DL Day 3

Knee is still tweaked, although I don't think it's that bad in the grand scheme of things. Not much trouble with a 5+ mile hike this morning through a local canyon with my son and father-in-law. Walking, stairs, etc., don't seem to cause any pain or discomfort. I haven't tried jogging yet. Posts/pivots, squats, and kneeling to stand up is moderately painful and simply doesn't feel right. Professor Leo said to ice it three times daily. I iced it once today... Need to get better with that.

Went to class this morning anyway. Worked core while the guys warmed up. Joined in for take down set-up drills, although I didn't do many and the reps I did were very slow. Observed the technique portion. Good review of two options from side control. First, the kimura with arm-bar option in response to a common kimura defense. The second, a very quick spin around armbar.

Worked core and upper body during the rolls. Hundreds of crunches. About 50 push-ups, with more than half from knees. Ankle weights and leg lifts. Plus stretch chord stuff to work hip flexors. Worked up a good sweat.

I'm considering a couple weeks off from rolling and most technique drills. I would continue to show up to class (keep the habit) and work core and upper body as hard as possible as an alternative. Even if I'm feeling a little better...no need rush the recovery. Hopefully I'll be 100% by the time I return to NOLA BJJ on 9/13.

Knee Injury - DRATS!

Not sure how badly I'm hurt... My right knee miniscus (outside) popped twice during training yesterday leaving slight dull achy pain. Got pushed over at an odd angle. I continued to roll, but baby'd it quite a bit. No pain after workout and it didn't hurt at all yesterday afternoon/evening, but something didn't feel quite right. I woke up this morning with moderate pain and a general feeling of instability. Can't post on the leg and turn or do squates without pain. Never had a serious knee injury before so I have no way of knowing if this is something that will resolve itself with a week or two rest or if I've really done some damage. . . Fingers crossed.

10a to 12:10p

10-10:10a: Stretched as kids judo wrapped up. LOTS of kids today for judo. 15 or so. That's a lot for a single instructor (esp. when average age is about 7 or 8).

10:10-11:05a: Self Defense course. Michael taught. Michael competed in the Grappling X tournament last week and won his division (155lb) and absolute for adult Blue Belts. Amazing given that he's only 16. I was the only adult for the Self Defense so I got to work to be Michael's trechnique dummy. Today's lessons included basic jiu jitsu (arm bar, scissor sweep, and hip bump sweep). I helped the 5-11 year olds with the techniques. Glad to help teach moves that I have difficulty executing in a live roll. Walking through the steps little kids forced me to replay the techniques in my mind, step by step, over and over again. Good practice.

11:05a-12:05p: Open Mat. Warmed up a bit and asked a large Blue Belt to roll. I forget his name, but he's taller than me and weighs more. We rolled for about 10 or 11 minutes. Very good work. Got caught in an arm bar once. Spent a lot of time trying to step around hooks to finish smash passes. He trapped me in half guard many times and seemed very comfortable. I'm not comfortable in half guard. Need to work that more.

Rolled with three white belts after that. Had a couple arm bars and a bow and arrow choke. One arm bar was a triangle to arm bar transition. The other was when an opponent made a mistake trying to choke from the back and reached over my shoulder too far. I simply extended my arm to make a fulcrum, grabbed the wrist with my other hand and applied the lock. Showed him how to avoid it next time. Also showed him the bow and arrow choke since he had it set up a couple of times and didn't go for it. Didn't get submitted by any of the white belts, but they passed my guard and mounted me a lot. Part of it was me wanting to try to work from inferior positions (these guys were 20-30lbs lighter than me and their side control and mounts didn't make me feel completely miserable). The other part was I popped my miniscus during one of the rolls and, although it wasn't in too much pain, it felt odd and I was definitely babying it.

12:05-12:10p: As I was about to exit the mat and call it a day, a 5 or 6 year old boy approached me and asked if I wanted roll. How could I say no? Showed him a basic guard break, pass to side control with cross face, transition to knee on belly and mount, then a cross choke to finish. We did that combo a few times before the buzzer rang.

Professor Leo worked with Saulo today, no gi. I ran into him in the locker room and we chatted a bit. He said he's been watching me and can tell I'm improving. Said my movements and transitions look much better and he can tell I'm thinking more about what my opponent is doing and what my response should be. I am certainly in better shape than I when I first started training at UNIJJ in early July. Certainly stronger. But better at BJJ? Sure. I suppose. The learning curve in the first year or so should be fairly steep and I take it for granted that with every day and every practice not only is my physique changing, my BJJ game is improving too. But I was a bit suprised that an instructor who has only observed me roll a 4 or 5 times since I started here at UNIJJ noticed improvement in my bjj game. Very encouraging.

8:50 to 10:30a

8:50-9a: Purchased Saulo's Jiu Jitsu Revolution 1 series. Getting ready to head back to New Orleans for work (depart 9/12) and I'll try to watch this series as often as I can after workouts. Stretched.

9-9:15a: Open Mat. Solo warm-up / standard drills routine. Jogged, hip escapes, core work, etc.

9:15-9:30a: Mike (Purple Belt and UNIJJ manager) knew I've been having trouble with side control postures and escapes so he called me over and showed me a few things. One is a real clever hand fighting technique that frustrates the opponent's cross face attempts. Once they give up and take arm over your body, follow and lock it down to mat via elbow and hip escape. Another technique includes walking hips away to create some space. Might walk in circles for a while, but also try to swim in an underhook and bring head and other elbow into chest before bringing knee in for the shrimp to guard recovery. I'll definitely be working on these.

9:30-9:45a: Worked with a visting two-stripe brown belt (from Jersey). Big guy. Much bigger than me. Showed me a few things about maintaining side control and really imobilized me in the process (doesn't take much). At one point he had me in open guard. I hooked under his right leg and began to stack for a pass with my right arm keeping his left thigh open. He warned me to watch out for the triangle. He was able to pull my right arm off his left thigh and break my posture without much trouble. Mike stepped in and showed something his son does to prevent the triangle. Same basic idea I had (keep the hip down while stacking), but switch the angle of the grip and straight arm the inside thigh portion of the gi to the mat. The Brown Belt couldn't shoot the triangle. The Brown Belt also showed me a cool trick to secure side control survival posture that makes perfect sense but had never occurred to me. When someone passes my guard and takes side control, too often I am late setting up side control survival posture. As a result, I'm often caught with the arm on the side under control getting trapped up above the opponent's knee and away from my side. He showed me that all I need to do is step and hip shift into my opponent's other knee, which often creates enough space needed to drop the shoulder/elbow back to the side and mat. Nice.

9:45-10:15a: The few guys who showed up for open mat didn't seem to want to roll much. They spent a lot of time catching up on MMA / BJJ gossip and generally socializing. I listened in a bit and took time to work more core and neck drills. 50 reps each of nods and nos plus 25 circles to the left and 25 to circles to the right. Lots of leg lifts. Hip shifters. Crunches. Lots of stretching. Etc.

10:15-10:25a: Andy (Blue Belt) hurt his thumb earlier rolling with the big Brown Belt. I wasn't sure how badly he got hurt, but since time was ticking away and the other guys were clearly done rolling, I asked him if he wanted to work a bit before calling it a day. He said his thumb was tender, but he'd go for a spin. I don't remember a lot about the roll other than I seem to have trouble with smash passes, even when my opponent seems to give them to me. Not sure what I'm doing wrong, but it shouldn't take me 2 minutes to work a pass when I have my opponent's knees together and on the mat. I eventually passed and began working grips. I thought I had an opening to transition to mount. As I threw my leg over, Andy raised a leg and fought the passing leg with his hurt hand. The defense worked...stopped the pass to mount...my shin slammed into his half guard (err...groin). He blurted out in pain. I thought it was the devastating blow to the groin, but it was his thumb (cup saved the nads). Thumb swelled up right away. Although I didn't do anything wrong, I still feel bad. He's going to be out for a while.

10:25-10:30a: Stretched a bit more and called it a day.

204lbs after workout (no gi). Haven't been this light since age 19 or 20. Crazy to imagine but if I can remain healthy, it's quite possible that I'll be in the best shape of my life on my 35th birthday (next May).

11:45a to 1:45p

11:45a-12p: Got to class early to stretch. Caught up with Ryan, a visiting student of Professor Leo and fellow white belt, who won his first tournament last weekend. Won all three bouts by points, including one 13-0. He was pumped. Said he went in to have fun and ended up taking the thing. Nice.

12-12:30p: Warm-ups and drills. Xande led. Running, push-ups, awkward (for me) core/hip work. Arm bars from mount (15 each side). Then a combo that required a roll-over sweep to mount then mount arm bar. (5 each side).

12:30-1p: Technique. Xande showed how to take the back from turtle. Position body/hips/weight over lower back. Reach around and snake hand under to grab opposite gi lapel. One foot next to opponent's leg. Slide other knee out and at same time nudge elbow and yank gi lapel to break down posture. Insert one hook. Roll opponent over and insert 2nd hook or take side control or north-south (depending on opponent reaction). Took a while to get it right. At one point Xande shouted from across the mat and gave me a thumbs up. Nice. Gold star! REALLY glad to know this technique. Had it completely wrong before. I used to get on top and try to insert both hooks while opponent is still in turtle. Balance always felt extremely awkward and occasionally I'd lose the position to roll-out. This technique avoids those problems.

1-1:30p: Rolls. 6 minute rounds. Got Justin first. Big strong guy in his mid-20s. Been training only a few weeks. My goal was to control the roll tempo and wait for him to gas. He didn't gas, but he sure fought hard. Took mount a couple times and he always responded with push-ups. I should have been able to effect arm-bar, but he moved so quickly I couldn't execute. Defended neck well so cross and Ezequiel chokes weren't panning out. No americana opportunities. He eventually escaped the mounts via combination of upa and force. Need to work on mount maintenance. Near the end of the roll I shot a triangle from guard. He postured up and then started to stand up. Switched to arm bar. I had to throw all the way over on my left upper shoulder/neck and eventually rotated all the way over to my knees with his arm locked up to finish. Not very pretty, but it worked.

Thomas was second. White belt. A bit smaller than me. I think he said he'd been training about four months. We had a pretty good back and forth with roughly equal reversals and submission attempts/escapes.

Sat out third roll. Odd number of classmates. I realized that I take too long to prepare for the next round and by the time I looked around for a partner, everyone was paired up and in starting position. Need to work on that and get ready to go quicker so I don't miss as many rolls.

Last roll of the day was with Joe. Another white belt. A bit smaller than me and my guess is he hasn't been training as long (but I don't know for sure). Spent a bit of time securing side control. Once in mount I spent an aweful lot of time trying to set up for a choke or armbar, but Joe defended well. Caught him in a triangle with only 15 seconds or so to spare.

1:30-1:45p: Cool down stretches.

INJURY REPORT: Sprained my left pinky toe during drills. Same toe I dislocated a few months back. Today was the 2nd day I attempted to work without tape. Bad move. It's quite tender. Will keep the tape on...probably forever... Professor Matthias said it will bother me as long as I continue BJJ. Thought he was exaggerating, but perhaps not.

7:30-9:05a

7:30-7:45a: First day back at UNIJJ and first day they started early morning classes. Barely made it in time to suit up and get on the mat before line-up. Missed stretches. Warm-ups seemed a bit rushed, but I was hurting a bit at the end. Only finished about 90% of the push-ups from knees. I'm an old man and need to warm up more than 15 minutes early in the morning.

7:45-8:35a: Long technical session taught by Professor Jake. Two triangle variations and an arm bar as well as a triangle to armbar in response to predictable triangle defense. Then finished with proper triangle defense.

8:35-9a: Rolls. 6 minutes. Sat out first roll due to odd number of classmates. Got Brent for my first roll (his second). Brent is a 36yr old Marine. About 5'9" and 185lbs or so. 2nd day training in class, but he has a long wrestling background and said he's rolled with other marines for a while who train at UNIJJ. He was charging pretty hard. Trying to smash passes. Worked on controlling the roll tempo and improving position/grips in response to his smashes. Highlights included a tripod sweep, back mount with both hooks that led to a bow-and-arrow choke, turtle roll out to open guard, and a deep half guard sweep. Most importantly though, I wasn't breathing very hard at the end of the roll.

Last roll with YJ (3-stripe Blue Belt). Professor Jake joked that YJ is part ninja, which I believe. He's very solid. Didn't have a whole lot to offer this roll. Sloppy on my part and I felt like I was always trying to avoid one attack or another only to find myself in a different sort of mess. At one point he had my back and I struggled to defend chokes and maneuver hips for the escape. YJ stopped the roll and and gave me a few pointers. Showed me how to recover half guard if the full escape to side control isn't available. Funny. He thinks recovery to half guard is better than giving up the back. Although he's obviously right, I cringe at the thought of getting stuck under someone. Need to work on it.

9-9:05a: Stretched a little. YJ showed me the back escape to half guard recovery again while working with JJ.

Surfing this evening and tomorrow morning. Swell's hitting. Can't wait to get wet again.

Beach Run

Three mile run on the beach with my dad yesterday morning. I've never run that far before. Not sure I've ever ran more than 2 miles. Felt pretty good. I'm clearly in better shape than I've been a very long time (probably since high school). Dad continued another 5 miles and ran another 14 this morning (he runs a couple marathons a year). I was too sore and stiff this morning to join him. The outside of my left hip is clicking a bit. No "bad" pain, but it doesn't feel very good. Running is not my thing. . .