Thursday, June 24, 2010

5:15-7:00p

5:15-5:30p: Stretched. Watched Blaise and Nick roll. Turns out Blaise is only 16. He's the football player who started coming last week. 6'1" 203lbs. Big strong kid. I thought he was 18 or so. Nick is 17, a couple inches shorter and 33lbs lighter (with ~2yrs BJJ experience). It was interesting to watch. Nick used about 1/3 the effort as Blaise and ended up submitting him multiple times (chokes, arm bars, triangle). They said they started rolling 10 mins before I got to class. That means they were rolling at full speed for 25 mins before class. Amazing. Oh to be young again.

5:30-5:45p: Warm-ups / standard drills. John (Blue Belt) led. This was a full warm-up session. He pressed us good. Liked it.

5:45-6p: Pass the guard. Nothing jumps out at me at the moment as worthy of writing about.

6-6:15p: Self defense technique. Same as what I worked on in Rusty's self defense course yesterday (front grab with trapped arms), but this time we added the full throw. Professor Matthias added the knee on belly to armbar option just to keep it interesting.

6:15-6:30p: Worked broken posture head trapped in guard escape, then guard pass from underhooks to stack.

6:30-7p: Rolls. First roll was with a guy with an Australian accent (can't remember his name). He's been around longer than me, but doesn't come as often. No stripes (yet). I have 80lbs on him, easy. I tried not to throw my weight around. When he had a sweep set up properly and my balance was off, I allowed the sweep. Had he been anywhere near my weight, he'd have had it. So I gave it to him. Once, he took mount. I had many opportunities for a BS escape (muscle it), but decided to let him work it a bit more and wait for an opportunity. Surprisingly, he stopped the roll and told me to bridge onto my left shoulder in a pseudo-upa. I said I thought about that but figured it would only be successful if I threw my weight into it. He said he didn't care. I had it, so I should go for it. Let's just say, at the end of the roll I was hardly breathing and my opponent was working fairly hard to advance position. Had I forced positions, I would have probably been breathing harder and he'd probably been demoralized or pissed off.... Ok... Still trying to find that balance Georgette wrote about and many others discussed in this post.

Blais was second up. I like this "kid." Kid because he's only 16, but he has the body of a man. Roughly my size, but much much stronger and in far better shape. He took guard to start. I executed a standard guard brake and pass (amazing how the class technique seems to only work on newbies - this coming from a 2nd month student - so doubly amazing that 2 mos experience is light years ahead of the real newbies!). His reaction to side control was to try to roll away from me. Caught the gi and started choking as I took back. He rolled some more and I switched to rear naked choke. Sunk it in deep. Tap. I asked what he did wrong. Blank stare. I explained that his instinct, to roll away, is the wrong approach - because he gave up his back. Said an upper belt might get away with that, but he needs to establish side control survival posture and then work on guard recovery. Showed him some basic bridge to guard recovery technique and warned him that it would take time. Heck...I REALLY struggle with guard recovery. But at least I'm not giving up rear naked chokes! I then took guard and he spent the rest of the roll trying to pass. He applied the standard technique and broke my guard with little muscle. PROGRESS! GO BLAIS!!! I responded with scissor sweep posture then settled into spider. He got a bit frustrated that he couldn't break the spider. One step at a time kid...

Third roll was with John (Blue Belt who led warm ups). I've never rolled with John. He started in my guard. Struggled a bit to break guard, but we eventually went to open guard. Did the best I could to maintain open guard, but he eventually passed to side control. He then proceeded to mount (after more time) and started attacking the neck and arms incessantly. Defended the chokes well, but he trapped an arm at some point and committed to the armbar. I employed Saulo's signature armbar escape and it worked beautifully. Stuffed it, stacked it, and took side control. By this time, John was breathing fairly hard. Much harder than me. Almost as if he was gassed. Waited for the right time and advanced to mount. Started arm and choke attacks, but that didn't last long. He eventually upa'd the escape and he proceeded to attack with most of the remaining time in north-south. I focused on kimura / choke survival. Time ran out. John shook my hand and said it was a good roll. Nice. Don't get many opportunities to roll with an upper belt, let alone compliments. Just glad I survived. You know? Come to think of it, for some reason I feel like he submitted me during the roll at some point. But I don't remember exactly when or how.... hmmm... Regardless, he was attacking about 65-70% of the roll. I had one solid armbar escape that was pure technique (by the book). That's good enough for me.

Professor Matthias paired me with my buddy Matt for the last roll. I think it was Matt's 3rd or 4th day. I'm excited that he likes the sport and keeps subjecting his 36-yr old out of shape body to pain. I knew his ribs have been hurting and he couldn't take much top pressure. I spent most of the roll showing him side control survival posture. He looked miserable after class. Reminded me of my first week or two at class. Nice. It took 36 years, but he's finally becoming a man (no offense to the women readers - just an inside joke in case Matt reads this).

Overall impressions: I didn't work very hard at all during tonight's rolls. I sweat a bit, but didn't feel like I expended too much energy. Part of the reason is I worked with two smaller and less experienced white belts and one stronger/taller, but less experienced white belt. But I think I'm learning to rely on what little technique I know a lot more. I'm not afraid when someone passes guard. I'm not afraid when someone proceeds to mount. No big deal. I used to feel like tapping every time someone passed guard or took mount. It was miserable. Not anymore. Progress? Or am I just getting too comfortable and lazy? Not sure

1 comment:

  1. I started at 36 and out of shape, too. I started blogging after 1 month of training, so if you or Matt can gain any encouragement, try reading through some of my early blog posts.

    Keep it up, guys!

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