Work is not as much fun as BJJ

So I missed Wednesday night having to stay back late at work and salvage some things that went bad. Boo. I hates it when that happens.

Chances are I'm going to miss Monday night too as that will be my first day trying out the adventures of public transport (train style) to and from work. It's going to be very inconvenient trying to get to class, but on the up side it's only 2 weeks until I get 10 weeks off work for university. University will mean that I have afternoons off and I can go to any BJJ classes I like. Hooray!

Monday night means ... Guillotines?

My toe is still a little sore (especially because I'm clumsy and managed to kick a chair with it last night) but I'm not about to be missing two classes in a row. So I attempted a very elaborate tape job. Worked great. For about 20 minutes. Then it just came off. Bummer.

Warmups were John style again. Running in circles, Burpees, sprawls. It's really hard to do Burpees and sprawls when you're doing your level best not to land on your left foot. It's also far harder work. One legged-burpee-sprawls. Yay. Bridging exercises, hip escapes, switchouts. Lines down the mat. Looking after my toe. It's all good.

My partner for the night is an older guy called Randall. He's about my height, but probably a fair bit heavier. I've seen him around before but he's missed the last couple of weeks with dodgy ribs / sickness. Seems like a really nice guy. And I remembered his name. I'm getting a little worried about this... maybe I'm losing my ability to immediately forget any name?

We start with a little combination circuit type thing. One person starts under side control, escapes back to guard, escapes his own guard (sheesh) then shoots, does a single leg and gets to side control. Neato. Wait.. you're not going to show us how to actually do the single leg? Sweet! I'll just make it up! We went around in circles for about 5 minutes I think.

After that, John demonstrates a combination of three techniques from guard. Kimura, Sitting rollover sweep for when they defend the Kimura, then a Guillotine for if they jam forwards to defend the sweep. Fun.

Randall hasn't been around for two weeks and I missed the Guillotine on Wednesday last week, so we end up in the "new guys" end of the mat for a more detailed look at each technique.
I discovered (again) that I'm great at doing the Kimura one way, and absolutely suck at doing it the other way. How frustrating. Lots of practice on the bad side.

Then the sweep, which I can do either way, which is nice. Randall is amusing me. He talks to himself constantly when doing techniques, then talks to ME constantly when I'm doing them. If I do one well, he giggles. If I do one not so well he insists I do it again. Very funny.

We learned Guillotines from failing the sweep. Release the overhook you have on his arm (which you were also using to try for a Kimura at some stage) and wrap your arm over the back of his neck. Ideally it seems that you want to be as low down his neck as possible. Scoot your butt out on the opposite side to whichever arm you're holding his neck with to create space to get your other arm in, grab your own wrist. Make sure you go OVER his shoulder, not under it so that you don't trap his arm in there. Roll onto your hip towards his head, close your guard up and squeeze everything together to finish.

Randall complained this was hurting his neck. Whether that means I was doing it wrong or not I'm not sure. My neck didn't give me any dramas when he was doing them.

John also showed us a variation that he's recently picked up that he doesn't really understand. He didn't explain it very good and it definitely didn't make sense to me. Hopefully we get another look at it.

Time for some one minute rounds. Side control first up. Top guy has to just stay there, bottom guy has to escape to guard. Top to start with. This was quite fun. Randall is clearly stronger than me, but for the most part I was able to stay on top quite well. At one stage he just rolled me over. I have to think about how exactly he managed that, but it didn't matter because I pretty much managed to roll him back over.

Underneath I was a little squished to start with, but managed to get him low enough to bridge and hip escape. Got my leg right in under him but couldn't get all the way back through to guard. I probably needed to put my foot on his hip, but I was feeling a little protective of my no-longer-taped toe.

Immediately afterwards we go again, except this time the top guy is allowed to do submissions. Randall is clearly gassing out completely by now. We did the roll over thing a couple more times but I was able to roll him back much easier. Got a look at a figure 4 briefly but his arm was way too slippery to get a good grip on. Another look at the up-and-crush Kimura, but same deal. Brief intermission for a 3-way collision between groups. Colin kicked me in the chest. Damn you Colin, last week you break my toe, this week you kick me? heh. After we re-set Randall tapped just from being too tired. Bummer.

Started my round underneath a little late after giving him some time to recover. Very similar to round 1. Almost escaping the entire time. Randall muttered something about me giving him my back, but I'm 100% sure there was no time I was close to giving him my back. Got flattened out right near the end of the minute and right in the corner of the mat with walls in the way I had nowhere to go at all, but he didn't have access to my arms anyway. Oh well.

We're not finished! one minute drills from guard. Randall asks to sit out because he's wrecked. So we sit out for a little while before he decides he wants to go again. He starts in my guard. In theory we're supposed to start with an overhook but we didn't bother. Broke his posture down but couldn't do much more with it. Every time I grab his arm is just slides loose. Very amusing. Towards the end of this round he finally gets back upright and starts trying to break my guard with one hand.

My brain immediately yells "TRIANGLE!" ... (I don't know those. Shut up.) and soon after it yells "ARMBAR" ... (I don't know those from guard either dammit!). Then Randall decides that instead of breaking my guard he's just going to stand up. And lift me up with him. My brain got this one right picking something we know how to do (Let go and get down without hurting yourself).

Randall needs a break again but eventually we try with me in his guard. He actually started with the overhook, but I just slipped out no worries. It's humid, everybody is slippery-sweaty. I imagine that wearing a Gi makes it far easier to hold onto someone right? I didn't have any trouble keeping good posture in his guard. I was thinking vaguely about the one and only guard break / pass that I know, but the idea wasn't to be passing anyway.

That was the end of class. Good fun even if I missed a bit of time at the end. My toe survived, although it's pretty sore and has swelled up a little bit again. Fun class. I know guillotines. Kinda.

My first injury! How cool!

My left little toe is twice normal size, and a lovely shade of purple. Still. I'm assuming it's not broken, it doesn't hurt enough to be broken. I'm going to be very grumpy if I miss class tomorrow night because my toe hurts!

I might just be stubborn enough to try anyway. You don't need to be able to walk properly to do BJJ right?

Monday night means... squish!

Paging the little people support network!

Tonight was the first time I felt completely like I couldn't do much with a guy because he was simply too big and strong. He's a newish guy called Colin, and actually a really cool guy, but he's half a foot taller than me (not unusal) and his upper arms are roughly as far around as my thighs. Fun times!

Warmups were pretty standard again. And rushed, because the kids class ran overtime. Boo kids, boo! They're still entertaining to watch though.

Starting out with drilling the same side control escape. Colin hasn't seen it before, so I did it once or twice and then let him go for the rest of the time while trying to coach him through the movement, which is a good test for my ability to remember and explain stuff. He was doing them ok by the time we stopped.

More drilling. Side control escape to guard, then escape-your-own-guard. Same deal. Helping Colin out with escaping his own guard. Meh. Then we go with one minute rounds of escape your own guard. Started on my back. He pretty much just plants his hands on my shoulders and pins me in place. I wriggle around and try to use my legs to move him a bit. Open my guard up and get my feet on his hips, but even when I shove off I really can't move him much. Bummer.

Swap places, and he's trying to escape his guard. I'm having a whole lot of trouble taking this too seriously, because posturing up is a bad plan if you're actually trying to stay in there. The basic flow of this drill was him shoving me up with his arms, shoving me backwards with his legs, putting his feet on my chest and kicking me away. I'm nowhere near heavy enough to stop him doing that, but really why would I want to? I don't want to be in his guard, and if he's going to kick me away, I'm going to go AROUND his legs, or just straight backwards and stand up? Whatever.

One minute rounds of side control after that, which I wasn't particularly expecting to enjoy much, because I'm fairly sure that side control is just about the 'heaviest' position you can manage. Turns out this was probably the most I accomplished all night. Despite how heavy / strong he is, I seemed to be able to bridge to create space and got onto my side perfectly comfortably. Maintained the decent posture nearly the whole minute without actually managing to get back to guard. I jammed the little toe on my left foot during this round, but it didn't seem too bad.

On top of side control, and Colin can quite clearly throw me away if he wants, but he's a smart guy and wants to do his technique properly. Started out slow while he talked his way through it, but didn't let him actually get back to guard. Tried to flatten him out which worked briefly, then scooted to North-South when he tried to do it again. Nearly took his back, but lost my balance as a random scramble ensued. Reset but time ran out.

Brief break, then we get the demo of the Kimura from guard. Then I discover my knee is bleeding and stop a little more to patch that up. I have no idea when or how that happened, but it looks like a fingernail scratch to me. Owie. Practiced my Kimura a couple of times each side then let Colin go nuts on them. He got the hang of it fairly quickly, but seemed pretty gun-shy about actually bending my arm far enough.

Then drilling the same sweep as last week We give it a name this week. Apparently it's a sitting rollover sweep. Once again I only took a couple of goes at it before letting Colin do it the rest of the time.

Last up we finished with 1 minute rounds from guard, with the bottom guy starting with the Kimura grip. This was definitely a frustrating experience. I started with the attacking, but he pretty much just wrenched his arm out as he sat up, then planted his hands on my shoulders, from which position I couldn't break him back down at all. Scoop his arms off me? Nope, not even moving them. Gah. We re-set, and I bait like I want the Kimura, then try to sweep him as he sits up. Got some movement but then he pretty much just smashed me flat again. Gah.

Defending from in his guard didn't go particularly well either. Immediately tuck my arm in as tight as I can, then try to sit up a little. He tries to sweep me and I plant a foot backwards to block it until we're both pretty much upright, at which point he just muscled me over anyway. Doh. Re-set and he goes for the Kimura this time. Defended it for a little bit until he pried my arm loose at which point I really couldn't do much about it again. He was pretty reluctant to actually apply any pressure again, but I figured he had it and tapped so we could start over. One more sweep just as time got called. Gah.

I guess that's pretty predictable at this stage. He's probably at least 30kgs heavier than me, so it's not likely to ever be easy, and my technique isn't good enough to deal with that so far. Add in the fact that we're starting from set positions that don't really allow me much wriggle room and that results in me being frustrated for the night. I guess I should get used to it, because I'm pretty much always going to be the smaller guy. I'm pretty sure I managed to help him out plenty though, so I guess that's worth something.

I am absolutely covered in massive welts and bruises tonight, which hasn't happened pretty much since my first class. Also, my little toe is rather large and purple. Ow. I didn't think I jammed it that bad. Ice! Hopefully it'll be fine in the morning.

Gah.

Shoulderlocks and sweeps..

Class is shrinking back to a more normal size I think. You almost have enough room around on on the mat that you can stretch your arms out to the sides without poking someone in the eye. Or poking someone in the neck as would most likely happen if you're as short as me.

Warmups! No Dale again. It's a John warmup. Running in circles, touching the floor, sprawls and burpees. I do not like sprawls or burpees. Far too much like exercise, and I keep telling people that exercise is definitely bad for you. Hip escapes and switchouts down the mat just like every class.

Intro to the side control escape we did Monday. No Dale. Demonstration dummy of choice this week is a blue belt (in blue gi) called Tim. I'm getting good at this remembering names thing.

Drilling the side control escape, which I'm doing very nicely with not much resistance. Now just have to work out how to make it work when the other guy doesn't want to let me. Lee is the other guy again tonight.

After drilling that for a while we get the 'escape your own guard' demo again. John insists this should be your go-to move when you're on your back and the other guy is in your guard. Really? Ok, if you say so.

Drilling escape your own guard. For all of about 30 seconds before John apparently gets bored with drilling and decides we're going to do it competitively in 1 minute rounds. It's still amusing, especially when you're the top guy and the best way to stay in there is to do roughly everything wrong. Oh well. It's good exercise. By definition that means it's bad for you right?

Breaking posture drill. For about 30 seconds each. Zipping through things tonight.

One minute rounds from side control. Guy on top is allowed to mount and go for submissions. Guy on the bottom has to escape to guard. I started on the bottom. Bridging and onto my side. Around in circles scramble. Somehow end up sitting up with him pretty much on my legs. Ended up pretty much tackling him onto his back from there. Weird, but I'll take it. Re-set and manage to get to something like half guard briefly before we run out of time.

On top. Managing to keep him flat for the most part. Once he got up onto his side while I was trying to nab his top arm for a figure 4 and I scooted around and took his back while has was being confused about what the next step of the escape is. Reset and go again. Ended up with my hips switched over in a position which I don't know what to do with. Fun fun.

Drilling Kimuras just like Monday. Nice tip from John on getting myself more side-on as I roll back to finish, and also on the angle needed for the arm (parallel with his back, not twisting up behind it).

New stuff time. A sweep to do if he decides to be difficult and tuck his arm in / sit back instead of nicely letting us submit him. Let go with the hand that's on his wrist while keeping hold of the overhook. Plant that hand back to post (not on your elbow, all the way up). Bump up with your hip and then over to the side where you have his arm trapped. I don't think we gave it a name.

Drilling the Kimura and the sweep at the same time, one after the other.

Finishing up with one minute rounds from guard, but starting with the bottom guy already holding the Kimura grip. That's genuinely not a good start for the guy on top hey. I'm the guy on top for starters.

Trying to come up with a way to get my arm out, which I wasn't able to do. Always keeping my arm tucked in tight, and alternating between sitting up while he's trying for the Kimura. Got swept right near the end of the round, but I guess that's better than getting tapped.

On the bottom to finish. Immediately went for the Kimura when he gave me a little too much space to work on his arm. He sounded surprised as he tapped. We did just drill this you know, you should be expecting that... He kept his arm tucked nicely after that. Worked for the Kimura again, then when he rocked backwards did the sweep. Well. That's just like magic. It works! Anybody would almost think they teach us those two moves together for a reason!

Good class. Fun. Learning things.

I can escape my own guard...

Monday night hooray! Rain and thunderstorms hooray! Rain coming in the windows. Hooray?

There's a girl in class. How unusual. That'd be the first time for fundamentals, although I believe there's been 2 or 3 different girls lined up for the big kids class afterwards a few times. My first impression is that this girl is not new. Turns out that I'm right, because she knows some of the guys from the big kids class who are hanging around.

Warmups. No Dale. Who stole Dale? John runs his own warmup, which is actually mildly like exercise tonight. Running around the mat. Running around the mat while touching the mat with your hands. My back disapproves. Running on the spot, with sprawls. Burpee-sprawls. Whoo. It's hot in here with all the windows closed and 90% humidity. Hip escapes and switchouts down the mat to finish warming up.

John has a 4-stripe white belt in a purple gi as a grappling dummy tonight. His name is Liam. I don't know why I remember that, I usually forget names instantly. It could be because he's a 4-stripe white belt in a purple gi. We don't exactly have many of those in fundamentals.

To side control, where we drill Figure 4s, Up-and-crush Kimuras and the other-Kimura-that-I-suck-at. Paired up with Lee, who still had a dodgy shoulder. Did I mention I suck at that other Kimura? Really. Got a 'good' from John while doing the up-and-crush version though. I'm sure I remember being crap at that one last week, but it worked great this week.

I've worked out the terminology too. There's no such thing as an Americana. An Americana is a figure 4. A Kimura is actually still a Kimura. It only took a couple of months....

Side control escape, same as last week. Seem to have this one working nicely in drills too. Lee messes his up a few times before working it out again.

1-minute rounds from side control. Underneath first, and I still don't think I'm getting my hips out far enough. Interrupted once by proximity to a wall while I was reasonably close to getting a leg through. Half-managed the escape and ended up in a weird semi-scramble position which most definitely wasn't me under side control because I was sitting up. Re-set and the round ends.

On top. The exposed arm is Lee's dodgy shoulder, so no trying to rip it off, although I did try to get the set-up for the figure 4 just for entertainment value. Lee is getting coaching from John.. "bridge!".. and at one stage I end up with my foot on the wall using it for bonus leverage. Amusing. Lee gets up on his side near the end of the round, and I zip around to north-south, which he doesn't react to, so I got the rest of the way around to his back. Time.


Drinks break, and then we're doing more drills. Side-control escape to guard, then the escape-your-own-guard drill. Amusing. We only do this for about 2 minutes before John decides we're going to do 1 minute rounds of escape-your-own-guard drill. This is particularly silly for the guy on top, because having just been told that it's ideal to posture up when you're in guard, the only option to prevent your partner escaping his own guard is to keep your head jammed onto his chest. Clever. Still good exercise though.

Drills from guard on how to break your partners posture, assuming that they're up straight with their hands high on your chest. Basically scoop your arms under theirs and scoop them off your chest to the side while pulling them forwards with your legs. End up ideally with one hand on the back of the neck, and the other over their arm and gripping at just above the elbow. Lee kept ending up with his arm under mine, and I actually have no idea how.


Time for a new technique. A technique from guard.....? Hooray! How excitement! The technique in question is another Kimura. Starting with opponent postured up in your closed guard, break their posture. Use your legs to push them lower down your body, then open your guard and wriggle backwards until you can sit up a bit. Turn a little bit onto your side towards the side where you're gripping their arm, while sliding your arm down to their wrist. Sit up more while reaching over with your other arm, shove their head the other way as you reach over to get the normal Kimura grip. Roll back onto your other hip, bring your top leg (same side as the arm you're attacking) up onto their back as you roll them forward while bending their arm back.

That's a relatively crap description, but I know what I mean and it actually felt pretty natural. No time for anything else tonight after we finished drilling. Class seemed really short, and definitely nowhere near as strenuous as Wednesday last week, but damn is it warm with the windows closed!

More guard stuff on Wednesday. Sweet.

Wednesday. And learning new things.

Far smaller class than Monday. Maybe 16? 18? not sure, didn't bother to count. My back is bothering me tonight, which isn't altogether unusual, but it's worse than normal. Feels like a line of muscles down the right side of my spine is all bunched up being difficult. Grr.

Very abbreviated warmup. We didn't do any stretches, so I scoot to the front of the line for hip escapes down the mat so that I can stretch my legs and my back while everybody finishes theirs.

Pairing up. No small guys. Gah. End up with a guy called Tynan (spelling? oh well) who is pretty much the image of the type of person I've been doing my best to avoid. Hair chopped to stubble, only a few inches taller than me, but probably 15kgs heavier (in muscle), loads of tattoos. Some of them are actually pretty cool. I've been avoiding guys like this, because stereotypically they just seem more likely to be gung-ho about it, and more likely to hurt me as a result. Oh well. We shall see if I die.

Drilling the same three moves from Side control that we did on Monday while John and Dale teach them to the new guys. First shoulderlock Tynan does on me is cranked rather quickly. Ow. My shoulder sounds like bubble-wrap, which isn't entirely unusual, but it was reasonably loud. It's gonna be a long night huh? I'm really not looking forward to doing sparring stuff with this guy.

When it's my turn to do techniques, I'm having a little difficulty getting enough pressure to finish them, as he's resisting fairly solidly, and my back is limiting how much I can turn my body to finish the twisty ones, specifically the one that comes after 'up and crush'. Oh well.

Sparring rounds! ... huh what? It's only been about 25 minutes? Well, OK. 1 minute rounds of side control. Didn't I mention that I wasn't looking forward to that? Starting underneath.

First round: My goal for this round is to not die. Immediately up onto my side, and he flattens me back out. Then up onto my side again and there is absolutely all kinds of space for me to sneak a leg through. Half guard. Re-set. He learns, nowhere near as much space, but he can't keep me flat enough to try anything. Round in circles. That went rather better than I expected.

On top. He's really pretty strong, and pretty much just disposes of me with upper body strength. 3 times. Meh.

I kind of feel like we did another two rounds here, but if we did they really weren't very interesting.

Ok. Time to learn something new. Like how to escape from under side control. I like that. Make a frame with your forearms to get partner as low down your body as you can, then bridge. Use space underneath you to get onto your side facing your partner as you drop back to the mat. Hip escape out backwards. Bring near-side knee up to your elbow, so it now should be underneath your partner. Pivot your body to line back up, get that leg the rest of the way through and secure your guard.

Neato. Drilling. We both seemed to be ending up with one arm in and one arm out when our partner did the escape. Wasn't sure whether this was a problem or not, but after a little bit of thinking it's pretty obvious that this is more because of the guy on top leaving his arm there. It's probably also bad for the guy on top, because I see triangles floating around there. I don't know HOW to do a triangle, but I'm fairly sure that one arm in and one arm out is triangle land.

More 1 minute drills, this time with the goal of actually accomplishing the escape. Which I didn't actually manage to do right. I believe my problem was not getting my hips out far enough, and constantly finding my hip / leg / knee blocked off when I tried to scoot it through. Once again never really threatened, but disappointed I couldn't manage the escape.

On top, and credit Tynan, because even though he knows he can throw me away, he actually tries to work the escape. Which he didn't make work either. Better pressure this time on top and I only lose top spot once, although we did have to stop a couple of times for crashing into other pairs.

John says we're adding something to it for after you get back to guard. That'd be a technique from guard. Woo hoo! Lets see what it is? A sweep right.... wrong. It's an escape. That you do while the other guy is in your guard. Well OK. Basically, you're in guard with one hand on the back of his neck and the other on his other arm. His head will be roughly on your chest. Use your legs to push him lower down your body, then open your guard up and wriggle backwards further. Now he should be right down near your stomach. Straighten your leg on the side where you have his arm, bring the other one up as high as possible, then post back with the hand that was on his arm. Scoot backwards and get to your feet / knees / whatever. Just like the stand up drill we do in warmup.

Drilling that a bit. Then a one minute drill that was vaguely amusing. Start on one side of the mat, in guard. Person on the bottom has to try to do the escape (why are we escaping our own guard again?) while the other person has to stay in guard (why are we trying to stay in our opponents guard again?). If you get to the other side of the mat, go back to the other side and start again. Amusing stuff. Basically laps across the mat with the person on the bottom wriggling backwards and the guy on top staying there. Good exercise, but not a whole lot of escaping going on.

Drink break, then more side control sparring to finish up. I'm really tired you know. First time that's happened for a fair few weeks. Hard work being underneath, but I'm spending most of my time on my side, so the pressure isn't too bad. He hasn't seemed to work out how to flatten me effectively. Definitely not getting my hips out far enough and finding myself blocked off as a result.

On top. He's getting a little tired, and a whole lot less explosive as a result. I think I managed to not lose the position at all this round, but we did have to reset about 3 times due to finding ourselves off the mat / in a wall / in another pair. Kinda scary ending to the round, because we ran into another pair and one of them rolled onto the back of my neck, which also did an imitation of bubble-wrap popping. Apparently no serious damage.

One more time, but this time you're allowed to try to mount (although you just reset if someone gets mount).

Underneath again, and I'm really pretty wrecked now. He suddenly feels a whole lot heavier. He immediately gets mount. Oh, yeah gotta stop him doing that. Still doing a reasonable job staying on my side, but never really looked like getting out. He tried for mount again, but this time my legs were in the way. Ha. I learn. He tried to isolate my arm right near the end, but he didn't have anywhere near good enough position, and even the size difference wasn't enough for him to get it.

On top one more time, and we're absolutely all over the mat as he tries to wriggle out and I just try to stay on top. Crashing into people, crashing off the mats. I think we re-set 4 times just because of obstacles. Amusing.

Really tired. My back hurts. My shoulders hurt (from drilling). Great class, really happy. I think we might have done 10 minutes worth of sparring stuff spread out over the last half hour of class, and considering I was with a guy as solid as he was, I'm pretty happy with how it went.

Great success. Hope my back isn't too bad in the morning. Heat packs tonight, as that's what my physio says should be good for it.

Oh. Just for entertainment value, while we were drilling the basics, Dale and another 4 stripe white belt were drilling flying armbars in the middle of the mat. Because that's what you do in the middle of a class full of beginners right?