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.

5/24/2010 - Monday

Kettlebells - Still hiding behind the hand injury. that is about to change.

BJJ - Pretty good class of people. 12-13 or so. I remain pleased with the retention rate of the new people coming to the club. We are seeing a slow trickle of people, but we keep a higher percentage than any time I have been here. We did the hook sweep position that I use quite a bit. John had some points that were different than I stress, so it was good to get a different take on it. He uses a slightly different hand position. I like mine a little more but it was interesting to see the subtle difference. It took awhile for most of them to get it, but several were doing quite well by the end. Jason in particular will be hard to stop once he figures out the first position a little better. The next variation we did was just riding over the stepped up defensive leg by continuing up. There are a lot of good positions that evolve from here. Not sure how many we will do this week, but, there are a lot of good classes from the beginning of this position. I did two sets. I took the two stripe blue belt who has joined us, Evan. He is a bit of a head hunter, looking guillotine and grabbing the head a little more than I like but he fought hard and didn't seem to mind when I raised the level of play after he grabbed my head the second time. He will be a decent training partner and a nice change of pace from some of the same sets I always see. I rolled with the purple Mike B next. Pretty good player. He plays hard but not crazy tries a very technical approach to passing and the guard when he is on the bottom. I swept, he defended, we scrambled and I ended on top. Passed the halfguard and worked and caught an Ude Garame (it was a lot harder than it sounds, there were several near escapes where he almost made it back to guard or to the turtle). When we stated again, i went for the hook sweep and after some positional movement I rolled him backl over for it, but his head was caught and his neck twisted. Not too bad, but we had to stop. I thought we should call it but he wanted to continue so I pulled again. I went to the De La Riva position and was able to take him backwards before the set ended.

Judo
Good sized class but there are a lot of injuries right now. Alma did warmups and a few drills form the clinic she attended. I focused on the one handed (lapel hand) tsurikomi Goshi because I find that many, including myself are struggling with this part of the hip throw. It took a while for most of them to get to where I thought they were making progress, but by the end there was some improvement. I emphasized going deeper and lower to get the hips to the correct position, so this works two problems, bending the knees more and keeping the lapel grip in the proper place. I am going to do this quite a bit I think this summer.
Randori was unremarkable except Greg, one of the few healthy players injured his ankle with Roman. He was just settling in for a good summer of training. i hope this doesn't discourage him after the injury lay off he just had.

We did the anatomy of a choke class for Ne waza. Most of them made some progress on being able to properly apply a choke

5/23/2010 - In House Tournament

John had the In House tournament at Josh Saper's School in New Jersey. Josh is becoming an affiliate after years of training both BJJ at Maxercise and rising to a Brown belt in Judo with me at the Philadelphia Judo Club. His space is larger, there is a parking lot, the club is a little difficult to find but overall it went well. It was actually so big and attended by enough other clubs that it would be better to call it a local tournament than an in house. All 6 Maxercise associations were in attendance, plus another 4-5 non affiliated clubs came as well. The total number of competitors was by far the largest we have done. I actually saw very few matches as I was making brackets and running the 4 mats. I kept things moving quickly and we got through everyone by 3:30. I think the model we stumbled on of one person managing the matches and keeping the mats utilized works well, if they have a good idea how to make brackets and run the divisions. Information for the tournament, results, videos, etc can be found at www.maxerciseinhouse.com (or at least I am told the pics and vids will go up).

Again I was surprised by how much of the push for all of the clubs to come and support the tournament was part of an anti Regis backlash. Half a dozen purple brown and black belts who led teams to the event came and were enthusiastic about coming to the tournament and wanting to come to the Chestnut street club to train in both BJJ and in Judo. Several of them have already been back and more are promising to come. One of them had just returned from training at Saulo's main academy in San Diego and talked about how great the training there was. I'm looking forward to being able to go and take advantage of that myself.

Unfortunately this is an example of how Regis burned so many bridges with good players and good people in the east coast BJJ community. He is a marvelous instructor and an incredible technician, but there are a lot of good, highly ranked players who won't have anything to do with anything involving him strictly for personal reasons. It has been good to see so many old friends who are so supportive. Just seeing so many new (old) training partners and the opportunities that are now available is a good thing.

Friday 5/21/2010

Open mat at the Weston - Good group, this is becoming one of my favorite classes during the week... no instruction just good hard training. 1 black, 2 brown, 1 purple, 1 blue, 1 white in the class.
I did 5 sets, 6 minutes each, one with each person. The black belt set was good. Steve B is a very technical fighter and shows some things I haven't seen before or recently. I pulled but he wanted the bottom so he pulled from my guard which is points but, not really important as I think high rank should get to choose top or bottom to begin, so i just give him the credit for selecting the bottom. I think he would be better served retaining the top and attacking my weaker position. We went back and forth from half to open guard as I worked to pass. I was able to lock him tight in a half guard that i immobilized and managed to pass. I worked to knee in the belly and then mount. Came close to a mounted choke but he escaped back to half guard. I was working the pass as time expired. The set with John was good and I am learning to watch for something. I pulled and went for a sweep which led to a scramble, and I ended on top. We reset after we were near to out of bounds. I pulled and he went one leg in on the standing pass. he spun across the outside leg and went for the knee lock and caught it. This is the second time he has caught me this way... I am going to go ahead and call it enemy action at two rather than waiting for the third time. I am going to start watching for this in particular and defend it hard. When we started up again, I pulled and went underneath the hips reversed him the bottom. I worked and passed and made it to side control and caught an Ude garame. The other three sets were pretty standard. Good workout and good sets.

Thursday 5/20/2010

Westin day class - Same as Tuesday class, technical drills and positional training. I came in cold and got an OK, sweat with sets with Blue John and Craig. Still no stand up.

BJJ Open mat was Lex, Peter and myself. We worked on chokes with peter and some passing drills with Lex.
In Judo we did some work on the Sasai Tsurkomi Ashi like Muneta threw on the Youtube clip. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCF3CvSzCnE) this is one of my all time favorite throws to watch and I would love to work on it. Hitting it in competition would be the kind of thing you could walk away from and then retire. I was working in on the pad with Lex and Greg throwing it and taking it. Then we had a visitor. I ended up spending the rest of the stand up time talking to him. If he hadn't had such an interesting story I would have been annoyed with losing the time I was actually practicing for a change. The Sasai practice for everyone went well though everyone had difficulty with the change in the angle from an outside perpendicular entry as we normally use to more of a forward up the gut entry Muneta used. This actually may be a project i work on alone.

Back to the visitor. He was a 68 year old man (Bruce) who practiced with Senseii Ishikawa at the Philadelphia Judo club in 1964 (that is not a typo). He moved and never returned to judo. He was in incredible shape for someone his age and still had his gi and brown belt from 1964. He dressed out and I had him do a little randori. He was so excited it was a great experience to see the joy he was taking in being on the mat and being thrown. He was just visiting but, I am convinced that if he was in town he would rejoin the club and get his Black Belt. It's incredible how much he still remembered after a 46 year break in terms of falling and the basics of some throws. he was a little crazy as you would expect form anyone willing to do randori after a 46 year hiatus, but was a pleasure to have with us.

In Ne Waza I talked about the elbow escape and bringing the leg over to avoid the pass. I think this is crucial and use it all of the time. It only went so so. I will have to see if anyone can actually use this.

Tuesday 5/18/2010

Westin day class - John did drills (armlock, Oma plata etc.)and positional training (back, mount, side)to get people ready for the tournament. They liked it and it helped them, though I despise positional drilling I do recognize the benefits. I would liked to have seen some repetitions on some more stand up, as I have some concern about the ability of several of them to start off of the feet. But, the positional drills went well.
2 sets of training - decent sweat, but otherwise unremarkable.

Monday 5/17/2010

BJJ - I taught the class as John was running the team training in Delaware. The classes are starting to consistently rebuild by the end of the class there were 14 people in it. the new people are staying steady an the regulars are consistent. 2 new women were in there which is always a good sign. Both did well and seem like they have a chance to stick.

I covered the half guard sweep rotating to the other side and then kipping up between the knee and hip while controlling the foot. Half had done the sweep half hadn't. first we had to fix the way everyone defended. Until uke defends properly tori, can't use the technique. Once we got that corrected, the rest went well. I had the ones who had done it do a positional drill from the position on their backs with the leg controlled. I saw some good sweeps and people reacted well to uke losing their balance and just came up. The ones who hadn't done it continued repeating. By the end everyone had done well.

We did 4 7 minute sets. I had Shannon first. He pulled, I managed to pass and he bumped. I ended up in the closed guard. He tried to split with both hands next to one another and I broke him down. we moved around but ended the set in this position. I mentioned his hand position and he seemed receptive. I also did a Dave O set. I swept him, and passed he wrapped the gi around me and held me in side control. a tactic I have never understood.

Judo We did 2 switches, the classic Harai Goshi to Tani Otoshi and then we did Osoto Gari to Harai Goshi. I emphasized not over committing to the Harai when you attack with the switch. I believe in just showing the beginning of the movement and looking for the hip cut from uke to set up the technique. I had to work to get the foot down for toris, but other than that it went well. The Osoto Gari switch to Harai was tougher, as I expected. The idea of attacking the Osoto then making one hop to change direction to Harai when Uke pushed back is a little tougher but some of them did particularly well. I saw some things that registered for me and helped some of the ones who were struggling. In terms of the angle of the attack, I emphasized hopping to where uke's hips were pointing after he cut his hip and defended, as opposed to where it was before he cut the hip. The other thing was to make sure the knee is bent after the hop to allow for power driving into the Harai. It is almost more of a bounce than a straight hop to a locked/stiff leg. We did several sets of randori.

In Ne waza we worked on the basic Guard split, posture, hand position and hip position. We did 3 sets of Ne Waza and called it a night.

Sunday 5/16/2010

Judo class - a little smaller group than i like for sundays, but they worked hard and we did some good stuff. Lex, Scott, Mike did particularly well. We worked on Kouchi Gari, for awhile. Very basic stepping pattern for it, but there were mixed results. It's a timing technique that requires a lot of reps, so that is not entirely unexpected. Next we added the concept of working for an ashi Waza technique and then following up with Drop Seoi Nage. The is went well. It actually made their ashi waza better and the drop looked very good for some of them. The concept was it's better to turn and drop if a technique fails rather than backing out of it and being countered. We did our randori sets with this rule and they went well.

We did some rubber guard into Oma Plata in Ne Waza. Some could do it easily others struggled. The flexibility requirements make it not necessarily for everyone, but it's good to see it.

Friday 5/14/2010

BJJ open mat training at the Westin. We had me, a black belt Steve K., a purple Chris, Blue John and Craig in the sets. Very good training. I had Chris twice and each of the others once. The set with Steve was the most interesting of course. He plays a very solid half guard and pulled to it. He managed to get under my hips and was trying to set me for the sweep where he goes flat on his back, then to his opposite side, catches the foot, Kips his hips up and sweeps with pressure between the knee and hip. It's a good technique but i defend it well, so I was interested to see how he did it. Very fundamentally sound and patient, I blocked it the first time but he stayed after it. Eventually I was unable to better my position and he hit the sweep. I did well in the transition, almost making it to X guard. To avoid the X guard he sacrificed his elbow discipline and I was able to use pressure on his arm to come up and take side control. I got to knee in the belly and went for a mount, but he made it to half guard again. I was able to pass this time and worked back to knee in the belly. final score was 7-2 but it was a very interesting and entertaining set. His game is tight and patient and he will make me better by working with him. Other things of note were that I later used the same sweep that Steve hit on me to Chris. it reminded me to work for it and that i like the position. Steve asked a question about my impression of kouchi Gari at the end of the time and we covered it a little. Good training today, if we add John d, Dave O and Mike B, the training level will improve even more.

Thursday 5/13/2010

BJJ Open Mat

My hand/wrist is still bothering me so no Kettlebells.

Got there and it was Eric, Peter and myself. Peter is doing a good job developing his game. He asks the right questions and pays attention to the answers. He has a limited ceiling just due to when he started but he has the tools to get his Judo Black belt and win matches, have a good time and stay physically fit. Not a bad thing to aspire too. He plays hard but has some glaring technical flaws that we can address. he is coming to the class and getting focused practice with Eric and myself, so he will get better. We rolled a couple of times.

Good set with Eric. He had good pressure and base when I pulled and after some good movement and trying several different positions, he passed. He put a few points up and I was on the defensive as time was ticking he maintained his aggressiveness and went for the armlock. I avoided it and put him on the bottom. I was able to pass and then put points up with knee in the belly, mounts and passed again. The final score may have looked a little lopsided but, he had me in a bad spot and went for the kill rather than sitting on his lead.

Judo classes have returned to there more familiar levels of 12-16 people. We did several Right on left attacks. first we took a hard right with a back grip against a hard left with a lapel grip/high grip. We puled in and stepped across for the O Goshi. Then we used the back grip to keep uke from turning to the front right, which is what makes this grip position strong against strong right sided techniques. Next we worked on the Sasai Tsurikomi Ashi from the back grip. You step around in front to generate a strong circular pull while you prop the foot.

For Ne Waza We did a stack triangle defense and pass. i reiterated that I don't encourage anyone to pick up their opponent for the technical break in class, as its more important to improve than to win. Good class.

Thursday 5/13/2010

BJJ at the Westin - I taught again, though John should be back today. I covered the drop kata guruma. Mostly went pretty well, though I saw some consistent problems some of the newer guys had that I will have to watch for in the future when I teach it. Particularly holding on to the lapel too long which ruins the angle of the entry which leading to taking the Uke straight back from back to front rather than across the yoke of the shoulders.
I did some mount attacks including the baseball choke and trapping ukes arm if he goes from the underneath the leg escape from knee in the belly.

I rolled with Mike's GF (blue belt) who was in class. She rolls well and is fundamentally sound. mentioned a few things to her i would fix, but it would be good to see her around more often and blue John who rolls fine but persist in trying to sit up too much instead of working on a more technical back game.

Tuesday 5/11/2010

Day class at the Westin - I taught class while John is away. I covered a few random things that I think were important. In particular I did the Squirt armlock from underneath which is such an important response to big guys defending the armlock by smashing the guy down. This is where you use the low hand to pull yourself through and squirt out the backside as uke continues to try to smash you. This leads to a strong armlock when he drops flat on his face as he tries to maintain the smash and pass. This looks like it will be particularly useful for Mike B.

I did the smash pass when Uke goes for the armlock, using the naked choke arm position to keep from being locked, then extricating the arm and passing. This is oen of my bread and butter techniques. I give guys shots at the armlock because I have the confidence in this technique to trade the pass opportunity for the armlock risk.

Jack is still banged up so there was an odd number and my hand/thumb is still giving me trouble so I sat out and had the others train. We only had time for two sets.

Monday 5/9/2010

Taught the BJJ class tonight while John was away. decent sized group in the class including a new blue belt and a new white belt girl as well as a new white belt guy who has some solid wrestling experience. The recovery continues in the membership. The ranks are slowly rebuilding. The competition for BJJ people in Philadelphia is so fierce due to the extremely high density of BJJ programs. It's been interesting to see new people come to the club. I do notice that we are keeping a high percentage of the people who come through the doors and do some classes. This a good sign. It's hard enough to get people on the mat, when you do you hate to see them go away. It's gratifying to get positive feedback on the classes and see so many people sticking with it.

I covered the drop Kata Guruma which is no longer legal in Judo but still a very effective technique. Mike B was lights out with it and did very well. Jason also looked good doing it. some of the others had some trouble with the correct angle to finish the technique as they were going a little too much over their head instead of across their shoulders but I think by the end, everyone was looking pretty good.

From there I had them work on taking the mount and then working for the choke. We went for the choke like I do with a thumb in first grip and a low second grip. After everyone did that, I worked on the next defense when Uke blocks the tori's elbow from descending which blocks the choke. I showed popping out to knee in the belly and using the high knee to scrape off the grip of the uke and then applying the choke. We did 3 sets of training. I trained with the new white belt girl who has great spirit but is pretty tiny. I wanted to see how she rolled before I put her with too many of the guys in class. She did fine and fights hard so will be OK, with good partners.

Judo

Smaller group than we have recently had, 12-15 people. James did his Sankyu promotion to begin class. He did very well (as did Scott as Tori) His gi ripped and he had tape stuck to his foot but, he stayed focused and did a good job. I gave a strong discussion of the benefits of doing Kata. I would like to get Lori into kata and see some of the guys do it and compete. It would be good for Alma to have more students and it would be good for all of them to improve their Judo. I would be happy to have some national kata competitors. Arianna did very well and is really improving right now. to bad it's about to be her summer away as this is a good time for her to get better. I had Alma cover the second set of the nage No Kata for Standup for everyone.

In Ne Waza I did how to reverse headhunters who attack the Sode Jimi from inside the guard. I warned them that people like Roman who attack from the position can be dangerous if you don't defend correctly. I rolled with Scott and had a good set with him, changing positions and moving through things. This was important considering how I had to smash him the last time we worked. Good class but I would like to get more consistent attendance. We peaked last year going into Am-Can but I don't think we will do that this year.

Sunday - 5/8/2010

Judo - rather small group of 6-7 people. We did some testing on a few techniques by name to see if the brown and green belts knew them and could demonstrate them. The results were disappoint. They were pretty basic throws from the first two queues. We need a better result for this.

In Ne waza we covered the dropping arm lock then talked about the yoko tomoe nage from the same attack. I' interested in doing some work on this armlock. I also ok'ed it for use in randori. I did a set with Zweli. He is doing better, but needs to play tighter. He is playing fast and loose which is hard to do against a more skilled player. He would be well served to use his strength more.

Friday - 5/6/2010

Westin Open Mat - 6 of us were there including two black belts Steve B and Steve K. also myself, Chris, blue john and craig. all in all an excellent group for training. I set it up into 5 - 7 minute matches. The matches with Craig Blue John and Chris were fine albeit fairly standard. Chris remains very susceptible to a whizzer butterlfy sweep done from the left side. Blue John tries to hard to scramble back to his feet rather than working on his back game as much as he should. Craig struggled with the knee in the belly and tapped before he should. Steve B has a very solid technical game. he moves well, though had a little trouble with the size differential. I managed to pass and get to knee in the belly. He went for the escape I think is a mistake going under the knee, I dropped and trapped it, the managed to catch the Ude Garame. Steve K was last. a bit smaller than me, but good and more athletic than Steve B, I think. I pulled and he worked to pass. He tore my pants as I was coming up which screwed us both up. I bailed and went trap and roll. My hand was caught in his pants and I had to stop when my fingers were twisted and crackled. I didn't really have much use of it the rest of the set. He pulled and I worked the pass, until time expired. Good set, despite the torn pants and the jacked up fingers. looking forward to training with them next week.

Thursday 5/5/2010

Open Mat - BJJ
I did a Kettlebell work out on the mat upstairs. I like doing it there with my IPOD playing, I think. I am going to try to get there early enough to do my thgursday work out in this format. The work out was good. I emphasized strength and endurance over flexibility, but, it's a good fit for me right now.

Sarah came up and Eric S arrived. We both rolled with Sarah several times as she was getting ready for a big tournament and needed to sweat a few pounds. Covered a few fundamental technical mistakes she was making, but, she is a pleasure to coach. She listens and learns easily. He flexibility is almost too good and her fighting spirit is excellent. She could use some focus on her strength training for power and we will continue to fix some Ne Waza flaws, but her ceiling is very high and she has a great attitude.

Judo class is returning to it's more typical numbers of 12-15 rather than 18-20. I love having the bodies in class and prefer that, but it is easier to teach the smaller group particularly when there are mostly advanced players in the group. I covered some Ukemi, namely taking essentially a Kota Gaeshi fall to work on keeping the hip closed to the fall and not pancaking out of it. Better for tori to throw and much better for uke to take. Then, we transitioned to working on the basic tai otoshi. This is clearly not my best technique but, everyone needs to understand it and while I may not use it much I do have a good grasp of the fundamental elements of the technique. Falling better helped everyone throw better as well.

We did some Tokui Waza, for about 10 minutes then 3 sets of 5 minute randori. All in all, good sets, pretty hard competitive play without being too crazy.

We worked on taking the choke when uke turns away from you in Ne waza. Anticipate the turn, and as uke turns away, drive your hand deep across and secure the choke grip use the second hand to tighten the choke, then do a shin roll and pull uke up into your lap. Use the leg on the same side as the choking hand to peel off the defending hand of uke, grab the pants at the knee of uke with the non choking hand, arch your back and get the tap. I use this quite often and consider it a fundamental part of my game. They had, what I thought was surprising difficulty executing this. In general, there was a failure to get deep enough grips with the first hand. Tori didn't anticipate and react to the turnout by uke quickly and aggressively enough, which led to shallow grips and difficulty finishing the strangles. There was also confusion in executing the shin roll to get to the final choking position. I think this is an easy technique that will serve everyone well, so we will revisit it soon.

3 sets of ne waza and we called it a night.

Thursday 5/5/2010

I taught the day class at the Westin. I did some stand up due to the upcoming tournament and took advantage of John being away to do a little off of the feet. I did a belt grip attack for the crouching lurker, which how all too many bjj people fight off of their feet. The first one was essentially a low Georgian throw, without the pick up part. I more just rotated the Uke to his back over his left shoulder. I then did a belt grip Ouchi Gari. I reminded them to make sure they square back up as this will make the back take harder for the uke who has been thrown. Lastly we covered a basic Kimura from the straddled head position, breaking the grip free then applying the arm lock.

2 sets of Ne Waza - Chris D and blue John. I am feeling a little sluggish and heavy. Need to get back to the diet. 10 lbs. is just the tip of what i need to lose but it's a real tipping point in how I feel in terms of mobility and cardio.

Need to do some catching up. I missed a few classes due to attending the draft for my "Spring Break" then missed back to back Mondays to support Beth and her need for time to complete her Calculus course. So I am just going to bang out the classes i made and any special notes.

4/26 Monday
No class - Baby duty.

4/27 Tuesday
Day class at the Westin - Check

4/29 Thursday
Day class at the Westin - Check

4/29 Thursday
 Kbells - I think my new routine will be to do Kettlebells on my own on Thursday. I devised my own work out. I didn't make it through the workout as designed so i will have something to work towards. If I get to the point that i can complete it, then I can add an exercise or raise the weight.
This stupid blog program won't let me copy and paste it so I will have to add the workout later.

BJJ Open Mat - Check

Judo - This was Miguel's last class with us. He has graduated and will be returning. We promoted him to Sankyu. He has been a great asset to us during his time at the club. We went out afterwards and I was pretty hammered.

We promoted Miguel to Brown belt. He deserves it quite easily and his throwing skills are on a black belt level. to celebrate his promotion and bid him farewell. We all took turns throwing him. Our new tradition for all of our promotions.


Friday 4/30 Open mat at the Westin
Good work Chris left early, and Steve B. came in and joined. so he will add a lot to the training. I did some sets and had a few nice rolls. The sets with Steve were good as his game is very solid and a little different than I am used to seeing. I didn't catch him but scored a few times and avoided giving up any points. It will be good to see how the games develop as I work with him more. I also hit a few flippies on Craig. he was shocked as a 200+ pounder doesn't expect to get flipped.

Sunday 5/1 Judo
I did some fits and throws with Lex. I felt pretty good and felt good taking some throws. I worked on the hikikomi Gaeshi with him as I think I realized what the trouble was for his execution of the technique.
I tested them Nick, Sarah, Lex and James) on several throws to see if they knew what they were by name. They did poorly so we will have to work on this.

I did the over-under pass in Ne waza as Lex wanted to work on passing directly to side control rather than to half guard.

Monday - 5/2 Judo
No class - baby duty.

Tuesday Day class at the Westin.

2 sets of training -Chris and blue John.

Monday 4/11/2010

Missed Kbells. They were prepping for some F'ing Deniro movie replacing all of the signage etc to make the street look like Manhattan an as a result everything was blocked or bound up. So I was late.

Taught BJJ - 6 people in class despite the 8 people away at PanAms and the crosstrainers who fought in Judo who took the night off, so not too bad. Also had a new prospect who seemed interested and Dave's niece Linda did the class.

I covered the half butterfly hook sweep, freeing the leg when it's trapped and re-engaging for the sweep and coming up via the shin roll to sweep them backwards if the pull away. They got the technique and trained well so it was a good class.

Judo was good albeit a little small in the post tournament malaise. Art will give the Sato disappointing his instructor speech on Thursday for those who haven't heard it. We did Sasai Tsurikomi Ashi and Kouchi Gari then gave time for tokui waza.#-4 sets of randori.


For Ne Waza we worked on triangles. Mike the new white belt started to develop his and I think has  a very promising future in general and with this technique in particular. His body is a natural for it. Christine did a very good job coaching through it. Ne Waza was fine. One of the guys played a little heavier than i would have liked with Ariana. I took him next and played hard with him, tapping him repeatedly and generally roughing him up. To His credit he recognized that something was different and inquired. Most of the times I have had to put it on someone like this they just take it and don't try to learn from it. I just told him to back it off a little in the future with the light girls. He understood and processed the information well. His understanding made me have even higher hopes for him.

4/10/2010 - Liberty Bell Tournament

The Liberty Bell tournament was this Sunday so class was canceled. Out club turnout was very solid and in general we did well. I will update this post as I have time to complete it. The new venue was good, but farther away and needed more space. It did feel much cleaner and less rundown than Lincoln High school.

Paula and Ariana fought Saturday in the Juniors divisions. Christine and Alma went to the tournament site and coached. This is laudable as it was neither close nor easy for them, but they stepped up to represent the coaches. the Juniors divisions were very competitive with excellent national level players in many divisions. Paula went 1-1 which says a lot about the level of competition. Ariana went 0-2 and fought hard but was in a little over her head when you look at the quality of the competition. If she will stick it out as she grows and fills out and fully discovers her technical skills, she will be a dangerous competitor

The Sunday competition went well. (In no particular order, just how they popped in my head.)
James threw an ippon which was great, but he continues to be vulnerable to seoi nage. Not really surprising as he is tall and a little stiff in the hips, plus he is a good uke all of which lends itself to being a seoi nage target. I might have him spend a lot of time with Lex throwing him in the seoi so he learns the feel of the attack and thus learns to defend it better.

Eric J. was a little frustrated I think as he was in a round robin 2 man division, which is annoying to pay full price for it. He lost his matches to a guy who he could definitely beat. His only problem is he isn't training enough. it's hard to play at a high level when you are just training once a week. I spoke to him about making a twice a week commitment until after Am-Cans.He also holds on to his grips too long after his technique has failed which leaves him vulnerable to be turned. Silver

Paula played well. She went 2-2 with a quality win and two tough losses. her losses to were to good players one in a scoreless match where she lost a referee decision after golden score, and the other she beat on Saturday via Ippon. She was thrown for a late Yuko, and her opponent ran from her the rest of the set. she just needs to work on her offense a bit as he defense is fine. But, really she has been training lightly as she finishes her senior year, Her opponents are training every day and barely beating her. Bronze (I think?)

Lex took 2nd in 90 kgs and 3rd in 81 kgs. He was armlocked in 90 by a bjj purple belt which will be a good learning experience for him. He was up a wazari and got careless for just a minute. He mostly dominated this division and was the best Judo player in it. The purple belt couldn't take him down at all but had the skills to catch him. a little better focus and learning better armlock defense will solve this issue. In 81 Kgs. we need to work on a way to get past the one sided stiff arm Miguel was using to defend. i want to work on the Sasai from that position to break up the defense. He was countered by another player and that will be solved by working on staying forward to avoid the counter. His opponent was sloppy and the referee was piss poor. The counter should have been yuko at best wazari, but was called ippon. He and Miguel were the class of the division. He showed great spirit technique and conditioning, Most of his problems will be solved with experience and some very minor fine tuning. I do want to review the way he was going for clock chokes and the advanced Paula. He had the wrong hand in too many times and didn't grab the shoulder I wold have liked to see him tap a few guys with it and end the match easier. Silver and Bronze

Miguel played very well. He and Lex were the class of the 81kgs division. He is very difficult to throw. he only allowed one score in 5 matches when he was countered for ippon in a match he was dominating by wazari and yuko to nothing when he got careless. His offense is very solid. I enjoy working with him and will be sad to see him leave us to return to Mexico. He has been an excellent addition tot he club while he has been here. Silver

Chris had a great day going 3-2, throwing 2 ippons won a bronze medal and playing very well. He still has some problems with posture and I want to take away the lunging Tani otoshi he tries as it again got him ipponed when he missed. Under a risk - reward model, it's not worth it. But all in all he [played well, had agood results and I was very happy for him. Bronze

Greg did a huge weight cut cutting 35 lbs in just over three weeks. He said he felt fine but he looked a little slow and sluggish compared to the explosive powerhouse I am used to seeing. he hasn't fought a tournament in 9 months due to the time off with the injury. I am looking forward to seeing him fight again without the big cut. He still went 1-2 with an ippon off of the Uchi mata-Kouchi Gari switch and took a bronze, but I know he was disappointed as he has high standards for himself. Bronze

Sarah looked great and did great winning a gold and totally outclassing her opponent. The downside was they bumped her down to novice where she did totally outclass her opponent. Hard to say much from these matches except congratulations and her job is to beat whoever is in front of her which she did with aplomb. In the future her matches will be more challenging. Gold


Joe C fought masters where he fought Lawrence twice. He has so much experience on lawrence this wasn't a very fair matchup. He threw ippons as you would expect. He also for some strange reason foought seniors where he fought hard but was outclassed by guys less than half his age. Gold

Lawrence Fought masters and drew Joe twice. He fought hard but the experience disparity made this a rather unfair match. i would have liked to see him get some players from another club to fight. Silver

Nick is an interesting case. He fights hard but seems to get thrown by people he should beat his stand up is solid and his matwork is solid but he seems to get overpowered and outgripped and overwhelmed by aggression sometime. When he settles in and gets to work he does fine, but, when he is grabbed aggrssively and yanked around he can get tossed . I need to work on his posture and controlling the match with grips and movement, instead of being dragged around and chased. he reminds me of one of our players from back in the day and I need to work on solving this as he is a great training partner and a very valuable member of the club and I want him to be rewarded for his hard work. Bronze

We had a strong turnout in the black belts who weren't competing to coach and assist. Several injuries and life issues kept us from having even more competitors, but we still had an excellent showing. Great to see so much support for the club. I would love to have even more students and have some of the guys who have quit come back, but I really love this group. It's one of the best we have had in my 15+ years in the club.

4/7/2010

Westin day class. Just Blue John showed up. We covered some guard passing ideas that give me trouble. Less technical than strategic and philosophical... Hopefully it will help him.

Open Mat BJJ - Just Judo people were there. I trained for about 5 minutes with Eric s and we had a decent set. I had a little soreness but no reoccurrence of my injury.

Judo had the last class before the tournament. Well attended with 23 people. Good hard low impact training. I started to run the people who still needed to cut weight but realized ti was too soon, as they had a day left to wait to weigh in, so we got a good sweat and worked on technique and called it a night.

Tuesday 4/5/2010

Good group at the Westin Day class. two on one attacks by John. Still on the IR. I tried to train a little but my rib twinged in the first 30 seconds so I had the sense to stop.

Monday 4/4/2010

Kettlebells Decent. There is a little more joint mobility.

John covered some 2 on one attacks in BJJ. Still can't train due to the rib pull.

In Judo, more of the same,  lots of tokui waza and hop randori, then turtle turn practice for Ne waza then a few sets of training.

Sunday 4/3/2010

Easter Sunday class. surprisingly well attended. We drew 10 people. and did some good training. We did some hop randori and three man drills. Good numbers of fits and throwing. We didn't fight much as we are just a week from Liberty Bell.  We did some rounds of clock chokes and turnovers. I talked a bit about why I don't like the tricep (as opposed to the hip) version of a clock choke. Some Ne Waza then called it a day.

Here  is the link to the March Randori High Lights.

Thursday 4/1/2010

Day class at the Westin - Small group though John's apprentice Mike was there. He will be a good training partner. He plays a solid technical game, is young and plays hard but not crazy.

We did some more half guard attacks, working for the underhook, then sweeping or taking the back. the we worked the half guard reversal closing the triangle above the knee and sweeping them backwards.

I trained with mike and he worked a solid pass attempt. I escaped and fed him a triangle to attack and then passed him from it. he escaped to his turtle. I worked for a clock choke then had a small pop in my right rib. First time I have had that injury in years. I forgot how much it sucks. I hid the rest of the set, but didn't quit. I rolled a short one with one of the white belts to keep the sets even. I pulled nad just maintained guard and let him work but not succeed. Hopefully this won't linger.

Tuesday 3/30/2010

Day class at the Westin - good class 8 people counting John and myself. John taught some half guard attacks. I was still feeling a little sore from the sunday training (which speaks volumes about where I am in my training) so I sat out the training.

Monday 3/29/2010

No Kettlebells, No BJJ, No Judo Had to go to New York for Seder. No comment.

Sunday - 3/28/2010

Sunday Judo class.- Smaller class than I would like considering the Liberty Bell tournament is so close to us. We did have a very good class for the 7 of us that were there. I worked in quite a bit and felt good to work prety hard. We did some uchikomis to warm up and then did three man power drills. I had Eric J and Lex in my group. Good group and good sets. Lex felt very strong on his lift as I would expect. Eric also was really firing off and driving strongly. We did three man throwing drills back and forth next. I threw Harai and got through my set fairly quickly. I was getting a little sloppy but kept up a good pace. Eric threw left sided which is good for me to feel. I don't fight as many lefties and I should and this will be good for me, especially with Greg also fighting left. and Lex willing to attack left as well. Lex threw his seoi and it felt good to take. Good to feel a big well executed technique like this. Eric was jangled by one of the throws and we switched Nick in to finish the set. We played two sets of king of the hill, a heayweight group and a lightweight group. So it remained Lex, Eric and myself. We played golden score, winner stayed but, if there was no score in 90 seconds the player entering the match stayed. I threw a few, hit a few sacrifices and counters. Eric and Lex each threw me a few times and split some matches between themselves. Nice workout and a good group.

We did turtle turn tokui waza then did Ne waza. I worked with Eric. He managed to pass me and held me for a bit, but I escaped and came up behind him I caught the rudder armlock attacking his turtle when I caught his arm with my high leg, blocked the elbow with my low knee and then applied it. Good to work with Eric as he is one of the few people I work with who has a chance to pass me much less hold me.

Thursday 3/25/2010 - How I've become a Phil Neikro

I never really make titles for my entries as I don't want to invest the time to make each of them clever, and if they aren't clever, it's a waste of time, but I had a terrible revelation as I was writing this that i wanted to recall. The relevant passage is in bold so i can find it easily if I look for it.

Day class at the Westin. No Chris today and was a small group (me, 2 johns and Craig) John did the closed guard, flip to turtle sweep and an Oma Plata attack from the same position. He also covered an interesting position he uses that I hadn't seen in awhile. Uke stands, tori underhooks behind the ankle of the uke and comes off of the closed guard but keeps his hips up. Pull the sleeve of uke up a bit to make space and put the right foot in the left armpit of the uke. keep the foot in the armpit. Drop the other foot down to the other foot of the uke. there is a nice knee lock entry here, or push the far foot of the uke with tori's left foot while pushing him back with your foot in his armpit. He goes over surprisingly easily. I rolled two short sets with Craig and blue John, just enough to break a sweat. Decent class.

BJJ Open mat
Just Judo folks here. We covered a few questions then trained. Katie was getting a bit frustrated trying to get a split to work her pass. I showed her how I do it and she seemed to fell better about it. I rolled once with Craig. He is a really big strong son of a gun. He is smart also. He has made a good technical decision to work on his half guard. It's a good technique selection for him and he is improving there.

Judo. 13 people I have been getting a little spoiled with the huge classes but this is actually an easier class to teach.  We did Drop Seoi Nage for 10-15 minutes then another 15-20 minutes of tokui waza. Then randori.

I jumped in and did some of the randori. I did a 5 min set with Eric. He is a good training partner. I hit a Sasai and a few knock down techs, but nothing big. He came close but didn't get me over a few times.
I had a 5 min with James. It's a reminder of how far my technique has fallen. I can''t get in on him with my harai and its maddening. I can feel the time for it, but can't trigger the attack. i can knock him down with stuff if I want to but I have always been a big technique player now I throw junk, it works I guess but its not what i want. I just saw an analogy to a baseball pitcher who blows out his shoulder or even just gets old. He had a big fastball and it was fun to throw it hard down the middle and overpower people and strike them out. then he blew out his shoulder and got old and lost the fastball, so he retires or he learns to be a junkballer.   He learns to throw slow curves, changeups, knuckleballs  and whatever offspeed crap he can find to get someone out. I am sort of saying this to be funny but I am also horrified by this. I genuinely don't know if I can accept this. I was never Dwight Gooden but my fastball had to be respected even by good players. Now it's gone. Perhaps never to return. My only consolation is at this point 95% of judoka retire... at least I haven't quit.

I did a set with Greg on his feet. He really is a beast, feeling very strong. I almost hit an Osoto Gari, then he switched to left and really screwed me up. I managed to stay near the wall so there was interference when he woud have thrown me, but it was definitely intimidating when he came in strong on the left side. I hit a Sumi Gaeshi as time expired but that was it.

We did turtle turning tokui waza 10 up turtle turns and 10 flat turtle turns.
We did ne waza to resolution 3 groups of 4 Christine won her group, Allesandro won his group of middle weights and Eric won the heavyweight group.

Tuesaday - 3/23/2010

Day class at the Westin. - Good group, 8 of us there. John had a new guy who did well and trained. Kevin was in from the night group. I covered the first two of the half guard passes Fredson did with us last Friday. They did well and cemented some of the ideas of the passes by teaching them. They had decent sets so John and i stayed out and let the 6 of them train. Not much of a workout, but, it was good for me to teach and think about the passes.

Monday 3/22/2010

Monday- Kettlebells good but, I needed to up the weight a bit. alma and John noted a form break I was having on my 2 hand swings whihc my have caused or exacerbated my recent spate of back issues. Have to wath it.

BJJ - Fredson taught class again. It was again a really excellent class and reminded me of how good BJJ classes can be. The classes with John have been useful and enjoyable but I haven't had classes this good since Urso was here. He assured us he will be back soon. This is a great sign. it's good to start feeling like we are getting back into the BJJ community. For years we were isolated from the east coast community and the local scene, which was a waste considering all fo the great schools and players, not to mention good friends int he area that we weren't seeing. But, for awhile were also weren't seeing any of the Brazilians come through. This really leads to stale, monotonous BJJ. Now it seems we  may be getting the best of both worlds. Back training and sharing knowledge with the east coast community and also seeing some of the Brazilians coming through town. Fredson is excellent, and he indicated that some of Saulo's other black belts and instructors will be back in philadelphia soon.

To the class - Had a great class and saw 2 things I have never seen before. One was a variation of a half guard attack and the other was a whole new approach for me to attack the half guard that leads to a lot of different opportunities. will record them and practice them. I am actually excited to do some reps ont he positions. Trained with Dave O. forced my way to one of the half guard passes from Friday and was able to make it work, despite how tightly he was clinging to the position. Once I passed i tapped with a choke from side control. Rolled with Fredson next. I pulld to X guard. Funny as I used the same entry he taught me 7-8 years ago. I think I surprised him that I went for it. I got there, and worked some sweep attempts. He defended very well and managed to beat one of my hooks I bailed to a turtle as he was passing . He worked my side and back. i prevented hooks and we stalemated for a bit. He had an under the arm cross the back grip. i went trap and roll, he floated around it and sunk the grip in very deep. He was under the arm, so despite the tightness and pressure i didn't think he could catch me there... then I woke up. We started again and he pulled, i was working my pass and getting into it when he swept, i bailed as he came up and he came to my back. The set ended before he got his hooks. Very enjoyable training. would love to be able to train like that every day.

Judo had 18 people. Class started with several promotions. Scott Sorrentino was Uke for the first three sets of the Nage No Kata to complete his requirements for Sankyu. He and James did a superb job. Very few Green belts could do nage No Kata like that. Peter McNeil wa promoted to Green belt/Yonkyu. Very proud of Peter. Starting Judo at +40 and fighting in class and tournaments as he has done isn't easy. It's a privilege to be able to coach guys like these two. Truthfully we have a wonderful bunch right now. there aren't any olympians, but I would take this group over most every day. Good attitudes, hard workers, and genuinely nice people. The club is very fortunate to have all fo them right now.

We do Tokui Waza for 40 minutes or so, then did Randori. 4 good sets across the board 3-5 mins and 1 3 min set. Christine has lloked very good since she recommitted to her randori. paula did well but, turned and ankle over. Chris S, showed some good techniques. He always fights hard, but sometimes gets by on intensity and effort. His techniques looked good. 12 of the people here tonight indicate they plan on competing at Liberty Bell. There are others who say the same but weren't in class. Would be great to bring 15+ competitors. I think we will.

Ne Waza - Did sets of turtle turns. made a few tweaks here and there to improve some things.

We did more Ne Waza to resolution and used the lightest wins tie breaker to avoid draws.

Friday 2/19/2010

Fredson was in town and come to teach class. Excellent class, he fixed and explained a lot of the problems I was having with some of the half guard passes I was seeing last fall. I wil describe them elsewhere but I liked them a lot and have begun using them as alternatives to the better hald guard players. In some ways I think that they are complex and have quite a few moving parts. They work well against more advanced half guard players, but my old staples work well against most (90% or so) of half guards, but it will be good to have some alternatives against the more skilled players. Have to say it was a real pleasure to work with Fredson. Easily the best class I have had soince Urso left. Trained three sets. All in all, a very good night.

Thursday 2/18/2010

Day class at the Westin. I rolled with chris and John D. The John d set reminded me I need to work on some alternatives for the De La Riva psoition with him as he defends it well. He caught the leg in the middle and we fought so hard over who would come up he ripped the pants i was wearing. The rest of the set was strongly afected by both of us working around the torn pants. Once I get him down he has difficulty coming up, but he is playing well right now, so I have to play better to gethim down.

Open mat - coverd some ideas for Greg, Lex and Peter then rolled a few quick sets. Eric worked on another sweep from his cross spider position that should help him with the guys who try to pass standing. i did a few things that seemned to ehlp them. I covered turning bakc inside to go belly down rather than turning away. Peter and Greg both did this when we trained and avoided a pin. We also covered the trap and roll pin escape Ronnie and I devised back at the Y, which I haven't done with anyone in years. I had a kneeling program request after i used ti to devour the room last week. I will have to see if i can work it out when we have the right group.

Judo had 18 people in it. I had a plan to work myself into the sets and do some wrk for myself, but, it didn't work out that way. I covered not wrecking each others knees with Ouchi grai. i needed tp cover this as we have had a recent bad knee injury. We worked on a good ouchi gari and not grounding ourselves on our entry or allowing Uke to ground us freezing our attacking leg to the ground which leaves us vulnerable to to kosoto gake/tani otoshi across the outside of the knee, which is exceedingly dangerous.So we working on the Ura nage instead. not what i was planning but ti was important to cover it.

I intended to do a simple technique and then get a lot of ne waza in, since i wanted to train, but, I called an audible and did the turning inside to get to the turtle to avoid pins. It went so well for Peter and Greg I felt they all needed to see it. It took some time but went well eventually and should help them.

KBell challenge I got 31/30 with the 24. The extra weight it scaring my shoulder a bit. I might go back to the 20 to get more reps and go for cardio over power. have to think about it.

Tuesday 3/16/2010

Day Class at the Westin. Craig has been doing well and working hard. he did well with Mike today. i think he may have frustrated Mike a bit as Craig has a few months less experience. Also learned that one of our other MIa white belts tore a rib at the in house, which is why he has not been on the mat.John did some Uke Garame from butterfly. 2 sets with Chris and John.

Monday 3/16/2010

I made it late so no Kettlebells.
BJJ - decent class with 11 people in it including 5 white belts who are all relatively new. John did some half guard passing work. He did the tripod version of the escrima pass and the head control pass. We do some elements of these techniques differently, but, the class in general got it, though they struggled with some of the leg positioning and when and how to either cross the knee or pull the foot.

My game felt off. Not sure if it was because I didn't do much but assist during the class, so I was cold, if I was still feeling a bit beat up from a few hard Judo classes, but, I think part of it was i was feeling a bit lethargic from not dieting better. I need to diet better as it will make me play better and looser.

I did 4 sets.

Dave O. I let him get some movement as he attempted to pass trusting to always be able to recover but I was a little slow and he made it to Half guard. i worked but it took me quite a while to sweep back to the top. I passed the haldguard abut Dave defended the next positions well and the set ended.

had Shannon next - He has been playing well, His base is so good he is difficult to sweep and he passes well. I had to bail to a turtle and he went for the wrestling arm lever and was the first person since John zilcoski to get me over with it. I managed to get back to my turtle eventually and finally got him to the bottom in his half guard. I nearly passed but he regained the half guard and time expired. Have to really watch that arm lever as he does it very well. Found out he was an assistant wrestling coach at Princeton, so I can really feel the wrestling skills coming through.

Worked with one of the new white belts who had played a little hard with his wife. I squished him some to be funny, but, he fought hard and stayed active the whole. he has more upside than i realized.

Then had a nice set with Frank. Tried to play pretty light, he managed to step off my hook in the X guard. I managed to reverse him anyway. rolled the rest of the set, he went spider but I slipped it and went knee in the belly. good set.

Judo - 18 people. We did some Uchi Mata and then some Tokui Waza. 3-4 randori sets Lee was in though his knee is a mess.

We did some grip breaks from the cross juji gatame position. I did the basic attack the grip with power then did the reversed elbows, then worked on coming up to the Uki Gatame.
We did Ne waza sets and then called it a night. Decent class, albeit not outstanding.

Sunday - 3/15/2010

Judo Class - Jason Y stayed after the team training and I wanted to do something that would be good for him but also not risk him lasding on anyone, so I revisited the Sasae Trurikomi Ashi-Osoto Gari-De Ashi Harai series, but entered at the Sasae, rather than the Osoto gari. Eric Johnson was there and he worked with Jason and did a a very good job. He has all the makings of a solid instructor.
We did some randori next. Eric had Jason and realized how big guys can feel sometimes as Jason looked like he dwarfed Eric.I took Z and had an interesting set. he threw a Te Guruma that got me over in good form. the next time he picked me up I threw him in the Sumi Gaeshi. He banged his forehead into my mouth and loosned a tooth slightly before he went over.

I took Eric next. hard set as he is big, strong and mostly plays left. He hit a drop left sided Tai Otoshi a la Big Tony. Good techniques for him. He also caught me with a foot sweep. I got him down with a foot sweep back but failed in my forward attacks. Hard sets but fun.

We went back to the Juji turnover (Russian version) for around 20+ minutes.

For Ne Waza we did 2 groups of four with 5 minute sets. I had Lex, Zweli then Eric. I pulled and swept all of them. I hit a whizzed butterfly sweep with Eric and pinned him. woudl be interesting to roll in a bjj format where the set could continue a bit more technically rather than settling for the a pin and then being over.

Went much better than Thursday.

Thursday 3/11/2010

BJJ open mat - Eric and I covered a few things with Lex who had severaal questions. Eric also worked on another few attackes from his cross spider position that were fun. I want to get back to working on this position a bit. There was a particularly cool response to the Uke ducking their under the high leg.

Judo smaller class but still 11 people. sets of 25 uchikomis and the we did speed throwing. I did this with everyone else and was the second fastest finished along with eric S, who was my partner. We lost to Chris and arrianna, but finished ahead of everyone else. I felt good doing it but have to admit it tired me more than it should have. I was also a bit sore from all of the falls which I haven't taken lately. We did the outside Sumi Gaeshi and the class did well with it. I liked the way paula was doing it as she was throwing well and then riding the momentum to the mount. I'd like to see her incorporate this into her technique set.

Good randori sets. I am working in, though my stand up still hasn't come back to what I want it to be. 

We did some ne waza tokui waza which seems to be a good idea. htere isn't enough drilling done on the ne waza techniques for my taste. Having a good matwork technicque requires repetitions like stand up techniques.

Ne waza - We had 10 people training so I did the play to resolution style approach. Everyone had 9 matches 3 min each. The intensity level was disappointing. Not sure if the room was tired from the hard work in randori and nage komi, but the ne waza wasn't as spirited as I would have liked. I switched from my normal guard pull approach to a more competitive kneeling program approach. I backdropped and pinned everyone except arriana and Eric S. They both pulled. I caught Eric in a guard transition and passed him. I went 9-0 and encouraged everyone to raise the level of their efforts to win the set. Couple of suggestions were that there were too many sets, so people were saving their strength and there were too many draws, will try fewer longer sets and institue a ti breaker rule of lighter person wins a draw.

Thursday 3/11/2010

John is in Florida so I coveered the day class at the Westin.
i covered the mount escape for Craig and everyone needed the reps on it. I showed how I take and hold the mount, bu closing my feet and then working for a choke. With the pairs i had I ran one long set of Craig and Mike and Chris and John. Hopefully will do an hour of training tomorrow with them.

Tuesday 3/9/2010

Taught the westin class for John as he was being tatooed. Crig had asked about closed guard submissions. Rather than revisit the basic cross choke or the juji gatame or triangle, I introduced the Oma Plata. I did it like I taught the judo class last week, elbow escaping to one side, while freeing the far knee while simultaneously brining the near side leg up for beginning of the Oma Plata position. bring the foo over the near shoulder, close the triangle and stay there. I did the breakdown that Xandre showed at the seminar a few years ago, which I have success and even showed the wrist lock (Kota Mawashi - sp?). I trained with john and Craig. Good class but would be nice to have a few more people and a few more minutes.

Monday 3/8/2010.

Kettlebells - a couple of minutes late but a good class anyway. Not as tough as last week, but still good.

BJJ tired so I didn't work in much. decent numbers with 10+ people including several new white belts one of which is a promising woman. John worked on Ude Gatame from the butterfly guard and then from closed guard. They did better with the second one. We debated was it because the closed guard version is easier to learn or did the work on the butterfly version help them with the closed guard. Kind of a chicken and the egg arguement but next time I teach it I will switch the order and see how they do.

I only did one set with Dave Oh. He will be OK on top at Pan Ams, but his guard game still needs work. He clings tightly with the half guard but still needs to improve his offense there. He really needs to win the takedown fight.

Judo 17 people. (2 bjj people - Frank and Dave)I am getting spoiled with the 20+ people per class lately but his was a good group. We did speed throwing with a 20 pushup incentive not to finish last. Lex is a brilliant thrower but usually loses this as he tends to be a little deliberate between his throws and get ups. he is in such good shape he doesn't feel any urgency to win speed contest.

We did ashi waza tokui waza for 15 minutes, with 4 fits and a throw bakc and forth.

Then I worked on the Sumi Gaeshi from the belt grip. Good for everyone to see this but I especially wanted to tweak how Lex is doing it after he was ipponed at the Spatak tournement from this technique the past weekend. This went well and I saw some solid improvement.

4 randori sets. Lots of good randori all across the board. Isidor is going to be a huge addition if he sticks it out, good for everyone that works with him. Sarah has also been a godsend. Exactly waht i needed as a solid ccompetive woman as a bridge between the ones coming up and the black belts.

We did Kesa Gatame escapes. Then we did Ne Waza. I did 4 groups of 4 fighting to a resolution. They liked it, but the only concern was the down time for people who win their matches early and have to wait around for the full 5 minutes to expire. I might try 4 minutes next time Will also suggested 5 man groups with a floater coming in to replace the loser, as losses are suffered. I will noodle on this as i like the idea, but have to find the format I like the best.

Sunday 3/7/2010

I missed the team training, too much baby duty to make it in time. Too bad, as there was a very good turnout including several purple belts with whom I don't normally get to train.

Judo was solid with 10 or so of us. I worked on Ashi Waza drills and then for Randori I did golden score king of the hill. Happy to have a very competitive 4 girl group. Alma, christine, Paula and Sarah. Not many clubs could bring 3 good black belts and a good brown belt to their womens group.

I worked in the men's side. I got through most of the group but then Joe and I did 90 scoreless seconds so we went to the back. I came in on Lex and he did a good job getting me to chase him and he hit a good Kouchi Gari. i won a few more but as time was going to expire I chased Joe too hard and he threw me with a drop seoi nage. Fun stuff good group for it I will do more of this.

We did the flip from the open guard. I brough the baby in demonstrate how you should be able to control the roll all fo the way to the bottom and you should go over the top to take the mount. Fun her first class participation. I did the helicopter armlock too. The idea was that this is a difficult technique that flows from the flip and makes the flip seem easy and gives you confidence. they actually did pretty well with it. It was also helping some of them do a better job capturing the hear for the armlock from the side a bit earlier. Later I told Beth, it's a tough technicque but the focus was getting them to have confidence and try the flip more than the helicopter. i compared it toteching them a calculus problem and then the the algebra II problem trey just tried seems easy by comparison. we'll see if anyone actually uses it.

I experimented playing matwork sets to a resolution. Each 4 person set did round robing and when someone caught an armlock, choke or pin, the set was over. I like how competitive this makes things. It also gives everyone incentive to work on winning. the girl's group had three 2-1 with Chris winning as the lightest (tiebreaker) she also hit a wicked armlock on paula and actually popper her arm a little, but they all played well. Sarah will do better and better in this group as i refine a few of her techniques.

Lex won the men's group with a 3-0 record. His pins looked good.

Saturday 3/6/2010

Made it too Saturday class, but John and I spent the class working on some takedowns with some of the potential Pan-am competitors. Didn't do much myself, but, at least I was there this week. A few different faces came to the second class but, I had to leave.

Thursday March 4, 2010

BJJ Open mat - Me, Katie, Lex and Greg. Eric came in a little late due to some traffic issues.Greg asked about playing some half guard.. I covered the basic cross the arm and rolling reverse them. Pretty simple but effective. Had to tweak them a bit to get them to go underneath uke as aggressively as I wanted. Then I did burrowing underneath them swinging the legs to the opposite side, catch the foot with your free hand. Then Kip up and sweep them backwards. As you would expect, they had a little trouble with it but got better. Rolled with Katie and Greg. Katie is playing pretty well. sometimes she gets competitive enough that I can see her get frustrated. As long as she can channel this into staying focused and improving her technique and not let the frustration make her impatient and have her technique break down, she will do well. Greg is making a sound decision in looking at half and open guard games. He isn't well built to play closed and is so physically overpowering he can force the sweep game as long as he keeps himself from being flattened out. Once he is on hhis back he is hard to hold but he has a hard time coming up.He would be well served by improved flexibility but he's smart, has solid instincts, his takedowns can be devastating and it never hurts to be the strongest guy in the room.

Judo - 20 people again, haven't had a run of classes this size since I have been at the club (15 years) And it's been different faces so we could really hit some big numbers. 2 very good prospects. Paul Lattimers daughter Laura was in with her boy friend Marty. She trained for 6 years as a juvenile, he has 6 classes or so. They are students and seem interested in getting back into it. Also had a Secret Service agaent who will be in town for a week or so. He is a recently promoted shodan.
I covered Harai as i had promised Katie that I would. I entered from the cross grip sequence. We did 15 minutes or so of Harai then another 15 minutes of Tokui Waza. Then 4 or 5 sets of randori. Good sets. I did 5 pairs so a few had to sit each round. Greg hit an  Ippon against Eric as Eric was going for a belt grip attack. Eric wnet for a belt grip Harai and Greg attacked the standing leg with a Tani Otoshi/Kosoto Gake attack. It was very well timed and is an interesting counter to the Belt grip attack.
For Ne Waza I went back to the Oma Plata from Monday, but, covered taking the Uke backwards for the sweep when they pick you up. Had a little trouble at first but they got it by the end. Then we did the stepping over the head for the Ude Garame armlock.
I jumped into the Ne waza, took Migel and swept and worked him, wnet for the back and choke but he really buries his chin, when he turtled i switched to the juji turnover, Got the reversal and took the arm. he didn't want to tap but I forced it, and he held on a touch too long and maybe tweaked his elbow slightly. Rolled with the SS guy. Pretty good, but too many situations he hasn't seen. One other set I don't recall.

For Kbells, I did 33/31 with the 24 Kg.

Tuesday 3/2/2010 (out of order)

Oops. Missed the report on the Tuesday class at the Westin. John covered the De La Riva open guard position and did the first two techniques from the previous night, i.e. standing up with the leg hooked to the single and catching the second leg and coming up to essentially a modified double. 2 sets - Chris and blue John. The sets are solid and they are becoming more difficult as I am making some small alterations in their games to be more effective against me.

Thursday 3/4/2010

Day class at the Westin - Craig has become one of the usual suspects here. I saw a blue belt in the locker room I hadn't seen in quite awhile (he is also a brown belt in Judo) he has begun working out here and I am going to ride him about getting into class. It will be good to see a new face. Classes are consistent here but not as large as I'd like. John worked again on the De La Riva position. He ddd a leg hook to what he did earlier in the week. Against a one knee up opponent, he hooked with the inside knee (without gripping) and stepped back like he was standing in base to pull the knee out from under them. Then hip into them, free the leg and pass. Nice variation. I think I don't use these variations that much, primarily because I'm lazy and the ones I use work well for me, but, from a technical perspective, I am not far enough to the outside of the advancing knee of Uke. This can be big, as when i fail to sweep and Uke puts pressue on me, I could solve it by rotating further to the outside.
3 sets of training. The blue belt John (hereinafter, blue John)was first. He was still staying on outside and trying to find away past my open guard, I got grips, and sucked him in and hit the two footed tomoe nage flip sweep. Fun technique and always feels good because no one wants to take the ride. Passed him and worked him, but didn't catch him.
Chris was a good set - swept and mounted then caught him once. Next time I swept but he nearly went under neath for a half guard pass successfully, but I managed to shift out of it. Set ended there working to pass the half.
John and I did a short set. He plays me pretty well, better now than he used to, in fact. I managed to hit the hald butterfly hook sweep, but he swept back as I was passing the half guard. Good technique ad I am prety stable on top half guard. He has been working hard to get a strong grip on a sleeve and working to cross it, have to watch more closely for this and not take it lightly. After he swept, I worked from underneath. and nearly swept he scrambled out of it and seemed to pasue for a second in the scramble, I didn't and bulled him down. Passed the half guard from the escrima and we finished the set there.

Monday 3/1/2010

Kettlebells - Best workout I have had with Alma. This was really the first one I couldn't have made myself do. Cardio intensive with a solid strength component.I noticed she changed the Turkish Getups from switching to one side and then the other. i think this is more efficient and prefer it.

BJJ - Good class. 2 new guys were in plus the usual suspects minus Max and Dave. John did some of the de La riva guard position. Emphasized getting to the side. He used the inside leg as a hook to stand up to the single leg. This is a good technicque that I don't use (much). He then stayed down and sucked the legs in for a double. I had 4 sets of training, Lex, who is doing a good job staying focused on working the armdrag series. I encouraged him to watch for the sweep when he has the arm trapped and then roll and mount them. it made sense to him as soon as he saw it.Decent set with Frank who is training well right now, though he did end up on the wrong end of an elbow to the belly and was impressed by how painful it was. I guess this is a good thing, but even if it's not good, it's funny. Eric and I had an excellent set. I pulled and we worked. I ended up in half guard and was working the sweep as he was working the pass, I went for the sweep and thought I had it, but i think he glanced off of the wall. He stabilized and worked a good pass, I was able to bail but it was after he would have had points. when i turtled he went for the Juji turnover and I cam to the top, managed to pass his legs and catch him with a choke from the side. I needed the finish or to score as he was up a vantage by the score in my head. Took Maggie next and had some fun throwing her around a bit and catching her.

Judo - Biggest class in a long time. 22 or 23 people - I did the one step ashi waza attack drill then some Forward Tokui waza. Then Randori. The back room had some new people working so I had to break up the break up the randori into light and heavy groups. Very solid training across the board, lots of good sets. The March Highlight film will be long if this is any indication. Greg looked good, almost too good. he might have to pull it back just a touch or he will retire some people. If he had a vicious streak like Mark K or John Z or Rich C had he would be too dangerous to have in the club. Wish we could get Gene back, they would be a fun match.

I am going to cover some basics in ne waza. I did the basic hip bump up sweep, then did the basic shrimp away and do Oma Plata.3 sets of Ne waza and we called it a (very sucessful) night. Several new prospects were in including a blind women Laura, who did well. Alma did a fantastic job teaching her the Ukemi basics. Mike was back and did well. I will mix him into the regular class next time he is in. We also had a Balance blue belt named John who came late due to the time change. He seems very interested and seems to have a decent chance of coming back around. Good to see some new faces.

252 - back to moving in the correct direction.

Here is the link to the February randori High Lights.

Sunday 2/28/2010

BJJ open mat team training - I arrived a bit late. there were 10 there ahead of me. they were doing drills off of the back and then did positional training. The older I get I find the less I enjoy drills and positional work. I know it's importance, but, I really find the transitions to be of more importance for me. The only way to drill transitions is to train live. In all honesty I enjoy it more, but, I really believe that training transitions is more important than drills onc you reach a certain level of technical profiency.
I joined in the two point training. My group was Eric, Lex Jason and Max. a big fgroup of bodies. I had Jason first. He and some of the others are working almost exclusively from a 2 hands on one side grip. I think this is very limiting and only works for a few technicques. The failure to control the backside shoulder as in a more conventional grip dooms this grip for most technciques. It can be a little difficult to attack as the distance id a little off but, attacking from it for Osoto Gari, or Uchi Mata, I don't think is a good idea. He tried that for a bit and then tried the drop to the knees and then try pull the person down and then go for a double, like Regis used to teach. I think this is a terrible technique. It's the same thing the guy at PanAms tried a few years back, and the rtesult was the same. I immediately took him down for two points.
Eric was next and pulled guard. I worked to half guard and managed to complete the pass. Max pulled and held me off with his length for a bit until I got to position to bull pass then i passed. He needs to refuse to accept surrendering points more than he needs any technical improvement. Lex and I wnet back and forth. I got to whizzer and was holding him from it, then jumped to a butterfly guard with the whizzer and swept him.

we did several sets of training. I had Jason, who is definitely becoming dangerous as he gets better at playing like a heavyweight instead of a lightweight. I had to bail from a pass, but I came up and caught him from the side. I went kneeling program next and passed h9m forward so i took his back and worked a clock choke.

Max played well, but I was bale to pass him and keep him down. Passed him again when he elbow escaped, which he does well. He needs to have bit more offense from there but, played well overall. Mike D was next. I find him suffers from Chung Li syndrome sometimes. He tapped from a knee in the belly and then from two elbow in the belly's. Part of it is willingness to tap out there. Part of it is lack of confidence on his escape from the position.

The team training was useful, but, will be better when there are more members of the team there.


Judo - Another big group, very heavy with green belts was in the room.  I went back to the Osoto Grai, Sasai Tsurikomi Ashi, De Ashi Harai series. James did this pretty well as well as a few of the others. This ashi waza work has been good for them and we will keep working some of the drills into the equation. We did 4 five minute randori sets.

I covered Escaping the mount by means other than rolling to the flat turtle. finally, 2 short ne waza sets. I have been doing extra Tachi waza lately as we have had more time dues to the class time changes. This is the right thing for now. I think that we will get more ne waza once summer arrives and the tournament season is over.

Thursday 2/25/2010

BJJ open mat - Eric took the lead here and did nice job keeping things moving. He ran some drills off of the back and then we did some training. Katie has been working hard and showing good improvement. She will be helped by her renewed committment to coming to Judo. She needs to be on top and with Sarah who has been doing great, in more often they will have excellent training for one another. had a few sets of training, Eric, Dave, were solid. The snowicane ma have kept the numbers down for the open mat.

For Judo, we had another good number, with 13 in class despite the weather. Again there were a large numbers of green and brown belts. We did standing and drop seoi nage ane then worked on Tokui waza. 4 sets of randori. allessandro returned in his rehab from the double knee surgery. Great to see him back, just have to make him stay patient and get healthy before trying to do too much too soon.

I broke the ne waza into two groups of 6 round robin players. I did the round robin with Dave, Eric, Chris S., Shannon and Migel. Good sets. Shannon got to my half guard from on top and caught an ude garame. from there as I was trying to get my guard back. He's a very solid player, not crazy, fundamaentally sound, as he commits to improving his back game, he will be even better. The rest of the sets were unremarkable.

Kbell challenge -  I did 32/26 with a 24 kg.