Friday, April 21, 2006

Thursday 4/20/06

We worked on holding and escaping the side position last night. I trained with Cyrus who is very suceptible to uma plata, and Pete who is getting btetter and better.

Art ran the judo class. Jim was in and there were 5 white belts, so the classes continued to be very novice oriented. He mostly did basic throwing and falling for the whole class. Christine did come in and she worked with the japanese girl.

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Monday 4-17-6

Regis covered a good position that he learned from Rickson while he was trainng there in Ca. the sweep is a response to the over under pass that John and I use. when the Uke trise to pass and keep your hips down, you reach up and grab his belt with the hand that is on the same side as the hand uke is using below the leg i.e. the side he is keeping his head. now with your free hand you must try to come up. you try to drive yourself up with your hips facing way from the direction that your arm grabbing the belt is on. If uke allows you to come up from his pass, you come oout and run to his back. however, everyones resonse who uses this pass is to try to drive your hips down. when uke tries to force your hips down, form the upwards position that you are holding yourself with your posting hand throw yourself to the other side of the uke. jump your hips and body position to the side away from where it was facing. use your legs to complete the sweep, but the real impetus of the sweep, comes from the hip switch. Trained hard with regis. he only caught me once. Rolled through Eric and Pete.

Judo was good. Several of the BJJ white belts were in class. i covered the seoi nage from the turtle and the trap and roll.
we then did the sticky foot kosoto gari and a same sided seoi nage on the crash pad. Cyrus did a nice job working with the new girl cherry. lots of whte belts in class and not much rank, lately. hate to admit how much easier it is to teach a cohesive class with this group that the hodge podge that we have had recently, but its true.

Monday, April 17, 2006

Sunday 4/16/6

I taught the Judo class. Again it was mostly novices, so I kept it simple. We did a clock choke and the trap and roll.

From the feet we did Sasai Tsurikomi Ashi and then osoto gari and discussed combining the two. It went well and did a little randori at the end. Lee is showing good improvement and seems to have a good future if he sticks.

Thursday 4/13/6

Urso just did an open mat. I trained but mostly Light and protected my knee.

I taught the Judo class. i hate to say it but sometimes it is nice not to have any distractions for the other instructors who can be a loose cannon (i.e. Art and Timone) It does give the class a little more cohesion when everyone is doing the same thing. I did the pedro style Jjuji gatame turnover. and then did harai oshi and osoto gari. it was mostly novices, but the did well and improved so it was a good class.

Tuesday 4/12/6

BJJ taught by Urso. he did a very interesting X guard position. From the conventional X guard position to get the sweep he dropped the high hook around the low hook and rehooked on the ankle. He pulled the ankle and scissored the top hook to get the sweep. You don't want to pushat all, just scissors the takedown.

Unfortuantely my knee popped right away from the X guard and I was forced to sit out of the drills. I rolled with a few of the guys. Jay is a particularly bad match up for me. I caguht him repeatedly. it is a good example of a good player who just matches up poorly against another player.

i also had Jen and Amir. i did more coaching during the set than actual training.

I taught the white belt class. We had 6 and I taught the Regis Half butterfly sweep.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Saturday 4/8/6

skipped class unitl today to prepare for Pan-Ams in BJJ. I am fighting the +214 division in senior 1 (35-40). We have a good contingent of around 10-12 competitors in LA. The tournament was up and down. i technically won my division but it wasn't contested. I fought the open division and fought a small (145) guy in the first round, named Clint Crabtree. He was a wrestler and despite the size diffeerence, wouldn't pull guard as I expected. I snaped him down and forced him to pull. I wnet to the Bull pass and drove my shoulder in his belly as I passed. He tapped and complained of a rib injury. The referee allowed him to start the match again even though he tapped. he squirled back to his feet and Ijust held him off for the rest of the match as he tried to take me down. i waited adn threw him with Osoto Gari in the last few seconds to win 5-0.

The next match was against a Brazilian 190 pounder. he also wouldn't pull, and i was leary of throwing foreward and missing. he broke my balance with a decent Sasai Tsurikomi Ashi, but didn't throw or get vantage. I waited until the last few seconds to try to throw. He stayed behind me and I missed the throw. The idiot ref actually gave him 2 for it. Regis said he should have had a vantage. I don't really understand that, but, it tells me that I have to reevaluate how and what I throw in BJJ. I think that I am going to work on Sasai and sumi gaeshi. i watched him fight and i really think that my matwork is better but I am having trouble with the transition, if i fail to throw. I don't want to leave him behind me, so i have to make some decisions about what I throw. I also need to get over the fear of the throw and just attack and if I miss, continue with matwork. I am trying to hard to make it a Judo match and just throw in the last few seconds to win. i need to attack early and then just play the rest of the game. One thing that I notcied was that Senior 1 brown belts do not pull. Sean Basfield was the only guy who pulled at all, and he only did it occaissionally.

Ronniw ent 1-1 in his divisiona nd took bronze. he wrecked a guy, submitting him from behind and then lost a winnable match when he mistook the score and thought that he was winning. He was manhandled in the Open division.

John looked good with and exellent sweep to win his first weight division match. then lost in the finals to take silver. He fough the open of my division and got 2 byes to the semis. He threw Bansfield but was choked across his face. he took bronze in that division.

The rest of the team did OK. particularly Tim S., who took a bronze in his purple belt Pan Ams. in a 30 plus man division going 4-1 with 3 submissions.

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Wednesday 4/5/6

242.

On a personal not as it will effect my training, I received 6 weeks notice on the job front. This is anything but unexpected as the office is moving towarfds closing for some time. but now I will have a definate date, May 15.

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Tuesday 4/4/6

242.

Regis did the 2 point scoring class. after a couple of sets he put just the competitors into the mix. I am still not feeling as shrp or fresh as i would like, though, part of it is the competition is better in this group. (me, ron, Diego Moraeis, Tim, John P. and Brian R. a tough group). I mostly won. I almost passed diego but he started to Zoo and i accepted the sweep. I passed him a few more times and threw him big once. Tim caught me once, and Brian stalled with me until Regis put him out. I won the rest.

The downside is my knee was locking and bothering me. Everyone clinging to the half guard has put some strain on it the last few days.

I taught the white belt class. Urso is fed up with it after the incident with Shawn last week. He was forced to kick Shawn out of class for the way he was playing with another white belt. John was there and said that Shawn created the problem, but urso said he was blamed by the powers that be. So, as a result, he does not want to have to work with the white belts . I'm not sure if this will continue, but, it seems that we will be teaching again. I continued with the class that he had planned. I covered escapes from cross side and pulling guard from a turtle after you escape. Good class and several of the guys show a lot of potential. Unfortunately it seems that we will lose Darryl in a few months.

Tuesday 4/4/6

242.

Monday 4/3/6

No kettlebells this week. I want to feel as fresh as possible for pan ams. I will do class, though.

BJJ with Regis. The class was tough. I am working my weight down so I only had some peanuts all day before class. I would have been better having nothing. Regis did the 2 point drill for an hour or so. I stayed in for awhile, then Cyrus managed to knock me down. I found the sets more fatiguing than usual. Even the small guyus were just clinging to me, so it was tiring just to pry them off of me. Regis gave me a little grief about letting them jump and close the guard, but my thinking was that this would make it as hard as possible. After I was out I got Zak and passed him. As i became more fatigued I began to stop letting guys jump and throwing them. Zak was expecting me to let him jump but I hooked him in an Osoto Gari and hammered him. i then threw Pete and let him bump me over. This should be 2 and vantage so i should win. Regis gave him the points, I think to get me to stop accepting the bump. I came back in and passed Zak again. Only other note was that Brian Rago stayed in for the whole set. He is clearly the best blue belt.

I stayed for Judo but only coached.

Monday, April 03, 2006

Sunday 4/2/6

No class today. I went to coach the clubs players at the Liberty Bell tournament. The tournament was well run as always with 6 mats going, 3 of which are tatamis. I was generally happy with the performances of the group. Lee somehow went 0-2 despite dominating both matches. Jim went 1-2 and took third. He had an injury bye against a guy he would have wrecked, or he would have gone 2-2. Taku went 0-3 in the black belt division. he was competitive, but should have been in masters. Alma went 1-2 in a 2 person round robin format and took a second. Lawrence went 1-2 and threw a convincing Ippon, in his first tournament. he was 45 and fought adult. Mike Korzinsky went 2-2 in his first tournament in years. Timone fought adult and masters and went 4-4 overall. Sharon made a return to Judo and went 1-1 in masters women. Joe Chiu went 0-3 in masters, he is better in class that a tournament. All in all a solid showing, though i remanin frustrated that people who are purportedly in leadership positions within the club continue to do little to nothing to support the club outside of the rare class appearance. They barely find time to go to an occaissional class and do nothing else. Sometimes I think that they look on themselves as Jiu Jitsu players who used to do Judo rather than actual active members of the club.

X

Saturday 4/1/6

BJJ this morning. Urso taught a way to avoid the double underleg pass. Keep tension and make yourself stiff and heavy so that it will be difficult to lift you to throw the leg over and get the collar. Anticipate the side that will reach for the collar and catch the bicep with the hand on that side. You drop the knee inside on the same side that you catch the bicep, pass the foot down and back inside to make space and regain the guard. This is the last way to avoid the pass.

The bettter way is to anticipate that the uke is attempting the pass. When he drops his hands to go under the legs, sit up strongly and grab the beltwith one hand. the hand that grips the belt pulls the ukes head down strongly. use the elbow of that hand in the back of the neck of the uke, driving it down to the mat, past the hip, on the same side as the arm that reaches for the belt. If uke passes his haed across to the other side, then you can't use this defense. Now, scoot you butt to the side away from ukes head, until you can reach around the back of the htigh of the uke. You can cup it, ot (ronnie did this and I liked it) grab the belt or lapel under ukes belly to secure the grip. Now, tuck your foot on the side towards where you are scooting, underneath you. Block the far knee of the uke and essentially Kharabelli him over on to his back.

I had 10 minutes with Dr. Joe. and then I took the big white belt from Miles Moffits club, Jack for 10-15 minutes. he was strong but he tries to play like he is small instead of just tossing guys off of him. But, he moves well and has good potential.

X

Friday, March 31, 2006

Friday 3/31/06

242.5

Good Judo class tonight. DC held me up and discussed the self defense class I suggested that she implement. She is going forward with it, and I think that it will be a good for the club to presnet a class for people who want to work on their self defense but don't want to do BJJ.

Class had 12 people in it, counting John, Ron and myself. These are good numbers for a Friday. The class was just matwork training, but it went well.

Thursday, March 30, 2006

Thursday 3/30/06

243.5

No class tonight. (Rob Zombie concert)

Tough kettle bell work out. these 5 minute exercies groups are tough. he did a step up while holding a double clean, a renegade row station and a double snatch station.

he also did 2 of the other exercise groupings fom recent weeks.

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Wednesday 3/29/06

243.

feeling tired and skipped class tonight. found out that it was a crazy night. Urso kicked one of the white belts out of the club for mauling another white belt and then arguing with him about it. Regis ran a competition class with standing work. He tossed Jen out of class for arguing with him. Then worst of all Dave O. took a horrific injury. He broke, dislocated and tore all of the ligaments and tendons in his ankle. I can't help but feel that if I would have nutted up and gone to class, then there might have been a different set so that this injury could have been avoided. I know that injuries are part of the game, but these competition classes push some of the guys too hard, paricularly from the feet, when they have virtually no standup experience.

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Tuesday 3/28/2006

244. good number. have to keep it going.
regis taught a turtle position. he grabbed the inside of the knee on one leg. he locked this arm. it is the leg on whatever side uke has his weight. you keep the ukes leg locked and look to turn back i to the open guard if uke does nothing. if uke runs to the side of the clock choke you go half guard. if uke runs to the opposite side for the hook, you barrel roll, lift the hook and go x guard.

3- 8 minute sessions regis completely tooled me. i was a little leg fatigued from the warmups and i am feeling a little low on enegy as my body chemisty switches. I have to stay with it to get to the high energy after a week or so.

A Dave O. session next. we didn't do too much, i was tired and plaed conservatively. i only swept him once and the let him bunmp me back and held the guard.

A session with John. It was a nice roll, he is passing aggresively and made me bail. i managed to reverse him. I don't like one thing that he is doing. I feel that the turtle reversal he is using has been so effective that he is trying to bail from the open guard and go turtle to reverse rather than try to sweep the guy. He will give up a lot of vantages this way, but it is his decision. always attack him from the left, and attack through his hips when he turtles rather than run o his head.

Monday, March 27, 2006

Monday 3/27/06

248.5 This is actually not bad after the weekend.

Kettlebells was tough. 3 5 minute sets of combined exercises. I like this format. Double cleans and bear crawls, Turkish Get-Ups and snatches, and a compound exercise.

Sat in on the white belt class taught by Urso. He is going to do the sport Jiu Jitsu techniques the way that the self defense techniques were taught. fewer more structured techniques will be taught until mastery, rather than the more haphazard apporach that we were taking. i watched the bump and elbow escape from the mount that he taught. The point I noticed was the way he bumped and drove his foot close to his butt, thus driving his knee into their butt, which forced uke higher, and allowed for an easier elbow escape.

Regis just had people train during BJJ. I took Cyrus for the first 20 minute session. it was fun to roll with him. i caught Uma Plata repeatedly. I made a point to force my way to it.

I took Eric for the next set. This onw was 30 minutes. I worked on the arm drag and then coming up for the points. It was a good sweat and i worked on a few things I needed to address.

I went to Judo at 7:30.

Art had the white belts and the upper ranks were working so i didn't take over. I waited for Ronnie and then did uchikomis and throws.

I did 2 5 minute sets with Will. He has improved enormously. he actually threw me forward with an uchi mata. i think that this is the first time, he has thrown me forward. he also threw a nice sasai tsurikomi ashi feint to osoto gari. i threw heim a bunch of times, but the best was a backgrip osoto gari as he went for a sasai and smashed him bad. i also talked to him about the friday night incident with pete and the outward perception of his arrogant dick status. hopefully this will have some impact. we'll have to wait and see.

Sunday 3/26/06

No class today. The In-House tournament was done in the Judo room. It went very well. Our white belts did well. Many now are on the verge of promotion to blue. i was also quite pleased to see Cyrus beat a much bigger, younger, and honestly more skilled blue belt. He is a pleasure to coach. he follows instruction well and fights with everything he has.

Saturday 3/25/06

BJJ at 11:00. solid class taught by Urso. He did an escape from the mount with one leg up and the heel tucked in the hip. he bumped and put both hands under the thigh on the leg that was up. he woould pull up on the leg and squirm down like he was going out from underneath. if you can come behind then good, but be wary of uke bailing to a side position. what you want is when he pushes back down to avoid having you squirm behind, lift the leg and spin to an x guard. I rolled with gary, David O. and arriana. I was hoping for a better workout, but, this was it.

Friday 3/24/06

No class tonight. a day off of everything. (though I was told that there was a bit of an incident between Will and Pete. I will have to address this.)

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Thursday 3/23/06

248.5

BJJ at 6:30 good class.

Judo at 7:30. I taught the Juji turn with the pedro variations. I did the leg grab/russian turn. good mat work sessions. timone taught a georgain entry into Uchi mata. it reminded me of the black bean variation. good throwing, but no randori. Timone also brought in one of his eastern european friends. turned out to be a 2000 olympic bronze medalist. oddly enough he wants to do BJJ. We will wait and see what happens with him.

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Wednesday 3/22/06

248.5 heading in the right direction again. now i have to stick with the dieting. no breaks.

Taught the white belt class for John D. We covered all of the techniques that were giving them trouble. 6 guys were in. Regis didn't want me to train with the toe i broke Wednessday so I watched the training in the regular class.

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

tuesday 3/21/06

252(!!!!)

Regis covered the Kouchi gari that he uses. He comes in strong with the pulling lapel hand and hooks lowarch of the reaping foot to heel. he drives the shoulder into the shoulder/chest of the uke. he doesn't turn to hook and drop, giving up his back. He stays driving forward.

Class was starting off of the feet matches first score wins. Everyone pulled against me and i didn't lose any matches. My gas was good as I know how to pace myself. I also used a bit of strategy, holding the half guard and waiting to pass until ronnie was engaged with someone else, on the couple of times he lost a score.

The white belt class continued the self defense practice for the tournament demonstration. Urso taught the class and I assisted and observed.

Monday 03/21/06

11:30 kettlebells good workoout but not a killer.

I did the 12:00 class as I had a concert with beth tonight. Steve did the snapdown to clock choke against a hyper defensive opponent. I like this and have to remember to do this when guys just hold me out.

Rolled a 20 minute set with Regis. Good set. I had a couple of sweeps that felt good. he mostly was all over me. I want to work on the ude Gatame from the side knee in the belly position when you sit back to apply it rather than go around for the juji gatame.

Sunday 3/19/06

i went to the Jimmy pedro seminar this morning. He covered a couple of gripping ideas before the ne waza. mostly focused on right on right, getting a strong same side or cross grip against the right shoulder of a right sided player, before workign to a traditional 2 handed grip. Against a left sided player, he rethreaded to get back to a more dominant inside control grip.

on the ground he covered a russian variation on the juji gatame turn. he made a point of the importance of doing uchikomis as entrances into ne waza. he would come from a standing position to the hook in with the overhook and the posted head and low arm, then come out and uchikomi into that position. he stressed the need for speed and aggression in geting in the first half of the technique. Uchikomis build speed. Then for the second half, of the technique, you needn't be as fast. he made a point to maintian tension on the over hooked arm as he worked for the turn. When he pulled uke over, he lifted uke off of the mart and captured the head before completing the turn. He never comes up to attack the arm. He maintains pressure and never lets the defense solidify.

After the turn, he did Uki Gatame to take the pin if he couldn't free the arm. Feed the overhooking armacross his lpow leg to grab the belt of the pinned uke. pull his hips and legs ot you and reach over them and grab the legs. Drive forward and come up and pin. Do not switch to the arm unless he commits to escaping the pin and releases the arm.

He also did a underhook Adams variation. any time he has an underhook, including when taking the back, he would take them to a turtle and atack the arm. For both turns the arm that hooked he set as high on the opposite thigh to secure it as possible. he would actually pull the arm up with the other arm to get it as high as possible creating tension on the attacked arm.He would extreme pressure on the arm, trying to rip it free. The direction was right at the top corner of the body. He drove his knee at the side of their head. He created height by not driving down but by driving from high on his forehead. This lifted the head of the uke and allowed him to slip his leg under their face. From their he went to the Adams turn variation. He drove off of the top leg that passed under the face, almost sumi gaeshing the uke over the top. His knee was turned in strongly keeping uke down. Again he never sat up ripping at the arm to deny the chance for the uke to set their defense.

If uke turns the hips away, you can't sit up to the ujki gatame. so maintain the underhook, take the low leg off and swing it underneath you. drive up on the other leg and change sides to take a strong pin.

lastly, he worked from behind. he came out from taking the back by reaching from an underhook on the lapel, reaching over the shoulder and grabbing the belt. the other hand switches to the back of the shoulder. Sit back and lift uke over your low leg and put him in a half guard, with an escrima. Tripod up and pass the knee to the side and drive it free to pass.

5-4 minute sets of matwork.

first had a srong young competitor. he was agressive but i reversed him and took the top. I passed tot he side and pinned him. he finally tapped to the pin. same thing again but the time ran out before he tapped.

second set was with with russian from the NYAC. He tried to can opener his wat from the guard. I passed behind him a few times. almost reversed him.

Third set had a excellent polish player who finished third at 90 kgs. i pulled x guard and swept him and passed him. he had a slick entry into uma plate. He tried for the submission and I had to roll to avoid it. he held the pin until the end.

Fourth set was with a 90 kgs brown belt. i caught him a few times and moved around with him. Not as competitive as the other guys.

Odd man on the fifth set.

Several randori sets. I had the Russian from the NYAC again. we had a few attacks with one another but no scores. also had a 300+ american 19 year old who threw me a few times. Nice kid named Dan. i did Uchikomis with Him for a few more sets.

Good day.

Saturday 3/18/06

A day of watching judo, with no pressure to coach or compete. I went to the New york open, the only C level event in North America. I was comp'ed in by the groundhog, wherever he is/was. I arrived around 8 in the morning and left around 1. Bobby Lee went 2-2, pawel went 0-2, you could tell the lack of training has hurt his Judo.

Friday, March 17, 2006

Friday 3/17/06

244.5 (god dieting day, yesterday it is better to eat a larger meal in the afternoon before class and eat quite sparingly at night)

no class today or tomorrow. I will be leaving for New York tonight, for the New York Open. I will be watching not competing. hopefully Saturday, I will attend Jimmy Pedro's ne waza seminar.

Thursday, March 16, 2006

Thursday 3/16/6

248

kettlebells at 11:30.
tough workout. warmups then steve superset pullups (band assisted) with pushups 1/2. go near failure on reps and then back to one. then 5 minutes of a new exerciseswinging up presses (do a swing and pull the kettlebells to your chestelbows flared higher than the bell, like you were pulling a gi.) 20 seconds on and 20 seconds recovery. tough exercie, as there is no place to pause. then double kettle bell get ups as many as you can do in a minute with 30 seconds recovery.

BJJ at 6:30 regis covered the basic sweep from the closed guard, when uke stands. underhook the ankle and jump your hips towads the knee. come up in the mount. then if he bases up, feed his sleeve to the underhooking hand and uma plate on that arm.

4-10 minute sets. tough set with tim. swept him and had several near passes. he had a few near sweeps and that was it.

rolled allo ver Justin, Pete and Andrew. The bump position from tuesday failed agaianst Andrew. as he posted out with his free hand. i caught Pete in an armlock from underneathby capturing his shooulder in the guard and then taking his arm to the side like Hassett used to do. afterwards, I coached him on some elemenets of the de la riva sweep position.

Judo arrived at 8. class was underway. Alma, and Chris L., were working with a new girl from Japan. She was solid and will be a good addition if she keeps coming.worked with Mike K and his freind referee Joe on some ne waza. I have to practice what ronnie does for the armlock from underneath. when he steps on the hip and brings the other leg up he realy used the calf of the other leg to keep his hips up and tight, before he switches to the armlock. he also will reach up and grab the calf keeping his hips up, I think that this is why he is able to lever the head up with his forearm from that positon.

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Wednesday 3/15/6

248.5

The things that we do for our signifigant others. Tonight, rather than going to class and training as well as being able to go over the other 11 self defense techniques, I will be hurrying to a Regional Rail Line, to get a ride to the suburbs, to see a play. Oh Boy. Can't wait.

X

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Tuesday 3/14/6

248

BJJ at 6:00. Regis did a sweep/escape from the knee across pass. if they are able to drive their knee across and get it to the ground, grab the back of the belt with your top hand and the front of the belt with your inside hand. pull his hips towards you as he drives his knee away to drag his foot out of your closed half guard. As his foot comes freeshift your hips strongly to beneath his hips, in the void created by uke pulling his foot free. this places the hips and weight of the uke directly over your hips. Bridge your hips high and shift uke perpendicular to your self so that he falls next to you, on the other side of your body. do this rather than high and towards your top corner, this will let him post out and flatten chest to chest. Keep pulling his hips towards you all of the time.

3-10 minute sets. first Dave O. from the feet. he had the sense to pull guard, but his guard is his weakest position. This makes him a bit of a bad matchup for me. I moved through point positions and let him bump me a few times to play top and bottom.
I had Regis next. We started from the knees. He pulled and I worked the pass for awhile. some decent pass attempts before he reversed me. I came back up and we worked for awhile, before he flashed an armlock. Next time same begining, but i managed to get past his legs except for the foot. he had the underhook so I went to the whizzer and the elbow to drag the foot out and did it 3 times, but as i would shift back, he recaptured it. H finally switched his hips and took me across his body. we rolled for awhile more and he scored a pass and caught the armlock as the bell sounded.
Last was Pete. He palyed hard and aggressive, but i rreversed him several times and caught him a few times. He is palying well and fighting hard, so it was fun.

Urso taught my white belt class, in preparation for the tournament and the self defense competition, for the white belts. There will be 23 positions on the curriculum for demo. he covered 12 last night. This was good as it corrected a few small mistakes I was making, and it reminded me of several of the techniques that I didn't do that well, and hadn't been teaching. He will do the other 11 tomorrow night.

Monday, March 13, 2006

Monday 3/13/06

kettlebells at 11:30. 2 5 minute workoout sets after a traditional warmup.
first set combined 2 handed snatches, slow military presses, and squats repeat for the whole minute. 5 sets 30 seconds b/w sets. next movement was renegade rows with the push up, 2 double swings, 1 double snatch and a squat. 5-1 minute sets with 30 seconds between sets.

BJJ class. Warmups. Regis will work from a spider guard position this week. Basic starting postion is both hands on the sleeves both feet on the hips. you are always looking for the flip. the techniques are done from right hand on the sleeve, left hand on the cross collar, right foot in the hip, left foot in the mirror image bicep.
first he went uma plata. push the right foot in the hip, left hand switches to above the left elbow of the uke, right leg Uma plata.
Then jump to the triangle. with his head down jump for the triangle with the left leg. interesting point jump with your leg turned open as you jump to already be in the triangle position.
Finally, if uke keeps his weight back, switch the left foot to an underhook behind the right knee of the uke, left hand goes to the bakc of the right heel of the uke, push him over with the right foot. maintain the grip on the collar to come up right away.

2-7 minute sets starting from the feet with Eric S. and Pete. Regis had me pull the first set. i pulled closed guard. this has not been as good a position for me as it once was. I switched to open when he pressured me, and had to turtle. I reversed him from there, and passed, mounted and submitted him. Threw the belt grip sumi gaeshi next time and passed and went knee in the belly and the set ended.
Pete pulled. I was passing and he turned hisleft leg over. I trapped it and then passed from there so I went directly to the mount. I accepted the bum and swept and put some more points on him.

X

Sunday 3/12/6

Good class with 10 or so people. (Me, Ron, Chris L. Jim C., Taku, Lawrence, Arriana, Stephanie, and John D.) I taught the same side entrace to the Juji Gatame turnover. Ronnie taught the traditional version. i did the Uki Gatame form the side Juji Gatame position.

I covere Harai with the group. Jim worked with Taku and made decent progress. Lawrence did fairly well, and gary made strides in his first exposure. he also fell well as Lawrence was pancaking him on the falls.

medium randori for the balance of class. I took Stephanie for 10-15 minutes. typical set.

X

Saturday 3/11/6

248.5 BJJ 11:00 -12:00 (10)
Regis ran class. He did a sweep from the half guard. When Uke stands, you sit up and encircle the leg, reach around behind his leg and grab the dangling belt. You must sit up at an off angle to the knee or uke will just push you back down with the knee. You must circle away from the forward flex of the knee as if going behind him. If uke allows it, you can pass his leg in fromt of you and come up behind him. To sweep/take him down, stand up and lif the encircled leg with the outside leg. Hug it with both ands and take him down. if, he follows you too quickly, maintain the same position with the hand trapping the leg and holding the belt, reach for the bottom of the pant leg of the other leg with the free hand. throw yourself beneath him, on your back, making sure to pass his knee past you so it doesn't pin you down. As the weight of the uke passes over you and transfers to the knee that you passed beside you, drive the hand holding the low pant leg up and over for the reversal. Regis also did a technique to take the bakc if they pull away. He switched the free hand to the belt, and inserted the non entangled leg to go behind the, he did the bump up to take them down and put his hooks in. John and I both had trouble with this.

6 minuter sets Eric S. someone else, and Brian R.) i rilled through Eric and I don't even remember the other set. The Brian set was good. he managed to get to the opposite side half guard pass. I passed my hand under him and back inside and as he was passing reversed him and took the top. I sild over and managed to mount. He eventually regained the half guard and we kept that position for the balance of the set.

Friday, March 10, 2006

Friday 3/10/6

249.

No class tonight.

Thursday 3/9/6

250

BJJ at 6:30. regis covered a half guard pass to be used when you are playing the escrima/underhook pass, but the uke rethreads and takes the underhook back keep your head low and step across the bodymaintain head control by gripping the belt nbefore you step across. keep the head low, beneath the far arm of the uke and scoot your butt away. Use your unentangled knee and then foot to free the entangled one.
1-8 minute set with zak. he is improving and scampered away from some sweep attempts. he managed to get his hooks in to take my back. i passed him back around in front and passed him. I went to uma plate and tried for the tap but he squirmed away. after i passed him again, I caught him with a kimura from the side. he is improving almost every class it seems.

started judo on time with matwork. taught the bull pass. then did 3-5 minute sets and 1-7 minte set.

Art took the white belts. I took the upper belts and we did uchikomis and throwing for the last hour. I began working on my project, a left sided underhook Osoto Gari. we will see how it develops.

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Tuesday 3/7/6

251 this morning.
BJJ from 6-7. Interesting position from the botom half guard. when you have transitioned to directly beneath them, with their knee next to your head, protect your arm by tucking it inide your leg or elsewhere. if they cannot attack the arm, they must sit around to the half guard pass from the opposite side. from the bottom, switch your hooks so that the outside hook (the one away from where uke is going) is underhooking the entangled leg, but keep the other leg on top to protect from the pass. when he passes his leg past the head to go to the opposite side kick the hook in a perpendicular directionand slide from beneath uke, coming up behind him. put the hooks in and attack the back.
when attacking the back, take both hooks and both lapels pull down on the lapels to open the collars. suddenly shoot your grip acoss as deeply as possible. as they defend, punch your grip deeper and regrip. apply choke.

3-8 minute sets. rolled with Regis. He was all over me, but i managed to threaten a sweep once and only gave up one tap. a few decent pass attempts but he blocked and went back to a guard.
Had Amir. he is a solid white belt. i tapped him a few times to make sure he knew that I could but, i thought he played well. last Set was Brian R. he is toough. I swept him and had several near passes but his half guard is extremely tight. he also clings to it very tightly. i was letting myself get frustrated. I changed sides and tried different passes, but i never scored points. I think he is the toughest blue belt, we have.

Regis wasn't going for the advanced class, I proposed. He thinks we need to work more on our fundamentals, and too many of the upper ranks will come for a few weeks, then it will be just a few people in class.

I taugt the white belt class (Amir, Bill, Mike, erickson, and Mira). taught several of the self defense techniques and then did splitting the guard and the bull pass.

Monday, March 06, 2006

Monday 3/6/6

252 Again!! (freakin' weekends. have to stop messing around on the weekends and stay focused. time to sitch to the Atkins and the W diet)
*Break*
11:30 Kettlebell class.
Tough but not as tough as Thursday. Warmups, then a 5 minute swing/Turkish get uo Cycle. 2 minute run, then a 6 minute snatch, clean and press, and squat press set.
*Break*
BJJ at 6:30. class was covering teh head control half guard pass. some of the guys struggled with it, which was a litlle surprising considering it shouldn't be anything new. we did some live half guard passing work top and bottom. i noticed from the bottom, that if you are just trying to stall, and use your far side hand to underhook and grab your own lapel, it made things difficult. for the passer. with Chris D., i noticed that if i use an underhook pass, i MUST keep my hips down and far from him whil passing to prevent the locked knee bump. went to judo at 7:45. (note-i want to ask regis about starting a purple, brown and black class, once a week)

Judo (Me, Art, Alma, Chris S., Joe Chiu, Hiroki, Will D., Will-white belt, and Randall from BJJ) was frustrating. Art had already started the class and was doing aikido with the people who were there. This is no way to get ready for the tournament season. Next, 30 minutes of Ukemi. this is 25 minutes too much. Then he took the majority of the class and had Hiroki, Will D. and Alma, doing Kata. Total waste of time for tournament prep. i emerged from the office and grabbed Will, Hiroki, Alma, Joe Chiu, and Chris S and did randori for the last 30 minutes. this saved the class for me at least, though i need a lot more, if I want to be reasonably prepared for Nationals and BJJ Pan Ams. Randall did sign up with the USJA, so I guess he enjoyed the class.

Sunday 3/5/6

251

Good class to day. me, Ron, Alma, Will D., Hiroki B., Chris L., Jim C., Lee W., Lawrence K., and his daughter Arriana K and Gary. We did the halfguard knee block, that I have been using, passing the half-guard with an underhook, and the half-guard reversal with the underhook. 46 minute matwork sets. I roled with Arriana, who is not bad for her age, though not as aggressive as I would like for her to be and Will D.

We did Drop Seoi Nage and a few variations for standup. Everyone, including Alma, Lee and Jim did well with the technique. 4-5 minute sets of Randori. I only had Hiroki, he managed to get me down once. I threw 4-5 times. it was a good set, he is playing well.

X

Saturday, March 04, 2006

Saturday 3/4/6

Weighed 250.
No class today. Too many other things to do. I will make a point to work in more than i normally do tomorrow.

X

Friday, March 03, 2006

Friday 3/3/6

Weight 250 this morning.
*break*
Friday Judo Class (Me, Ron, John D., Derek, Mike T., B.J., and Sharam(?))
Class started a little late. I started the four white belts that were there with an introduction to Ude Garame. John came and I turned the class over to him. he did Ude garame from several positions.
We did Matwork. I rolled with BJ and Sharam. BJ was a wrestler and showed solid instincts and athletic ability, but his endurance is bad. Sharam was fairly big and strong and showed promise. hopefully they will stay.

John showed the four novices Sumi Gaeshi (!!????!!) Ronnie and I worked on some sweep positions. all in all a decent enough class for what it was. I was glad to see the novices, but we need to rebuild the Friday class.

X

Thursday, March 02, 2006

Thursady 3/2/6

Weighed 252 this morning. back to the warrior diet starting to day.

*Break*

Went to the 11:30 kettlebell class. steve is nuts. this is why he makes money as a trainer. i could never do this workout to myself. standard warmups, then 7- 30 second 2 kettlebell (16kgs) movements. 1 minute run, 30 second walk. repeat. then 10-30 second single kettlebell (16 kgs) movements. 2 minute cool down run. tough workout.

*Break*

Went to BJJ at 6:30. Urso was there becasue he was injured, otherwise he would have already left for the Arnolds classic to fight the professional division. due to the small turnout and the injury he just ran an open mat. he commented that the instruction in BJJ in the US, is as good as in Brazil, the difference in quality is just due to how much people train. in Brazil, guys who want to be good train all of the time, in the US, they train some and expect to be good anyway. I worked with Eric S on his sweeps. we did the "tripod" sweep series from the half spider guard. taking the across the body or taking them back with the foot in the hip, a la, Jen P.

I left at 7:30 for judo. no Art,John D., or Ron. i ran the class. (Taku, Alma, Will D., Hiroki, Jim (brown), Joe C., Lee W., and 4 white belts, Will, Adam, Tom and a blue belt in bjjj form Joe diamonds club, Nick). We did clock chokes and then if they come up to resist it the Mickey Matsumoto roll. Everyones clock choke improved, and the upper ranks including Jim and Lee did surprisingly well with the MM roll. 4-5 minute sets of matwork. i did 2 with Will (white) and Nick. They did fine.

The colored belts did Uchikomi's and throws for the first half hour, Alma and I took the white belts through Seoi Nage and Osoto Gari. Finished with 4-6 minutes sets of Randori. I did two hiroki, who managed to take me down with a tani otoshi, i scored 4-5 times. i noticed he tends to crumble and accept the throw before he really has to sometimes. Lee was the other set, threw him 4 or 5 times. He did have a a few good Ouchi gari attacks, though.

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Its past time to get ready Wednesday 3/1/6

This is mainly going to be a general diary of the training I am doing in Judo and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. The training has been going on for years. I used to keep a diary but it became to cumbersome, so this will a bit more abbreviated. It will mainly focus on keeping me motivated going to class, preparing for the tournament season and getting my weight down and fitness level up.

There may often be several posts as I plan on very generally detailing the classes , my weight and the kettlebell classes that i will be doing.

The weight classes that I will be looking towards are 100 kilos for judo (220 lbs.) and 214 for BJJ. Seeing my actual weight every day will hopefully be a bit of motivation towards making weight.

went to class 30 minutes early. ron and i worked on john's back defense. he is passing the arm attempting the clock choke over the head and then throwing the kata guruma, he will also come up and do a backdrop if they attempt a guillotine. we worked on a samoan drop version as well.

class was not bad. 90 minutes. regis did the one hook escape, bail to a turtle, then dump them over the top. did 6-6 minute sets. (eric s. x2, once with him starting each time in a side position, tim s., ryan c., john p., joe b.) was on and did well with all of them. caught eric repeatedly, wrist locked ryan, 7 -0 with tim, caught bucci, played with john p. regis said he liked the way i was training lot of technique not a lot of strength.

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