As I was approaching the date of my surgery I started having second thoughts about Jiu Jitsu. It wasn't that I didn't like it, quite the opposite but I was starting to not enjoy my training sessions. I was turning up, getting dominated by almost everyone I sparred with and then going home extremely frustrated. Now I'm not the sort of person who gets annoyed at being tapped out, my ego isn't quite that out of control, but I will admit to feeling that pang of satisfaction when I land a sub on someone at my own level. I think anyone who says they don't feel at least a little pleased with themselves is either lying or slightly deluded. However much you 'get' sparring and understand that it's not win or lose but practice and a chance to experiment, everyone is pleased when they catch someone with something they've been practising for a while and I don't see anything wrong with this. If you're training and training to get better, it's totally natural to be pleased when your skills over come someone else's.
Anyway, I digress; I was experiencing the tell tale signs of a BJJ rut. Everyone else was progressing apart from me. I'd turn up and get put into some crazy choke I'd never seen before or reversed so fast I didn't know up from down. Everything being shown to me was going in one ear and out the other. I don't care about getting tapped out but I was finding it hard to not be bothered by being completely dominated to the point of literally being someone else's grappling dummy. Anyone who does BJJ will tell you they've been in ruts before but I'd never seriously considered giving up before. I started imagining what I'd be able to do with all the time I'd suddenly have; going out in the evenings with friends, hitting the weights several times a week and actually getting that body I always wanted, being able to study and finally finish off my PT qualification and all of a sudden, a life without BJJ seemed so attractive.
As anyone who knows me will tell you, I have ideas that turn into obsessions that then devolve into annoyances. My PT qualification is a perfect example. I worked my arse off to get my level 2 Gym Instructor but my interested waned as I was working for level 3 and I still have much of it outstanding over a year past the date I was supposed to be finished. The same concept can be applied to my Martial Arts history; chopping and changing as novelty wears off. It's no small thing then that I've been at BJJ for three years solidly now and suggests to me that I've found the sport that I will be able to stick at through the highs and lows. I was very cognisant of this as I was considering giving up and was acutely aware that all I needed to rediscover my love of the sport was to feel myself making some kind of progress again or, as it turned out, to have an extended amount of time off the mat.
Usually when I can't train, my brain has a defence mechanism it engages that basically stops me thinking about BJJ at all. This had surely been the case for most of my convalescence as I was busy working out when I'd quit, how much money I'd save etc. I even got so far as to memorise the TSG timetable and work out which days I'd be training with them. I wanted to just train a couple of times a week in whatever Martial Art was convenient and forget about the constant drive to train and improve that seems to exist more within BJJ than any other sport.
Then yesterday, as I was idly flicking through Facebook I came across some friend's training and competition photos. The only way I can describe how I felt is to imagine a small spark kindling that soon becomes a roaring fire. I wanted to get back on the mat there and then, how could I have ever considered quitting? This sport was the thing I'd been most passionate about in my entire life! I wanted to win the lottery so I could train BJJ all day every day. Who was this crazy person that was ready to throw it all away so casually?
When I get back it'll take a while to return to the level I was at after 6 weeks off but who knows, this lay off could have done me good. I may have a new outlook on things, I may be able to retain more of what I'm taught. I'll certainly be blogging a lot more and I'll actually watch the instructionals I've had on my PC for the last six months. I've been a quitter all my life and I'm determined not to let it happen again. My competition record's only wins are from interclubs against people smaller than me but this is going to change. I love fighting on the mat and this feeling of never being good enough to compete isn't going to hold me back. I'm going to keep training and keep fighting and be the best I can be. The only person I have to compete with is myself, or rather, my own self doubt and that motherfucker is getting armbarred the next time I see him.
Friday 28 May 2010
Surgery and the inevitable recovery period
As I write this I am coming up to my fifth week of recovery after having what I thought was going to be simple surgery. Having a Cyst and Abcess removed seems like pretty standard every day stuff right? Apparently not when the afore mentioned nasties are in hard to reach and rather embarrassing places. The Cyst itself was just at the bottom of my spine inside the crack of my backside but the abcess was deeper and ran down to my Coccyx. They also cut out 'potental Cysts'; leaving me with a 10 inches of stitches and the inability to sit down for several weeks.
Just when I was on the mend we discovered a cavity behind the main w
ound that hadn't healed and was filling up with fluid. This led to my backside swelling up like a Raspberry on the day after I could finally sit down again and being too tender to even touch. After several days of having the wound packed and dressed every day it was decided that I needed to have this machine plugged into my back to constantly drain the fluid out of the hole, giving it a chance to heal. The idea is that they attach a tube to some sponge that is used to pack the wound. But the sponge is a good couple of inches shorter than the cavity. As the fluid is draining, the cavity heals up to the sponge and when I got back to the Hospital, they'll repack it with another slightly smaller piece of sponge. Today's visit showed that there has been a good 2-3 inches of healing in what appears to be an 8 inch cavity so I'm hopeful that I'll finally be fully recovered by next week and can finally get back to some kind of training.
Just when I was on the mend we discovered a cavity behind the main w
ound that hadn't healed and was filling up with fluid. This led to my backside swelling up like a Raspberry on the day after I could finally sit down again and being too tender to even touch. After several days of having the wound packed and dressed every day it was decided that I needed to have this machine plugged into my back to constantly drain the fluid out of the hole, giving it a chance to heal. The idea is that they attach a tube to some sponge that is used to pack the wound. But the sponge is a good couple of inches shorter than the cavity. As the fluid is draining, the cavity heals up to the sponge and when I got back to the Hospital, they'll repack it with another slightly smaller piece of sponge. Today's visit showed that there has been a good 2-3 inches of healing in what appears to be an 8 inch cavity so I'm hopeful that I'll finally be fully recovered by next week and can finally get back to some kind of training.
Monday 22 March 2010
Kicking myself in the backside and SENI
I'm determined not to let this blog go the same way as my Bullshido.net training log but I have a worse memory than a senile Goldfish. Normally, I remember the next day that I need to update my blog and then can't really remember the class or (and this is probably more common) I just can't be bothered. Well now this has to stop. I had to take last week off Jiu Jitsu after having my drink spiked in a local pub but from today I am 'in training' for the Gracie Invitational at SENI. I'm going to be attending at least 4 classes per week with 2 conditioning sessions on top.
I started off yesterday with hill running on Southend cliffs (Photos coming). I feel really lucky to have a place like this to run not too far from home. There are several paths and stairways on the cliffs that go from the seafront right to the top and I've made myself a fantastic little route that alternates between running up the stairs and sprinting up hills. I first got the idea back in my muay Thai days when I started joining the fighters on their pre-class runs. Back in those days I could hardly jog from the class to the seafront, so you can imagine what it was like sprinting up the hills. I remember one time specifically it felt like I was actually rolling back down the hill, like I'd run out of momentum on a push bike. My legs were on fire and I almost vomited. Yesterday, I got to the top of the hill and the endorphines were hitting me like some kind of drug high. I felt so good that I went straight back down and did it again. The second time wasn't quite so Rocky-esque. I got to the top still moving at a decent pace but I was covered in snot and flem and was dry heaving.... But I did it. I was screaming and grunting and hardly made it home... But I did it. Later on I had to go up my stairs on all fours and lower myself into the bath using my upper body for support... But I did it.
Most people see pushing yourself to the point of being sick or even collapse to be a completely ridiculous thing to do, remarking that it couldn't possibly be good for you or asking what the point of it all is. These are the same people who laugh at our diets and boggle at our training schedules. But why do we do it? We want to be the best we can be and we of course, want to be better than our opponent but that's not the full story. Why do we deprive ourselves of the food we love? Why do we cripple our social lives and most of all, why do we put ourselves through physical and mental torture?
Why? Because we love it.
SENI is coming and I'm going to be ready. If I go out onto that mat and lose my first fight because the other person was better than me, that's BJJ. If I am ready and do the absolute best I can, there's absolutely no shame in losing but if fatigue and lack of conditioning are to blame, that's my fault and I will have beaten myself before the fight has even begun.
I started off yesterday with hill running on Southend cliffs (Photos coming). I feel really lucky to have a place like this to run not too far from home. There are several paths and stairways on the cliffs that go from the seafront right to the top and I've made myself a fantastic little route that alternates between running up the stairs and sprinting up hills. I first got the idea back in my muay Thai days when I started joining the fighters on their pre-class runs. Back in those days I could hardly jog from the class to the seafront, so you can imagine what it was like sprinting up the hills. I remember one time specifically it felt like I was actually rolling back down the hill, like I'd run out of momentum on a push bike. My legs were on fire and I almost vomited. Yesterday, I got to the top of the hill and the endorphines were hitting me like some kind of drug high. I felt so good that I went straight back down and did it again. The second time wasn't quite so Rocky-esque. I got to the top still moving at a decent pace but I was covered in snot and flem and was dry heaving.... But I did it. I was screaming and grunting and hardly made it home... But I did it. Later on I had to go up my stairs on all fours and lower myself into the bath using my upper body for support... But I did it.
Most people see pushing yourself to the point of being sick or even collapse to be a completely ridiculous thing to do, remarking that it couldn't possibly be good for you or asking what the point of it all is. These are the same people who laugh at our diets and boggle at our training schedules. But why do we do it? We want to be the best we can be and we of course, want to be better than our opponent but that's not the full story. Why do we deprive ourselves of the food we love? Why do we cripple our social lives and most of all, why do we put ourselves through physical and mental torture?
Why? Because we love it.
SENI is coming and I'm going to be ready. If I go out onto that mat and lose my first fight because the other person was better than me, that's BJJ. If I am ready and do the absolute best I can, there's absolutely no shame in losing but if fatigue and lack of conditioning are to blame, that's my fault and I will have beaten myself before the fight has even begun.
Tuesday 2 March 2010
BJJ - RGA VIE Farringdon 02/03/10
I've been pretty bad at updating this blog recently, due to a massive change in personal circumstances but this post marks a re-dedication to my training and blogging. I won't be going into so much detail though and simply marking important points that I've taken away from each class.
Something that a few of us have been discussing recently is the subject of conditioning in BJJ and how much is too much. The general consensus is that it is certainly important, but it should be more BJJ specific exercises rather than just doing star jumps and press ups til people drop. Max and Dmetri are known purveyors of savage warm ups that tend to lean more towards the standard circuits format but Eddie, who was taking the class tonight puts us through much more specific exercises. For example, our warm up tonight consisted of a brief, 5 minute Aerobic session with running and jumping etc before we moved on to open guard exercises with one person trying to pass the legs of the other and put their knee down on their partners stomach. Neither person was allowed to grip and as soon as it went to the floor, we had to restart to keep things moving.
We then drilled how to regain open guard using the opposite side leg and ended with specific sparring from open guard that restarted whenever someone passed. Specific sparring was ok, I know a few passes that I was trying and had success with:
Sparring went pretty well, I'm now attacking a lot more rather than waiting for my partner to make a move that I can counter. I've started using the Triangle to Omoplata setup quite a lot, though I'm finding it hard to finish the Omoplata. I'm also getting in the mounted triangle position a lot these days but when I roll over to put it on, my leg seems to be over the back rather than the neck and I can hardly ever finish it. I try to make an angle by cupping their leg but something's not quite right.
I've also found that I'm able to keep moving now instead of just laying in positions and waiting for an opening, Lawrence commented to me the other day that I'm not just laying still any more. I really do need to start going straight to open guard when I can though. This is a major sticking point in my game and probably the biggest hurdle for me to progress.
My last roll of the night was with George and was one of the funnest I've ever had. There was constant movement, sweeps, reversals and submission attempts. He impressed me with his movement but it wasn't quite tight enough for him to land things like rolling armbars that he was trying. He put me in a couple of bad positions with possible armbars but I always managed to keep my cool and get my arm out just enough to prevent the lock and then start passing.
All in all it was a good session and I plan to really get my head down and train as much as possible over the next few months. I'm feeling the urge to get on the competition mat again but I'd like to feel a little more confident in my abilities first.
Something that a few of us have been discussing recently is the subject of conditioning in BJJ and how much is too much. The general consensus is that it is certainly important, but it should be more BJJ specific exercises rather than just doing star jumps and press ups til people drop. Max and Dmetri are known purveyors of savage warm ups that tend to lean more towards the standard circuits format but Eddie, who was taking the class tonight puts us through much more specific exercises. For example, our warm up tonight consisted of a brief, 5 minute Aerobic session with running and jumping etc before we moved on to open guard exercises with one person trying to pass the legs of the other and put their knee down on their partners stomach. Neither person was allowed to grip and as soon as it went to the floor, we had to restart to keep things moving.
We then drilled how to regain open guard using the opposite side leg and ended with specific sparring from open guard that restarted whenever someone passed. Specific sparring was ok, I know a few passes that I was trying and had success with:
- Pushing the person's legs towards them and sitting on their backside almost like riding them and passing to one side
- Pushing the legs to one side and sliding your leg alongside them so you basically sit down on your side and then turn into side control
- Leapfrogging the legs into mount
Sparring went pretty well, I'm now attacking a lot more rather than waiting for my partner to make a move that I can counter. I've started using the Triangle to Omoplata setup quite a lot, though I'm finding it hard to finish the Omoplata. I'm also getting in the mounted triangle position a lot these days but when I roll over to put it on, my leg seems to be over the back rather than the neck and I can hardly ever finish it. I try to make an angle by cupping their leg but something's not quite right.
I've also found that I'm able to keep moving now instead of just laying in positions and waiting for an opening, Lawrence commented to me the other day that I'm not just laying still any more. I really do need to start going straight to open guard when I can though. This is a major sticking point in my game and probably the biggest hurdle for me to progress.
My last roll of the night was with George and was one of the funnest I've ever had. There was constant movement, sweeps, reversals and submission attempts. He impressed me with his movement but it wasn't quite tight enough for him to land things like rolling armbars that he was trying. He put me in a couple of bad positions with possible armbars but I always managed to keep my cool and get my arm out just enough to prevent the lock and then start passing.
All in all it was a good session and I plan to really get my head down and train as much as possible over the next few months. I'm feeling the urge to get on the competition mat again but I'd like to feel a little more confident in my abilities first.
Thursday 18 February 2010
BJJ - RGA VIE Farringdon 16/02/10
I've been a little lax of late, both in training and writing in this blog due to personal problems but I'm now getting back into gear and will also be writing up my gym sessions and any other thoughts, articles I find or just stuff that makes me laugh.
I wanted to train four days in a row this week so I thought it would be good to do four early classes and have a beginner / advanced / beginner / advanced pattern. The idea being that the beginner classes will be more drilling and specific sparring that won't fatigue me too much and therefore enable me to train four days in a row.
I think; falling at the first hurdle is the best way of phrasing what happened. Max is currently teaching while Cesar is away and he is very well known for his love of beasting the students. He decided to warm us up with a seemingly innocent football game. Imagine twenty guys all running after a tiny size ball with bare feet - it wasn't pretty. Whenever one team scored a goal, the other team had to do some sort of physical forfeit. This was all fun and games while my team were winning...
After having scored two or three goals, we finally let one in. The glee on the faces of the other team could hardly be hidden as they decided we had to do forty jump n' sprawls (cue evil laughter)
Much complaining later and it was reduced to thirty (thanks...) All I could hear while pushing myself through this punishment was Cornell's distinct laugh and his faux encouragement with gems like "Your jumps aren't as springy Ben!" No fucking shit mate, I feel like my lungs are about to make a hasty exit from my backside!
That was it, we were too tired to really play and ended up letting two more in. Fifty pressups and god only knows how many single leg squat thrusts later half of us collapsing while the other half were soldiering on with shaking limbs and bursting chests.
With half an hour left of the class, Max set about getting us sparring. The guys who are competing at an upcoming comp were to be constantly sparring with the rest of us changing in and out. The first guy I sparred was a White belt giving away a fair bit of weight so I took it easy. I noticed that I encountered an ongoing problem of mine with him; that is, when I clasp the legs and sprawl back to break out of the guard, my partner seems to find it quite easy to block me as I try to pass to one side. I've got round this before by literally rolling down their body to end up in Side Control but this seems to be pretty low percentage at the moment. At some point I got to mount and into what is fast becoming my trademark move - the mounted triangle. Rather than apply the triangle I decided to try the simple armbar from this position which worked well.
After this I sparred with a tall Aussie guy, I think his name is Matt. He's a very strong guy but his base can sometimes be weak. We were in half guard for some time when I decided to let him pass and try my escape from scarf hold that I learned in my rather short and painful Judo career. I'm not quite sure what happened but he ended up trying to pass and I could feel he had no pass and simply bridged over to get back to his guard. I've been trying standing passes a lot recently and have cottoned on to the idea of holding their lapels when they attempt the standard ankle grabbing sweep. This seems to work remarkably well if you also push your hips forward at the same time.
I'm not sure whether I sparred Cornell before or after Matt but I remember being so fatigued at this point that I couldn't really do anything. Because Cornell is more technical and stronger than me, I have to be on top form to keep up. I've found that constantly moving rather than standing my ground and fighting works better with him but I didn't have the energy to keep the pace up. I'm also getting a leg trapped every time I try to pull guard with him. I've also been trying armless triangles when getting stacked that have worked well on most people but he seems to know what I'm thinking and tucks his chin right in. Come to think of it, it's probably not a good idea to write about my cheap tricks in a blog that I know he reads...
I was pretty pleased with tonight's session but I really MUST open my guard. At the moment, the thought to go to Open Guard just isn't there. I've got to drill this in to my simple brain if I'm going to progress further.
I wanted to train four days in a row this week so I thought it would be good to do four early classes and have a beginner / advanced / beginner / advanced pattern. The idea being that the beginner classes will be more drilling and specific sparring that won't fatigue me too much and therefore enable me to train four days in a row.
I think; falling at the first hurdle is the best way of phrasing what happened. Max is currently teaching while Cesar is away and he is very well known for his love of beasting the students. He decided to warm us up with a seemingly innocent football game. Imagine twenty guys all running after a tiny size ball with bare feet - it wasn't pretty. Whenever one team scored a goal, the other team had to do some sort of physical forfeit. This was all fun and games while my team were winning...
After having scored two or three goals, we finally let one in. The glee on the faces of the other team could hardly be hidden as they decided we had to do forty jump n' sprawls (cue evil laughter)
Much complaining later and it was reduced to thirty (thanks...) All I could hear while pushing myself through this punishment was Cornell's distinct laugh and his faux encouragement with gems like "Your jumps aren't as springy Ben!" No fucking shit mate, I feel like my lungs are about to make a hasty exit from my backside!That was it, we were too tired to really play and ended up letting two more in. Fifty pressups and god only knows how many single leg squat thrusts later half of us collapsing while the other half were soldiering on with shaking limbs and bursting chests.
With half an hour left of the class, Max set about getting us sparring. The guys who are competing at an upcoming comp were to be constantly sparring with the rest of us changing in and out. The first guy I sparred was a White belt giving away a fair bit of weight so I took it easy. I noticed that I encountered an ongoing problem of mine with him; that is, when I clasp the legs and sprawl back to break out of the guard, my partner seems to find it quite easy to block me as I try to pass to one side. I've got round this before by literally rolling down their body to end up in Side Control but this seems to be pretty low percentage at the moment. At some point I got to mount and into what is fast becoming my trademark move - the mounted triangle. Rather than apply the triangle I decided to try the simple armbar from this position which worked well.
After this I sparred with a tall Aussie guy, I think his name is Matt. He's a very strong guy but his base can sometimes be weak. We were in half guard for some time when I decided to let him pass and try my escape from scarf hold that I learned in my rather short and painful Judo career. I'm not quite sure what happened but he ended up trying to pass and I could feel he had no pass and simply bridged over to get back to his guard. I've been trying standing passes a lot recently and have cottoned on to the idea of holding their lapels when they attempt the standard ankle grabbing sweep. This seems to work remarkably well if you also push your hips forward at the same time.
I'm not sure whether I sparred Cornell before or after Matt but I remember being so fatigued at this point that I couldn't really do anything. Because Cornell is more technical and stronger than me, I have to be on top form to keep up. I've found that constantly moving rather than standing my ground and fighting works better with him but I didn't have the energy to keep the pace up. I'm also getting a leg trapped every time I try to pull guard with him. I've also been trying armless triangles when getting stacked that have worked well on most people but he seems to know what I'm thinking and tucks his chin right in. Come to think of it, it's probably not a good idea to write about my cheap tricks in a blog that I know he reads...
I was pretty pleased with tonight's session but I really MUST open my guard. At the moment, the thought to go to Open Guard just isn't there. I've got to drill this in to my simple brain if I'm going to progress further.
Tuesday 2 February 2010
BJJ - RGA VIE Farringdon 01/02/10
Because Cesar and some of the guys are at the Euros, Max has been taking the classes. Cesar won Gold in his category, Brown belt (not sure what weight) and that's some achievement seeing that he's been out of action with Knee injuries and surgery for most of the time I've known him.
Max is known for his beasting sessions so I was expecting to be worked pretty hard today. Having started lifting weights again the day before, I was really feeling some fatigue in my muscles and was half expecting to be dropping half way through the warm up. Luckily for me, it wasn't too bad.
In typical Max fashion, the warm up consisted of a lot of circuit training; Squats to Lunges to Press ups to Crunches, that sort of thing. I was feeling the burn in my already fatigued muscles quite early and found myself pining over the Creatine that I stopped taking just before Christmas. Having heard a lot of bad *opinions* of Creatine I decided to stay off it for a while when I was due to cylce off. I certainly feel the difference if I'm training several days in a row but I'm on the fence about the whole thing. Some people advocate taking what is seen as a totally safe supplement that is proven to increase muscular output, while others don't see the point of taking something that you lose the benefits of the moment you stop taking it. I tend to sway more to the side of 'if it's not harmful or illegal then pour it down my throat' and although I no longer take Creatine supplements, it IS in my post workout recovery shake in smaller doses anyway.
Back on topic, we only went through one technique in today's class and that was a nice but fairly simple (in comparison to other things I've been shown) De La Riva Sweep. From the De La Riva guard position, you sit up and switch your legs so that the foot that was on the hip is now wrapped around the near side leg (think Omoplata leg position). While keeping your arm tight around their leg, you get hold of the bottom of their gi and switch it to the hand of the arm around their leg. You then start to move your body round a couple of times to begin to unbalance your partner who will start to follow you round. You then reach around his other knee with your free arm, bring him down on top of you and keep rolling so you end up on top with Side Control easily obtainable. Max did show us an easier sweep from the same switched leg position where you simply sweep the leg with the scissoring motion and push them back with your body, similar to a Single Leg Takedown. In practice I found both sweeps nice and easy to pull off.
Specific sparring was of course, from the De La Riva guard. I started on top and didn't have too many problems getting to a safer position. I find that always push the leg on my hips off and step back slightly to cut off their leverage. It's then possible to put some weight on the knee that they will be hugging and to either go to half guard/mount or start to pass. From the bottom however it's a totally different ball game. I find it extremely hard to even keep control of my partners long enough to think about sweeping before they've pulled my leg off and have started passing. I would like to practice this position more in sparring but it's hard enough to get to anyway and most people that I roll with don't try to stand and pass.
I only managed to free spar with two people after this. The first was Leo; the man with only one gear. I love Leo but he always seems to be fighting for his life whenever we roll and he's injured me (not seriously) a few times from submissions that I wasn't given any time to tap out of. He caught me in a Triangle at one point, I can't quite remember the order of events but I tried stacking and moving round the side to pass and ended up feeling my neck crunch. After that though Leo's energy started running low thanks to his holiday in Thailand for a few weeks. I found that if I pushed the pace, I was able to regain guard and escape from positions that he would normally have nailed me in. A lot of this comes from my training with the Beast and the constant steamrolling I get from him. If I try to always be moving and never stop with him, I find it much easier to push the pace with other people. A few times Leo was trying to push me away and regain guard but I had hold of his collar and was pushing my hips into him to keep close to him and my weight down. There came a point where I was in top position almost in Side Control but one of my legs was trapped, kind of like Half Guard but more to the side. I could stop him from rolling into me by controlling his head but I had no idea how to get my leg out from this position and we pretty much stayed like this for most of the roll.
The other person to roll with me was a White Belt no stripes who I later found out had been training for 3 years and was in fact a Blue belt. He slapped a Triangle on straight out but I managed to pass to the side and escape. He proved very hard to hold down and escaped my Side Control pretty quickly. He also did something that totally nullified me; pushing me as far away as possible with feet on my hips while keeping hold of the opposite arm meant I was totally unbalanced and couldn't even begin to pass. It felt like I was also pretty vulnerable to sweeps from here but I did finally get past the leg and back into Open Guard. This guy was excellent at escaping position and I'm looking forward to rolling with him (stealing all his moves) again next class. He was also taller than me which doesn't happen very often so it's good to get a feeling for what it's like training with someone who has longer legs than you.
Max is known for his beasting sessions so I was expecting to be worked pretty hard today. Having started lifting weights again the day before, I was really feeling some fatigue in my muscles and was half expecting to be dropping half way through the warm up. Luckily for me, it wasn't too bad.
In typical Max fashion, the warm up consisted of a lot of circuit training; Squats to Lunges to Press ups to Crunches, that sort of thing. I was feeling the burn in my already fatigued muscles quite early and found myself pining over the Creatine that I stopped taking just before Christmas. Having heard a lot of bad *opinions* of Creatine I decided to stay off it for a while when I was due to cylce off. I certainly feel the difference if I'm training several days in a row but I'm on the fence about the whole thing. Some people advocate taking what is seen as a totally safe supplement that is proven to increase muscular output, while others don't see the point of taking something that you lose the benefits of the moment you stop taking it. I tend to sway more to the side of 'if it's not harmful or illegal then pour it down my throat' and although I no longer take Creatine supplements, it IS in my post workout recovery shake in smaller doses anyway.
Back on topic, we only went through one technique in today's class and that was a nice but fairly simple (in comparison to other things I've been shown) De La Riva Sweep. From the De La Riva guard position, you sit up and switch your legs so that the foot that was on the hip is now wrapped around the near side leg (think Omoplata leg position). While keeping your arm tight around their leg, you get hold of the bottom of their gi and switch it to the hand of the arm around their leg. You then start to move your body round a couple of times to begin to unbalance your partner who will start to follow you round. You then reach around his other knee with your free arm, bring him down on top of you and keep rolling so you end up on top with Side Control easily obtainable. Max did show us an easier sweep from the same switched leg position where you simply sweep the leg with the scissoring motion and push them back with your body, similar to a Single Leg Takedown. In practice I found both sweeps nice and easy to pull off.
Specific sparring was of course, from the De La Riva guard. I started on top and didn't have too many problems getting to a safer position. I find that always push the leg on my hips off and step back slightly to cut off their leverage. It's then possible to put some weight on the knee that they will be hugging and to either go to half guard/mount or start to pass. From the bottom however it's a totally different ball game. I find it extremely hard to even keep control of my partners long enough to think about sweeping before they've pulled my leg off and have started passing. I would like to practice this position more in sparring but it's hard enough to get to anyway and most people that I roll with don't try to stand and pass.
I only managed to free spar with two people after this. The first was Leo; the man with only one gear. I love Leo but he always seems to be fighting for his life whenever we roll and he's injured me (not seriously) a few times from submissions that I wasn't given any time to tap out of. He caught me in a Triangle at one point, I can't quite remember the order of events but I tried stacking and moving round the side to pass and ended up feeling my neck crunch. After that though Leo's energy started running low thanks to his holiday in Thailand for a few weeks. I found that if I pushed the pace, I was able to regain guard and escape from positions that he would normally have nailed me in. A lot of this comes from my training with the Beast and the constant steamrolling I get from him. If I try to always be moving and never stop with him, I find it much easier to push the pace with other people. A few times Leo was trying to push me away and regain guard but I had hold of his collar and was pushing my hips into him to keep close to him and my weight down. There came a point where I was in top position almost in Side Control but one of my legs was trapped, kind of like Half Guard but more to the side. I could stop him from rolling into me by controlling his head but I had no idea how to get my leg out from this position and we pretty much stayed like this for most of the roll.
The other person to roll with me was a White Belt no stripes who I later found out had been training for 3 years and was in fact a Blue belt. He slapped a Triangle on straight out but I managed to pass to the side and escape. He proved very hard to hold down and escaped my Side Control pretty quickly. He also did something that totally nullified me; pushing me as far away as possible with feet on my hips while keeping hold of the opposite arm meant I was totally unbalanced and couldn't even begin to pass. It felt like I was also pretty vulnerable to sweeps from here but I did finally get past the leg and back into Open Guard. This guy was excellent at escaping position and I'm looking forward to rolling with him (stealing all his moves) again next class. He was also taller than me which doesn't happen very often so it's good to get a feeling for what it's like training with someone who has longer legs than you.
Tuesday 26 January 2010
BJJ - RGA VIE Farringdon 25/01/10
We had a very short warmup today, consisting of the usual circuit based stuff - Press ups, Sit ups etc etc.
Today's class was all about the De La Riva Guard. This entry is going to be pretty short compared to the others for the simple reason that I didn't really understand what we were doing. It started off simple enough with Cesar showing us the control position, the best grips to get and what to do if the guy pulls his leg out. However, because a lot of us were struggling with the intricacies, he went over it again but then showed us several different things we could try. In my mind they all merged into one big, clumsy sweep. I was pushing legs, pulling lapels, gripping arms but all in either the wrong direction or wrong order it seemed. I managed to get one or two sweeps off but it was more luck than judgment.
Specific sparring from this position didn't go too well. From bottom I was literally just clinging to people and trying to drag them down without any luck. Most of the time, my partner would put pressure on me with his knee to flatten me out. From top I had a lot more success and was passing with relative ease. The De La Riva Guard seems like a pretty tricky position to get used to.
I only sparred with a couple of people tonight, the first, of course being 'The Beast'. I have to spar with Cornell first or I don't have the energy to keep up. It was the typical scenario of me trying to pull guard but getting a leg trapped with him passing into Side Control. Getting a leg trapped is a massive sticking point for me, I can't work out what's causing it. Two things were different about our roll today that made it so much easier for me to put up a fight. Firstly, I was very vigilant about not letting him get head control when in Side Control. Normally he gets it quite quickly, forces my head to the side with his 'strength of the Bear' and i spend the rest of the roll not being able to move. Secondly and possibly much more importantly, I never stopped moving. It's not uncommon for me to just resign myself to having been passed and almost letting them get the position but today I never stopped moving and trying to escape and this made it much more difficult for him to control me. I even managed to escape and get to top half guard. I was so elated at actually getting to a semi-dominant position on The BEAST that I was considering the fact that I may need to put my knee on his face to stop him from escaping. Though with hindsight he probably would have just head butted my knee...
Second roll was with another Blue Belt who's name I never manage to catch. Maybe I should be a little politer and ask next time. The last time I sparred with him I managed to put an armless Triangle across his jaw - not something I like doing at all - so this time when he tried to stack me again and still didn't put his weight on me, I decided to nail the technique again. My arm wasn't quite in under his chin so I resisted the urge to tighten up, let the triangle go, quickly re-adjusted and re-applied for a good Triangle. The rest of the roll was good for me, he seemed to be letting me work, I don't know if he was tired or just taking it easy but I brought the pace down. There's nothing worse than taking it easy with someone who then smashes you like they're in a UFC championship bout.
Overall it was a pretty good class. I felt like I was certainly making progress in sparring but De La Riva Guard still leaves me scratching my head. I'll be trying it when I find myself in that position but I don't know how often that'll be.
Today's class was all about the De La Riva Guard. This entry is going to be pretty short compared to the others for the simple reason that I didn't really understand what we were doing. It started off simple enough with Cesar showing us the control position, the best grips to get and what to do if the guy pulls his leg out. However, because a lot of us were struggling with the intricacies, he went over it again but then showed us several different things we could try. In my mind they all merged into one big, clumsy sweep. I was pushing legs, pulling lapels, gripping arms but all in either the wrong direction or wrong order it seemed. I managed to get one or two sweeps off but it was more luck than judgment.
Specific sparring from this position didn't go too well. From bottom I was literally just clinging to people and trying to drag them down without any luck. Most of the time, my partner would put pressure on me with his knee to flatten me out. From top I had a lot more success and was passing with relative ease. The De La Riva Guard seems like a pretty tricky position to get used to.
I only sparred with a couple of people tonight, the first, of course being 'The Beast'. I have to spar with Cornell first or I don't have the energy to keep up. It was the typical scenario of me trying to pull guard but getting a leg trapped with him passing into Side Control. Getting a leg trapped is a massive sticking point for me, I can't work out what's causing it. Two things were different about our roll today that made it so much easier for me to put up a fight. Firstly, I was very vigilant about not letting him get head control when in Side Control. Normally he gets it quite quickly, forces my head to the side with his 'strength of the Bear' and i spend the rest of the roll not being able to move. Secondly and possibly much more importantly, I never stopped moving. It's not uncommon for me to just resign myself to having been passed and almost letting them get the position but today I never stopped moving and trying to escape and this made it much more difficult for him to control me. I even managed to escape and get to top half guard. I was so elated at actually getting to a semi-dominant position on The BEAST that I was considering the fact that I may need to put my knee on his face to stop him from escaping. Though with hindsight he probably would have just head butted my knee...
Second roll was with another Blue Belt who's name I never manage to catch. Maybe I should be a little politer and ask next time. The last time I sparred with him I managed to put an armless Triangle across his jaw - not something I like doing at all - so this time when he tried to stack me again and still didn't put his weight on me, I decided to nail the technique again. My arm wasn't quite in under his chin so I resisted the urge to tighten up, let the triangle go, quickly re-adjusted and re-applied for a good Triangle. The rest of the roll was good for me, he seemed to be letting me work, I don't know if he was tired or just taking it easy but I brought the pace down. There's nothing worse than taking it easy with someone who then smashes you like they're in a UFC championship bout.
Overall it was a pretty good class. I felt like I was certainly making progress in sparring but De La Riva Guard still leaves me scratching my head. I'll be trying it when I find myself in that position but I don't know how often that'll be.
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