8/5/2010 - The Yodan Promotion

Tonight Alma and myself were awarded our Yodan (fourth degree black belt) in Judo. This is obviously a big promotion and I have had a lot of mixed feelings about it. While it is a great honor and recognition of a lot of years of hard work there were also some unfortunate elements and thought that came up for me along with all of the positive.

First the details.A large group was in attendance. This made me feel good as some of them came specifically for the opportunity to be part of this promotion with us.  Among the visitors (all former club members who haven't been with us in some considerable time) were Rich Callahan, his brother Kevin Callahan and old training partner and club members Will Dampier and Dave Dawson. The room was quite full and rather hot. I led a warm up, then we jumped directly into randori. we played 5 sets at a time and did somewhere between 10 and 15 - 3 minute sets. The sets are on video and are mostly a blur. I will have to go back and see how many I did and who I had.

Randori Video 1
Randori Video 2
Randori Video 3
Randori Video 4
Randori Video 5

Randori Hilight video

By the time we stopped I was tired but felt good to have done the sets despite my advancing decrepitude. I didn't do every set and there were certainly people I would have liked to have had in training who I missed, but, it was still a very good work out. In fact it went so well and everyone enjoyed it so much, I think I will do it every so often. Just come in and do a big open randori session then do a big ne waza session.

While jumping through all of the hoops and paperwork issues we had to get the promotion application in a reviewable format, it quickly became apparent that I lacked any urgency to get it done. Both Art and alma pursued it more aggressively. I think this was largely, though not exclusively because of the importance and symbolism of this particular promotion. The Yodan promotion and subsequent promotions are generally viewed as an instructor promotions. It is symbolic (to me at least of the end of the competitive career and the focus as an instructor. I'm proud to have earned this opportunity with 1000s of hours on the mat learning and teaching, but, it rankles me that I have to face the end of my competitive career. I was never a great competitor, but I was a pretty good one considering when i began Judo I think I reached my ceiling. I don't think I could have been much better than I was without quitting the rest of my life and walking the earth doing Judo. I'm a little too rational for that so I feel reasonably comfortable with my competitive career. There were certainly matched I could have and should have won and tournaments I could have fought that i found a reason not to do. But, in general, I'm comfortable with what I did as a competitor. However I don't feel like I am ready to accept that it's over. I still feel that I have some (Masters) matched to fight. so, as a result, when I was reflecting on what class to run to celebrate the promotion, it struck me to do the opposite of our regular formalized promotion. I decided to just do what I love best in Judo, warm up, then get a bunch of my friends together and bang heads in randori with them until everyone is dripping in sweat and too tired to do anymore. That has always been what I loved most in Judo so that is what we did. It was also symbolic of the idea that I am not done with competing and fighting, competition may think it's done with me, but I'm not done yet.

Alma did a great Kata demonstration of a very rarely seen  Kata as her part of the promotion. I think it will be up on Youtube eventually. If so I will link to it.

Itsutsu No Kata

Art, Rich alma and myself all said (more than) a few words. It was great to hear so many good things and intelligent reflections from them both. Art is someone I respect and I have a great deal of affection and admiration for him. I didn't learn everything I know in Judo from him, but, everything I learned was due to the opportunities he has afforded me to be a member and an instructor in the club.

I had the chance to share some of my own thoughts on how important the club is to me. The Judo club is my home and everyone in it is my family. It kills me when they get hurt, I glory with them they win, I find a silver lining when they lose, I lose my shit when a referee costs them a match, and so much more because they really are all my brothers and sisters. I always try to get people into the club, firstly because it really is the best thing I have ever done and I am baffled when someone tries it fails to agree with me. I guess it's possible not to love doing Judo, I just can't imagine it. But, also, whenever we get a new member, I get a new member of my extended family. Some I like better than others, some are better fighters than others. but, one has little to do with the other. You always like some members of your family more than others, but, at the end of the day, you go to the wall for any of them.

The club is strong right now and has been for some time. Art and Rich both mentioned how the Philadelphia Judo club can trace an unbroken line from 1948 until now. sometimes it may have lost the path for a time and sometimes things were better than others, but, There was never a break. I'm genuinely proud that we are strong and successful on my link in the chain of the instructors. I want to make us larger and stronger with more and better players, but, I will take the people we have right now and take my chances. It's an excellent group. They are talented but, more importantly they work very hard, they compete, they win and lose with grace, dignity and pride and I feel fortunate to be associated with them.

8/5/2010

Open Mat No bells tonight as it was going to be busy. I got to open mat uncertain who would be there and just expecting to warm up. Greg, Peter and Sarah were there. We covered some questions on generating Kazushi and passing the butterfly guard then we trained a few sets. I had a good roll with greg who is getting better in Ne Waza quite quickly. His stand up is potentially devastating and his mat work is improving rapidly.

8/5/2010

Thursday Day class at the Weston - I covered the class again. I did the underhook half guard pass, but i did the version where you go belly down on the side away from the underhook rather than tripoding up which I find can give the opportunity for the bottom guy to regain guard. This also how Brian popped my knee and sent me to surgery by locking it and twisting it to the other side. I also

I also covered briefly the pass where you stay low and kick back through his half guard after you have flattened him and the one where you stay high and turn to the hips. Really too much information but, I don't get to show things all of the time and they were doing well with it so I ran with it and showed all three.

I had them do 2 longer sets rather than three short ones.

8/3/2010

BJJ at the Weston - I covered the class and continued the half guard passing that John was doing. I did the head control pass with the gi lapel trap, which is how I prefer it. I also did the back take when they escape the arm that Sharon showed me. They liked that and I actually saw it hit at least once during training.

I had them do half guard positional training and then did 2 sets of matwork.

Monday 8/2/2010

Kettlebells - It's amazing how much I dislike some of the joint mobility stuff but how hard in a good way some of the kettlebell work outs can be. Alma went through the warmups, of which i like (and do on my own) the kettlebell ones and hate the joint mobility ones. The work was a double bell work out and the first thing i have done except go to the beach or the pool in 10 days. I let my ego push me and took two 20kgs. Very tough workout, so tough i thought I may have hurt my back, but, must have just pushed it tot he edge as it feels good the next day.

Tired for BJJ -15 or so people, so a bit smaller than what we have had lately on Monday. For some reason most of the girls weren't in tonight which makes up the difference.
John is doing half guard passes. He did a head control pass but without holding the lapel and the tripod version of the underhook pass. I use both but prefer the head control with the lapel trap and the belly down version of the underhook, so it was interesting to see the details of the differences in his version.

I rolled with Dave Oh first. I wnet for the basic hook sweep but tried a variant where i kick his support leg out. He went over but scrambled back much quicker than i expected so i ended up in half guard on the bottom. nearly swept a few times but time ran out in that position.

I also rolled with mike B. he stood and I went De La Riva and trapped his near leg. i kept his posture broken and swept him directly to side control. He did a very good job avoiding the mount and knee in the belly eventually he turned belly down. I took the back without hooks, but he may have been to curled up to get points. I was working behind him when time expired.

There was another set that i don't recall.

Judo - Alma led the warm ups which went well. I did the outside Sume Gaeshi from the right on left. I emphasized keeping the weight on the outside of the knee to avoid getting the weight on your hips and squashed. We also did the grip break and the technique from right on right. Mostly went well, but they actually did better right on left.
They did three good sets of randori.

Between the difficulties some had with the new technique and the intensity of the randori, i wanted to slow the Ne Waza down a bit. For ne waza we worked on the anatomy of the back choke, correctly applying it. We then did the checkmate version, for lack of a better name as i have decided to call it
2 sets of Ne Waza then we were done.

7/19/2010-7/23/2010 Catch up post.

I did my normal schedule for the week of 7/19-7/23
Monday Kettlebells, BJJ and Judo
Tuesday Day class at the Weston
Thursday Kettlebells, Open Mat and Judo
Friday Weston Open Mat

Then the family and I went on vacation. I had intended to catch up, but, the beach house didn't have internet access, so I will punt the details of these classes and start fresh tomorrow.

Kudos to my people who competed in both BJJ and Judo while I was gone. It's good to see them carrying the flag successfully.

Sunday - 7/18/2010

Smallish group me and 6 others 3 men, 3 women, no other black belts. We worked on the matwork drills I am doing to replace the warmups. It was a little hit or miss. It was taking too long  and there was more instruction than I want there to be. I still want the warmups to be < 15 minutes. I think I have finalized my lineup for drills
1. Oma Plata
2. Arm Lock
3. Knee - sit out drill
4. Trap and roll (which I added for the first time this class)
Then 3 sets of forward rolls with a set of elbow escapes, a set of butt scoots and a set of arm drags. This should be very doable in 15 minutes, but we are at least 10 minutes from there.

So this was a little frustrating to everyone. Hindsight being 20/20, I should have gone to a drill or technique with a high percentage of success and competency to get them back on the positive roll. I did several foot sweep drills and some for them again struggled with the timing. My thoughts were that this was a fairly small sized group so it was a good time to work on some smaller person techniques. It went OK, but, not as well as I have felt about classes lately. But, as i have read recently one of an instructors jobs is to challenge the students to by getting them out of their comfort zone. This was clearly out of their comfort zone. We did De Ashi Harai, Kosoto Gari and Harai Tsurikomi Ashi. Then. for randori, each person worked with each of the others so there were 5 - 3 minutes sets. This they did well. Everyone fought hard where appropriate and slowed down where appropriate.

For Ne Waza, we ran the same sets, but after 2 Lori was a little banged up so i took her spot and did sets with Lex, Scott and Nick.They all did well and fought hard and tried some good technical Judo instead of just flailing around.  i continue to be impressed with the willingness Lex is showing to take a chance on losing by putting himself in a bad position to start. This is and will continue to pay-off for him.

Friday 7/16/2010

Open Mat at the Weston -

Small group, just 4 of us, so we did 5 6 minute sets, thought the fifth became a 5 and the last a 3 due to the class that was following us.
Me, Chris, Blue John and Craig... the usual Friday suspects.First set with Chris was a very good set for him. He scored and kept it even until the 5 minute mark, or so. The I was able to sweep and pass. Nothing of particular note in the other sets, though I think Craig is playing very well. Shows what commitment and being willing to go and get beaten by higher ranks can do for your game. He is improving much faster than the other white belts. He's studying Ronnie's web site  for some supplemental techniques and then using them.

Thursday 7/15/2010

Kettlebells - Hard workout - I switched to 16KGs when I got to Deck Squats, but switched back to the 20KG and finished the workout. I almost quit a couple of times before the end but i got through it. Having the workout written out and staring at me helps me get through it.

Open Mat - Greg came in and we worked on a few positions about which he had a question.

Judo - Little bit of a tough class. We were getting through the warmups slowly but improving (Oma Plata, Armlock, and the knee to back drill then rolls, elbow escapes, butt scoots and arm drags) when two of the members of the blind Judo team here in Philly came in. Both were big and inexperienced, one was huge (consensus of 350+) add the difficulty in teaching plus the potential for injury and it makes for a challenging class. with no notice it made it hard as I couldn't run the class I had intended. We did Sasae Tsurikomi Ashi, and then did Tokui Waza. Not a lot of size to put with them for randori. fortunately they played OK, just always a bit of danger with anyone that size who is new and an unknown in the class. I kept them with Lex and Chris S. Who both did well with them . When we did Ne Waza Greg joined in and gave me another big body to put with them. This helped quite a bit. All in all, it wasn't the best class I have taught but it all worked out OK, The two new guys indicated a desire to return as they are prepping for some of the big paralympic games. I think I will be better prepared for them next time, though teaching any complex matwork will be a challenge.

This has nothing to do with this post, but, there is so many monster technicques, it made me feel better just watching it.

Womens Judo High Lights

Thursday 7/15/2010

BJJ at the Weston - I covered class for John. We had 4 people. I covered Ouchi Gari and then jumping to a closed guard and then throwing the Kosoto Gari. these are high percentage techniques that don't require 1000s of repetitions to use. They mostly did well, though the newer white belts struggled with the idea of the jump to closed guard.
I sat out the training sets a the numbers were even.

Monday - 7/12/2010

Made it to Kettlebells - I like doing classes some of the time, but, I also get annoyed as it isn't always what i think I need. I like te focus on the power/lifting work and the cardio work. i don't like the protracted warm up and I don't like the joint mobility.  It's the right thing for this class, as it isn't geared for me, but, for the 9 paying housewives in the class. I might design my own Monday workout as I've designed my Thursday workout and do that. Not sure yet.

BJJ was almost shocking. 21 people in class, more than half of them are the new white belts that have been joining. The retention rate among students that try out classes is so much higher now, it's incredible. I may have been wrong in my earlier assessment. Perhaps both clubs can comfortably survive. That's as it should be, of course, but, I am always concerned about the competition for BJJ students in Philadelphia, which is fierce.

John did some stand up work. He covered the O Goshi hip throw, Osoto Gari, and Seoi Nage both from the self defense perspective for the newer people, and with a more competitive focus for the veterans. Most of them still needs lots of repetitions before I would call them competent takedown players, but, it's a start.

My neck was bothering me so I held myself out of the groundwork sets.

Judo - continued the matwork drills for warmups. They were better but still very hit or miss in execution.
We did Tsurikomi Goshi to Harai goshi to the Tani Otoshi switch for Tachi Waza. I think this is a good addition with everyone having success with the forward Harai Goshi/Uchi Mata.

We did 2-4 sets of randori. I took Eric. With Lee on the IR, Eric and Lex are my preferred training partners, and since I make the sets, I get to have them. Eric had a couple of good attacks that rocked me, but I was able to hip cut and block him. I hit a Soto Makikomi and a good Ouchi Gari, when he reacted away from the forward throw. Lex is forcing me to grip fight as if he dominates the grip he will be able to attack easily and I won't even be in good places to defend much less counter. I managed to get a soto makikomi, I think I hit a belt grop Osoto Gari, but I'm not certain. and a Yoko Tome Nage.

I went through the armdrag including the stand up and pull version so when they are working the armdrag drill as a warm up they can get the most from it. 2 sets of Ne Waza and we called it a night.

Great to see Lee in class, just have to hope his knee continues to improve. He is an excellent training partner, assistant instructor, and one of the guys that makes the club work. Losing him for a knee reconstruction would be a real blow.

Sunday 7/11/2010

Smallish class 7-8, but we worked hard and got a lot done. We continued the matwork drills for warmups. Oma Plata, armlock, arm drag and switched in the knee drill coming from under the turtle to the back.

Eric Johnson made it back to class. Great news for us as he is a good guy, and a good judoka and has excellent mat skills. He's just getting back into shape, but he will be a good training partner for me and the bigger guys, particularly factoring in the injury to Lee.
We did Osoto Gari, retreating 3 feet on a line style. Then did Tokui Waza.

Good amount of throwing to go with the Uchikomis.
A few sets of randori, though not too much, as the group was small, and it was hot. Lex and Sarah fought the previous day and had 12 or so matches between them (winning most) so there was no need to push them too hard.
We did more armdrag work for Ne Waza. I added the standing up pull for the armdrag which works well small against big. We did a few sets of Ne Waza and called it a day. Still waiting for news on Chris L.'s knee. Fingers crossed.

Friday 7/9/2010

BJJ open training at the Weston - 7 of us (Steve B, Me, Chris, Blue John, Marty, Craig and Jack) We did 6 - 5 minutes sets. I pulled against Steve and ended in Eric's cross spider position, but couldn't find the offense from the position. Need to look at it a little more to see what I can do from there. I switched to a more traditional open guard and hit a flip sweep and came up. I think I surprised him by going for it. Later he went for a desperation armlock and gave up another sweep. Overall, The training was good, but I need to push harder. I think I should put myself in worse positions to start the sets. My competitiveness is making me waste opportunities.

Thursday 7/8/2010

Kettlebells - I did my thursday Workout -  I switched to the 16 KG at the same place, but I made it through the workout.  It's tough and I was tired and drenched in sweat as the room was hotter than i like it to be between the heat wave and the minimal air conditioning. It felt like I was doing a Steve Maxwell, class before he added all of the joint mobility.

Open Mat - Lex and Eric were there and wanted to do some no-gi in preparation for the upcoming tournament. I'm interested in a little no go lately so I dressed out and joined them. After the workout I was already nice and slippery but I was starting from a pretty tired spot. All in all, it was both fun and frustrating.  It really confirms how limited my no go game is. My takedowns are not good. I can kind of defend and I can takedown if I am able to work to a clinch, but all in all it's not a pretty sight particularly when i am used to being at least competitive off of my feet.

I did match with Eric. We worked back and forth and he went for the takedown. I avoided it and maintained the top position. Once there, I was able to pass and use my BJJ fundamentals to do OK, but, it's still frustrating as I realize how much there is in the no gi game I'm missing. If I was 15 years younger I would worry about it more, but, I can only do what my life allows me to do. So I think I'm going to do some no gi when I can, have some fun with it but, not get obsessed. At least that will be the plan.

Judo -
I began adding some matwork drills in place of the warmup. We need to maximize our useful time, and with the additional standup we have been doing, I need to find more time for Ne Waza. I also like the Lloyd Irving style of making the warmups repetitions of basic positions, so we get loose and at the same time work on skills.
I did the Oma Plata drill, the armlock drill, going down the mat from the butterfly armdrag and coming up with the butterfly. They all went OK, and showed how useful some of the drills will be. I wasn't satisfied with the butterfly guard coming up drill and might punt it.

We did Uchi Mata (inside)  for 20-30 minutes, then some tokui waza and then randori. The only note I am going to make is that chris L was hurt while doing randori. The same knee she injured and had repaied was hurt again. she was looking brilliant for the past few classes in randori, so this is very disheartening. I'm hoping it's only a sprain.

We talked about the arm drag so they will understand the purpose of the drill and then did Ne Waza. I took Cecelia and wanted to see her skill level. She has some basics but has some gaps in what she has learned. She is a very good athlete with excellent fighting spirit, so she will improve her mat work skills quickly if she's willing to be open and have some fun with the Ne Waza. She is almost too competitive, wanting to be in a good position rather than risking a bad one for the chance to improve other techniques. I was guilty of this and still am, so I can understand it. She is so young with such a bright future she could get past this easily.

Thursday 7/8/2010

BJJ at the Weston. Another blue belt, Marty was back in class and seems like he is going to make more. He's an aset as he will round out the group, give a different body type and perspective and continues the trend of very solid good people that has been building. We did more standing pass work.

We did two sets. I took Marty first. I worked for the half butterfly sweep and managed to get him to go over but he was big enough and with good enough base so that he ended turtling. I attacked it and managed to get a clock choke. Next set I swept again and was working from the top when time expired. 

The set with blue John was good. It was mostly pretty typical but I did manage to get a Mata Leo/rear naked choke, something I rarely get when playing gi. As he turned away i managed to get such a deep grip it was easier to attack the rear naked than switch to my preferred collar choke.

Tuesday 7/6/2010

BJJ at the Weston - Falling behind so will note that the weston group has only grown very slowly but the members are very consistent and are improving. With a few more people this club could really turn the corner.
Worked on the standing pass, and then did 2 sets of  groundwork.

Monday - 7/5/2010

No class on the 4th so this was the first class for me since Friday. I missed Kettlebells, but made it to BJJ. Pretty good sized class particularly for the holiday - 12 people or so. John covered standing passes, which is a hood choice as many of them haven't had the reps they need on this technique. Pretty basic though he started to work on attacking the open guard from split with a few variations.

Pretty good training Mike B, who is still having trouble defending the stand up from the De La Riva position. I swept him this away the rest of the set was solid. I took Max who has enormous potential, but could use some Judo to round out his game a bit. His idea of wanting to get his purple before starting Judo seems both counterproductive and a waste of opportunity to me, but, to each his own. His game was pretty good, but he tried a sweep from butterfly with both knees open and then sweep them to the side. he needs to put some more time into it, as it led to a couple of easy passes. I also took Jason who has really made strides now that he is playing like a heavyweight, taking advantage of his size rather than hiding from it, and trying to play like a middle weight. I managed to reverse him, and then he actually tried the same sweep Max had just tried with similar results.

Judo - Good class for the holiday with 10 or so people. We worked hard and did some of the one handed Tsurikomi Goshi drills. This led to some good progress  for all of us. I worked in with lex and had some very productive fits and throws.

We had a pretty advanced class so i took advantage of it to go through my 5 X-Guard sweeps. They mostly did fine as it was a review for many, but, there was some difficulty with the details of the later sweeps. Then we did a few sets of Ne Waza and called it a day.

Friday - 7/2/2010

BJJ open mat at the Weston
Me, Chris, Blue John, Craig and Jack
We used Craigs suggestion for organizing an odd number of people to get the correct sets and it worked perfectly. Now I have my design for even and odd numbers to get the correct sets.

4 - 7 minutes sets. The training was solid and a good work out, nothing particularly of note, but it would be good to see either or both Steve's back in this class.

7/1/2010 - Thursday

Kettlebells - I made it through my workout, though i had to drop from a 20kg., to a 16kg, about 2/3s of the way through it. It was good and fatigued me. I'm satisfied with as it is for awhile. i think I will stick with this one and modify it later, but this will be my core workout. 

Open Mat - i was ready for some No-Gi but it didn't happen. I did some Ouchi Gari work with Peter and Lex showed me some of the Brabo techniques Fredson covered. I'm going to make an effort to do some reps on several of these and incorporate them into my game.

Judo - We did some warmups including the partner squats. I am considering doing more practical repetition drills for a warmup. I have to decide which drills and how long they will take.

We did one handed throwing drills,  and then randori.

For Ne Waza, we returned to the Kesa Gatame escapes. I started with the bridge drills and that helped get them where I needed them to be a it sooner. But, when I continued to see mediocre execution of the escape. Too many people drop their hips on the escape. I gave the speech about the necessity of being an A level escape artist for execution if there is to be any hope of escaping a good player. We did a few sets of Ne Waza and called it a night. We did a few beers across the street to celebrate Eric being older.

Thursday 7/1/2010

BJJ at the Weston- More X-guard work we continued with #1 and #2 (not quite the way I do #2 but the same technique). The recap was good for everyone as they needed the reps on the techniques.

Pretty good roll with Chris, I worked to the owrong legged spider guard John likes and from there walked my way down to and X-Guard. Then when he pushed in i hit the #5 X-Guad sweep, that I like so much. Fun to get it in training against a purple belt. Rest of the set was pretty straight forward.
Training with Blue John, He continues to post the cross grip from his guard and try to sit up and push me back. I'm not accepting this any more and blew his grip and crossed his arm from the position and used it to pass. Caught him from the mount a couple of times. he has a bad habit of letting one arm get trapped when he gets mounted, then he is just food for the gun against the choke.

Tuesday 6/29/2010

BJJ at the Weston - We did more X-Guard work focusing on #1 and #2 with just one entry. John realized he lost the class a bit the night before by moving too fast and corrected it with this group. They did much better with the information and improved quite a bit. Still some fundamentals they also need but it can be tough to cover the right material for white belts and purple belts.

2 sets of training - Chris and Azeez.

Monday 6/28/2010

Kettlebells - Johns class- Good workout - He did a couple of things that aren't my favorite, i.e. alternating Turkish getups and some two bell exercises, but he strung them together in a very challenging wrap up that made up for it.

BJJ - surprisingly big group - 5 people I had never seen in a gi before were in the class and several have already joined so that's good. With the regulars there were 14 people or so. John took some of the new guys word on the prior experience and stuck with his plan to do some X-Guard work.  Many of them struggled with it and really could have used some more fundamentals. It threw the dynamic of the class off with such disparate learning curves. He showed the pulling entrance I use the butterfly entrance, then showed #1, #7 and # 2.
3 sets of training - Not really good matches for me, so I will save it for Judo.

Judo - Good class, not huge but big enough and they worked hard. Greg returned on a limited basis. I added the partner squats to the warmups, I am in the minority but I like this drill and will continue it. We covered the belt grip Osoto Gari, Ouchi Gari and Harai Goshi. I held the Hikikomi Gaeshi/belt grip Sumi Gaeshi in reserve, as I want to focus on throwing and landing on people rather than sacrifices.
2 sets of randori - I took Lex and Josh. Lex is a good randori partner for me as he grip fights effectively, and plays to throw not to not be thrown. Josh is trying way too many tani otoshis, so amny and so poorly that I would have scored on him repeatedly with his own attack. He only tried one really aggressive forward attack (left sided Uchi Mata) and rocked me. He needs to get more aggressive and offensive and take the fight to the other guy instead of looking to counter.

I spent the entire Ne Waza time on the bridge escape from Kesa gatame. We had to work to correct the bridge repeatedly. I broke it down and then finally had them doing it without an Uke to focus on the bridge. It improved but there is still work to do. I intended to get to the Ancona roll but the escape had to be done correctly before I was willing to move forward. 3 rounds of Ne Waza and we called it a night.

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

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

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

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

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

Friday 6/25/2010

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

Thursday 6/24/2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thursday 6/24/2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sunday 6/20/2010

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

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

Friday 6/18/2010

BJJ open mat at the Weston.

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

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

Thursday 6/17/2010

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

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

Thursday 6/172010

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

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

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

Tuesday 6/15/2010

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

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

Monday - 6/14/2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sunday - 6/13/2010

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

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

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

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

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

Thursday 6/10/2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thursday 6/10/2010

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

Tuesday 6/8/2010

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

Monday 6/7/10

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




Also here is the May 2010 Randori high lights

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

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

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

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

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

5/27/2010

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

I had to skip class that night for baby duty.

5/25/2010 - Tuesday

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

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

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.