Jitsu: Sometimes You're The Fly, Sometimes You're The Windshield

In this case I got to be the fly.

Finally got to Jitsu after work yesterday.

Helped out in the white belt level class which was fun and good to work on my basic techniques.

Then I did the Rolling Techniques class which really helps refine your rolling and self defense capabilities.  

For example, it is amazing how simply moving a person's arm down towards their hip while doing an Americana arm lock massively increases the pressure and pain of the arm lock. Lots more effect for a lot less work.  

Great class.

Then on to the Master Cycle class for more advanced technique.

I was the only blue belt amongst 4 purple belts. 

I distinctly remember someone saying " Blue Belts Are Friends, Not Food." 

Did I mention this was also a fight sim class where there are punches being thrown as well as jitsu?

It worked out about as well as you could expect.

Yep, I got to be the fly hitting the windshield repeatedly. Much was learned as a result, including discovering the license plate on one of the trucks that hit me.

Upside, it is always a great ego check, especially if you start thinking you're good. Work with higher belts and immediately realize how much you still need to learn and work on in order to improve your technique. 

Great classes, great workout, and I was totally beat by the end of it and had no problem getting to sleep and staying asleep all night as a result, which was nice. I really need to do jitsu more often and get in better shape overall, which I'm working on.

So This Happened Last Night

Last night at Jitsu was leg lock wall drills.

Two (then three) people started out lying on the mat with everyone else lined up on the wall. Then two (later three) people came off the wall to face those on the mats.

When lying down you had your legs up in open guard and had to first let the attacker get your leg and begin a leg lock. 

Then you had to defend it.

If you defended it, you stayed on the mat and then next person came off the wall at you.

If you got submitted, it was the attackers turn to be on the mat defending.

To say this gets exhausting very quickly is an understatement.

I started out on the mat.

I successfully defended against the first two blue belt attackers off the wall.

Then I got toyed with by a purple belt and got caught in a fancy heel hook pretty darn quickly. I learned from this. 

The Main Lesson - do not meddle in the affairs of Purple Belts for you are squishy and can be folded into various uncomfortable positions rather effortlessly.

Then, I got to get to the wall and then rotate in as an attacker.

Sometimes I was back on the wall, sometimes I got to stay out on the mat defending.

Much more learning occurred.

This went on for an hour and was one heckuva workout.

After that, one of the purple belts was promoted to 4 stripes, and he's already so good that he's a brown belt in all but passing the test - which won't be hard for him.

My name got called and I was taken by surprise as I wasn't expecting it.

This happened:

 

It is amazing how a little piece of tape can both mean so much, and mean nothing at all at the same time.  Even as I didn't feel I was adequately ready to be a three-striper, my instructors determined that I was.  Feels rather good, and is  a sign of how incredibly much more I need to learn.

Another blue belt also was surprised by getting their first stripe.

After we were awarded the stripes we had a celebratory roll.

In this roll, the newly promoted blue belt 1-striper did his best to kill me, and I successfully defended his attacks, made it difficult for him to do so, and made some fun problems for him on the way. We ended in a draw.

Quite a great end to the evening.

Well, That Was Difficult

Went to Jitsu last night.

First it was a lesson on escapes form inverted heel hooks, which are rather nasty things to be subject to in grappling. In short a properly set heel hook is going to tear your knee up, and fast. So learning about preventing it and knowing how to escape it is pretty important.

Next it was a fight sim session - meaning protecting yourself from punches (with gloves worn) with sparring simulating being attacked and then defending yourself from an attack.

Good practice, but when you're up against a late-20s aged opponent at the same skill level, while you're in the low 50s, it gets ugly pretty fast.

On the upside, once on the ground I was able to protect myself and have a position that made punches ineffective, and I was basically able to hold him off and prevent him from doing any damage whether by punching or other techniques.  Took a lot of work, but I managed it. But, what I could not do was escape from him and get to a dominant position. Physical strength has a quality all its own in a fight, even a simulated one, and I sure ain't as strong as I once was, even as my technique is likely better than ever. But I "survived" the encounter and that counts for something.

After that workout, it was then time for freestyle rolling.  I did decently at it.  I actually got some decent submissions on some opponents and got nailed myself as well, so I was both the fly and the windshield during the rolls.

Lots of fun with a great group of people and it was one heckuva workout, and some new techniques were learned.

A challenging class, and I'm a tad sore now, but it was still a great time.

Omoplata in Portuguese Does Not Translate To

"A monkey making sweet love to a football."

But it probably should, at least in regards to the Omoplata in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

Instead, Omaplata is Portuguese for the scapula, derived from the ancient Greek word for shoulder rather than the Latin word scapula.  The Omoplata in BJJ gets its name as it is a shoulder lock, and a very effective one it is, too, once you actually maneuver in place to lock it in.

Here's a video demonstrating the Omoplata:

 As you can see, there's a fair bit going on.  Once locked in place however, the Omoplata is a pretty surefire way to get your attacker to give up or disable themselves.

With my hip still not being 100%, my finish was more of a pull myself up to the opponent's other side shoulder than the graceful hip flip to upright you see in the video.  The video makes it look easy - for me learning it the first time, not so much.  

In short, me and the monkey were having a romantic time with a football learning this technique. I made it work, but it wasn't pretty getting there.

There are variants, and we learned a few of them.  I found I could get into the Omoplata a lot easier when holding the attacker in 3/4 guard, and it's a great opportunity to do the move if you're in that position and the attacker turns their head the wrong way, thus creating an opening for the move.

We then learned the Go Go Plata, which is the response you use when the attacker tries to sit up and pull away from the Omoplata - you adjust your feet and they get choked out rather quickly from your feet fully choking their neck.   Rather fun, if a tad vicious as it sets in real quick and hard.

You can also shift the opponent into a triangle choke if they try and move their arm to protect it from the Omoplata, and then shift back to the Omoplata when they try and defend the triangle.

BJJ, after all, is all about leading your attacker down a path to worse and worse options to make them regret their bad life choices, with attacking you being one of those bad life choices.

So yep, I need a lot more practice with the Omoplata to make it effective and I'm rather sore from my initial lesson learning it  as my hip is not appreciating moving that much, but will be doing a lot more practice with it later this week.

I Used To Be An Adventurer Like You.

Then I took a knee in the face.

Which happened tonight at jitsu.

We were doing side mount sparring and wall drills.

A wall drill is a fiendishly clever workout.

As you might expect, there's a wall involved.

2 practitioners are on the mats, in this case lying down, the remaining practitioners are lined up. on, you guessed it, the wall.

How it works: 2 people on the wall take top of side mount on the 2 on the mats.  If the one on the bottom of side mount escapes they get to remain on the mat and the person on top heads back to the wall, and another person immediately comes off the wall to try and get them.  If the one on top gets a submission,  they take the place of the person lying down on the mat and the next person comes  off the wall tries to submit them. As soon as someone escapes or submits, someone comes off the wall to replace the person leaving. You keep going round and around until time is called.

It's fun, fast-paced, and it's a ridiculous amount of energy spent defending and attacking. It's a great way to hone techniques against a lot of resistance and different opponents as everyone wants to stay out on the mat and off the wall as long as possible.

I managed my personal best tonight - I submitted the opponent on a time when I came off the wall, and then fended off and escaped two other practitioners who were the trying to submit me.

That was happy-making.

Then I took a knee in the face.  

Not intentional, but in the scramble my opponent had his knee connect to my face and I managed to get a nice bloody lip and saw a few stars to boot. Ouch. 

I held on for a bit being nice and effectively defending, but noticed I was bleeding, which is a stopper in the action.  Got up, cleaned up and stopped the bleeding and got back at it after. Since then, I've had some ice on it and some lip balm, and we'll see how bad it looks tomorrow. No pain, no gain I guess.

Even with the bloody lip, it was still a good night and my techniques were on point, and it was nice to be the windshield rather than the fly for once.

Rolling Into 2024

Welcome to 2024!

A bunch of us at the training center decided to go to the center this morning to get a rolling session in on the first of the year.  

No classes or instruction, just straight rolling.

Rolled for about an hour and a half with 7 minute rounds.

Afterwards we all grabbed lunch together and had a good time socializing.

Heckuva workout, and a great way to welcome in the new year.

Mat Survival

Well, that was quite a roll last night.

At Jitsu class, as usual we spent an hour working on a technique, and then do open mat rolling where you can work on that technique, or can just  roll freestyle.  

Rolls had a timer of 5 minutes on them this time, and after that you find a new partner and go roll again.

So, for my second roll of the evening I got paired up with Chris.

Chris happens to be the same belt level as me, but he's 20 years younger than me, a head taller than me, and he is heavily into physical fitness. He also doesn't go less than full effort in all of his rolls.

In short, rolling with him is like rolling with a Mack Truck. 

Great practice for in real life, as you're unlikely to be physically attacked by someone weaker and smaller than you (mind you this session wasn't street-level realistic as it wasn't a fight sim class with punches - adding punches and havign to defend against them, especially facing him, really raises the level of suckage). 

In short this was rolling with the roll mode set to hard.

But this time around, he was unable to get a submission on me.  To be fair, I sure as heck couldn't get a submission on him, though I made a few attempts that got close and grabbed his attention at the right times. But, I was able to successfully shut down and survive each and every one of his attacks which was very happy making.

By the end of the 5 minutes we were both pretty much drained, as defending against him for 5 minutes was sure as heck exhausting for me, and he had to bring a lot of energy to the party to try and get me which was exhausting for him. 

But it was one helluva good roll, and a sign that I'm improving a bit in my technique, which is nice.

So, This Happened Last Night

After class and after the rolls,  I got called up in front of the class.

My belt now looks like this:

That second stripe took a long time to be earned.  Time off for surgery and recovery turned it into almost two years, and then over 100 hours on the mats to get it.

It's both interesting and amazing how much a little piece of tape on a belt means and is worth, and at the same time is not really meaning anything at all in the grand scheme of things.

Now to work on continuing to improve, and to try and earn stripe three.

Learning Fun, More Learning Fun, Ouch

Saturday, I attended a Jiu Jitsu seminar at the training center.

Visiting was Chet, a 4th Degree Back Belt who is an incredibly skilled practitioner, an engaging and wonderful teacher, and an all-around nice guy.  

To say he really knows his stuff and can make a technique understandable and effective is an understatement.  Always an amazing time when he visits, even if it feels like you're drinking from a fire hose.  You always get more than your money's worth from any seminar he instructs.

We started with something that seems simple, but with a few little tweaks becomes a lot more effective - the initial clinch.

Basically in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu the philosophy when your being attacked is you're either in or out.  Out meaning far enough away you can't get punched or kicked, or In - you're close enough that the attacker's punches or kicks lose effectiveness as you're already too close for them to generate power in their punches. You typically don't want to hang out at arms-length absorbing your attacker's punches.

Clinching is being very In. Basically, you're attached to them smothering their attacks and in close enough to then do a takedown or other technique to stop the attack or get away.

The two tweaks sound really simple and then made a huge difference.  They were: Look up and leg pressure.

Simply by looking up while you're cinching changes your body posture and helps break the opponent's posture.  Putting pressure on their leg further reduces their stability and further breaks their posture.  Not very comfortable for them and it absolutely makes the position more effective with these two very tiny modifications.

I was teamed up with Jesse, a 4-stripe white belt.  Jesse is quite a bit bigger and stronger than I am, which is great practice. After all, it's most likely that in real life you're going to be attacked by someone who is bigger and stronger than you rather than the other way around. This can get uncomfortable with all his weight on you during ground techniques, but it helps to learn to be comfortable while being uncomfortable, and knowing you can still handle yourself with a big heavy guy trying to smother you.

The only downside, is that while practicing dynamic clinching, all his bigness and strong-ness accidentally came down on the 2nd little toe from the end of my left foot and it came down just right (or just wrong) that there was a snapping sound and some rather instant pain. 

Weird accidents happen.

So, with one broken toe later, with it immediately turning black and blue, I taped it to the next toe and carried on, albeit being careful with that foot.

The rest of the seminar dealt with some really neat ground techniques.  These included a sneaky arm triangle choke you can do when the attacker on top of you decides to put his forearm over your throat and press down trying to choke you. Instead, they get choked out and get to reevaluate their life choices and regret their choice of being so rude as to try to shove their forearm through your throat.

After the teaching portion of the seminar ended, we had some free rolling time, and along with rolling with my friends, I got an opportunity to roll with Chet. This was pretty incredible as he can see what you're trying to do about 20 moves ahead of you actually doing it. He moves so well and smoothly it is just fantastic to experience. This was a fun time and it was very neat to again experience how good someone at that level can be at this. Learned a lot rolling with him. 

In short should you decide to try and attack a 4th degree BJJ Black Belt, my best advice is instead to run in the opposite direction as fast as you possibly can. This advice also applies to BJJ Black belts of all levels; also Brown Belts; Purple Belts; and any Blue Belt who is better than me -- which is just about all of them, just saying).

A lot of fun and learning occurred.  Toe is still rather sore today, and I've iced it and re-taped it to the next toe. 

After the rolls, a bunch of us headed out for tacos and camaraderie with Chet and it was an end to a great seminar.  It was a darn good time, even with the ouchie.  Worth it.

Training Jiu Jitsu: Hoodie Choke Week

This is a very fun week at the training center.

Hoodie choke week happens once a year.  

Instead of wearing Gis or the standard no-Gi outfits, you show up wearing a hoodie along with your Gi pants.  

Showing up while wearing only a hoodie would make people a tad concerned, just sayin'.

As the name implies, you're gonna get choked with your hoodie when you're playing the attacker.

The Hoodie acts as a rope and you can control someone's movements via their hood, and it gives your arms some nice leverage to effect chokes on an attacker.  Note that these are blood chokes - cutting off blood to the brain, rather than air chokes where you prevent people from breathing. 

So last night, we got to practice chokes on attackers from various positions (standing, mount, guard, backmount, and sidemount) and much fun was had by all. Hoodies give tons of opportunities for both controlling and choking an attacker wearing a hoodie.

I expect it would be most disheartening for an attacker wearing a hoodie to attack someone and then get choked out by their own clothing.

More fun to look forward to as hoodie choke week continues.

Back To Jitsu

So yesterday night I finally returned to the mats.

Leg took a lot longer to heal up than I would like, and it's still not even 90%, but I figured if I don't get back now and give it a try, I may never get back.  

Besides, I needed to get some workouts going again.

Overall, I'd say it went quite well. We're doing half guard and today was passing from a three-quarter guard.  Basically the opponent is trying to get back to full guard, but there's an opening as they move into three-quarter guard as they're trying to recover full guard, where you can pass their guard and get to a superior control position.

Rather fun, and it went well.  

Had to switch sides for one of the segments as it involved really putting force on the leg being passed, which was not good at all for my angry quad muscle. So, my partner got to try passing on the left side which is harder than it seems when you're used to doing it on the right side all the time.

Then on to some light rolling.  This also went pretty well.  

I did lose some positions as I had to, on occasion, release one of my hands from an opponent to move it down to shove or adjust an opponent's body or leg off my right leg to relieve the pressure and ouchies thus applied on it, but it was still good.   Did take some breaks from rolling as well.

No major pains and I was careful not to strain the muscles and not go too hard with the leg.  Mainly caused me to be defensive but I need to work defenses too, so still a good workout and got some good rolls in.

A bit more limping around this morning than yesterday morning as a result, but no substantial increase in pain or any mobility loss, so I'll chalk that up as a win.

Yeowch - I Was Not Expecting That

So yesterday I went to do some jitsu.

The lesson was on the overhead sweep from guard.

First time learning it, and it is a very fun sweep.

In short, the attacker stands up in your guard or runs into your guard, and decides while doing so to grab your throat, jacket etc. You basically get your feet in his hips, grab his arms, and basically can get him up in the air with his weight on your feet like a leg press and roll him north above  your head in a somersault-type maneuver, and if you hang on to his arms while doing so you end up on top.

The sweep can be stopped by the attacker if he knows how to shift his body to counter, but it then opens him up for two other sweeps if he persists in standing up.

Much fun, and I did the sweeper but not the sweepee side of things and having people's feet leg pressing into my hips lifting me into the air would be a bad idea. Still not allowed to fall, and the sweepee does do a definite fall onto the hips which is contra-indicated.

So that was good and went well.

Then we did some rolling which went well until . . .

I was in my second  roll of the night with an opponent and had a good opportunity to do a trap and roll maneuver to get him off of on to of me. The problem is as I extended by hips up in a bridge, he in reaction brought his foot down hard right on my right hip to get a hook in to stop me rolling him.

He hit a rather unpleasant spot on the leg, pretty much right on the surgical scar as my hips were fully extended, which unpleasantly triggered a reaction I did not know could happen.

Basically, it felt like 240 volts of electricity coursed through my entire body and I collapsed nicely.

Ow, Ow, Ow.  Basically every nerve in the hip area went absolutely bonkers and I could not move.

After a bit, I discovered I could actually move again, and was able to move the leg and hip.  I was able to get up and move around.  Hip joint seemed ok, but the muscles around the hip were not happy.

I sat out the rest of the rolling and watched, and then helped with cleaning the mats afterward. Got changed, went home, had a hot shower, and took some Tylenol.

Rather sore and a bit limpy this morning, but no serious damage done, still same range of motion as before and no excessive pain. 

So, it turns out I'm not quite as healed up as I thought, which is a bit disconcerting. 

I'm going to need to take it a bit easier, and not do trap and rolls unless I have my training partner know not to try and stop it with the non-rolling side hook, but that was the first time that has happened. All prior rolls to date have only resulted in some soreness, not electric, body-frying pain like that. 

Good to know and certainly a corrective as I thought I was healed up and well past the point that kind of thing happening, but apparently not. Will just carry on, but being a bit more careful as we go here.

Hip Report: Back To The Mats: First Full Jitsu Class

After spending a day in trial without getting to finish the hearing and only getting my first witness 90% through after the Plaintiff rested, and having the joy of the trial then being adjourned until mid June, I really needed a workout.

Jiu Jitsu it was then.

So tonight I had a quick bite, packed my bag, and headed to the training center for my first full lesson since the surgery.

This is a review week after the sidemount chapter so it was review then lots of focussed sparring starting in sidemount and then open rolling.

I was glad to be back and good to see and roll with friends again.

Did the review and then did some ficussed sparrign and on to the rolls.

I'm really happy with this new hip,  Flexibility is much better, pain is so much lower it is not even funny, and I can now get up off the mat without looking like something the cat dragged in.

Still no falling, so I did everything from ground level and took care to try and protect the hip during the rolls.

Didn't lose too much skill  during my absence but lots of people sure got better. 

I did however, lose some stamina -- being unable to workout for months and being stuck in a chair or in bed will do that.

Tons of fun rolling with friends and it turns out my pressure is better (probably the unwanted extra weight Ive managed to pickup from all the inactivity) and the new hip actually lets me move a heckuva lot more including maneuvers I couldn't even dream of doing pre-surgery.

I had much fun moving into techniques I could previously not do due tot he hip or could only do them with painful difficulty.  Nice to do them in an almost pain-free manner.

Some aches and such, but nothing major and nothing at all like how bad it felt doing jitsu pre-surgery, and we will see how I feel in the morning.

Real good to be back and I certainly need the workouts.

Hip Report: Back To The Mats

Had a follow up appointment with the doctor a couple Fridays ago.

The not so good news:  Hip was kinda sore and it turns out I have Illotial Band Syndrome, likely due to the muscles and everything getting moved around and re-balancing now that the hip arthritis is now more.  Bit of an ache and I'm doing stretches for it.  Overall things are good and just the Illotial Band and the quad muscle are still angry at  me and everything else is looking great.

The good news:  I have been cleared for all activities except for falling, which is still a no-no.  In short, I was cleared to attend jitsu again once time came that it didn't feel quite so achy.  That time was today.

I decided to take a private lesson with the center's instructor, Heath, to see how much I've forgotten and see what the new hip can and can't do.

It turns out, it can do a lot. A whole lot.

My range of motion is so much better it is remarkable, and we both noticed it right away.

The lack of constant pain while moving was also remarkable.

I can do an elevator sweep without pain!  An elevator sweep is when someone is on top of you and props up to punch you, and then you basically sweep them off and end up on top, which is rather useful and pretty dispiriting for them.  

To do it, you have to get your leg in the right position up and inside their leg (and a few other things), and I could never do that without extreme discomfort and often couldn't even move the hip that way at all.  Now I can.

Ditto for scissor sweeps, and quite a few other maneuvers I used to be completely unable to do.  Other maneuvers I can now do quicker and easier than before, and even getting up off the ground is easier.

We did a half hour trying to figure out what the limits are and there's a few techniques I won't be doing (as in all the takedowns and falling as well as some ground stuff where the hip is kinda vulnerable) and will be telling partners not to do certain techniques on me, but other than that I am good to go, which is very exciting.

This is all very happy-making.  Now I can work on getting back in shape (been an immobile slug for much too long due to the surgery) and work on my jitsu again.

So, I'm a little sore now,  but it's a good kind of sore from a workout, and I'm far less sore than on any normal day with arthritis in the hip, much less a normal day after jitsu.

Next follow up appointment in about 5 weeks may even just clear me for some gentle falls.

It's great to be back in the game again.  Missed it and the people at the center a lot.

The Spirit Of Jiu Jitsu Exemplified

The owner of our Jiu Jitsu Training center earned his brown belt this weekend in a pretty intensive test. They don't just hand those out, you have to earn it.

Today was the first Master Cycle Class (combative belts and up) since his promotion.

After the lesson part of the class there's open rolling.

He then took each and every one of us in the class for a roll in turn.  He essentially set it up that we could, and did, tap him out in each roll so long as we did good technique appropriate for our own levels. He wasn't just letting you tap him out, you had to work for it, but he kept his responses to your moves matched right at your ability level so you could do it.

Yep, instead of him showing that he could tap out pretty much everyone in the room after earning that promotion -- which he can --  (except for the head instructor - and they might at times get to a draw), he instead decided to celebrate by getting tapped out by the entire class.

That was an impressive demonstration of someone being humble and putting their ego completely aside.  

It really demonstrates the spirit at our training center that it's not just how good at jitsu you can be that matters, but how good at jitsu you can become while helping others become good at jitsu too that matters.

It's a really great place to learn.

A Great Jitsu Seminar

Went to a Jiu Jitsu seminar today at our training center.

The visiting instructor was black belt Evandro Nunes.

A Brazilian, he's rather tall, and he's been a successful BJJ fighter and is now one of the top instructors for Gracie Survival Tactics  - A Gracie Jiu Jitsu program tailored for law enforcement usage.

Very effective stuff and excellent hand to hand training police to be able to control bad guys using technique rather than brute strength.

He began  the seminar with a brief intro and then asked what we were interested in learning. From a few questions he put together a 2-hour seminar on the fly. His technique looks effortless and amazing smooth, and all his years of practice are very evident.

It began with guard passing techniques and a philosophical approach to passing guard.  The idea is to have less focus on forcing a pass but instead more on first observing what your opponent is trying to do, and then move from safe  position to the next safe position and finally to a position where the opponent almost prefers that you pass their guard.

From there, we did some choke techniques and I'm happy to say I've now learned how to do the Anaconda choke, which is impressively nasty.  Basically if someone tries to get you off of mount position or knee on belly the wrong way they open themselves up for an Anaconda attack.  Much fun. I need more practice with it to really get it locked in, it but it's one heckuva neat technique. 

We then moved on to answers to knee on belly and how to either adjust to reduce the effectiveness of the technique or sweep someone doing a knee on belly technique.  Very fun stuff, and I need to work on that.

Finally we finished with a defense from a knife attack whether the attacker is below us or mounted on us. Good technique to control the attacking arm.  Downside is you likely are going to get stabbed and possibly more than once if someone pulls a knife in an entangled fight, but having some answer to it is better than nothing. 

A great seminar and I learned a ton in 2 hours.  Then we did some rolling which was a lot of fun and we got to try out some of the techniques we had learned.

Evandro is a super skilled and talented instructor and a super nice guy.  Great instructor with an excellent teaching manner. 

Did I mention he's really tall?

He's a great guy and I look forward to him visiting and holding another seminar soon.

Jiu Jitsu As Chess And An Ouchie

Yesterday night I went to Jitsu.

We worked on the Foot Lock and then progressed to the Toe Hold Lock, which is what you do in response to the person trying to roll out of the Foot Lock, as by rolling out they give you a nice transition to a Toe Hold Lock.

Both the Foot Lock and Toe Hold locks can both be rather nasty, so tap early and often. 

Even more fun, If you try the escape from the Toe Hold Lock, and the escape is basically a spiral roll  to "unwrap" the lock, and you do the roll in the wrong direction, you will break your own foot.  This will likely occur before your partner can react in time to release it. As such, paying attention to what you're doing is kinda important.

Much fun was had and I'm getting the hang of it which is nice.  Much easier to learn with a partner than via Zoom.

Then on to rolling.  My current assignment as first stripe blue belt is to try and plan at least one move ahead in every roll.  In other words, not just survive and react, but actually plan and series of at least two moves based on waht might happen. 

At this point, Jitsu transforms from simple murder yoga to become chess with fold-able pieces.

So I was teamed up with Will for the first time in a while.  He's rather on the big side at 280+ pounds so it's only technique and not strength that will work when you're rolling with him.  

I was able to do some planning ahead which was great.  I was able to respond to his positions and plan out not just how to respond but then think a move ahead and get him where I wanted him.  Did a nice takedown of him when he was in turtle, by feinting going for a choke, and then getitng him off balance to roll him on his back, and then got him into sidemount and then baited him into giving me his arm for an Americana armlock. Progress!

Then on to a roll with Nick who's a two-stripe blue belt, and I could stalemate him but not do much more than that.  Still it was a good roll as he's rather good indeed.

Then on to a roll with Heath where I again was able to try some plans out which was nice.  Unfortunately, my lip decided to attack his knee while passing his guard. Ouch.  Bit of a bleeding lip there as a result and since you can't bandage a lip, that was rolling for the night for me. Ah well, minor bumps happen sometimes.

Still, it was a very good class and learned a lot, and the lip isn't too swollen today.

Steee-ripe 1!

On Monday night some we began the chapter of Master Cycle where we learn leg locks.  Leg locks are fun.

This is a good thing as the last time we cycled through leg locks, it was in the middle of Covid and we were virtual only. Learning leg locks without a partner and via Zoom I found to be well-nigh impossible. So, in the class I was really learning it for the first time.  Makes a heckuva lot more sense with a live partner to work it on.

So we began with the basic foot lock and worked on that and then learned the primary defense against the basic foot lock.

We drilled it pretty hard and it was a good workout.

The some promotions occurred at the end of the lesson.

Adrienne earned her Blue Belt

Trevor earned his first stripe on his Blue Belt

And then I got called up and earned the first stripe on my Blue Belt.

That's around 150 further hours of training since earning my Blue Belt, and I'm certainly better than I was then, but still have much to learn and improve upon. A lot of effort for a simple stripe of tape on your belt, but it's worth it.

We then had some rolling wearing our new stripes.

A great way to finish a class.

Rolling With Boulders

A major part of Jiu Jitsu is rolling.  It's where you get to practice all the techniques.

This can lead to happiness or frustration, especially when rolling with someone younger and heavier than you and you quickly learn your limitations and the limitations of the techniques you know.

Take rolling with Will for example.

Will is in his 20s and weighs in at 275 pounds or so. 

So he's got 20 years and seventy-five pounds on me. Makes a difference. 

He is described by most other people at the center as rolling with a boulder.

I can't disagree.

Here's what it typically looks like when I'm rolling with Will:

 I can often hold him off and defend and fend off a lot of his attacks, I can stalemate him in a roll and stop him from tapping me out, and even sometimes get a submission if I can exploit a mistake, but I often just get crushed even if it ends in a stalemate.  

Doubly unfortunately, he tends to be a little overenthusiastic and loses a bit of control. This happened on our last roll Monday night and sadly I got a good whack to my left eye.  Ouch.

Woke up the next day and the eye was still hurting and it has caused some floaters and the eye doc has said no jitsu for me for awhile due to the accidental hit to let it heal up, and also no contact lenses, which sucks as that means no flying either.

So unfortunately no jitsu for me until this heals up a bit.

Everyone Has A Plan 'Til They Get Punched in The Face

This is Fight Sim week at the jitsu training center I attend.  Fight Sim week is done at the end of each chapter in the training cycle and is about the most exhausting week you get to enjoy.

The general program at the center begins with basics that are applicable to street defense through getting your Combatives belt.  Then the next phase, Master Cycle, which is Combatives belts and up, adds both advanced self-defense techniques and advanced sport jitsu moves as well, and it adds Fight Sim for high intensity self-defense.  

Fight Sim is where the combative and other techniques get put to use in a simulated street-type encounter. Fight Sim deals with jitsu being used to defend yourself in a street fight and the attacker is throwing punches.  Lots of punches. Happily, they are at least wearing 5.5oz gloves that cover the hand fully but you can get your fingers out to do grips and other techniques (or accidentally stab someone in the eye, but more on that later).

At lot of Fight Sim is learning to get through the attackers punches safely to close and effect a take-down, and also learn to be able to reduce the effectiveness of punches an attacker is throwing when they're on the ground. Because they're going to be throwing a lot of punches. 

Punches tend to get your attention.  Knowing how to handle incoming punches matters quite a lot.

Even at 10-20% power (the limit we use for training in this class), a shot to the face makes you eager to want to sharpen your defenses.  Occasionally your attacker gets a little overenthusiastic in the melee and you receive a little more than a 20% hit.  Stings a tad.  Generally Fight Sim is set so the "bad guy"  is not supposed to use jitsu techniques but instead acts as either be an untrained puncher (think wild swings trying to knock you out) or more of a skilled striker with jabs, crosses, hooks, etc.

Jitsu can be for both sport and self-defense.  For example, a Butterfly guard is great for sport jitsu v jitsu, but if you try to use a butterfly guard in a real fight, you will get you bell rung with punches.  Knowing what techniques to use where matters quite a bit and our center always wants us to stay sharp on the self-defense side of the equation.

Very good training, and a 5 minute round defending yourself from someone intent on punching you is rather exhausting.  

You need to close the distance through  punches, or in anticipation of a punch, execute a take-down, maintain control of someone who is using all their weight to buck or throw you off and who keeps trying to punch you even when down, and then get a submission if possible. Like I said, it is pretty darn exhausting but good training.

Unfortunately, I had one session yesterday with someone who got a tad overenthusiastic and his hand did a nice ricochet off my blocking hand and then went on to smack me right at the right eye with a finger poking out of his glove,  so I have a rather impressive shiner right now.   Not intentional at all, but minor injuries do happen.   I've iced it and its overall ok, just doesn't look great.

Aside from that it went well, but I can say that being paired up with someone stronger and bigger than me as a bad guy makes for an exhausting bout. 

Of course, this is good training as it is unlikely that someone smaller and weaker than you is going to pick a fight and attack you in real life. 

But, it got hairy and I had to work hard to avoid getting pounded even at 10-20%, especially when in one case my bad guy started in mount position as part of the scenario.  Being mounted when punches are flying just plain sucks. Managed to get out of it and establish a good defense, and then control him, but I was pretty much spent after that 5 minute round.

The class then ended and we then spent 15 minutes doing standard jitsu rolls afterwards which felt pretty easy by comparison as no punches were flying.

Heckuva good class and great training.