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Training Log -- 6/24

Did some lapel techniques. One was an over-the-arm baseball choke, another was an arm-trap and switch to your own arm, and the last involved feeding your own lapel up to the neck, posting up with your knee and pulling up to block both the arteries off.

Primary thing to work on at the moment is having a more active guard and controlling/breaking down my opponent.

Training Log -- 6/22

Back at the gym after taking a week off to rehab my thumb. It feels 80% better now, but I taped the shit out of it just to be safe. Ended up working great.

Did some ankle lock defense where you change the angle of your foot (opposite direction so you don't get heel-hooked) and also one where you push you opponent's knee down to the mat and sit on it until you have mount (or similar) and the threat of the lock is gone.

Also went over paper cutters from north/south and the modified keylock from the same position (where you sit out and bring your legs up over their body while pressuring their shoulder).

Rolled with Steven and a noob who trained at hardcore a while back. He really liked the atmosphere here and liked that the pricing wasn't the same as hardcore. Nice guy overall. I shared some pointers with him such as never to attack from inside someone's guard. He was a bigger fellow, maybe 200lbs-ish but he couldn't stop giving me his arm, so both our rolls became armbar clinics.

Steven got armbarred and then was able to mount me, but his nose bled all over and he had to tend to it. He easily mounted the new guy and with much encouragement was able to armbar him twice. Honestly, his wrestling is so polished that if he were to at least learn a few basic subs WELL from various positions, he'd be a pretty decent grappler without even going to the gym much.

Good night overall.

Injuries!!

So I got swept while standing and decided it was in my best interest to break the fall with my thumb. Well, actually it just turned out that way. I believe at the end of the day it's nothing more than a bad jam, but I wont rule out an x-ray if problems persist. It seems a bit better today -- 24 hours later -- and has possibly moved out of the realm of "awkwardly painful" to just "really sore". Rolling with JC continues to lead to ankle issues, as he unwillingly attacks the same busted ankle every time. Fortunately, it's not bad at all and is very low on my injury alarm list at this point.

I got to thinking about all the wonderful injuries I've experienced in the past ~14 months of grappling:

Jammed finger
Jammed thumb (maybe worse)
hyper-extended elbow
AC joint trauma
Persistently painful ears (soon to be at least partially mangled lol)
Badly bruised kneecaps
sprained ankle
rolled toes

...damn.

Training Log -- 6/10

Some more guard passing from combat base. Not sure if that's a legit term or not, but whatever. Pretty much knee up in opponent's guard and your other leg posted for stability. Cross collar, knee over their thigh into side control. If they tie up your foot in "desperation" half guard, you can: A) armbar their defending arm (instead of a Brabo choke, which is more energy-intensive), B) step over, hug behind their neck and attack their leg for a kneebar, or C) step over, hug their neck and attack their foot and roll for a toe hold.

Got some good subs while rolling. Pretty much arm bars and a nice bicep crusher for when they're being too stubborn to give you an arm. I still have to continue working on sweeps from guard, but I'm making good progress.

Training Log -- 6/8

Techniques tonight were from a seated position with you trying to pass guard. Your opponent is grabbing your pants at the knee region and you have their sleeves. You can grab cross-collar, post up with the same side knee as the arm you're using for the cross-collar, and baseball slide into side control. We also worked the finishing cross-collar choke from that position; grabbing material on the opposite side of the gi and getting the tap, and finally a Brabo choke by pulling their defending arm across their neck, driving down with your shoulder and pulling up on their collar for the tap. The last one required way too much effort as far as I'm concerned, so I do doubt I'll use that technique any time soon. There's also an armbar from there which requires less energy.

Rolled with Josh, JC and Andrew. JC, ironically, was the only one to tap me tonight while rolling....though he caught me in an ankle lock on my braced ankle. No bueno. Credit to him for also sleeve choking me though. Completely my fault for letting him pass guard.

Josh steamrolled me while rolling but I fended off subs. I was feeling the groove a bit more while drilling with trying to pass his guard. I think my offense is coming along real nicely, and as far as passing is concerned, I still have to work on opening crossed ankles. Once they open their guard I'm finding it easier to do work.

I was able to stay active with Andrew, controlling him in half-guard and nearly advancing to mount before the buzzer. Second round, he passed my guard and mounted me, but I hit a very nice escape/scramble before he took me back down and I attacked his leg before the buzzer but couldn't secure a winning round.

Training Log -- 6/3 & 6/5

6/3:

Fundamental class on Friday consisted of Josh, Steven, me and Fausto. I haven't trained with Fausto since he left for Grad school around July of last year, which really means that I haven't trained with him since I was a noob of the purest order. I trained with him on Sunday the week prior and he definitely got the better of me without a gi, which is to be expected since my no-gi game is somewhat behind my gi game. Regardless, Friday's beginner class was pretty much straight rolling from the get-go. I got an ankle lock on Fausto, got wrestlefucked by Steven and steamrolled by Josh, as usual. I abandoned my sweep game and tried playing a bit more offensively with Fausto and saw some great results: guard passing, mount, side-control, north/south. Tried for an armbar from north/south but he defended well and I ended up in mount. It was, overall, a pretty nice night of control for me.

As the main class time approached I started to feel pretty crappy with cramping and exhaustion. Left a little into the main to rest up but had to take advil in the middle of the night for pain. Not sure what happened, but I felt (and still feel) like I got raped in an alley. Strange...


6/5:

I intended to only go to one class because my injuries were still really nagging. Josh asked that I go and watch out for beginners since he couldn't make it. JC and Katie -- Casey's kids -- showed up and I had them shrimp and work on mount escapes and reversals as per Josh's request. I got in a bit and rolled a couple times at the end, but left as the main class started. I definitely need a few days to heal up. I have bruising all over my body and kneecaps, some sort of a strain in my left calf and a busted ankle which came about as a result of a shitty Peruvian Necktie attempt on Fausto on Friday when he flipped to escape and landed on my ankle. Definitely could have avoided it if I applied the submission properly, but whatever. Hopefully I'll be back in form for Wednesday.

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Training Log -- 6/1

Amazing night of Jiu Jitsu!

Went in a bit late and missed a guard pull --> back control sequence using X-guard (I think?) but not too sure. Went into some techniques from mount, all of which begin with a keylock attempt to illicit a response. From there, when they turn onto their side to defend, you take technical mount and take an armbar. If they defend by reaching under your leg, you have a mounted triangle available. If they defend with switching your leg over their head, you can sit down into side control or take the bicep crusher.

Did some drilling from mount. I escaped after some effort against Andrew, then did a great job of controlling him from mount before he ultimately escaped. My control has gone up exponentially, so I'm pretty happy about that. I noticed that whenever he came close to shrimping, I automatically went for a rodeo-type thing that I recall vaguely from a video I saw a while back. Basically, it's one arm under their head and the other arm hooking their leg from behind. You can use this to stretch them out and it makes it really fucking hard to create any space for escapes. Pretty sweet.

Rolled with Cam and Andrew. Almost nailed Cam with an armbar to start and then transitioned to an inverted triangle which I managed to finish with the choke. Second roll was fucking mint. I pulled guard and hit a pendulum sweep into mount, dismounted to side control, into north/south and finished with a kimura. Just pure, perfect control. Rolled with Andrew and almost hit an armbar from guard but ended up in a scramble, which I handled VERY nicely and managed to prevent a guard pass. We ended up in ankle lock position and I got the better of him for the tap. He had a kneebar but probably didn't realize that he could have tapped me with it.

My jiu-jitsu has come a very long way and I'm finding it much easier to sweep people and have my way with their limbs and neck.