I'm baaaaaaaack!

So for the next three months I'm a University student again. That means no going to work, and full time study. That means morning classes and absolutely no trouble getting to BJJ classes! Hooray! Looks like I missed some stuff.

It's amazing how much better you feel training when you haven't spent all day at work. Great stuff.

Very abbreviated warmup because the kids ran overtime. Bad kids bad. Running in circles waving our arms around, running in circles touching the floor, sprawls, then burpee-sprawls. Hip escapes down the mat x 2 and switchout / standupy things.

Grabbed Lee for drilling fun. First up is a side control escape circuit. Hip escape, regain your guard, switchout (escape your own guard!) and then shoot for a single leg to side control. Then go around in circles. Did I mention it's crowded? Many many collisions just for entertainment value.

After that we switched to a guard pass drill. Do my one and only guard pass (knee in butt, step out to the other side to break the guard, hook the leg up onto your shoulder, stack up and slide to the side into side control..), move to mount, guy underneath escapes with a bridging rolling upa thing, passes guard etc.

Then, new stuff! (How excitement!). A different guard pass! Breaking the guard in the same way, but instead of going up and stacking, continue to shove that leg down, then stick your knee through, pin it down with your shin and hook your foot under to make sure it's stuck. Hook the other leg with one arm, crossface with the other. Roll onto your hip next to victim (partner? heh) and swing-kick your leg across, then switch legs to normal side control.

I think I might have gotten to drill that twice. Maybe 3 times. Handy stuff. Just to prove we're completely random, we then go and try our three submissions from mount. Once each. That's repetition for you! Once! Happy to notice that I did a not completely hopeless armbar to the side I normally do hopeless ones. Go me.

John breaks us up to see another couple of neat tricks. Like how you can armbar someone when they don't wave their arm around asking for it. Mostly by digging your hip under their arm to pop it up for you. I got to do this twice. Go me. Also, how to react if you try figure 4 from mount and they roll towards their arm to defend it. This one I already really suspected, but as they roll you get halfway to their back and set up for either an armbar if they don't continue to roll or taking their back if they do.

I promptly kicked Lee in the head trying to secure an armbar. Ooops. Sorry.

Next up, we stand up for some fun. Did I mention it's really stupidly hot? I'm melting! Anyway. We're doing takedowns. Specifically, shooting for double-leg takedowns. Basic pointers about this one seem to be that you don't want to put your head down as might seem natural. That would just get you sprawled on. Anyway, drop your level, shoot in so your knee is between their legs, your head generally in their stomach, wrap arms around the back of their knees, drive forwards and turn to the side where your leg isn't. Hopefully get out from their guard before they notice!

We did these for quite a while. I might have even done 10. Then we switched to stand up pummeling drills. Slow at first, then competitively with the goal of getting double underhooks. I'm pretty sure I got the best of this but I also don't think I managed to get a good secure grip.

Suddenly it was the end of class. Which kind of caught everyone by surprise, including John, who apologized because apparently the guys who've been around a while now were supposed to spend the last 15 minutes of class rolling. We'll be doing that Wednesday. Score!

Long time no Jits..

Yeah. Not happy Jan. Work moved offices which has transport implications. Then our biggest client promised one of their clients they could have something that they really can't. So we're doing that. Overtime and stuff. At least it pays well.

Riding the train is way better than driving to work if you have a long way to go. So much less stressful. I get to read. Books. It's great! I did have an interesting visit from a lady the other day who insisted on telling the entire train carriage that God loves them / her / everyone, God this, God that.. and eventually she sat next to me and declared that my book, The third of the Wheel of Time (The Dragon reborn) was 'sinful'. Apparently I should only read the Bible.

Right.

Class tomorrow. I reckon I've worked out a train that will get me there. And Hopefully one will get me home too.

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.