6.24.10 /BJJ Women's Only 7 - 8pm /BJJ Reg 8 - 9:30 pm

Me again. I’ve noticed rather annoyingly that the layout for this blog was all outta whack. Yet for the new page I created, About Me (who knew you could have multiple pages!), it’s exactly as it should be. What the hell?? I haven’t edited it at all unless something with the email-to-post-thingy messed it up. Very. Not. Nice. (Editing note: I figured out that it had something to do with emailing creating div layout code into the posts, which messed it up.)


Pffft. Moving on, for the women’s only class Kristel Roxas teaches she had some business things to take care of so we didn’t get started till about 7:30 really. We did only drills the whole time, but I liked them. Drills with armbar from mount and having guard, standing up while in guard, ect.


Thursday regular class is sort of different than every other day. Originally, it was for white belts with 2 stripes and up, but now anyone can pretty much go. He lets you practice anything you want. I went over things with the two other girls there, Marissa and Kristel. I wanted to go over passing open guard, and escaping half guard while on the bottom. I also drilled escaping when someone has mount position on you, which was something the other two girls wanted to work on. Let’s see. Out of everything I really like the escape from mount and half guard.


I wanted to drill open guard because I tend to like standing up while in guard in order to pass. I feel I do it best for whatever reasons. However, there are a few guys that I get stick with so it still needs some work. I also am super bad and mostly only go to pass on the right, with everything in BJJ being easier when my dominate right side comes in to play. 


As I'm editing this (a few days later ha), I can't remember the whole techniques for the life of me for the half guard I learned. :( I do remember him saying, don't let them get to the point where the have any kind of hold on you. To make sure you keep that space between their face/chest and you there.  I'm definitely going to have to ask him how to do it again, sadly.


Moving on.


Open Guard Passing

1. Firstly, you want to make sure there is as little as space as possible between you and your opponent when they have any kind of open guard. 
2. Try to keep control of their sleeves, even if they still have control of yours, as long as you do too. But try to break their grips.
3. You want to stack into them. Get the grips, then push their legs up towards their head.
4. Flat out sit on them. Yup. Sit on top their legs which should now be up towards their head, keeping all your weight on them. 
5. Gradually move towards the left side, making sure to not take the weight off until you can secure side control. 

Escaping Mount Position

1. Grab their left arm (for this example or right really), underneath at their elbow with your right hand. 
2. Grab the top of their left wrist with your left hand.
3. Make sure your foot is on the outside of their leg, keeping it back.
4. You are going to hip up, bumping them up and causing space, and over diagonal to the left. 
5. We do exercises that are similar to this movement in our class. Remember, you aren't going straight up and then to the side. It's one fluid movement.

I'll get back to ya all about the halfguard. Next post up is Monday's of this week. ^.^

Updates

Grrrrrr. So I have one post saved as a draft on the main blogger site, waiting for me to just add the techniques ( just 2) for Thursday's class last week I also mentioned in that post, which I will mention here because it's frustrating enough that I must say it twice, that emailing a post in tends to screw with the layout. I'm going to keep working on it to see if I can figure out the exact cause, because quite frankly it's so much easier to do than having to remember when I'm home to sign on to post.

Yesterday's class (Monday) was good, though I hit some walls (figuratively, don't worry). I'll have both Muay Thai and BJJ posted up. Yup, went back to Muay Thai! I really wish I had more time in my week. >.< I feel like I need to go to all the MT classes, since I am so new to it and I really need a lot of work/practice, but at the same time going to training 3 days a week plus 1 day of school makes for a super busy and tiring week! Lately I have been in the habit of falling asleep at night before I intended to. I may just make a rule of not even sitting on my bed util I have specific things done. Last night I was studying after training and before I know it, I wake up to see it's 1:10 am and I fell asleep. Sheeshh. And unfortunately for me, that means I got to cramp even more during the day so I can take my test and ace it tonight. Of course, I *am* taking a half day today at work, and I also plan in getting beach time. It's just gonna have to be a beach/study day now. I guess it could be worse! ;- D

Speaking of half days, time to get back to work. Leaving at 12!!! Will get the posts on tonight.

6.21.10 /BJJ 8 - 9:30 PM

Alright. If only my work computer didn't block this blog! Posting would be so much easier. Well, I’m trying out the whole send-an-email-to-post thing so we’ll see how it goes!


I'm starting off with last class which was Monday (incidentally have class today heh). Monday we went over doing an arm crank. See, thing with those is they are hard to finish. I've done them before now but never seem to be able to quite get it while rolling. Was determined to do this one for a while, and this class made me realize that I must have given up cause I hadn't been doing it lately at all for months. Hahaha.

However, Jay mentioned something very important while learning this particular one. That although it’s a technique that’s hard to finish, going for the setup also sets you up for a lot of other things as well. If nothing else, you can at least attempt to do it so you can get to another submission and by doing so you keep practicing it until you can sink it. Sounds logical enough, in theory. I suppose I could try it out sometime.

Arm Crank

This particular Arm Crank we did while having guard and your opponent has their hands on your biceps, trying to control your arms. From this position you:

1. Raise your arms up over your head as if you were stretching
2. Bring your left hand over to grab their hand on your right side, pushing it up onto your shoulder and clamping down with your head/chin.
3. Raise your head a bit upwards.
4. This needs to be really tight!!
5. Then with your right hand grab their arm at their elbow and clasp your hands together.
6. You want to be pushing down and to the left on their elbow, but at the same time pushing up and right with your chin at their wrist/hand.
7. At this point, they should start feeling pressure and pain. If not, you’re not doing it right!! Ha. Well. Just saying
8. You turn to the left, bringing your face all the way down to the mat.
9. You want to apply the same pressure on the arm as you have been doing, but also twist it a bit.

That’s it for now, boys and girls! Have about 3 more posts to come later, one of which being tonight’s class.

6.19.10 /Kyra Gracie Seminar Cont.

Hi ya. I’ve officially decided that the whole post with an email thing rocks, so here I am again hoping to get myself up to date. With this post I’m going to go over the techniques learned at the Kyra Gracie seminar to the best of my ability. I wrote some of it down, but unfortunately my memory is already starting to dwindle. In particular, there was a variation of a guillotine choke she went over that I sort of love, because I think I’m often get in the setup and then never know what to do. I actually tried doing again in class last night, but to no avail! So sad L. I plan on asking Jay about it next class, however. This isn’t till Monday though :/. So hopefully I don’t forget!

First up. Easy-peasy!

Hip Bump Defense

1. As soon as your opponent goes to attack you while you are in their guard, you sit up from normal base getting your hips up as high as possible.
1. Your butt should be completely off the ground! Don’t just kind of do this. Go all the way.
   
   
2. Your head should not be too far forward or backwards; doing either will put you off balance and you could be swept.
1. This can’t be stressed enough at any point while in someone’s guard! Just last class I was trying to pass this guy I was rolling with and I had one knee up and in between his legs. However, I was leaning too far forward and he pointed it out afterwards and told me how much easier it made it for him. It’s something that’s easy to forget, but think of your head attached to a string to the ceiling.
   
   
2. Always look directly forward, not down at your opponent, but not too high either.

Final Note: This is a great defense not only for specifically hip bump, but in general when you are in guard and your opponent is trying to sweep you. You also want to make sure not to leave a lot of space or have *too* wide of a base, because you want to be able to feel where your opponent is gonna move in their hips, before they do it! If you can feel them turning, you aren’t tight enough.

Guillotine Variation (Please excuse any bad spelling!)

1. Ok, let’s say you have Guillotine on your opponent on the ground. This variation Kyra showed because normally the way you would finish this your opponent still has a small amount of space to escape. With guys, this isn’t possibly a problem, but especially if you are a girl trying to submit a guy with this it can cause issues. Someone who is stronger, like a guy, might be able to hold out on you and then escape. They may be able to withstand the pain a bit, or have a stronger neck to resist.
   
   
2. Once you have the Guillotine, sprawl so that your weight is on your opponent’s back the left side (or that would be their right).
   
   
3. Switch from left to right side of your opponent.
1. Putting your knee down tight near their ear and
2. Your right leg steps out to your right with your knee bent like a squat almost.
   
   
4. You can finish the choke from here, which is much tighter and doesn’t leave that little space.

The last things I will go over is a take down and also defense while standing and your opponent is pushing or pulling you.

Pushing/Pulling Defense

1. First some notes: You want to make sure you are protecting your lapel up near your neck from your opponent gripping it. If you keep your hand loosely near it, and press your hand flat against it holding the lapel down on your chest when they go to grab it, then your opponent can not grab it (and you in turn could grip their sleeve and attack).  You also want to watch and try to control their right hand – most likely the dominate hand. They have more strength in this hand so by controlling it you make it easier for you to take them down or harder for them.
   
   
2. PULLING: You should have your right leg forward and left leg back, and have a normal hold on their label and sleeve.
1. When someone is pulling you, you want to turn your hip (we’ll say left hip, thus they are pulling your right arm) out and forward, while also turning your right hip back and to the left. The goal is to put more weight on your back left leg.
   
   
3. PUSHING: It’s sort of the opposite with pushing. You want all the weight on your front leg.
1. Lean forward, having your right leg (the front one), bent a bit and putting all your weight on it.

I felt while drilling this at the seminar that it was much much easier to do the defense against pushing than pulling. However, my partner seemed to be the opposite. She had a better time with the pulling defense, especially on her left side. This just goes to show how everyone is different!

Take Down

I gotta apologize first of for being shitty with the names of the techniques I post. So sorry! But it’s hard to remember them.

1)     Your opponent goes to grab your lapel; you are blocking them by holding it down with your left hand.

2)     With your right hand, push their hand down towards your left hand, then transfer to your left hand gripping their sleeve (remember thumb out!).

3)     You will then step forward with your left leg.

a)     You want a large step, so that you are ahead of them if they are stepping backwards.

b)     There shouldn’t be space between you.

c)     If your right leg is too far away, you can slide it forwards towards you left leg quickly.

4)     Right elbow should be tight against them and straight, with a tight grip on their lapel, cutting up and into their collarbone.

5)     You want to tilt them down towards your left as you step.

6)     Lastly, bring your right leg forward, keep it straight and swing it down onto their leg like a pendulum.

Remember, this is suppose to be smooth and not really in so many steps! As you move forward with your left leg, you should right away be doing the steps following it. We also practiced this in pairs walking across the mats. We’d take 3 steps forward, the third step being the one towards your opponent to at #3 above and about to do the take down. This is a good take down if they are trying to pull you toward them. Let them! Then use their momentum against them! It’s all about doing something using the least about of strength and work for you.

Phew. I believe that’s all I have to share from the seminar. We did more, but it’s hard to remember everything and also a lot of typing! I still have yesterday’s class to post, and some side notes then will be all caught up. Yay! You won’t hear a peep outta me until Monday after that! ^.^

Just a quick FYI. Received my third stripe Monday on my white belt!! That means 2 more to go and finally a blue belt. :-)

6.19.10 /Kyra Gracie Seminar /Maryland

So. There has been a lot of updates since last week, but the most important is the one in this title. Kyra Gracie. For those of you crazy people out there who do not recognize that name, her great grandfather Helio Gracie is pretty much the founder of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Helio, along with his brother Carlos starting training at first in Judo, but because of Helio's small size, he soon created techniques that allowed him to take on much stronger and larger opponents.

Kyra Gracie is a black belt World Champion in BJJ. She is the only Gracie female to have both or either of those. She is also only 25. Last Saturday, our team Lloyd Irvin was hosting a 4 hour seminar with her teaching. I actually last minute decided to go down with Kristel, a girl at my gym. I have to say, even though it cost a good amount between the seminar itself and travel expenses, it was worth it. It may not necessarily be the sort of thing I do all the time (unless someone out there wants to hire me at a much higher hourly rate than I currently have), but as a once in a while thing - and especially as a this is a Gracie thing - well, hell. Why not. The time most certainly flew by. I was so shocked when it was the end of the 4 hours. We didn't do any live rolling, and that could be part of the reason it didn't seem as long.

Anyhow, I'm going to post the techniques here. I've come to a few conclusions since my last post. That talking about techniques with words is mad hard. And talking about techniques with words as a white belt with the limited experience I have is really mad hard. But you know what they say, right? Patience is a virtue. So if you ignore my floundering, I might get a post on here one of these days that actually makes sense.

Another little detail I'm going to have to include with posts from now on is to assume that anyone reading this, will have at least limited knowledge of BJJ already. I'm going to wikipedia the hell out of a lot of words so you can click on links and read up shit a little yourself just in case you don't know jack...but I really don't want to sit typing a book. ;-)

I'll post the techniques separately, as they will take up some space. I am probably going to do them as drafts and update them when they are done because I'll fool around a bit and see if I can really do the make-sense thing work. I also have a few other posts to put up, so this is like one mass posting event as long as I feel like staying up to write it all! I want to go over today's regular BJJ class @ 8 as well but seeing as it's 12:19, that will prob be an ongoing draft thing too. On a final note, Kyra was a great teacher. She had some problems every now and then finding the correct english word, but she was very personable (which is a fancy way of saying cool and fun to talk to). She would also go around the room and check on everyone giving advice. She'd also stop everyone for a minute if she saw something often being done that could or needed to be corrected. We got some pictures taken with her which was awesome, and spent some time around 20 minutes before it was over asking questions on anything we wanted. It was pretty rad ^.^.

For the curious out there, I am the one with the blue Shoyoroll Gi on the left of Kyra. More to come...most likely tomorrow...

/6.14.10 /Monday /BJJ /8 - 9pm

I was late today thanks to needing gas and the lovely 287. As a result, no time to get to Muay Thai @ 7pm. So sad. This is the first class I've missed since we started with the new instructor, Greg, two weeks ago. My goal with MT was to not miss any of the classes for the first month or so, at least.

Shit happens, right. Ok, so I lost a week of training.

The regular BJJ class went pretty well. Our instructor Jay decided to step it up a notch this class compared to some of the drills he usually has us do pre-class. Today we did the regular routine first: jog normal, shuffle in and out, jog knees up, jog legs kicking back, and normal again. Then instead of rolls and shrimping (a fundamental drill/move in BJJ whose purpose is to create space between the player and the opponent, which will make room for movement to a better position) we all got in a circle and did leg circles, sprawls, and pushups until he decided we were done. Fun stuff. In a way more tiring than normal sort of fun.

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Today he went over being in open guard . First we drilled switching the hips just like the leg cirlces, except witha partner each having a turn having open guard. Moving on from that we went over passing open guard. We did two variations but I liked the second one best.

In this variation, we grip our opponent's pants on the inside of the legs near the knees. You quickly push the right leg/knee down, stepping over with your right leg and extending out near his/her side. Your left leg skips up and over his leg as well, but does so without moving backwards at all. Once it's over, you put your knee on his chest/stomach to get knee on belly. At this time you could still have both grips on his/her pants, and you could push his legs over to the left more to make it harder for him/her to escape.

It sounds mad confusing and takes some practice, but I love the control you end up with. You end up still having a very strong grip on your opponent plus have the oh-so-fun knee on belly, which is a damn uncomfortable position for them to be in. I have experienced this too many times (thanks Kristel), and I can honestly say I rather someone do anything - choke me, armbar, whatever. Knee on belly literally makes you feel like everything is crushing down on your and you can't breathe.

(Somewhat) techincal jargon aside, this class I felt pretty happy with. We did guard passing ceremonies before live training (most often called "rolling"). They're a bitch, but they make sense. It forces people to learn something. To practice a technique in an at least partially live setting where they can focus only on that technique. A lot of times, I don't end up completing the goal of these "ceremonies" our instructor likes to have. In this one, he had all blue belts go on the mat and people had to pair up with them. The rest waited in a line. The goal was to "pass" their open guard. Passing is what it sounds like. You get pass something, in this case open guard. The goal of the person with open guard is to block them from passing or to submit them. As soon as anyone did either of these, those waiting in line have to fill in. In this way, you can end up with anyone. This makes it more difficult for me sometimes because I can get someone who is nowhere near my belt or size, but it's good practice. When you have no choice but to learn something, you generally do.

What I learned about Open Guard

If your opponent has open guard, you do not want space between them and you; likewise, if you have open guard you want space between you and your opponent.

Live rolling was different as well. Jay had us do 1 minute rolls, switching to the first person you can find when the minute was over. Every minute, new person. I kinda lost track of how many people I rolled with, but once again I did have the opportunity to roll with a lot of people I don't normally as a result of this. Normally, we roll with around 3 or so people for 4-5 minute rounds depending on how many people come to that class (more people = less time for everyone to roll, or less often you get to roll). He had us continually do this until the end of class. This is actually more difficult, because you're always putting in a lot of energy right away for that minute, except now it's for every minute and every new person.We only had one of the other girls in class today, Kristel, so I mostly rolled with the guys and some of them were ones Jay will usually purposely not match me up with (because of their weight). So I was pretty damn tired in the end.

I was pretty happy even still in the end. I've been working of thinking less while rolling and being more aggressive and instinctive. Also, trying to push myself to stay at that level even after I have rolled with people already and start to get tired. Hesitation is a big weakness for me while rolling live. I often forget that as soon as I see someone about to transition into a sweep or a pass (ect), I need to act right away. Still, I definately have been progressing with this.

Yo.

So.This is a blog. It was created for Comp 129, which is course slang for basic mandatory computer class.

I guess your first question would most likely be, what the hell is a Gi?

Gi is the uniform used in multiple martial arts, but in this case for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. It consists of pants and a top that is held closed with a belt. BJJ is a grappling form of fighting. It is similiar to wrestling and Judo. It involves chokes, holds, and submissions. "Tap, Nap, or Snap". Jiu jitsu is about using joints and your opponent's strength against them. In this way, it is possible for someone smaller to over take a larger person. Like, say, me for instance.


I currently take BJJ at the Grappler's Guide Academy located above the Middletown firehouse in Red Bank, NJ. The school is run mostly by Jason Scully, who recently just received his Black Belt. GGA also offers Muay Thai, MMA, and Extreme Fitness classes. I also take Muay Thai there as well instructed by Greg Mihovich, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. I've been taking BJJ for around 1 1/2 years now, and I have 2 stripes on my white belt. Jiu Jitsu involves strength, technique, stradegy, speed...it goes on and on. I may be smaller and less strong than some of my opponents, but speed and technique can make up for that. Again, a lot of techniques involve using your opponents stength, weight, or body against them.

BJJ also is fought with No Gi. Grappler's Guide classes taught without the Gi at my school are called No Gi Submission Wrestling. Personally, I find I like the Gi better. With a Gi you have more things to grab. You can use the Gi to sweep or pass an opponent, choke them out, or hinder their movement. The Gi allows me a little more control over my opponent (I believe), then with No Gi. Faced with someone 50 pounds heavier or perhaps even someone around 200 pounds, having the control I feel with a Gi and increased possible attacks is a lot better than not having it.