Jiu Jitsu Flow & the Future

I'm having an incredible time on the mats these days. A lot of it has to with the fact that I'm doing a lot of things right: standing to open and pass the guard, being much more active from the bottom ...

I'm starting to get a nice feel for a certain type of sweep from the half-guard. I'm not even sure what it is I'm doing, but it's become a relatively high percentage sweep for me. I'm using my hooks 200% more over the past few days, and seeing great results both in maintaining an open guard as well as getting sweeps from the half.

The two guard packages I've dedicated 2008 to--Rap Star and butterfly guard--are still pretty underdeveloped. I haven't gotten a single sweep or submission out of any of the Rap Star cuts, and I haven't gotten a single clean sweep out of the butterfly guard. But I'm seeing a lot of things I like on the margins. I'm doing a better job, for example, of remembering and trying the techniques we learn in class during sparring. Like I said, good times on the tatame.

You can always gain by spending more time on the mat. But I really think that if I can ramp it up this year, get in three trainings a week on average for all of 2008, I'll be extremely grateful come 2009.

*

Based on the Gracie Barra belt progression system, I figured the following some time last summer:

Got blue belt Dec 2006
4 months to 1st stripe: Apr 2007
5 months to 2nd stripe: Sep 2007
5 months to 3rd stripe: Feb 2008
5 months to 4th stripe: Jul 2008
5 months to purple belt: Dec 2008

We are not a very strict Gracie Barra school in this regard. But it is an interesting way to compare your actual progress to the rank GB "officially" accords that progress. It's also interesting that GB bases this progression on what I consider to be a very generous two gi classes a week.

I figure that I missed somewhere between six and nine months of training in 2007 due to the book I was writing that spring and summer(which allegedly is finally in production mode!) and repeated corneal abrasions. That would move my target range for getting my purple belt to June 2009 to September 2009.

Frankly, if I am able to get my purple belt by that December, which would mean three years after getting my blue belt, I'd consider it an awesome achievement.

Stay healthy. Train consistently. Compete frequently ... That's my mantra for 2008--and for 2009, as well. I'm thinking that if I can avoid injury, average three training sessions a week and compete at least three times in 2008 and 2009 each, I just might have an incredible Christmas present under the tree come December 2009.

Sweep Counter to the Knee Through Pass

The most insidious half-guard/guard pass ever invented: the knee through pass ...

Just. Met. Its. Match.

Courtesy of Saulo Ribeiro. Jiu Jitsu Revolution # 10.

The trick is to be quick. As soon as the knee goes through, you want to put your hook in.

From there, you grab the collar and sleeve (inside hand to sleeve, outside hand to collar). Wait for his momentum to go forward, then lift with the hook and roll on the inside shoulder, taking him head over heels.

With your grips in place, you do a "bus driver turn", lowering your inside hand and lifting your outside hand as you lift with the hook.

Saulo's Open Guard

Is a modified De La Riva guard. The most important thing is to keep a tight grip on the ankle. The second most important thing is to keep the knee of the hook leg up. One of the main ways people will try to beat this guard is to push the knee over and move to your side. Staying on your back and keeping that knee up--while lifting with the hook--is key to keeping the guy off balance in terms of trying to pass your guard.

8 Tips to Improve Your BJJ

from Jiu Jitsu Life.

1) Never back down from sparring the toughest guys in class - Each sparring session, put your ego aside and roll with the best guy you can find, also spar with heavy guys, quick guys, and guys with unlimited endurance. As a beginner, you are under no pressure to be brilliant, so use that time to open up your game and test the positions you know against guys who know what they are doing.

2) Work on a new area until you feel it is one of your strengths, then move on to another. Work on keeping your guard, for example, until it is almost impossible for any other equal belt to pass, and really difficult for someone advanced to get by. Then add your sweeps. Once you are sweeping same belts easily and higher belts on occasion, move to submissions from the guard, etc...

3) Find positions that fit your game and work them in sparring until you can rely on them against just about anyone. Against tougher guys you need a technique you can go to from every position . Against guys at your level you can work your entire game and not worry too much about forcing them into your best positions.

4) This one should be #1...Consistency - Set a schedule for yourself and do not let anything that is not really major interrupt it. Some guys get good really quick, but the best guys have all put in countless hours to get there. You will never see your game go up if you are missing classes or weeks of training.

5) Study everyone else's game - When you are not sparring, study your teammates games and try to pick up their effective moves. Go over it in your head as they spar. Think about when you would be able to use that move, or how you would counter it. Ask them what little adjustments they made to make the technique work.

6) Your cardio is important- You may know a lot, but you will not be able to express it well if you are worried that you are going to run out of air. You can really open up your game and keep pressure on your opponent if your lungs can handle the constant movement and explosiveness.

7) Drill - Although it is boring, many of the best guys I know devote a portion of every training session to drilling a basic movement with a partner. The key here is to make sure it is a BASIC movement you are drilling.

8) Finally, share your tricks with anyone who asks. As they get better, they will be more competition for you. When you have tough competition, you will inevitably get tougher to beat yourself.

Friday Afternoon Roll

Didn't finish my CG3 work until sometime after 11, but I mananged to make it to the academy for the post-class sparring today. I was so glad to be there that I didn't even bother to warm-up. I rolled with Hakim, a new white belt with some good size, for about five minutes, then rolled for 30-40 minutes straight with Rodrigo.

What a day! It really is a testament to Rodrigo's skill that I am able to feel like I'm getting a good opportunity to work my game, while at the same time Rodrigo gets to work his. He caught me in two or three armlocks from the mount or scramble, at least a pair of triangle chokes, and another pair of collar chokes from rear mount.

I, uh, didn't catch him with anything in particular. Or anything in general for that matter. But what can you expect?

Nevertheless, it was great training. I got to work some butterfly guard (the official guard of 2008), and a lot of half-guard, which is just my default guard and the sooner I come to accept that fact the happier I'll be. Rap Star wasn't going anywhere, even though I managed to get the arm-wrap a couple of times. But I've been working some odd sweep from the half guard that I'm really not sure how it works. But I've had some surprising success with it in the past. And it was fun to try and work it against Rodrigo.

As I was telling Rebecca (or, truth told, as she is always telling me), I never regret the hours I spent on the mat. It is so much fun and such a great workout. I could easily see how people could dedicate their lives to teaching and training jiu jitsu.

One thing that I've figured out is that I've just got to go in and train whenever I get a chance. Full class, half class, post-class sparring, open mat .. whatever. There's nothing stopping me from getting in an hour of training Sunday morning, for example. I'm still unsure about evenings--I can make my work a lot easier by getting the next day's writing done between about 4 pm to 8 pm, which makes night training a problem. But I'm determined to get my three sessions a week in, one way or the other.

What's Your Move?

One of my favorite commentaries by Lloyd Irvin. From The Grappling Blueprint.

"I remember I had this student a long time ago and he would always come to class with new BJJ tapes he just got off of the internet from Brazil. No matter what techniques I showed him he only wanted to practice the moves he saw the BJJ celebrities do on tape. You know what happened to him. Not only didn't he learn what I was trying to teach him but he NEVER learned the moves from the tapes either. He looked good rolling because he could mimic the movements. But underneath there was no real substance to his technique.

Well what does this have to do with you? Well let's see. If you're like me and many other people in the World there's nothing better than learning a new move. Especially a really fancy one. I was hanging out at my instructor's house watching tapes a long time ago and he had something most people won't ever have the privilege of seeing. You know how some people at grappling tournaments video tape all of their matches and how they tape different tournament? Well my instructor had matches of him competing since he was a blue belt. As I started watching his tapes I started to see people like Mario Sperry, Allan Goes, Roleta, Nino, Marcello Grosso, Murillo Bustamonte, Wallid and a bunch of other BJJ celebrities. I know what you're thinking. SO has ever one in the world that has ever seen a BJJ tournament tape. Well these tapes were a little different. Most of the BJJ celebrities in this tape were blue belts at the time. He had tapes of all of these guys as blue belts, purple belts, brown Belts and Black Belts. After watching over 20 different tapes and seeing all of these guys at the different BJJ levels. I noticed one thing. When it hit me it I thought to myself that there has to be something to this.

Let me tell you what I noticed. Every last person on those tapes have been basically doing there same patented move since they were blue belts. I mean the guard pass you see them do on the tapes as Black Belts is the exact one they were doing ten years ago. The fancy helicopter sweep wasn't something they just threw together, they've been working on it for a long time. Let me get to my point. If you watch any videos and see a particular move being done by a Black Belt you better bet that it's probably been in his or her game for a long time. They've been developing it since the early days.

So what does this have to do with you? Simple don't get bored with something that you're doing well now because you can carry it all the way to Black Belt and beyond. It's really easy to get sidetracked with trying to learn the next new move of the month and 5-10 years later you realize you're really good at NOTHING.
So, here is my suggestion: Think about one move that you have in your arsenal that you either have great success with or you're always getting close to pulling it off. I don't care if it's a submission or a sweep, it doesn't matter. What matters is that you find something that you're getting some type of positive results with. Let me make this clear, if you're almost sweeping people with a certain technique that's fine.

Now this is what I want you to do. Promise yourself that you will not give up on this technique for at least 18 months and that you will try to practice and improve this move for the next 18 months. How does that sound? You can practice anything else that you think will help your game, you just can't stop something that is working now. Who knows, this may be your technique that takes you to Black Belt. You never know.

I was really good at lapel chokes in my early days but after awhile I just couldn't do them anymore, I was getting frustrated and I just stopped doing them. It was almost an entire year before I started to do them again. You see the problem was that everyone I was training with had gotten used to them and had gotten used to my set ups. But when I went to tournaments they worked like a charm. There are moves you're doing really well in class but they may not be working as well as they once did. Don't worry, it may just be that your entire school is on to your game and your particular move. If this is the case, your move will still work if you go somewhere else. Don't give up on it, just make some new combinations to confuse your teammates. You'll find that the new combinations that you make up to counter what your teammates are doing will broaden your arsenal even more.

There are many students that will give up on a move that could very well have taken them to the Black Belt level but somewhere along the way they lost confidence in it. Understand this principle. Of course you can try to add new moves here and there but they must fit into your game. The problem is that people are trying to put a game piece into their arsenal and it just doesn't fit. As a matter of fact it'll end up unbalancing the entire game sometime.

There's a reason that the Champions always do the same move, the same pass, the same take down, the same sweep, the same choke. It's their move."

Megumi v. Cindy Coverage

Sitting here watching a DVD of Pride Fighting Championships: Bushido 8 before getting back to work and, surfing the Internets, I stumbled over this old review of the Valentine's Day SmackGirl event published over at Sherdog.com. This is the event almost a month ago where Cindy Hales squared off against one of the pound-for-pound best female MMA fighters in the world, Megumi Fujii.

I haven't seen video of the fight. But according to this review, Cindy more than held her own, especially on the feet. When the fight hit the ground Megumi went for a leglock, which was apparantly pretty tight, that Cindy managed to escape. That was late in the first round. Megumi managed to pull guard and secure an armlock from the guard early in the second.

Mega Megu Victorious at SmackGirl

Coursework: Guard Open Pass and Choke

Back on the mat this afternoon ... Monday's have been the easiest days to train, in part because I can get a jump start on the workweek on Sunday night. Happiness is finishing a few hours of afternoon jiu jitsu training, going to the locker room and NOT finding a message on my cell phone from The Office.

Rodrigo managed to bundle up a variety of things in today's lesson, which was nice and simple. We moved from a guard opener, to a guard pass, to a clock-type choke from the back--all in one process.

The Guard Opener

The guard opener was Rodrigo's wedge opener: control the collars with one hand, put one knee under the hip (not quite "in the middle" as Saulo warns), one knee out perpendicular to the side, and wedge out.

The add to the wedge is to use your free hand to slide up and under the leg to break the legs open. This is a Perfect Invitation for a Triangle Choke UNLESS you keep your collar-controling elbow tight and low.

The Guard Pass

After you open the legs with your free hand, you want to scoop the leg and, reaching over, up and across the guy's body, grab the opposite collar near the neck.

Take your collar-controlling hand and put it under his butt. It's a basic stack pass: roll him over his far shoulder and come around to the side that your free arm is on.

The Choke

The choke applies if you are able to roll the guy over--which he might prefer as opposed to having his guard passed. If so you want to reach over his back and yank the collar on the far side down . You can grab the collar about midway.

The reason you do this is so that you can reach under with your inside arm and access the collar easily right under the neck.

Once you get the choke set, be sure to reach under to control the guy's far arm at the wrist as best as possible.

There are two ways to finish the choke. The first is the traditional clock choke, where you step up and through with the inside leg and sit on the shoulder.

The second version Rodrigo showed us was different insofar as you put your weight on the back of the guy's neck and lean into the choke. Rather than stepping up and through, you step around with your outside leg and keep the pressure on his head as you pull up to finish the choke.

The Grapefruit Diet

It appears as if the classic grapefruit diet is the same sort of low/no carb fare that would be popularized decades later by the Atkins and South Beach diets!
I don't know if fried meat should be given quite the pass suggested here. But the basic contours of the diet: protein with every meal, carbs mostly from vegetables, caffeine from the coffee or tea ... are all pretty sound. And I've read that grapefruit does have some excellent fat-fighting characteristics.

I also just prefer to eat less frequently. I understand the idea of eating a lot of small meals throughout the day. But I'd rather have as little food in me as is necessary. I think one of the things about jiu jitsu compared to other sports or even other grappling sports is that it really helps to maximize your body's ability to move and bend. There are three main ways to do this: get leaner, get more flexible and avoid encumberances (such as a belly full of food). I'm looking to accomplish all three.

The Original Grapefruit Diet

BREAKFAST
1/2 grapefruit or 8oz pure grapefruit juice
2-3 Eggs any style
2-4 Slices of bacon
Black coffee or tea

LUNCH
1/2 grapefruit or 8oz pure grapefruit juice
Any Meat cooked in any style including fried
Salad using any red and green vegetables with lots of dressing
Black coffee or tea

DINNER
1/2 grapefruit or 8oz pure grapefruit juice
Any Meat or Fish cooked in any style including fried
Green or red vegetables with lots of butter
Black coffee or tea

BEDTIME
8oz Tomato or Vegetable juice

NOTE
Take a multivitamin daily
Do not eat between meals
Eat till you are full at meals, double helpings if needed.
Drink six to eight glasses of water a day
FORBIDDEN VEGETABLES: Potatoes, peas, carrots, corn
RED AND GREEN VEGETABLES: Celery, red onions, peppers, radishes, broccoli, cucumbers, green onions, spinach, cabbage, tomatoes, green beans, lettuce, pickles.

Me and My Half Guard

I spent a little time on the carpet this afternoon, trying to breakdown the mechanics of why I'm having such a hard time coming up to the elbow, then up to the knee in half guard. It's a critical part of the main half guard sweep, the one Eddie Bravo calls "Old School."

Like a lot of problems in jiu jitsu, the problem here was not where I thought it was. I thought the problem was in my upper body. And I was trying to figure out how to rock my upperbody up in order to create space to come up on the elbow.

The problem is there's no leverage to do that. And if you've got your underhook up high under the armpit, you've got a harder time moving your upper body off the mat in order to create space.

Once again, when it comes to the half guard, the solution is to get small. The reason is because half guard is really all about attacking the hips. Look at the Minotauro/Monson half guard sweep. Look at Jeff Glover's half-guard game.

It's easy to get caught up in dealing with the guy's upperbody with your underhook and sticky paw grip. And then to get caught up dealing with the guy's legs with your legs. No attention at all to where the center of gravity, the center of action, really is: the hips.

What I need to do is lower my underhook so that I'm attacking the hips, not the side of his chest. Since I've got his legs, that's where he's most vulnerable. Get small.

The sticky paw grip shouldn't last forever. It should only be a tool to keep from getting crossfaced. My goal with my attacking hand should be the guy's free leg. I'm either looking to pull at the knee or scoop the knee.

It's really a lot like Rap Star: Get the lock on the one side (underhook for half guard, arm wrap for closed guard). Get on the lock side hip. Attack the free side (sticky paw grip to knee for half guard, the free arm for closed guard).

2008 may be the year of the butterfly/Cobra guard. But it should be no less the year that I get my half guard back to where I want it to be. At this point, it's pretty clear that my bottom game will be built around the half guard more than anything else. So I might as well get around to mastering it: one sweep at a time.

Kron Gracie at the Gracie Nationals

Kron v. Bruiser

Kron v. Felip

Kimura Sweep from Half Butterfly

Monday afternoon I got two kimura sweeps. The guy was almost in mount both times, working his way through my half-guard. But my leverage on the lock enabled me to get the sweep twice, the second time eventually ending with a straight armlock from the crossbody.

Here's a kimura sweep from the half guard, through a transition to half-butterfly guard. It's from the local boys at Foster BJJ a few minutes south of here in Auburn, Washington.



I broke the steps down as:

1. Attack outside arm with kimura lock
2. Get far outside leg on the other side with butterfly hook, inside leg keeps half guard lock on leg
3. Center hips, straighten inside leg
4. Lift hoook, turn hips and pressure the kimura lock
5. Follow opponent over in a roll over your butterfly hook side shoulder
6. Finish kimura lock from crossbody

Monday Mat Time

Starting off March right with a Monday afternoon class. Rodrigo was away with a sick daughter, so Brian, then Casey ran the class.

I still feel as if I'm trying to get my feet wet, again, to at least feel like a blue belt. I've got some good instincts still intact, and I did pretty well with Old School from the half-guard during a guard-specific drill. But I don't yet have the facility I think I should as a blue belt. Still too many basic flaws.

Missed a great opportunity to work the butterfly guard during the guard-specific drill. If I'm going to rely on the butterfly/Cobra guard, then I need to work it at every opportunity.

A few submissions today: a guillotine from Cobra guard. A straight armlock from crossbody.

The class Brian led was mostly armlocks from the mount and armlocks from the guard. The basic drills. I'm not sure I'm every going to be armlocking anyone from the guard any time soon, but it was nice to get in the armlock from the mount work.

Weight post-training was 161.2. Not great, but not terrible for a Monday.

Twice in February

That's how many times I trained. The Monday after the Revolution event on the ninth (see "0-2") and the last Thursday of a leap year February.

Truth told, I had a great training Thursday night. I'll post the specific coursework separately, but we did some nice fundamental top game work from side control to mount with americana and armlock attacks for the class, then Stephan led the advanced training session where we mixed stand-up and ground sparring and switched partners.

My cardio was great. I was exhausted by the end. But I'd done the whole session from warm-ups through post-advanced class sparring with Stephan. It's got me rethinking the whole conditioning thing, which is another topic for another post.

My technique was off, of course, though I did manage to get a good americana late in the evening from top half guard. For better or worse, that's my submission. It's like having a good, go-to-the-basket move: it's not always there and you can't force it. But when it's there, it's there on anybody.

To the point: I'm not going to have the luxury of being able to decide in advance when I'm going to be able to train and when I'm not. The last two weeks--from the trip to New York to the post-trip follow-up assignments--blocked out the whole middle of the month. While I can't believe that kind of workload is going to be typical, it does suggest that I'm going to have to be opportunistic and train when I can as opposed to when I've set time aside for training based on an arbitrary schedule.

If that means Monday morning/Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, so be it. That's far from optimal, but if that's what it takes to get my 3 square meals of jiu jitsu a week, then that's what I'll do.

That means the more writing I can get done on Sunday, the better chance I have of getting on the mat sometime Monday, day or night. If I can stay one day ahead--or even half a day, really--then I should be able to get in the other two days one way or another. But getting a jump on the week by training on Monday (instead of assuming I'll be able to wait later in the week) is the way to go.

Great post-training weigh-in, too, by the way. 159.0. I did do some conditioning in the near three weeks I missed (12th through 27th). But a lot of it was definitely caffeine and caloric restriction in the post New York period, so to speak. I hit the scale at about 155 this morning on the home, "unofficial scale", an unbelievably good number. Maybe getting under 150 for the Submission Wrestling League event on May 3rd (just over two months away) won't be as impossible as I'd started to think.

Travis Tooke Wins NAGA Vegas Absolute

When I was vacationing in Mazatlan with my family over the Christmas holidays, a young guy spotted my Mamazinho Gracie Barra Seattle t-shirt and told me he trained with Travis Tooke in Houston, Texas. I hadn't seen much of Tooke, but I'd heard good things and knew that there was a lot of very good jiu jitsu in Texas (home also of Travis Lutter).

I also didn't know that Tooke was a Gracie Barra black belt, which makes it all the more fun to congratulate him for winning the Absolute division at NAGA Vegas. Here's a link to On the Mat's coverage of the event.

NAGA Vegas Report

Here's the excerpt describing Tooke's Absolute division win ...

Match Notes: Travis Tooke is a Gracie Barra black belt hailing from his Definitive Martial Arts academy in Houston, Texas. He was one of the smallest competitors in this no-gi absolute tournament, as he weighed in at 169 pounds. He faced off against a fellow jiu-jitsu black belt in Rodrigo Uzeda who teaches his Uzeda BJJ Team in the Copacabana area of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. As mentioned before, Uzeda weighed in at 199 pounds. The match started out as a seesaw battle, which saw Tooke mostly working to pass. Tooke used his speed to counter Uzeda's strength and then strategically took advantage of the NAGA rule, which awards 1 point for a significant submission attempt. Tooke locked on a straight ankle lock, which Uzeda was able to defend. Tooke used nice fluid transitions to stay out of danger and eventually made his way to Uzeda's back with one hook in as time expired. The win earned Tooke the OTM No-Gi Absolute Championship Belt!

And here's a link to Tooke's championship match:

Travis Tooke over Rodrigo Uzeda via points

Submission Wrestling League Qualifier May 3

The next area event looks to be the Submission Wrestling League qualifier on Saturday, May 3rd.

Submission Wrestling League

The qualifier will be held at West Seattle High School, the same location as the last Revolution tournament. It is the third qualifying event, the first two being held on March 8th and April 5th in Hillsboro, Oregon.

What is especially interesting about this no gi tournament is that it is submission only, as they say "no judges, no points, no kidding." Competitors fight everyone in their group, and the fights are ruled either "submission" or "draw."

I have to admit I'm pretty excited for this event. One wrinkle are the divisions. First, of course there is no "masters/senior" division. Second, the lightweight division runs from 150-169.

That means I can either compete against the same sort of guys I competed with at the last Revolution tournament, or drop down to 149. There is also no "night before" weigh-in. You weigh-in right before you compete just like in the IBJJF competitions.

Funny thing is that even though I've not been able to train this week because of work, I've managed through some home conditioning and caloric restriction to get down to about 155. I'm following a modified Gracie Diet, which is really letting the pounds fall. Can I get under 150 by the beginning of May? That would be one hell of a feat, especially considering how I stumbled trying to make 154.9 a few weeks ago. And that was at a night-before weigh-in!

We'll see. I feel great at 155 right now. Could I really shave off another five pounds over the next 60-75 days?

SmackGirl Results

My French isn't as good as it used to be, but it looks like Cindy lost by armlock to eventual tournament champion and one of the best female MMA fighters pound-for-pound in the world, Megumi Fujii.

SmackGirl Results.

No shame in losing to Fujii. It looks like Cindy had her in a good guillotine attack for a little while at least. If video becomes available, I'll be sure to link to i./

Half Guard / Butterfly Guard

Some great insights into the relationship between the half guard and the butterfly guard (Cobra guard) in this segment from Stephan Kesting's Dynamic Half Guard.

Coursework: Side Chokes

It probably has something to do with the fact that the next local tournament is no gi, but Rodrigo had us working on no gi chokes Monday afternoon. We did the baseball choke, no gi style and he showed us how to transition to the brabo choke if your opponent got the underhook on you and began a proper escape. Last, he showed us a transition to guillotine (with a sort of faux brabo grip).

The no gi baseball choke comes from the crossbody. You want have your northside arm behind the head with the blad of your forearm along the back of the opponent's neck. You want to bring your southside arm up tight, with your hand on your ear, to prevent him from getting the underhook. You can even disguise your bringing up that southside arm as just trying to block his underhook.

Catch your southside hand in your northside hand and apply the choke by dipping your southside shoulder and squeezing your elbows together.

The brabo comes if the guy gets the underhook on you and starts to escape. The trick to getting the brabo is the angle. You want to work yourself back behind the guy, not just back off. For one, you want to keep the connect. For two, by getting behind the guy's shoulder (moving to the south) you can get a longer reach under the guy's arm and neck with your inside brabo arm.

The other trick is to push down on the guy's head to help get your brabo arm through. You should be able to cup the guy's neck easily with the hand of your brabo arm. The locking arm is almost (almost!) just a detail.

The guillotine transition comes if you can't get the good reach with the brabo arm. Shorten up the brabo reach and attack the neck with a guillotine. With the other arm, reach under the guy's arm (between his head and shoulder) and reach under the shoulder and across the lat. It's sort of a brabo-ish guillotine. Drop back into guard--preferably closed guard--to finish.

I've got to say that this is a huge sequence for me. When you throw in the Anaconda choke and the d'arce, you're looking at five different choke attacks from the side control/side control escape or all fours position. I'm here a lot when rolling, so these chokes would be a great addition to my attacking repertoire.

February Revolution Results Are Up

Hopefully the results from last weekend's tournament will get a permanent link. For the time being, you can read those results here.

I don't know how the team points are awarded. But my back-of-the-envelope scoring, giving three points for a 1st place finish and one point for a second place finish, suggests that Gracie Barra Seattle won the team jiu jitsu competition going away. That, of course, does not include kids/junior divisions or the submission wrestling competition. Just the gi.

Gracie Barra Seattle: 17 points. 5 First place and 2 Second place finishes.
Foster BJJ: 13 points. 4 First place and 1 Second place finishes.
Marcelo Alonso BJJ: 8 points. 2 First places and 2 Second place finishes.

Reflections On the Revolution

As Georges St. Pierre might say, I'm not impressed with my performance. I never really felt competitive. I lost in the grip fighting, control of the standup, the ability to escape bad positions ... I was just outclassed.

Ironically, I wasn't on top for a moment in either fight. It was the complete opposite of all ten of my previous matches as a white belt--wins and losses.

That means that I'm going to have to spend more time on the bottom, developing my guard. One thing training during the day has meant--and Rodrigo almost "warned" me about this--is that I don't spend very much time on my back and when I do, it is often in half-guard where I feel pretty comfortable defending myself in general (if not advancing my position ...)

Over the past six weeks leading up to the tournament, I trained 12 times. Three of those twelve times were evening sessions (when higher belts tend to train). That's a pretty low percentage (25%). I've got to increase that to at least 1/3 over the next few months. More rolling with tougher teammates is the goal between now and July.

More number crunching. In the six weeks leading up to the tournament, I averaged 2 training days a week. Ex-items (i.e., the week of the eye re-injury), that number goes up to 2.4. I think that's C average.

I need to change up my conditionng program to include more resistance circuit training and less LSD cardio. I don't think I was ever all that tired in my matches, both of which ran at least than four and a half minutes. I think my cardio was fine. I was just outworked, mostly by superior technique, but partially because I lacked a certain explosiveness to respond, to say nothing of attack.

I remember how dead my legs felt when I tried to put in some treadmill time on Friday. The soles of my running shoes kept scuffing the tread because I was barely picking my legs up high enough. This went on for a good two miles.

So I'm giving my legs a break from the cardio. At least a week, maybe two. After that, maybe once a week. If that.

That means a focus on the 3T and Berardi, the muscle endurance stuff I'd backed off from doing as regularly as the LSD. Walking out on the mats this morning, my legs still felt dead. I tried to do Marcelo's little jump thing to get me going before my first match. But it felt like it too more effort than it should have.

With regard to weight, my official weight was 159.4. If I'm going to keep competing at 155-169.9, then it just doesn't make sense for me to loiter around 160. I should either work to gain six or seven pounds of muscule--and maintain it--or do the work necessary to lose six or seven pounds so that I am weighing 153.4-154.4 come tournament time.

Although I love the idea of getting closer to 150, the truth of the matter is that I haven't weighed that little since 1999. I've managed to cut to as low as 158 or so for tournaments, which leads me to believe that I'm going to have to actually lose some meat as well as potatoes in order to get to the low 150s.

The similarities between my first blue belt tournament and my first white belt tournament are many. In both cases I lost by a finish, and was completely outclassed and overwhelmed in the process. In both cases, I was unable to get a stand-up game going, which is typically the best part of my jiu jitsu. In both cases, I competed at a higher weight than I would have preferred.

Competing under 155 will also help me establish a discipline about eating. If I know I've got room up into the low 160s, then there's a greater likelihood that I'll go off the rails and not feel the need to steer things back on track. I think that's especially a risk given the fact that I'm going to be cutting way back on the LSD cardio and amping up the resistance circuit training.

For all the crap that Crossfit takes, I think Crossfit workouts would be almost ideal for me at this point. I felt slow and heavy this morning when I should have felt light, fast and strong. More elf and less dwarf.

Whatever. Time to get back to work. There's plenty of time to train between today and the next event in July. I need to get my weekly average up above 3, preferably to 3.4, with 1/3 to 1/2 of each week's classes being at night where the big dogs roll.

0-2

Just a quick report on the February event. I lost two matches, the first to the eventual second place finisher and the second to a guy who lost 0-2 in his first match. The first loss was by a collar choke at about 4:31, a choke I'd been fighting off for about a minute and a half before he finally got it. But his positioning and tenacity paid off. The choke I tapped to was tight.

The second loss was similar to the first, though the guy didn't have the technical skill of my previous opponent. He did feel stronger, and was able to maintain dominant position for most of the match. I was actually surprised at how strong he was. There were a few near-scrambles that I thought I could wrestle my way out of, but he was too much. I lost on points.

Brian down at featherweight (remember that 154.9 line?) lost his first but won by submission in his second. Very good for him; I'm pretty sure it was his first tournament as a blue belt.

And Lindsey won our division, dominating his first match, escaping far too many guillotines to win his second, and avenging my loss (if you will) by beating the guy who choked me out to win the gold in his third and final gi fight of the day.

Overall a very good day for Gracie Barra. The event was very well run, in my opinion. Jeff is getting it down to a science. I heard that bad weather east of town kept some of the East Washington teams away. But the turnout seemed to be okay and there were tons of white belts.

I'll link to the tournament results as soon as they're posted.

159.0 ... So Much for That

I'll be competing as a middleweight this weekend, 155 to 169.9. I suspect I'll be fighting guys who are weighing 175 come Saturday morning.

So be it. I hit the scale at 159.0 exactly after training this afternoon. I would have needed to be significantly lower, like two pounds lower, to have a decent shot at 154.9 by Friday (to say nothing of Thursday night). So rather than kill myself trying to act like a professional fighter, I'm taking the old man's way out at registering at the higher division.

At the regular tournaments, the ones we sponsor and the ones the Machado guys out of Spokane sponsor, I'd only be concerned about making 158.9. But the guy who runs the Revolution events is a 135 pounder himself, I am convinced that has something to do with the fact that the weight classes, especially the lighter ones, have a downward shift.

The thing of it is that the Revolution tournaments might be the main thing in town. We haven't sponsored an event in awhile and its been even longer since the Spokane guys have. I don't mind that per se: three tournaments a year is a good minimum for the area. But that means getting used to competing with the middleweights if I don't work my weight lower-which I'm not convinced I want to do.

At this point, I think my goal should be to become the healthiest, fastest, strongest 160 pounder I can be and let the weight classes fall where they may. There's something to grappling with larger guys that I like: they are nowhere near as tricky to keep up with as the lighter guys, even if you can ultimately muscle the lighter guys around every now and then.

Nothing in the gameplan changes: takedown, pass guard, mount, submit.

Darce Choke

If you can't get the anaconda off the front headlock or snap down, but you've got the grips, then this darce choke is an excellent alternative.

Anaconda Choke

A Minotauro special: the anaconda choke. I think there's a way of getting this off the snap down from standing, and I may try to work it in as the second option off the snap. The trick to that is to keep hold of the sleeve off the snap and to push that arm in as you do the reach under the guy's neck with your other arm to set the choke.

The Arm-In Guillotine

Here's a great primer on the arm-in guillotine and how to finish it. Both Nog and Almeida finished their opponents with arm-in guillotines. Bryan Harper does a good job of showing how this choke that Jamal Patterson once boasted was a "secret" taught to him by Renzo Gracie is really done.

January Goal Review

"STAY HEALTHY"

I re-injured my left eye (corneal abrasion) on Saturday the nineteenth. That kept me out for a week.

Totally my bad. My eye patch came off and I didn't replace it. Eventually, I got caught with something in the eye again. The moral of the story? Wear the fucking eye patch.

I also experienced a lot of cramping in my legs. I suspect part of that has to do with the additional conditioning I've been doing and the lack of proper hydration. That should be an easy fix.

"TRAIN CONSISTENTLY"

Trained eight days in January. Two a weeks would have given me ten days. Three a weeks would have given me fifteen. If you toss the week I was out with the eye injury, then we're looking at two a weeks with eight days and three a weeks with twelve.

So that's not as bad as it looks at first glance. I ended up at the low end of the 8-12 range. But at least I was in the range--which is more than I can say for much of 2007.

With regard to technique, I've been focusing on the half-guard from the bottom, passing the guard and half-guard from the top, and things like Rap Star from the closed guard. That should be enough for the first quarter (January, February, March) of this year.

"COMPETE FREQUENTLY"

The Revolution event is this Saturday at West Seattle High. I weighed in at 161.6 after training today, which is about seven pounds over. If we take away the 2-3 pound weekend allowance, then we're looking at a Tuesday weigh-in of around 159.6-158.6. That would keep me on pace for making 154.9 by Thursday evening after training.

I'm not going to kill myself to make 154.9--not for this event. But I'd like to make a real go of it. Ideally, I do think I'm competing under 155. But we'll just have to see if I can get there from here by then.

The next event after this one that I know of is the Revolution event on July 12. But I wouldn't be surprised if somebody sneaks in a tournament in March or April.

Monday's Training

161.6 lbs after class. Not good. A three-pound miss.

I don't know what I expected after the weekend, and Super Bowl weekend, at that. I stuck to Rebecca's viniagrette cole slaw to go with my patented Big Daddy's Nine Spice Ribs for the Super Bowl feast--which probably was okay. But then I succumbed to the traditional Sunday night, "ugh, here comes the workweek" snacking, with the predictable results on the scale 18 hours later.

Good things from training today: I was a few minutes late, but we went right into specific sparring drills. I'm doing much better with both my flower sweep and my "poosh tha guy" sweep from the Cobra after not being able to break posture from the closed guard. I think I hit both sweeps two or three times, which was pretty incredible.

Not-so-good things from training today: My half-guard is still far too ineffectual. I did a better job at keeping the sticky paw grip, and in fighting for the underhook. But I've got to, got to, got to work harder to get on my side.

I think one trick might be to hipsscape back to get some space to reset the half guard and get more thoroughly on my side. This, more than anything, is killing me in the half.

Conditioning-wise, I was about at a C+, typical enough for a Monday, I suppose. I won't be back on the mat until Wednesday afternoon and I'll tell you what: if we offered afternoon classes on Tuesday and Thursday I think I'd train everyday.

At any rate, given my 158.6 goal for Monday and my Monday actual weigh-in of 161.6, I need to get to 157.2 if I'm going to make 154.9 by Thursday night (when I have to register).

Truth told, I'm thinking about registering for the heavier 155-169.9 division. If I register for 154.9 and under and miss when I weigh-in on Friday, then I'm disqualified. That or try and sweat the extra pounds off--which I refuse to do the night before a tournament. So, to be on the safe side, registering for 155 and up may make the most sense. After all, there's no chance that I'll weigh more than 169.9, is there?

Great Night for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu at UFC 81

Three top jiu jitsu fighters in mixed martial arts competed at UFC 81: Breaking Point in Last Vegas last night: Middleweight Ricardo Almeida, and heavyweights Frank Mir and Antonion Rodrigo Nogueira.

Three fighters. Three wins. Three submissions.

Almeida and Nogueira both won with arm-in guillotines. Mir won with a kneebar. All three showed great smoothness and fluidity in moving from position to position. Mir showed some great open guard work against Brock Lesnar, manuering with the speed and balance you usually see out of much smaller fighters.


And Nogueira's half-guard sweep of Tim Sylvia was perfection. Nobody works the half-guard in MMA better than Minotauro. It was downright inspiring, for a wannabe half-guard player like meself.

158.6 One Week Out

Managed to get to the academy for the afternoon class. I was a little late, trying to finish up some work for The Daily Planet, and I hadn't eaten anything but a couple of strips of bacon and some raisins all morning. But it was good pop in and out of the telephone booth and get in some more mat time before next week's event, nonetheless.


I'm about four pounds over right now. I really couldn't have hoped for much more. If I can hold the line over the weekend (Super Bowl Weekend, at that!), and weigh-in at 158.6 or lower after training Monday afternoon, then I think I'll make 154.9 by Friday night.

Actually, it's more like midnight Thursday. That's the registration deadline, and I don't want to sign up for 154.9 and under unless I know I can make that weight. If I make 154.9 on the official scale after Thursday night's training, then I'll register at that weight. If I can't make it by Thursday, I'm calling the whole weight cutting affair off for this tournament and signing up for 155-169.9.

My plan for the final week is to use the "Sponge Weight Cutting Strategy". No meat after Sunday. Carb loading with Gatorade Monday through Wednesday. Protein drinks for dinner Monday, lunch and dinner Tuesday and all meals from Wednesday through weigh-in on Friday night. I'd like to avoid the sort of water starving I did last time, just because it was so unpleasant. But that will depend on what I'm weighing by Tuesday after training. If I'm at 156.9 or less, then I don't think keeping up a decent H2O intake will cost me come Friday night.