back. One of my major flaws when I play sitting guard is that I don't hip escape and schoot my hips away from my opponents enough.

I also went and watched the 2012 Pan Ams. The event was located at UC Irvine and was huge. I went on Saturday and watched the Open Weight Black Belts compete, but honestly it was really hard to see from the stands. I couldn't make out who was whom and what happened. Next time, if I'm not competing or going with a bunch of BJJ buddies, I'll probably just order it onlines from BudoVideos because admission was $15/person and that's not including gas or driving time.

When Steve came back, he taught us a concept about connections and how staying connected to your opponent is very important. For example, you have to lock your shoulder and arms in place when smashing their legs to pass, or even locking your shoulder/arm in place to prevent someone from passing guard.

One new concept I learned was about pushing your opponent's head to the side they are trying to pass. Let's say for example, you are on bottom and the person is on top in half-guard. The side they are trying to pass will be the side you want to push their head to, this makes it difficult to pass. It's like when Mark was telling me to push Sam's head to the opposite side when I wanted to get out of his half-guard.

I also had the chance to roll with Steve again. It's been a long time since I rolled with him, but he caught me in a half-guard sweep twice and then arm-barred me... twice! The second time he half-guard swept me, he was disappointed and yelled: "Come on man! You let the same thing happen again." I was disappointed too and asked him what was my mistake. My mistake was that I was trying to smash his legs by turning my hip in... onto his legs. This made me face the direction he was facing and made me very light. Steve says I should turn my hip from the other side (left) in to smash his lower leg and be facing him. This way I have more pressure and feel heavy.

One thing I have to note is that the deep half guard sweep Justin taught me works really well. Especially, on guys who are not too heavy and aren't used to playing the deep half guard game from the top.

I need to toughed up. Not only in BJJ, but wrestling, and maybe consider taking Muay Thai again. I need that grit, passionate, toughness of a fighter, but at the same time, I wonder if this grit of a fighter will make me more impatient and mad more easily. I don't know, but I have to find that balance that makes me a better fighter so that I can earn respect.