Kirkland

’Feeling’ other people’s intentions when there is no time  to comprehend is not a special talent reserved for enlightened masters.  Only a bad relationship with our perceptions and a poor regard for our intuition can take this fundamental weapon away from us. Centuries of strict rationalism and skeptical philosophies have contributed to undermine our natural sensitivity. -Daniele Bolelli, On The Warrior’s Path



Evening class in Kirkland, under (purple) Dave.

Opponent standing, you on your back with feet on hips. Opponent pushes your leg to the side and steps to the side, you cross far leg over top and replace the open guard. Over and over.

From closed guard: spider guard to triangle to armbar to omoplata to triangle.

From side control: near arm under opponent's head, sit back on your hip, grab pantleg. Mount, grapevine, arm under head, dismount in "kickstand" position. Then side control. Rinse, repeat.

Basic back mount escape. Don't forget to grab the pantleg and push it away. Also, noting that tilting the head to the side and then pressing it back against opponent before rolling onto the side makes a big difference.

Same, only this time opponent grabs half guard. Sit back on hip, clear the arm, CROSSFACE (very important), shoulder pressure. Now scoot butt back as you use free arm (and your other foot, if necessary) to clear the half guard.

You are in turtle, Opponent is sprawled on you N/S. Hug one thigh, pop head out on that side side and press it against  opponent's shoulder blade. Step the outside foot out. Pop your body out and lie back on opponent. Twirl around to hang off hir side, as s/he is now turtled.  My biggest challenge here is remembering to circle the elbow back as I pop out.

Same beginning pose. This time grab both thighs and scoot in close. Pop head out, step out on that same side, use OUTSIDE hand to grab the near ankle. Push with shoulder (be very upright) and lift to spill opponent over. Take side control. There is a good opportunity here to also trap both legs on top of your thighs.

Sparring: Twice with a white belt I don't know, once with Dave. With Dave, my amazing skills from this afternoon continued to reign. I did worse against the white belt, go figure- even though he wasn't being smashy or ridiculously heavy. He had good basics, good guard passes and really good top pressure. In our first spar, I did loop choke him in about twenty seconds, which inspired much hilarity (him included). 

Fat Man Roll

Intention and lack of intention; mindfulness and no mind at all. Magic lay in the tension between those spaces, in the otherwise senses of the esoteric understanding of two things that did not admit of one another at all. –Elizabeth Bear

Sun: 128
Mon: 129.5  (eep!)
Weds: 129.5

Wednesday lunchtime BJJ in Kirkland.

"Fat man roll": You are in turtle, with opponent hanging off your hip. Opponent is foolish enough to commit hir arm deep enough for you to trap on the side opposite hir. Roll, KEEP HIR HAND TRAPPED as you keep weight on hir chest. Roll toward hir feet to take side control. For some reason, I always want to roll toward hir head, so I asked Cindy what would happen. All sorts of unpleasantess, beginning with Cindy getting double underhooks and shucking me off like nothing.

You are in turtle, opponent hanging off your hip. You grab hir far pantleg, scoot your butt away from hir, place the sole NEAREST hir on the mat, and pull your other leg through under you to replace full guard. Remember to pull your head back so that you don't get folded up under the opponent.
Same technique, only starting with opponent sprawled N/S on top of your turtle.

Opponent has back mount on you. Hand-fight the choking side (if there is one) and fall to the opposite side. Lie on opponent's thigh, remove the lower hook. Use the SAME HAND to now start fighting the other leg while you scoot out and take side control.

Same entry, but opponent gets half guard as you are trying to escape. Prop yourself on hir chest with mucho weight on and use your other leg to pry your trapped leg out. From being the demo dummy on this, I learned that the angle of this pressure on the joints is quite painful, and not practical to try to clamp down and resist against.

A little positional sparring from back mount. I continue to struggle with both sides of this. Today my biggest problem was that I could not seem to fall to the side and pin the thigh without taking the entirety of my weight off the opponent (at which point I could never recover- I ended up lying on the mat beside him and he simply rolled on top).

A few spars. I got muscled around a little today by larger men, but I managed to superior-technique myself into a top position for some of the time with both.

Cindy declined to roll with me because she was holding out for me to come back tonight instead of going to Bellevue.    

Claws

An individual who is truly alive should not settle for anything less than the totality of experience. -Daniele Bolelli, On The Warrior’s Path



Wednesday evening in Bothell.

Feeling extremely weary before I even walked in the door; I was concerned that I wouldn't be much use tonight. Will was bouncing around the place like a cricket on Red Bull, which made me feel even more tired thinking of having to fight him later. I managed to last all the way through the spars, although if there hadn't been another class waiting to get on the mat, I probably would have been wilting out before the rest.

Same bear hug from the back escape as this morning, and adding the following:

You are in turtle with opponent sprawled on you head to tail. Grab both thighs, pick a side and stick your head out from under hir armpit. Look over hir back. Step out with your far foot, circle around, pick the opponent's legs up while your drive in with your shoulder and head. Get some pressure on hir chest as soon as you get hir down; go to side control.

Also: bottom side control escape with heist, go to turtle.

Girl white belt takes suggestions eagerly and gratefully. Unfortunately it sounds like the new schedule (starting a half hour later) is not good for her. I hope she'll still be able to come. I'd love to see her play with Crisanne. Wish she'd cut her fingernails, though. Ow.
 

More back mount

“I have many skills.” –Xena, the Warrior Princess




Wednesday evening fundamentals, GB Bothell.

1)Bad guy is front mounted on you, punching you in the face. You do Black Crane cover, hip up and use knee to make Bad Guy post on the mat over your head. Overhook one arm, pinch it in tight, trap the leg on the same side, Upa.

I was the demo dummy tonight, and I made an obvious show of turning my hand over before getting upa'ed. To my delight, one of the white belts noticed and pointed it out. Insights Training, where I first learned an upa, made a big deal of this. I haven't seen this detail given much attention at GB, but I think it should be.

2)You are in turtle, opponent far back hanging on your butt. You turn slightly to get an angle, Grab hir pantleg, stick your opposite leg out to post.  Sit through, replace full guard.

3)Opponent is back mounted on you, double-under lapel grips. The s/he puts one arm over your shoulder for the choke.
You pull down on the elbow and roll to the side hir arm ISN'T on. Remove 1 hook, lie on hir leg. S/he starts to swing the other leg over for from mount. Grab the leg, stuff it between your own legs for half guard. Turn on your side, push hir other knee back, replace full guard.

Drills. So nice to work with Will. I miss Jalen, but Will is the same way about whipping those reps out and being really focussed.

Positional training from back mount. I had asked Cindy about this before class. She suggests that I try to keep moving around- if the opponent rolls to one side, keep the hooks and lapel grips and try to roll hir back. If s/he removes one of my hooks, s/he has to let go of it at some point- and I can try to get it back in. In the meantime, I can post off it and try to roll us around some more. I was still not doing very well during the positional training... I need more practice.

Spars. Tomoe Nage does not work on Will- dammit. I like to make them fly across the room once before they catch onto me. Will knows better than to push into me while we're standing- and if I try to yank him forcibly into the tomoe nage, he drops to his knees and goes into my guard. 

I got stuck in bottom half guard (yeah, what else is new). After a long time, he got really frustrated and stopped to ask me how the heck to get out. So I showed him one trick, and Cindy showed him a different one.  So, that is probably the last time I get to work *THAT* game on him. Also- he tried mightily to clock choke me, and was sooooooooooooo close, but I held out. After the clock ran out, I told him that if he'd grabbed my pants and pulled just a little, I would've had to tap.

I did not spar with Eric tonight, but I worked with a new (to me) large white belt, and James (whom I've worked with before). James got my KOB 101 tonight. We'll see if he remembers it next week. I got one sub on him- baseball bat (without gi- gable grip).  

After class, Cindy had Will work some bottom half guard sweeps using me as a dummy.

We didn't get time to clean the mat before another class came in. The Bothell school shares space with a Kempo school. They were doing single short stick! I wanna learn! Unfortunately, what these folks were doing was an exercise similar to what I've seen the kickboxing class doing: combos according to strings of numbers called out by the teacher. That is exactly the sort of thing that my brain does not compute. I would get #1 and #2, and after that it would be all over.

I made Eric do a triple-take tonight when he found out how old I am.

I am wearing a beard of aloe gel tonight. The entire lower half of my face is peeling off from gi burn.

Wednesday

Happiness is being high on the food chain.


Class schedule changes. Thursday "study hall" has gone adios, as has the Friday Old Farts' class. Sigh. They are adding a few more no-gi classes, but you have to wear a GB rash guard to these- which I do not have, and I resent being forced to purchase.  Grrr.

Wednesday lunchtime BJJ, Gracie Seattle. Rolled with Vince to warm up. Drilled with Sabrina- it was nice to get a chance to work with her.

You are on the ground, standing Bad Guy On the Street passes your guard and takes KOB, rape-choking you with the near hand while punching at your face with the other. You push the choking hand to the outside while rolling to the outside- yeah, this is turning your back to hir, but better to be punched in the back than in the face. Roll your body back toward the Bad Guy, Hip up and get your feet on hir hips, push away. Sit up with one knee up. Brace that foot on the floor while straight-leg push kicking Bad Guy's knee with your matward leg. Scoot forward and kick hir again. Tactical lift.

I always try to kick with the top leg. I think this is a my-legs-are-so-damn-short mindset (Sabrina did it too)... I'm thinking I can get a titch extra reach using the top leg, and my personal goal always trends toward kicking someone in the head, belly or groin rather than the knee. As Carlos points out, however, using the bottom leg to kick means that you can keep that knee-and-elbow shield up to guard your opposite side. You are also more mobile his way- once you catch on to the body mechanics. I still need to work with this more.

You are in turtle, with opponent hanging off your side and hugging you with two lapel grips. Use your near hand to grab hir pants at the far knee, while straightening your near leg behind hir (it is now diagonal, foot on floor). Post up on your free hand, crutch out to the front a bit (if you need to- we stubby-legged flexible foxes don't really need the extra room), sit out, grab closed guard. The detail that made an amazing difference: that arm that you use to grab the pantleg, pull your elbow in to your ribs. It puts the opponent off balance and restricts some of hir movement. Also, if you get lazy and leave that elbow flared, that opens up some unpleasant possibilities for your foe to change hir grip and mess you up.

You are sitting back mounted, opponent is hugging you sash-style with one arm over your shoulder and the other under your arm. You grab hir arm on the side where it's against your neck, and pull down to defend the choke. Lie back and bridge. (detail note: if you get up high on hir body here, it's harder for hir to choke you). Go to the side that *ISN'T* the "pillow side". Push the matward hook out with your hand. Swing your feet and butt out. Opponent grabs half guard. You turn in to hir, get your arm around hir neck and under hir head, and try to get some weight on hir as opposed to lying on the mat beside hir (Shoulder Of Justice is possible if you squirm with alacrity). Grab hir pants at the far knee. Push that leg away. Use your free leg to pry hir half guard off. Get side control.

The challenge here for me (Sabrina too) was trying to keep my weight on the person while compromising my balance by using that second leg to pry. After many failed attempts, I was able to do it, but only by being pretty rough grinding into Sabrina's neck and putting too much weight on her. I did not try that again, because I have about 20lb on her and she was making a few involuntary little sounds of pain. I need to refine that on a bigger drill partner.

Many drill reps. Techniques 2 and 3, I was able to work both sides. #1, I only tried the stupid side once. I was still too clumsy to be ambidextrous with that one.

One roll with Bryan. I was pretty tired. I left too many openings for him to trap an arm above my head.    

Wrestling

"Great dancers are not great because of their technique,
they are great because of their passion.”
- Martha Graham


I got out my short sticks for the first time in way too long, and was dismayed to find that I CRS. Fortunately, I quickly found a Youtube with the simple drill that I (used to) know, and it came right back- high, low, alternating. Whew. I spent a long frustrating time learning that, and it would have sucked to lose it. I'd sure like to learn some more short stick drills.

Our new Turtle Drum host flaked, so I am on tap again for next month (barring unforeseen work shifts). The theme is "planting of seeds". I hope they are not expecting me to top the light saber! I have to find a new elemental chant to cast the circle with. I dug out a bunch of my old chant cassettes. While I was at it, I dug out my candlemaking supplies so that I can start recycling some of the wax from the Turtle Drum candles (good Green practice- from the Earth perspective *and* the $$ perspective). I also dug out a bunch of old Stephen King paperbacks. I'm hoping that rereading his stuff will inspire me to write more (and better). Realistically, though, I tend to just fall down the rabbit hole and come back to consciousness later to find that I have blown half the day reading.

I have skipped a bunch of classes in the last few days. I am having a really terrible time sleeping- the worst since fall '11. I'm exhausted all the time but can't fall asleep, and when I do get to sleep I keep 1)waking up again, and 2)having horrible nightmares. I am trying to sleep nights and be up days so that I can go to class, but that is not going over too well. I wake up feeling worse than I did when I lay down. Unisom and Nyquil seem to make it slightly more likely to achieve sleep (altho not reliably), but cause an increase in the nightmares. I really need to get off caffeine... but my God! Give me a break! People all over the place are boozing and drugging it up; my worst vice is a can of soda, and dang it I resent having to give that up.


Wednesday evening BJJ at Sleeper. We worked wrestling stuff tonight because Jalen is preparing for a competition. One of the things I like about this school is that the class size is often intimate enough that it's reasonable to focus on helping a teammate get ready for something specific.

Cindy let me have the pick of the litter for drilling, and I picked Jalen.

Double-leg takedowns. We have been working these in both schools, and I seem to be doing better at the drills (although I get very tired and sloppy after a certain amount of time). I remain tentative and clumsy trying to do them live, though. I tried one tonight during sparring, and made a hash of it.

You are turtled and opponent is sprawled N/S on top. You poke your head out from under hir RT armpit and use your RT (cross) arm to grab hir RT leg. Post your left foot. (Stay low- do not heave your body up while you are posting the foot). Sit out, kicking your Rt leg far out straight and landing on your RT buttock. While you sit out, post with your rt arm and throw your left up violently like you are hailing a cab. Your left shoulder and the left back of your head should be against opponent's ribs. Turn swiftly and take the back. (If you can snake your rt arm around opponent's near leg as you turn, so much the better.)

Next technique: Opponent is on his belly (this is a wrestling thing). You are mounted on hir back. Use left arm to press hir cheek to the mat. Crossface with rt arm. Dismount and go to the side. As you do this, place your left hand between opponent's knees.

Post on your left hand, and tiptoe around toward opponent's head side, dragging hir head along with you (still crossfaced). You want to use your entire body to force the opponent to curl up so that you can gable grip your hands.

Once you are gable gripped, sit out and shrimp your butt out so that you can maneuver opponent onto hir back. Your matward knee should be in hir back. Your face should be buried in hir shoulder.

Next technique: Opponent is on his belly. You are mounted on hir back. Use rt arm to press hir cheek to the mat. Go UNDER hir arm with your left arm. (You should not do this too close to the opponent's armpit, or s/he will simply seal hir arm to hir ribs and trap your hand.) Dismount on that same side, and shove your arm all the way up to your armpit (it is between opponent's shoulder and neck) as you tiptoe forward and smear your body along hirs to roll hir over on hir back.

Sparring- Jalen and Axel. I was having some contact lens issues, so I was sparring blind.

Jalen and I were working from standup. I tossed him over my head a couple of times, but was unable to follow up by getting on top. He got several nice takedowns on me. I was able to twist mid-takedown and end up on top a few times. We each got one tap- his a cross-grip gi choke of some type (it was slick, he sneaked it in and surprised me), mine the gi-tail baseball-bat... although mine was not clean; I had to chase him around, and get my foot behind his head, jump to the other side, and do some additional creative contortions before I finally got him knotted up enough to tap.  

I got two sweeps on him tonight, which I am very pleased about. One was a hybrid of a technique we worked on a couple of weeks ago; I'm not quite sure what I did, but it involved throwing the bottom half of my body up and over to the other side. I was quite astonished when it worked. The other was the leg-over-head reversal from bottom scarf. Again, I was astonished that it worked, and before I even got upright I was thinking, "He *let* me do that; this is a trap." Sure enough, there were his legs swinging up to grab my head. That's one of his favorites and he's caught me with it a number of times. Since I was ready for a trap, I was able to squirt out.. although not retain control, we ended up facing off on our feet again.

I remember sparring with Axel several months ago. He was fun, and tonight he was fun again. Not too big, just good enough to make me work, but not good enough that I couldn't beat him if I wanted to. I worked some, and let him work some. Cindy talked him through an upa escape, so I front mounted him several more times and let him practice that again.

Cindy had been watching my failed hip throw attempts on Jalen, and she suggested an alternative: get opponent pushing into me, then turn and grab the head in my armpit. Then kick my leg straight and sit out instead of throw. I tried it a few times, and like it. I need a review and some more reps to feel comfy with it. Note to ask to work on this again next time I'm in there.

I do not heart leglocks

When we have worked hard and succeed at something, we should be allowed to smell the roses.  They key is to recognize that the beauty of those roses lies in their transience. It is drifting away even as we inhale. We enjoy the win fully while taking a deep breath, then we exhale, note the lesson learned, and move onto the next adventure. –Josh Waitzkin, “The Art Of Learning”

This is for Wednesday evening. I was too damn tired to write it up when I got home last night. And then just as I was about to hit the hay, I had to drive an acquaintance to the ER vet so that we could watch the cat she was babysitting for die. Fun evening.

Wednesday Form Of the Day: Bung Bo Kuen. A few fast reps, a few "tai chi speed" reps. Also did a couple reps of the Spear Hand frag, since it's a Mantissy day.

I thought Ginger Snaps (who apologizes to people for submitting them) was the ultimate BJJ apologist. But "Bunny Jiu-Jitsu" is officially the first BJJ blogger I have ever met who feels bad for her opponent because her feet are cold while being footlocked (Google her and see her blog post for yesterday).


Wednesday evening gi at Sleeper. I'll write what I can remember... if I don't do it as soon as I get home, I start losing chunks....

You are in turtle. Opponent is sprawled on your shoulders NS. Poke your head up beside hir ribs on one side. with your OPPOSIDE side hand, grab hir knee/pantleg on the side that your head is poking out. Post out with your leg on the side that your head is poking out. With the other, bring it under you and sit through on the back of your hip. You do not need to raise your body and bench-press the person up during any of this- you can stay hunched low. When you sit out, you need to end with yout body all the way out from under the opponent. Turn and take hir back.

You are in turtle. Opponent is sprawled on your shoulders NS. Perhaps s/he is scooted too far ahead on you. Grab one of hir legs and scoot your body forward (still low, still turtled) till you are under hir pelvis. Bring yourself upright on your knees, adding your second hand to brace the same leg. Now you are in a "wheelbarrow" position with the opponent, only you are turned the wrong way. So turn around (toward the leg that you are holding). There are several ways s/he could fall. Try to pin the legs and get overtop of them.

Same technique as Monday ("We're going to call this a choke." Cindy comments, using much the same conspiratorial expression that Rodrigo uses when he looks at us and says, "This is not illegal, guys.")

Then, a variation using the same opening as Monday: you are kneeling facing opponent, hook hand behind head, snap down, get head and arm. This time: gable grip. You now have a sort of baseball-bat-esque arm formation, with your forearm pressed on the back of hir head. Tighten and suck in, then pull opponent forward a bit so that ideally s/he is faceplanting on the mat. Press and twist with that forearm on the back of hir head to put hir down (Jalen was doing a complete somersault, I was just  kind of flopping over on my side like a dog that'd been shot- which confused me at first, but either was fine. I did need to visualize the somersault in order to remember exactly where to apply pressure). NOw, the arm that is under opponent's head- inch that through a bit more until you can do an "RNC" formation with your arms and squeeze. If you need to, you can sink your own body down toward the mat to finish.

Rolls with everyone except Lamont. Sony did much better tonight with the KOB tutorial. Better shrimp escape, quicker reaction time. I also had her defending chokes, and upa escaping from my front mount (which she had to do clean- trapping the posting arm well and sticking ONE hip up, not two- before I let her reverse me). I got one choke tap on Jalen, but it seemed like he let me set it up for some reason. He got me with that incredibly fast, hard triangle- then, after I commented on it, he promptly did it to me AGAIN. He's not setting it up from guard, which is part of what's confusing me. And again, it's coming in so goddamn fast that I can't even SEE how he's setting it up. If he keeps hitting it on me, I'm going to have to ask him to demo it for me in slo-mo so I can see what the heck I'm dealing with.

Cord tapped me several times as usual (including several leg attacks). This time I was ready for his fast continual flow, and I tried to play his game a little. It seemed to go marginally better than before, but only marginally.

Then I got Terry, who was an exercise in frustration. I was already annoyed with myself for getting caught in several leg attacks by Cord, and then Terry tapped me about eight times- all with leg attacks.

I continue to freeze up whenever anyone attacks my legs. 1)fear of serious, long-term, debilitating and expensive injury, 2)general cluelessness about what is being set up, how it works or how to escape it. It has now progressed to a significant emotional sandtrap situation, which bloats the problem beyond all reason. I really need to fix this. It's crazy to be at purple belt and still be so helpless with leg attacks. Terry and Cindy were trying to help with a few specific escapes when I asked, but Lamont made a snarky comment from the sidelines about the fact that he's been trying to teach me those simple escapes for two years and I'm still clueless (which is true- although shaming me about it isn't really helping my emotional barriers around it).

Anyway: If they have the leg pinned against the front of their body, I need to get my foot on the opponent's butt and use that to pry the leg out. If they have my foot in their armpit, I need to kick the heel forward as if I'm setting a parking brake- not a huge movement, I don't have to sink my leg up to the crotch- but just enough that they're now holding the shin instead of the ankle. Now, remove opponent's foot from your hip hip and hop your butt over it to the outside.  A lapel grip can also help.

To perform the foot-in-the-armpit: have the forearm oriented so that the ligament in the back of opponent's leg is grinding on the blade of your forearm. Slide it down enough so that you're seated in the "natural handle" at the back of the foot. I was trying to do it too high up on the shin (although I think that's a different legitimate sub). Place your foot (on the same side you have their lag trapped) on opponent's hip (on the outside), roll onto your side on THAT side, and arch back, looking over your shoulder (the one that is on the mat). 

I did get a couple of choke taps on Terry (including the gi tail baseball bat, and the sloppy single-forearm-under-the-jaw-and-lean-over-the-head thing that I know is kind of douchebaggy, but I was getting frustrated). I also got one funny armbar that was not an actual technique- it was a creative improvisation, which I am not good at, so that was a thrill. But it was mostly him running a clinic on me, which frustrates the heck out of me.

I also tried the gi-tail baseball bat choke on Cindy. She let me get it almost all the way set up, then abruptly started yelling, "Oh no! Oh, no! I saw that one on your blog! I'm not letting you get that one!" And then she escaped. Razzafrak!