Friday 9/17/2010 Xande Ribeiero Semi-Private

Xande was in town for a couple of days. I will be in the group seminar tomorrow and took semi-private today.
Good class. Very fundamentally sound with information and techniques that can be adapted to a lot of different positions. I much prefer this to a seminar with some tricks that I will often not use. Fundamentals I can integrate into my game.
He covered a pass of the De La Riva position, some work on taking the back briefly addressed some ideas for attacking a turtle. I will have to refer to my notes for specifics on techniques.

Xande was great. We compared notes on having a new kid and some other gossip. Cool to hang out and spend some time with him again. It's not typical for the top 3 guy in the world to also be a solid guy, but's it's true in this case. 

Friday 9/17/2010

Open mat at the Weston 11:00AM
We had people running in late which threw off the sets, but it led to a coouple of repeat sets with the higher ranked guys Steve and Chris so it worked out OK. Chris admitted to some idiot that it wasn't a formal class so he kept doing Kettlebells near us while we were training and some other old idiot joined him, then the f*ers turned on the big overhead fan. I was pissed and ended up doing an extra set with Chris and stepped up some. He's right that we don't want to make too many waves and get the open mat banned but, i have always told people its a regular class and nothing has come of it. Whatever, the training was good. I did 2 with Steve, 2 with Chris and a set with Blue John and Craig so 36 minutes of training. The sets with Steve were good. He continues to show excellent technique and is a good training partner. He isn't going for the knee in the belly escape I capitalized on a few times anymore eliminating that cheap win, which is good. I caught him once after a sweep pass, but we ended the last set with him in a tight footlock. I held out until the buzzer went off, but I didn't escape. The lower body subs are still a definite danger as I am slow in the transition. I saw this one coming but was a beat late in my reaction.

The Chris sets were good. I mauled him some but, he had several good escapes and avoided the sub in one set. I hit the De La Riva entangled arm sweep even though he knew it was coming and fought his ass off to avoid it. always cool to do something to someone who knows it's coming and can't stop it.
Craig can't stop the butterfly sweep and once he's on the bottom he's toast, but, he power escapes from the bottom surprisingly well.
Blue John went over for a cheap sweep, He defends the pass well, but has a very chokable neck. Once I secure the mount he's doesn't defend/resist the choke well.
Good sweat and good way to spend an hour at work.

Thursday 9/16/2010

BJJ at the Weston - Big class, 9 people, just two white belts. The 2 on one series continued. These are good techniques that I use often. It will be good to see if they are implemented by the students. I decided to go out of the box a bit. I took Marty and Isaac, for the training sets. Not difficult training but a bit different than i usually get. Marty is dedicated to improving his open guard. I'm giving him a grip and letting him work a bit. If he makes a glaring mistake or waits too long, I pass. If he does it all right I accept the sweep. I passed a few and caught him, but he did a good butterfly sweep and ended on top in half guard. I went to the deep half guard sweep and revered him, came up, passed and caught him. But, the sweep was promising. Isaac was a lot better than the last time we rolled, but he really is too small for me. we exchanged a few positions. to have a better chance he needs to use his speed against me more than he does. If he ends up in a station to station game, he's toast.

No class tonight as Beth has a work commitment and I am on baby duty. This entry was typed the next day so i can say that she (my daughter) was spectacularly awful, a complete pain in the ass. If I was a single parent, I would be doomed.

Tuesday 9/14/2010

BJJ at the Weston - John did some of the 2 on 1 techniques from last night with this group. I had 2 sets of training with Chris and Mike B. Having Chris back is good as he is a good training partner and the sets with mike have been difficult, therefore entertaining. Nothing otherwise noteworthy.

Monday 9/13/2010

Kettlebells first - Good overall workout
BJJ- Pretty large class. John covered some 2 on 1 sweep and armlock positions. I like the way he uses the croass grip to block the pass when uke makes the corner. Then if the Uke centers back, he looks for the sweep with the arm trapped across the body, which is one of my favorites. He also recapped the armlock with the hand trapped between the bicep and ribs of the tori, then grip and turn the elbow up, while applying pressure with the hips to finish the lock.

I wasn't feeling particularly well so I skipped the training.

For Judo, we had a pretty good sized group, 12-15 or so. I covered Uchi mata and there was some good improvement by some of the guys. I cut them loose to do 10 minutes of Tokui Waza then did randori. Allessandro was having a good set with Shannon, but after a score they kept trying to win a scramble form the ground . In his efforts to turn belly down Allesandro popped a rib, which is a painful and slow healing injury. We need to beat back the injury bug. Two significant injuries in two classes is unacceptable. Otherwise the randori was good.
For Ne Waza I covered the kimura attack from half guard and then how to escape it. I focused on the escape as this can be a very frustrating position if you don't know how to free your arm.
With an odd number, I took Greg for a set of Ne Waza. He is doing a good job working on the sweeps from his open guard. I stuffed the butterfly sweep, though, mostly because he waited too long and gave me too many chances to defend. He was able to power his way back to the top and we finished the set with him in top half guard.

Sunday 9/12/2010

Smallish Judo class of 7 of us. A group went to the Easterns in Newark, NJ yesterday mixed results with Sarah particularly standing out, but regardless of results, I was happy to see so many competitors. We did quite a bit of grip fighting, focusing on drills. We started with the basic 1, 2, 3 grip sequence looking to establish a dominant grip while not giving up a strong grip. We also did the sequencing with more resistance then adding a fit then doing it with more resistance. We then added another grip sequence, cross gripping with the right hand to the cross right lapel of the Uke and then going through similar drills.

We did golden score randori. i set the timer for 12 minutes and did a set of the three girls Sarah, Cecelia and Lori and the 3 guys, Lex, Peter and Z, who it was great to see back in class. I jumped into the men's group. I had a lot of fun in the randori I scored some throws. My harai is still a mess but I hit a few other things.
Z countered me once, which is a sign of how messed up my forward throw is. I would go months without being countered and now it is happening fairly often. The Kosoto gake's are leading to more Uchi mata counters than i would like but, they are also being thrown for ippon, so who am I to complain. Lex got me up off of the groupd for the standing Seoi Nage for the first time, though he was still not that close to getting me over the top, but he is getting closer. I was having so much fun i added 3 more minutes. This was probably a mistake. I had good control of my group, but the girls group was still going. Sarah hurt her knee and groin. I really should have paid more attention to it. She fought 6 matches the day before, did all of the grip fighting then fought nearly every golden score set for fifteen minutes. It's not too surprising she finally broke down. It was careless on my part to los track of the other set. Hopefully the injuries are minor and she won't pay too much of a price for my lack of attention.

For Ne Waza we did two clock choke variations. This included a grip starting from the left side of the Uke and putting the right arm over the far side of the head of the uke. I love my classic clock choke but have to say this one felt very strong and was easier to get into it than the traditional approach. After a bit of experimentation and minor tweaks, it seemed to be doing quite well. The hardest part was getting everyone to effectively break down the uke from a four point position to a flattened out position. From there it was easy to apply. We then did the version with back of the tricep on the side of the head closest to the tori. i have often spoken poorly of this version, and I still think there is a gaping hole in it if the uke reacts quickly and perfectly, but, it was also strong and I could feel how to mostly close the escape hole that this version leaves. I think its the one with the best chance to escape but is also the easiest to enter. So, there is a definite balancing test  as to which one different people like to do. I want to make a point to take a shot at both of these variants along with some of the others I have seen recently during live training. I need to remember to let the Ukes get to the turtle and keep them there while i hunt for the techniques.

Friday 9/10/2010

Open Mat at the Weston
By the end there were six of us here. We did 6 minutes sets plus one 5 minute bonus set, so a total of 35 minutes of training. I had a good set with Steve B. He had a good attempt at a pass when I pulled and probably would have secured it but, he shot for the armlock and I came up. I passed back and maintained the top for the rest of the set, working to pass and attacking his side control position. I gave Marty a shot at the butterfly sweep, but he hesitated too long and I passed him.When we came back up I gave him another shot at it and he executed it well, once I got him to go for it.

Thursday 9/9/2010

Open Mat - 6-7 people in for the open mat all Judo people with the exception of Katie who gets dual citizenship. Good bit of throwing. I jumped into the group and took 90 falls and threw 30 times. Not a huge number but a decent amount as a pre-class supplemental throwing session.

Judo - Classes have begun to creep up again. 18 people tonight. We did a lot of Tokui Waza and randori. One new white belt who had trained some combat ju jitsu years ago, but, he was pretty young, could already take falls and knew some basics so he was able to jump right in. Shannnon was back also and he brings a lot to the table. The Fall is looking up. I don't recall anything of note about randori, except that there were a lot of sets and I was impressed with the energy level and intensity that I saw from everyone.

For Ne Waza we did some clock choke work. We did the traditional one I use. I have been looking at some variants and will introduce them as some people do great with this version, but, I want to give others some alternatives if this version hasn't connected with them.

Thursday - 9/9/2010

Day class at the Weston - Light class, Mike B., John,. Blue John, myself and a white belt, Chris. We just trained so it was more fun and productive for me. I had two sets with John The first, I hit a De La Riva sweep and came up, passed him and worked him for awhile and then finally caught him.The next set he got into my legs again and made it to leg lock program and managed to knee bar me. I'm starting to see this  a little earlier, but, still not defending it well. The second part of the set was more like the first, I managed to sweep and come up, then score points. The set with mike was like a lot of ours. I swept from the De La Riva beginning and then worked to pass. He did a good job of bellying out of the pass several times. I woudl have scored vantages but not secured the pass. Blue John played hard and is also difficult to complete the pass, but, I managed to lock him down after sweeping him and choked him from the mount. I pulled with Chris and put him in bad positions and caught him a few times. I gave him a few pointers on maintaining his base as he was initiating the slpit, that may help him.

Tuesday - 9/7/2010

John was changing apartments so i covered the class for him. Marty asked about some open guard sweep work, so I went to the basic first butterfly sweep. I included several responses to the defender who blocks by posting the leg. We did kicking the foot out and kicking the Uke over like a Tomoe Nage.
There were 4 people and not that much time left so I did one long (8 minute) set between the good match ups.

Monday - 9/6/2010

Judo class - Returned from my extended football weekend and held class on labor day. Surprisingly good turnout for the holiday. we did warm ups and then I rewarded the holiday appearance by doing Tokui Waza allowing everyone to work on the favorite techniques. I worked in a bit here and there but mostly tweaked a few technical issues  while everyone was working on their throws and fits. We did 4-5 sets of randori. I also pointed out to Lex that he is doing his Kata for his Sankyu promotion, on Thursday one way or the other. So he invested some time with it working with Scott, Alma and Christine.

For Ne Waza we covered some more passing the guard work. i went back to the over under pass but made a little different emphasis of controlling the leg you are over and keeping good head position in the opponents hips. We did a few sets of Ne Waza. I joined when there was a minor injury. We were playing three minute matches to a resolution. We had 8 of us. Each person trained with each other person, and the set was for three minutes or until there was a choke, armlock or 25 second pin. I pulled with all of them, avoiding falling back on the kneeling program, and swept, passed and pinned all except Lex. he avoided the sweep and I turtled. He engaged the turtle but there wasn't a change of position before time expired. 6-0-1. everyone did well and had a good class for the Holiday, so it was definitely worth coming in and opening the gym for class.

Tuesday - 8/31/2010

Day class at the Westin - Just John, Mike B, Blue John and myself were there. John covered a sweep position he saw at the De la Riva seminar, that I found interesting. It uses the entwined arm position I like but might be a little hard to get into the first starting positions. It swept well once I got there, though. I also was able to use the back flip sweep if they stood up which i also like. We the just trained 3 - 7 minutes sets and called it a day.
Just a few notes from the sets. I pulled blue John straight to X-Guard and hit the number 2 sweep right off of the bat. Mike is doing a very good job denying the completion of the pass. I get him close but he is doing well at not allowing the finish to side control. John is doing a good job hunting my feet and legs. He doesn't hit much else against me but, he is having success getting to the leg lock program and finishing.