Been So Long

It's been a really long time since I've posted. I've been rolling however I've been really apathetic about the blog. Last Monday, or Wednesday, I cant remember either way last week we had Daniel and his brother Diego and Rhelan Gracie (Relson's Son) come in to teach. That was a freaking awesome class. These guys are the best in the world and are really cool. There's no ego, they know they're good and they dont have to take it out on a whitebelt. I learned the Relson Gracie side mount and it is as follows:

Your hand near his head goes as if your elbow is touching his far ear. Go under his arm all the way to his belt. Your other hand grips his closest knee. I really like this because it's easy to obtain, because people dont expect it, and it's easy to keep. There was a sweet armbar off of it that goes a little something like this;

If their arm goes up to your head your take your hand that is gripping the knee and trap their hand by grabbing your collar. Simple. You then take your free hand put it on their head Swing your foot over their head and walk your foot towards their back. At this point you will probably be rotating your hips around their arm. Grab their knee with your free hand and fall back for the armbar. Awesome. Thanks Rhalen.



Tonight we went over a few chokes from guard. There was one cool one if the other guy is turtling up. So lets pretend the bad guy is turtling up and you are on his left side. Take your left hand and feed it under his left arm to grab his opposite lapel. This is a tight freaking hold. There's no where good for this guy to go once you have this. Donny showed a clock choke from here but it's super difficult to get your hand in. Corey and I, however, discovered that by taking your free hand, in this case your right, and grabbing their hand nearest to your body and clamping down you have a quick and tight choke.

Well that's it for the blog tonight. Stay tuned for more updates.

Sitting out.

Since the tournament my arm has been bothering me. I can't sleep well because I keep waking up from the pain. The weird thing is that it doesn't really hurt throughout the day. it only hurts at night and when I roll. With this is mind I decided to sit out of class on monday.

Well to start off, it really sucked sitting out. Not because everyone made fun of me but because I really wanted to roll. Donny taught two armbars.

The first one was a cross collar choke to an armbar. Basically it went like this, while going for the cross collar choke from guard as your opponent pushes away you armbar. Pretty simple.

The second was from a failed siscor sweep. If you attempt to sweep and the person defends by shifting their weight you can use their momentum to swing an armbar. Since I wasn't actually doing it it's hard to explain.

There was a new guy in class today. This guy went 200 MPH. Typical of someone new to jiu-jitsu, trying to prove something. He seemed a little fast for my liking but I'm really looking forward to "Helping" him slow down.

The Tournament

So finally Saturday arrived. All of us have been waiting and preparing for this day. For most of us it was our first tournament and we were excited and scared. It pretty much went like this:

We arrived and there were tons of people there, not like the weigh in where there were 7. It took an hour to get the rules started. After that all white belts conjugated to one corner while blue belts to another etc. It took another 30 min to sort out all the brackets. Finally the first fight of the day, Ashley.

Her's was the first and only fight going on. She was fighting a bigger girl who was much stronger. The other girl tried some horrible attempts at a take down. Finally Ashley gave it to her. When they went down the girl landed in mount and attempted an americana. It was horrible. Like she had never done one before. Ashley wasn't tapping from it because it wasnt on right. Unfortunately Ashley didn't bump the right way to get this girl off of her. She kept bumping toward her not trapped hand which allowed the girl to post out. Ashley went almost all the way but got caught with a choke at the end.



My fight was right after her's. The guy wasn't really bigger or stronger but he was faster. We locked up and he tried to take me down a couple times. After I realized he couldnt take me down I tried a hip toss. It was, in retrospect, a horrible attempt. I landed in the bottom half guard. I was working from there and I attempted a sweep but he took mount. I attempted a sweep from there and he grabbed an arm. He went for the armbar but my thumb was facing down and to the side. The ref stopped the fight and asked if i had tapped. I told him "no i didnt tap, he doesn't have it" he said okay and let the guy sinch it deeper. Since he didn't have it I rolled over into his guard. I waited a little to long and eventually pu my hand on his stomach inched it over and caught me in a deep armbar that popped the elbow three times. I just had my ass whooped.



The rest of the morning wasn't looking so good either. Tonja got caught in a flying armbar not 15 seconds into the match and nate was beat on points. The tide started to turn with Corey. He won all his matches. Nate stepped up against another opponent and won all those. Scott dominated a blue belt and won second. Peter was without a doubt the most impressive. He owned everyone. His last match he was up 8-0 and let the guy tap him with a weak guillotine. He ended up with silver. Over all a good experience and I will come back stronger.

Eye of the tiger

So it's been forever since I've posted here. Lets start with last Sunday. Donny showed me an awesome armbar. Pretty simple.

From guard, cross grab with our opposite hand in this case your right. Your forearm should cross on top of the other guys arm and your hand should grab the back of his tricep. Your left hand cross grabs his collar. His us only used to break him down and make him worried about the choke. You pull him down then let him rise up just a little. Scoot hips and finish armbar. It's amazingly hard to get your arm out of that thing. Tip: Use your knee to keep his arm from being pulled out.

So I've been training friday, saturday, sunday, monday, wednesday, and thursday. I'll try to not think anything jiu-jitsu tonight but that wont happen.

Monday we had a seminar with Daniel and his brother Deigo. It was focused on butterfly. It was kept simple and the most important thing to remember is keep the underhooks high on the other person's neck.

We had an awesome private lesson with Tonja on Thursday. She went over two takedowns. The first one was a variation of a hip toss but instead of wrapping your hand around their back you take out their Gi and use it like a handle. When going to throw you shoot your hand towards their other armpit like an uppercut. It's awesome. We also worked a trip. Simple but really effective. I motion for a crash mat. Ashley Seconds.

Ashley was trying to make it under 135 for the tournament tomorrow but it's not going to happen. We've been trying for the past couple days to get her to shed the 5 lbs she needs. The weight bracket for her is 135 and under or 135 and above. She passed out today so we've ditched the cutting, have been rehydrating and will focus on beating everyone that weighs more than 135.

I'm good for the 164-180 bracket as long as I dont need to weigh in with the Gi. I read that we do but people who are working the tournament claim we dont. I'll bring my gi just in case. Here's to a good ass whoopin, getting or giving.

And the winnner is...

So tonight we started out with a tough warm-up consisting of jogging, 90 jumping jacks, 90 scissor kicks, 50 side sit ups on each side, and somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 push-ups. We finished the warm up by practicing take-downs and eventually went straight to rolling.

We had a brief lesson on knee on belly chokes. Start out with your left hand (closest to his head) and go thumb in behind his collar. Your other hand should be on his belt so that you can use your elbow to stop his knee from preventing you from popping to knee on belly. With those two in place you pop to knee on belly. You take the hand that was on his belt and grip the far side collar fingers first. They called this the baseball choke because your hands grip like a baseball bat. come down from KOB and turn toward their head. There was another variation that acts like a clock choke but I didn't really do that one too well and it didn't feel natural for me ergo, I have forgotten it.

There were two new people tonight. Both of them seem to be in some shape or form related to Donny. They were young kids. One was much bigger than me and the other was Ashley's size. I missed the class before this one due to obligations but ashely went and rolled with these guys. She said she walked all over them. It's to be expected from someone who's been rolling for 8 months but due to the size difference it was rather impressive. I had no problem tearing through them in both take downs and while rolling.

After what seemed like only a few minutes but was actually an hour donny called class and we bowed out. Everyone was still pretty pumped and we decided to hold an in house tournament. I started off with the bigger of the new guys. It pretty much went like this...we started on our knees, I pulled guard and I arm barred him. Ashley's first match was with the smaller new guy. He seemed to be keeping really tight on her. For some reason she freaked out, forgot her positioning and started trying to muscle him around. She quickly gassed out and ended up tapping from cardio. After that the continued to freak out and just generally come unglued. We assessed the situation and we determined she underestimated him and when he caught her by surprise she blanked. She's still, a day later, really pissed. I think it hurt her ego. She's going to have to keep that in check to progress in this sport.

So back to the tournament. I was paired up with the other guy, the one who beat ashley. He was pretty full of himself and was even commenting that he's only been training for four days. We started out on the knees I attempted an arm bar and it missed (he wasn't wearing a gi but that's still no excuse) I turtled up and waited. He attempted to take my back but couldn't get his hooks in. I tried to bump him off my back and he finally got his hooks. I rolled him over and turned around to be in his guard. I passed his guard very simply, took side, took mount, then subsequently arm barred him. I can say I was proud of beating two new people but hey a W is a W.

The next round it was me and scott. I'm about 180 lbs, Scott is about 280 and is built like Robocop. We started on the knees, I knew right away I didn't want to be under him so I hopped to my feet. Unfortunately for me being on my feet, I was still looking him in the eye ( a testament to his huge size). I attempted a lame version of a flying arm bar but he pulled out of it, he attempted to go to side but i got half guard. I felt him going for a cross collar choke and managed to pull full guard. He was choking me in my own guard but his arms were straight. I shot up for the arm bar and the winner is...

Scott. It turns out it wasn't a cross collar choke it was an Ezequiel. I couldn't get him far enough off me with my hips and I tapped. It was cool though. Next time the Possum will be ready!

Full House

So tonight we had the pleasure of training with Daniel Moraes again. He's an awesome instructor. I have to admit, one reason I love Daniel teaching class is because his warm-up is nothing compared to Donny's. I do feel more warmed-up after Daniel's, after warming up with Donny I'm drained. Don't get me wrong though I do love to hate the hard warm-up.

Daniel showed us a couple moves if the other guy has a single on you. If he is grabbing, for instance, you right leg while both of you on the ground, instead of sprawling take your right hand (while still staying heavy on him) and work it between your hip and his head until you can grab his opposite lapel. Once you have his collar, begin to place your free hand (the left one in this situation) on the same side as the leg the guy is grabbing between his elbow and knee (like you are posting out.) With a quick twist of the hips toward the guys butt it should break his grip, you grab his left hand with your free hand (your other hand is still gripping the collar) put your head to the mat and finish with a clock choke. I know it's a pain in the butt trying to follow this by reading it but I'm trying to be as detailed as possible.

A variation to the above mentioned move is when flicking your hips your left knee blocks the back of their right arm and your right leg figure fours their arm. You shoot your free (left) hand as if you were going to control their left arm, roll over them to the crucifix. One hand is gripping the collar the other is under their other arm and presses on the back of the head. Whew.

The last thing we learned was defense for the butterfly. When in the butterfly squeeze your knees together and they will not be able to sweep you. I didn't believe this but when I tried it I was amazed. Once you've broken any under hooks they may have had you need to get them to lay down on the mat, when they have done that you press both knees together and ( in our case here we're passing to your right) take your left hand feed it under both knees grabbing the opposite knee push both knees to your right and lay heavy on them. From there the pass is evident.

I finally had the chance to roll with Daniel tonight and it was awesome. I like instructors that will let you get somewhere and not immediately shut you down. As long as I was using proper technique he would let me work, when I did something I knew I shouldn't have done he caught me on it. Great class.

Take 'em down

Last night, after a hard ab warm-up, we worked some take downs.

We started with the basic hip toss. This is surprisingly a rather difficult throw, or should I say a hard throw to master. As simple as it seems it's difficult to do it correctly.

The second throw we focused on was a version of a flying arm bar. Sort of minus the flying part, it's probably more aptly named the falling arm bar. Start out gripping the tricep of the arm you want to attack ( we'll assume were going to arm bar their right arm.) Circle to the side of that arm, when you're ready put your opposite leg on their hip ( in this case your right leg) fall to the side of that leg while pulling the arm and pushing with the leg. They should land in a perfect arm bar.

It was difficult with an instructor teaching us so I assume it will be that much harder trying to read it.

We also touched on the fireman carry and the two Daniel Moraes showed us, the single and double.

It was kind of nice though when ever we started to roll with a different partner we started standing. I hope we continue that until the tournament April 25th.