Saturday 6/26/2010 No-Gi class at Steve Kardians Club

I was at the Fight Like a Girl re-certification class. I rode up with Sharon and we arrived early enough for class. Steve was doing a No-Gi class. There were a good number of people in the class. between the lower ranks and upper ranks (the class was split pretty evenly) there were around 20 people there.

He did some interesting things on escaping pins and attacking the arm from Kesa Gatame I will document them later. Good stuff, including a few things I hadn't seen  in the past. He plays a very fundamentally sound game with a little bit of a rough old school approach. It was pretty refreshing as it's a little different approach than I have taken recently.  He reminds me of the Steve Maxwell classes from back in the day. Easy to see them as contemporaries who started in a similar place. His team trained hard and seemed to be having a lot of fun. They have clearly outgrown their current space. I am looking forward to seeing the new space they will have the next time i come to his club. I considered training. If they had been training Gi, I would have jumped into the sets. But, there was a long day of the re-certification ahead and I didn't want to be drenched in sweat and tired for the seminar.

The re-certification went very well. I learned some new twists on teaching the F.L.A.G.women's self-defense system. The more I see this the more I am convinced that this is the best sexual assault defense course I have ever seen. i agree with both the technical philosophical approach and am looking forward to teaching it more in the future.

The Sunday Certification on defense against weapons also went well. It took a similar approach in being pretty low-tech and fundamental. emphasizing basic positions and avoidance of dangerous situations. I hope to do a seminar on this in the near future to solidify the teaching process for the techniques in my head.

Friday 6/25/2010

Open mat at the Weston - Only 4 of us (Craig, Chris and Blue John) were her so we did 3 10 minute sets.  I like the long sets. They were a little reluctant, but considering the numbers and the time we had it really was the best option. hate to gloss over it, but, it's been busy and I don't recall the particulars. It was a good sweat, as it was 30 solid minutes of rolling.

Thursday 6/24/2010

Open mat - Peter came in and took advantage of the open mat time. John and I caught up on some house keeping discussions and then Peter and I worked on a few questions he had. We worked on the one armed Tsurikomi Goshi, proper hip, foot  and hand position. We did a few throws but, mostly focused on uchikomis to get him into the right position.He is a hard worked and deserves to be successful. It's not easy to make it when you start as late as he has but, he deserves it, because he is doing the work.

Judo - Small group, the summer travels and laziness is kicking in for some of the students. It's been very hot and we also had a hellacious storm roll through the city. there were some big trees down and problems with mass transit and commuting. This may or may not have affected things. I will hope for may.

In Tachi Waza, I worked on Ouchi Gari. It's a little funny that I used to teach Ouchi Gari at least once every 3 weeks. It doesn't come up as often, but I still think it's one of the most important and effective techniques. I need to get it to the students more often. We covered several variations, the traditional, the circle step and a few other variations. Next some Tokui Waza, then randori.

In matwork we did the half guard pass where you walk them to flat on their backs, kick the leg back to free it and then pass. I explained why I think this is a better pass for tournaments but, not as good for BJJ or for class. Because of the tournament element, it might be true that we should work on this one quite a bit more at the expense of several passes I prefer. Have to noodle on this issue. We did a few sets of Ne Waza and called it a night.

Couple of notes, At the suggestion of Lex, the Friday randori class will experiment with a later start time. woudl love fo0r more people to take advantage of this opportunity. I saw Mainline canceled their Friday class for awhile. I guess the summer blahs are hitting others as well.

I will be out this weekend doing the FLAG recertification and getting certified in the defense against weapons module. Alma is back and will take lead on the Sunday class.

Thursday 6/24/2010

Day class at the Weston - Good class. Lex has joined here for awhile so there will be more opportunities to train with him. His game is developing well, and he will be a good addition to this group. John covered some Guard pulls into a triangle, an Oma Plata and then into a sweep position.  I had decent training, first with Lex, he is working on the butterfly hook sweep, and got to a strong hand position, but, I evaded the sweep with the balance and position of my hips. Managed to ride the sweep attempt into a pass. I controlled the arm from a side position and broke his grip for a side Juji Gatame armlock.
Next I had Mike B. I pulled he stood I went to the De La Riva and caught a grip on his lapel from under his leg and stood up with him and forced him down for a sweep. I worked the pass and got to where I had his legs pinned but he was still in a difficult position to pass but i switched to passing to the other direction and made it. I went knee in the belly and then got near a mount. He caught just my foot in half guard he used a hook to elevate me. Then he dropped me and I accidentally kicked my hook right in his balls. Needless to say he had to stop for the balance of the set.

I had Blue John last. I swept as normal. One interesting point was he cross grips from inside the guard and tries to push the head to make space to scramble from the guard. I blew his grip and forced his arm across and got almost behind him from inside his guard. Kept him forced into the turn and passed from here. I mounted and caught one of his hands between us and choked him. The gym was hot and  I was still feeling the effects of being sick so I was getting a bit more winded than I should have but, it was fun.

Monday 6/21/2010 - The class I got tired of people coming late.

Judo - Beth is away so I had baby duty and missed Kettlebells and BJJ. I hired a babysitter so I could make it to teach class. Between babysitters for Sunday and Monday I paid nearly $100 to be able to teach the classes. I also have a pretty nasty cold that is bothering me quite a bit. Between playing 1-1 for a few days as a parent, being sick, paying to come and teach class and missing Kettlebells and BJJ, my mood wasn't good. Most of the people were waiting for class to begin downstairs, this makes it easy for the BJJ class to run late and takes longer for our class to begin, which I also find annoying. So as warm-ups are going and several of the students are wandering in late, I decided to make an issue out of it. I had the latecomers keep running while everyone else did rolls and elbow escapes. What bothers me most about the tardiness is that these are upper ranks who i expect to set a solid example for the large group of new students we have, instead, they are doing the opposite. I almost left them to keep running while the rest of the class began working, but, I decided it would be too distracting. I had some technical work i had intended to cover, but, I was too irritated. so we did pulling and throwing drills up and down the mat. As I began to relax I pointed out some issues with the posture and movement of the ukes that should help their hip cuts and defensive movement. Once we had odd numbers I joined the drill and worked with Eric. I enjoyed it and found it productive for me. I'm going to make a point to get into it more often. We did a few fits and then did randori.

I was still feeling annoyed by the whole experience. I felt good during randori. being edgy makes me play more aggressively and better rather being lazy and complacent. Also some of the class members are much better training partners than others. This is a factor of style of play, technical ability, willingness to engage and make it an offensive match rather than an ugly defensive match, size  and various other factors. I often take bad partners for myself because of the match ups in the room, but, this is making my enjoyment of randori less and leads to me sitting out and coaching more. I think it would be best for the class for me to work in more, which means that i am going to take the people who are good training partners for myself more often. I can help make the good training partners better by working with them more. Some of the upper ranks are not as good for me and I am going to skip them. I need people who will fight hard with good technical ability and will engage in the fight rather than running from it, if I am going to get my game back. I took the two best training partners (at least for me) that were there regardless of rank, Eric and Lex. I had two good sets, threw some, grip fought, had to defend against legitimate effective attacks. I think this will be a good plan for me. I had also forgotten that I like to play when I am feeling the adrenaline and edginess that anger brings. I genuinely play much better like this. I used to be able to just get it from the competition, but, I have been doing so many sets with lesser partners that I need to create it artificially now. This is something else i need to get back to feeling.

In Ne Waza, I worked more on the knee drill, taking the head out from turtling to come up and behind the uke who is attacking the turtle from the front. We went to the power half nelson reversal from either uke holding on too long, or flattening him out and the reversing the flat turtle with leveraged half nelson. We ran 2 sets of Ne Waza, the, lined up to bow out.

I gave a come to class on time speech. I pointed out that coming to class consistently late is disrespectful to the class. the members, the instructor and your own rank.  I need the senior students to set a positive example, especially with so many new and lower ranked students with us now. I tend to run a loose class, treating everyone as an adult and expecting the students to police themselves about the little things, but I might have to modify that approach.

So, my plan is to make people sit by most tardy to least if there is an odd man out situation. I will also amke sure to demonstrate unpleasant techniques on the tardy ones. There will also be a rule for the BJJ people transitioning to the class from the BJJ class before it. They have a 5 minute turnaround window to get back to the next class, then they will join the late people.

Sunday 6/20/2010

Judo  - 6-7 people in. Actually had a very hard sweat going as we worked pretty hard. We di mainly throwing except for Lawrence and his uke as his knee was hurt during his BJJ training. I worked in with Lex and threw 2 sets of 10 Harais. He threw 10 Seoi Nages and 10 Uchi mata. The Seois are very crisp and high impact but very clean so are easy to take the. The Uchi Matas were also fine, as there was np appearance of the black bean. I related the legend of the Black Bean to Lex and Sarah this past Thursday, When Sarah was the unwilling recipient of a black bean Uchi Mata. Haven't told the story in awhile... it's a real part of the lingo of the club. Cecelia was there and is working on some pretty difficult techniques. She does them OK, but, it might be good for her to do a little more of the fundamentals also. She has been a great addition, though. Very good to see a women come in who is making a lot of classes, is tough and wants to play hard. She will be a good bridge from the bigger and more experienced women to the recent additions to our womens program.

For Ne waza we talked about the knee drill, taking the head out from turtling and then coming up behind the person attacking the turtle. once we did that, we worked on taking the back with both hooks and flattening the uke out then applying the Hadaka Jime. This a bit of a grinding technique i rarely teach, but, I like to give the people who come to small classes some things we don't do all of the time. There was more trouble than I expected properly applying the Hadaka Jime without pressuring the windpipe and keeping it to a clean blood strangle. We might have to do some more of the basics to hit clean chokes.

Friday 6/18/2010

BJJ open mat at the Weston.

Only 5 of us were here today and neither of the black belts. I still had good training.  I did 2 sets with Chris, One with Blue John and Jack. I missed Craig, Learned something interesting about how to run an odd number of people and make it work in my even number system. Line up everyone but include an open space as the anchor. Leave the open space and have everyone else rotate and there will be a floating bye. Everyone should have each person and a break. (credit Craig)

Pretty straightforward sets.  One note I need to remember was when Chris went under my leg and tried to throw me across, nominally to pass, but usually ending in a turtle. I did a good job of going with the momentum and rolling with it to ass-guard. I set my feet in his armpits with my grip on his knees and launched him. I almost put him into the mirror face first. It was a little funny as he was surprised about failing to toss me over. and then getting launched. I should probably show this sometime soon, as it's a good addition to the skill set and deals with a particular problem.

Thursday 6/17/2010

During open mat, Peter and I worked on a few things for his stand up, particularly Ouchi Gari.
Smallish class, 10 people or so. We did some throwing and fits of each persons Tokui Waza. Art took Mike P and Peter and worked with them quite extensively I had the others and worked in here a bit during their throwing and fits.2 sets of randori.

I don't recall what we covered in Ne waza. I do remember that I rolled a surprisingly good set with Mike P. He fights very hard and is surprisingly strong. He still has massive holes in his game but he has a huge upside. His physical skills are very solid and he is a good competitor. He also learns well , pays attention and comes to class. these are all pretty good elements to improve their skills.

Thursday 6/172010

BJJ at the Weston. John was here he covered a baseball bat choke. I don't love that he had them in knee in the belly with the arm along side the head on the same side as tori is on the belly, this does allow the pressure roll against the arm that shouldn't catch anyone but can lead to a reversal. Good to be aware of it, but, I think the risk - reward leans against this part of the technique. He did an arm lock i want to work on from the paper cutter choke position (though he did it from knee in the belly) where you trap the arm to your side with your low arm, and pinch it with your arm then sit back with it. He also did one with the high arm where you push your shin into the armpit of uke, trap it with the high arm and sit back for the armlock.

I rolled a couple of sets witht he purple in class. Once with Mike B. He is a good training partner. He stands to pass when i am sitting which is OK but, I have to make sure I get a grip otherwise he has too much mobility. I go De La Riva and fed his sleeve to my grip. He tried to back away to avoid the sweep so I stood up with him. I didn't want to take him down too hard and he has good base. he managed to scramble. away. i sat again and the same thing happened but, this time I wanted to make sure he went down. I controlled his other shoulder and put him on his back directly into side control. He worked back to guard when I went knee in the belly. I worked to pass and the set ended.

Pretty standard set with Chris D. He is doing a good job avoiding the things that used to catch him easily, so is a much better training partner now, as I have to work much harder and more skillfully rather than falling into patterns of positions he defends poorly. He sill isn't scoring but he made me bail to my turtle and would have scored vantage.  I reversed him and scored some points, but, a good set.

Tuesday 6/15/2010

BJJ at the Weston - John was under the weather so i taught the class. I covered the way I catch the wrist lock when someone tries to bench press me from side control. I mentioned that this only works if the other person makes a mistake, but it is a mistake that is often made. I mentioned that i have caught purple belts with it. Mike B, said I caught him with it the first time we rolled. I hadn't remembered that but, good to hear that i was accurate about catching purple with the technique. I wanted to get the students to be aware of it but also, from the bottom avoid making the mistake that allows it. Only spent 10 minutes or so on it, but they all seemed to understand the mechanics and how to avoid making the mistake.

Did my favorite side position sub, the paper cutter strangle. I worked to get them to do the technique without the grinding throat pressure that most people get. It's safer and a more effective technique when done this way. Showed a couple of positional set ups to get to the position to use it. Then we trained. Time was late and the match-ups weren't great s we just did one set. I rolled with Mike, who is a very solid training partner. I pulled and went to a De La Riva position as he likes to standing pass. I don't love that he will stand up to pass before taking a grip, but, I make sure to grab him before he has a chance to run. I went to sweep, and he controlled the leg. I tried to pull him to X-guard, but we ended in a scramble. I put him on the bottom and worked to pass. I fed him a triangle to pass and then went for the sub as i was passing he did a good job avoiding the sub and rolled to turtle then back to guard. I forced the triangle again and attacked it to pass. He was resisting in that position when the set ended.

Monday - 6/14/2010

made it through Kettlebells. Pretty good workout, the room was a little hot and I had a heavy sweat going.

BJJ - JD3 was under the weather so I taught the class. Good group 6 white belts, 6 colored belts plus Mike B, Claudia (dressed out but on the IR) and myself. 15 is a good number including 4-5 girls. I did Oma Plata. for everyone, I did the basic version and then the breakdown to get the submission. I had the 6 white belts continue the basic version while I took the colored belts through the response to Uke pulling up, i.e kipping back over for the sweep, then the back straddle across the head to the Marcello armlock position. Finally took the whole class through the entry where you go under the leg and grab the back of the collar then work the trapped knee free to secure the Oma Plata. We did 4 sets of training, though the last set was a short one. Good class.

Judo - 16-18 people, including 5 girls. The two new girls, Grace and Cecelia were back and did well. They will add a lot to the women's team if we can keep them. They are both young, tough, in shape and fight hard, plus they are coachable and want to get better. Normal warmup with a set of twenty squats holding your partner in a Kata Guruma position as a bonus plus a minute of the Russian plank.

It was hot and everyone was very warm, so I ran 3 man throwing drills across the mat. I made it so last team pays 20 pushups as an incentive. I did the throwing and had Eric and Lex in my group. I hate losing, and we didn't have the fasted group but we avoided last. (Though the team that was last was just one throw behind us, so I called it a draw and no one paid).

We did rhythmic fits next to cool down and work on good technique while fatigued. Then throwing with the same approach... not too fast or hard, but building muscle memory while fatigued. Finished with 3 good sets of randori.

For Ne waza, we did the trap and roll both the traditional approach and the over the shoulder movement. a few sets of Ne waza and called it a night. Joe C was back from Macao and brought me a very nice warm up suit from the Macao Judo federation. I wonder what it would cost to import a bunch for the whole team? Have to remember to ask him. Also began talks with him about making the Friday night randori night his responsibility. I'm feeling really good about how the club has been doing in June, just have to keep up the momentum.

Sunday - 6/13/2010

Judo - It was a smallish group, just 7 of us. I felt it was an extremely productive workout. We did the one handed tsurikomi Goshi drill with Eric, who wasn't in class the past week when we worked on it. It seemed like it was a good drill for him and may help get the final breakthrough he needs to turn the corner on the Harai Goshi. This was one of the drills that was the most important to helping me get over the hump and make the harai a dangerous technique. Hopefully it will help him as well. Nick, Scott, Lawrence and Lex all worked on it to some degree as well. I worked on the entry and gripping sequence that Stephanie used for her same sided Tai OToshi for Sarah, who is working on the same technique. I then took eric and did some of the one handed stuff with him and worked on a matwork technique I wanted to teach, while the other 5 did 20 minutes of golden score randori.

In Ne Waza, we worked on a modification of the trap and roll wherein you roll across the shoulder rather than the across the body, but get to the same place for the pin. I like this version quite a bit. It was possible to catch the arm if the uke didn't roll. You were safe from being pinned as long as you don't lose control of the arm. The big thing on the trap and roll is to roll over the trapping shoulder with the near side arm tucked down the body outside of the Uke's near hip and keep your head tucked as you roll but don't let it get trapped beneath the body of Uke. Keep it outside of the hip as well.

This is also useful even for people with strong trap and rolls across the body as when it is well defended and blocked, the opportunity to roll to the shoulder is magnified.

We did some trouble shooting on this position and then rolled one set. I took Lex. His butterfly game is improving. i am still ahead of it, but, it's getting much more dangerous. I passed him and caught a Kimura and reminded him to secure that grip as it happens fast when you get caught.

Very happy with the class. I think the participant got a lot from it and I helped my stand up but also really think I learned a useful improvement to a mat work technique I already did very well.

Thursday 6/10/2010

Open Mat. I did my Kettlebell session. I didn't make it through the whole workout I have designed. Several exercises bothered my hand/wrist injury, but I also just pooped out before the end. it will be good to get someone else into the workout as it's harder to give up on the last couple of exercises. I am glad I got through most of it though. Now have to be consistent.

Peter, Scott and Katie came to the open mat and did a good amount of throwing. It was very productive time for all three of them.

Judo Class - Very good class 18 of us, plus old friend Fred Murty stopped in for the second half of class. we worked again on each hand of the tsurikomi Goshi individually again, with special emphasis on the Lapel/driving hand. We fit and threw with just the lapel and and then threw the soto Makikomi then used both hands for the Tsurikomi Goshi. After that I opened it up for 15 minutes of Tokui Waza. next we did 3 5 minutes rounds of randori. I only did one with Peter. He is improving, but is still alittle stiff. He attacked well though and took good falls. he even tried a drop Seoi Nage, that was pretty good so i took the fall for it.

One new player brought in by Mike P. He is named Juan and is a brown belt around 160 or so. He is quite good and has trained before. His father has a club in San Diego and spent some time coaching at the OTC. It would be excellent to have him join us regularly. he is in the medical program with mike so I am hoping. I thought Isidor did a great job working with Jason, who worked hard on his technique. He will be a good fit in Judo as his stand up continues to improve. I do wish Eric Johnson was around as he would be an excellent training partner for Jason.

Fred taught several things during matwork. He did the illegal Obi Jimi. He did a pin where he wrapped the belt under the body from Utsuri Kesa Gatame trapping the arm. He also did turnover of a flat turtle, using the belt to gain leverage. I will try these next open mat when I can and see how they feel.

Just for fun an old school  ('70s)  picture of Fred I found on line.

Thursday 6/10/2010

BJJ at the Westin. John was unavailable, so I taught the class. I covered the clock choke for the whole set. I tied it to the back choke from Tuesday. We worked on it for the whole class. The sets were unbalanced so I sat out to keep them even.

Tuesday 6/8/2010

BJJ at the Westin.
John continued to work on taking the back and working for the choke from the back. Pretty basic but good for the guys who were here.
I rolled with Blue John. Ok set. He is really clingy right now and it leads to stalling until I can open the space to pass. It slows the pace and keeps the score down. I don't hink it helps him, but, It's OK for me as it makes me work a little harder.
I rolled with Craig who is clearly improving. I swept, passed, tapped him twice, but the third time he jumped for a pass. It forced me to recover to the half guard as I didn't expect him to get so deep. He left his arm crossed over so I swept him right away, but it was a good attack for him to make me go to a position I didn't intend.

Monday 6/7/10

I was away from class due to holidays and travel until my return to BJJ today. I again skipped Kettlebells. I am going to try to do it on my own on Thursday, but, hand is a continuing problem. I clearly broke it. It's healing but still painful to put a lot of stress or pressure on it. The Bells class looked quite good with 10 participants.

BJJ - I am going to try to take advantage of opportunities to push myself, so i did the warm-ups which I normally skip. Every bit of extra sweating needs to be seized.
Good group of people, 12 or so, including 2 new(er) girls. John focused on back attacks, working for strangles. He kept it pretty basic through several positions, finishing with an entry into the bow and arrow choke.

I did 4 sets. I had the blue belt Evan, who has joined us and been a regular. Decent training. He plays hard and likes to headhunt, but, I swept and then worked through positions, knee in the belly, mount, and side control. He was pretty fatigued by the end, but kept fighting from the bottom to escape.
Set with Jason, who is playing well and putting a lot of pressure when he is working to pass. After some back and forth he forced me to bail and turtle. He attacked the turtle for a bit before, I was able to get him overbalanced and come to the top. I ended in his half guard and made some progress towards passing but, finished there without having passed.
Next I had Lex, I pulled and he attempted to pass, I pulled underneath to X guard. I got him over with the number 4 sweep, but didn't make it to knee in the belly settling for side control. He worked for an under hook as a way to either escape or block me from advancing. I walked around the head and unwound it then stepped across to the mount, this trapped his arm between us and I got the choke because he only had one hand to defend. Mentioned to him to be wary of holding on to something that isn't helping him, but puts him in a bad position. He pulled to start next and worked for a butterfly sweep. Pretty good attempt but, I was able to ride it and pass then the set ended.
I rolled with David who is back from school. Has a lot of potential but feels rusty and a little out of mat shape. Good to see him back though.


Judo was excellent with 18 people on the mat, including 8 girls. One was a small but very athletic green belt named Grace who trained with us for a short time some time ago, and another new girl Cecelia, an orange belt who has moved to town. She has solid stand up and isn't afraid to play hard. Both will be great to see around and continue to build our women's program. The training for Ariana, Katie, Lori, Chris and Sarah, will be excellent.

Some of the other seldom seen faces include Roman, who is becoming regular, Alexander, another Ukranian player with us for the summer and Jason who stayed from the BJJ class for the stand up part of class and a first timer, Nat, who is rather small but young athletic and has a strong wrestling background.

We did quite a bit of work on focusing one each hand of the tsurikomi goshi hip throw individually. First the Lapel side was emphasized with fits and the throwing. Then the sleeve side was emphasized with soto Makikomi. The we put all of them together and threw the traditional tsurikomi goshi. I kept everyone focused on using it as a learning tool to improve the simpler hip throws, Uchi Mata, Tai Otoshi, Seio Nage, etc. This always helped me improve my Harai and I think it is a strong teaching tool to improve the fundamentals of the forward technique.

Three sets of randori went well. I didn't have good match ups for Jason as the class skewed rather small. But he played OK, with Roman and Lex who are tough. It would be helpful to get a few heavyweights back or get the ones I have healthy.

Mat work we began doing some of the drills coming from under the turtle and then going for power half nelson to drive them over to the Kami Shio Gatame. It took a few times through the drill to get it to an acceptable level. It was a natural for the wrestlers, but the ones without wrestling experience struggled with it. We did several sets of Ne Waza and called it a night.

5/30/2010 Sunday - The one visit of Hiroki

Judo - We were on the fence about having class on the holiday weekend, but, when old training partner and a Philadelphia Judo black belt, Hiroki Baba was going to be in town just for the day we rallied the troops and did class.

very solid turnout considering the holiday. 10-12 participants. We did a few minutes of catching up, then did fits and throws for 20 minutes and randori for 45 minutes. I like this format and we will do it more often as it's fun to just focus on throwing some minimal instruction. I worked in to several sets. The most noteworthy was the set I did with Hiroki. he remains an excellent training partner. He has very crisp technique, excellent posture and plays with a very offensive mindset. I had a good set with him and threw some crisp skilled techniques. I think that I have been allowing myself to play down to the level of some of the guys coming up and settling for sloppy defensive Judo. I have to work very hard to get out of this mindset. I think I play better against better, more offensive minded players. I will need to get the guys who are training to get into a more offensive mind set for all of our sakes. We did 4-5, 5 minutes sets, with limited rest and everyone was pleasantly gassed out by the end. I might make the Sunday once a month all training.

For Ne waza we did 4-5 sets. When I rolled with Hiroki, he still did the "Hiroki Baba" mistake, which is a problem keeping the hands too low and too close together when splitting the guard. Hiroki's ne waza was still respectable but had fallena bit behind. He was trying to work on a triangle and tried to on me twice. He needs a bit more work on some of the subtleties of the technique. Here is a link to the mat work instruction that Lex filmed and posted.




Also here is the May 2010 Randori high lights

5/28/2010 Happy Birthday to me... am I done?

Open mat at the Weston - Happy Birthday to me. Another year done and still not anywhere close to being back to as good a competitor as I was before the shoulder surgery. It's about time to make some decisions about my competitive future.

First, am I going to get back in competitive condition or am I going to be a lazy sack? I know which one I want but will I do the work to get there. Time to stop wishing and start doing, or at least stop complaining and own it. Have to fix it or own the fact I am too lazy to fix it.

Second, am I going to keep whining about my should failing me, or do something about it. It's OK for BJJ but for Judo it's kind of a disaster, and if I start off of the feet I'm a shadow of my former self so even that isn't really true. My big advantage of being able to take most BJJ guys down isn't true anymore. Now, considering the size and style of play of most guys in my division, it becomes a battle of sloppy takedown defense, which leads to a 7 minute referee decision. Even if I win those decisions, I don't want that to be my legacy. It's time to do some serious soul-searching and decide if I am willing to do the work it will take to return me to able to compete at High level, in the Masters divisions (Nationals/Pan-Ams level)or do I want to settle for coaching and being a recreational competitor. I don't think being a recreational competitor is enough, but I don't know if I am willing or really have the free time to both coach my team and do the work to regain the technical and physical skills it will take to play at a level that will satisfy me.

The Friday training class is becoming one of my very favorite classes. No teaching, no drilling just training, especially when the Steve's are in class as they certainly raise the quality of the matches. I did 6 7-minutes sets. A solid amount of training. The two sets with the White belt Jack were just moving with him and giving him a pointer every so often. Blue John and Chris were pretty typical, though both are becoming more difficult as they get better and better at playing me in particular. The Steve B set was good. He pulled half guard, I engaged and worked for awhile then passed. I maintained side position and went knee in the belly. he did the escape going under my leg and I came off and trapped his arm again. I then had a 2-1 arm advantage and caught an ude Garame. We restarted but didn't have too much time to get into the set. The Steve K set was even better. He pulled half guard and outgripped me making it difficult to pass but I avoided the sweep with hip position and balance. I flattened him in the half guard and nearly passed twice. He regained a better half guard and th set ended. Not too much action but a tight technical set.

5/27/2010

Day class at the Weston. very similar to Tuesday. We worked more on the butterfly position. I rolled with blue John and Mike B. Blue john has a very chokable neck once you get behind him or mounted. some guys necks are hard to find some are easier. He has a pretty good neck to be choked. Plus he has had some neck injuries so he is properly a little cautious when someone goes for a choke, even a clean one. Mike's neck has improved which made me happy. I hate to see anyone injured with me especially something like a neck, even if it was just random chance. He scramble well, but I managed to get him to his back with a rolling version of the butterfly weep, and control the position. I worked the pass and ended there.

I had to skip class that night for baby duty.

5/25/2010 - Tuesday

Nice class at the Weston. small group with Chris gone but still had 5 of us. Craig got a stripe after his win at the tournament. Very well deserved, considering how hard he has worked and the improvement he has made. John did some work on the butterfly guard and the basic sweep from it in this class. Noticing some subtle differences in the way we do the same position.

I rolled twice, with blue John and Craig. We all played Craig hard as a preliminary to his promotion. I think blue john is too focused on trying to scramble out of the guard rather than playing the position. It ends up being a bit of a stalling tactic as it slows the game down but doesn't seem to do much for him.