Dawn Patrol

A knife is anything portable and sufficiently thin to cut. I’ve found eyeglass earpieces that were sharpened to scalpels and plastic toothbrushes sharpened to puncture. A knife is primitive- no matter the skill and technology that went into it, the knife is an exemplar of more primitive, less civilized times. –Rory Miller



Ben posted that the Dawn Patrol Open Mat in Bellevue (6am to 8am) was on for the morning after Thanksgiving, and I was impressed with his doggedness, so I "like"ed it. Then he PM'ed me and said, "Does this mean you're coming?" I had to work all night till 7:30am, so I said, "I'll throw my gi in the car and see if I feel up to dropping in for the last 20 min."

I got there and stuck my head in, and called, "I see a lot of guys sitting around on the mat yakking and not much rolling!" I also saw Hostility Boy- so I stalled a little, hoping he'd flake off... and thank you God, he did.

Ben and Aussie Dave were kind enough to stay for another hour, during which the three of us did rotating 8 min spars with no jackets, and they attacked my legs every which way. It was great. Although this does point up what an incredible body of work I have on my plate to become proficient at this sort of thing. It sure is a a different game in no gi. It sure is a different game at purple and above. Combine the two, and damn I have a lot of learning to do.

Ben got my arm trapped up over my head three times. The final time, he baited me into it... I resisted sticking my arm up there for some time, but I finally did it, and on he clamped.

I wasn't sure how I would like doing an open mat on my way home from work in the morning, but I really enjoyed that. 

Two Hours Of Kelly

A man who knows that body and spirit are part of each other doesn’t need anyone to remind him that he is alive, nor does he have any reason to upset the ecological balance. Only the sky above his head and the earth under his feet. His body is the only home. It is the only thing that never abandons him, the only one that truly belongs to him. Such an individual is a threat to every form of established authority. A wolf that can’t be tamed. He is not under anyone’s orders and doesn’t accept dogmas because he already has within himself everything he needs to face life. When streams of power flow in the veins of your body, dependency on external factors is reduced to a minimum. -Daniele Bolelli, On The Warrior’s Path


Friday evening: aborted class. The guy with the key was a no-show. We stood around and debated the merits of practicing takedowns in the parking lot. Then we talked about BJJ. Then we talked about peeing on electric fences. (This is what you have to put up with when you hang around with groups of guys.)
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Sat: 127.5

Open mat in Bellevue. I spent just over 2 hours rolling with Kelly, first no-gi and then gi, with about a 5-min break in between the two.

Pic- that's my left bicep- seventeen separate finger/thumb marks! Cool, huh?!

Kelly's doing phenomenal- she's a beast! She was on top the *entire* afternoon- which, while frustrating, was good in that it forced me to work off my back a lot (where I'm weak). I feel like I got a lot of good practice/experience today.

She is one of the few people upon which I have difficulty executing the comb-over escape from front mount to half guard; her tiny little feet tuck up under my thighs and she's so tight that I'm stuck. 

She also executed the Move Of the Day from Thursday on me, three times... only finished it once, but it's a sweet move, hard to see coming.

With her long legs, the "lockdown" is devastating... even when she just gets one of my legs, it HURTS (she's bony, too), and I can't do a whole lot while she's got me transfixed there.

I made a point of telling her all the things she was doing that sucked the most for me, and encouraging her to do them even more.

Kitsune: Oooh. That really hurts when you do that, and the angle that it creates with my neck makes it really difficult to defend.
Kelly: Oh! Sorry!
Kitsune: No, keep doing it! Do it more! It's great for you!

I worked a lot of open guard. I set up the lasso sweep that we learned on Friday, and was astonished when it actually worked!

Then I played with that lasso foot on one side and spider guard on the other, and managed to sweep her a couple more times in different ways. That's really exciting, as sweeps are by far the WORST part of my game.

Another thing I was excited about- I managed to get a couple of armbar subs that weren't really "techniques", but improvised. Improvising is something else I don't have a gift for, so it's a thrill when I get something like that.

To work on: I am still letting myself get caught with one arm up by my head. I did it three times, and was cursing myself, although she was not taking advantage of it. After the third time, I asked her to clamp on a head-and-arm every time she saw me do that. She doesn't feel solid with head-and-arm chokes, but I told her that as long as she had me well pinned, she had the leisure to adjust and play around till she got it. So that happened another four or so times. I really need to quit doing that. It is a terrible habit. I should start asking everyone to make a point of being ruthless about persuing me with that.

Tried for omoplatas several times, but only succeeded once. Chokes remain my most reliable tool... although I really am tickled about those  creative armbars.

At one point we had stood up, and she jumped guard, catching me completely by surprise. I not only dropped us both like a rock, I had my fist wedged against her neck and thumped her a good one as she landed. She seemed to have hurt the back of head more, though. I felt terrible.

The stripe fairy

All the world will be your enemy
Prince with a thousand enemies.
And when they catch you
They will kill you.
But first
They must catch you!
-Watership Down
Thursday: 127.5



You can run.... you can hide.... you can even leave your attendance card in the box so that it doesn't get marked..... but the STRIPE FAIRY is still gonna get you in the end.



No-gi class in Bellevue. Began with a grueling series of warmups featuring all sorts of mutated pushups, backwards and forwards iron buffaloes, and anything else that Carlos' twisted mind could come up with. Bear crawls with your partner backpacked on your back. Bear crawls with your partner papoosed on your belly. Thank God (blue belt) Lindsey was there today. Even she was almost too much for me. It wasn't the weight that was the issue; it was more a problem of restricted limb movement with a human being pasted precariously to your torso.

Opponent is lying on hir back with you standing, hir feet on your hips, Push the feet to your left, swing RIGHT leg over the opponent, and drop with your right hip on top of hir left hip. Go to side control.

Same entry, only this time the opponent turns toward you and tries to swing hir leg over your head. Punch BOTH your arms to the other side, slide through using hir hip as the balance point, and take side control on the opposite side.

Opponent tries to double-leg you, you snap hir down and sprawl on top N/S. go to the side, reach both arms under opponent's chest, grab far bicep with both hands, and pull to place opponent on hir shoulder. Keep weight on hir while you switch your arms so that the outside of your bicep is on hir clavicle. Now use "RNC" formation with your arms and lean your hip on hir head.

A couple of short spars. Carlos put a big white belt guy with me, and then gave him a lengthy talk about how he need not go easy on me. After he made the point three times, I said, "Okay, that's enough! Now he's going to kill me!" "I know thees guy ees a gentleman." And the guy was, to the point that I actually had to reiterate to him that it was okay to put some weight on me.

I also had to have a talk with Lindsey, who is really hyperparanoid about hurting me ("but you're so LITTLE!!!") and won't put barely an ounce of her her hulking 135lb down on me. She was doing that first guard pass drill brushing over my hip like a butterfly. I told her to be kinda careful of my RIBS, but she could thump down on my hip as hard as she wanted. She also wouldn't complete her subs even with repeated urging. I tried to explain to her that as two colored-belt training partners who have worked together for a while, she needed to trust me to let her know if she's going too hard, and trust me to know when to tap. 
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Next: Advanced class. It was a relief to see Kelly, whom I haven't glimpsed since I crunched her elbow. I once again sought reassurance from her that I hadn't injured her. Oh, she now has 4 stripes! Pam also got a stripe tonight! And- uh, well, me too.

We divided into teams of three and drilled double-leg setups from standing, then did the same inverted turn exercise that we did last night.

Then: opponent is in your guard. Pull hir fwd with legs and work hir bottom left gi tail free. Underhook hir left leg and feed the gi tail OVER your own thigh to the hand which is now underhooking the leg. Now you can scootch your butt out just a bit and go for- surprise- an armbar on opponent's RIGHT arm!

If opponent pulls arm out, Keep ahold of the other grips and go for an omoplata.

If you go for the omoplata and the opponent hops one leg over you to straddle your head, you can (still retain those grips!) lunge up and force hir to continue the roll until you are on top. If you still have that gi tail, and now your weight down on hir, s/he can't get out. Go to side control.

Several rounds of positional sparring starting from closed guard. I was working with Ron, and I was very pleased to try some of my new strategies when he inevitably went for deep half guard. I wasn't able to get his head and package him up like Cindy had shown me... but I am very proud to say that I did **NOT** consign myself helplessly to the sweep and fall back on my ass. I did in fact manage to stay on top- it was messy, but I stayed there.

Thursday advanced class

In martial arts, everything begins with the body. First, one gets acquainted with it, and slowly becomes intimate with it. The body is transformed into the best ally of the spirit. Then spirit and body become one. -Daniele Bolelli, On The Warrior’s Path




Look what I found by the side of the road on my way home from work last night. Its name is "Notstaying". Anyone want a bunny?


Evening advanced BJJ at Bellevue.

Drills: side control to KOB to side control on the other side. Sit on your hip and use the FAR knee to slide over opponent, then fall onto hip on other side.

Opponent is in your closed guard, holding your belt. Break hir grip by bracing with your hand on your own wrist (Carlos does it by gripping with the outside hand and running the INSIDE wrist under). As you break grip, pull opponent's arm crossways over your chest and use your legs to help hir along. Hug around hir head and arm. Take a moment to make sure you have this seated correctly on the neck... this is the time to do it, as your opponent is occupied with trying to avoid the face-plant. Later, s/he is going to figure out what you are doing, and tuck hir chin- then it will be too late to adjust your choke. Now: Slide your legs down a bit,  and use them to pinch hir thighs together, then roll. (If this isn't working, you can also use a butterfly hook toe here.) Front mount. Hop off on the same side you have the trapped arm. Choke.

More drills: this time we began with the wrist release and cross-yank, then shrimped out and took the back. Note that getting a hook or a good lapel grip (ideally both) and then pulling opponent into your lap is much less work and less dangerous than  trying to get all the way out and then climb on hir back.

A few spars- two blue belts and a purple. I felt in control with both of the blues (got a few taps on each) and competitive with the purple tonight. Dave and I traded some good choke tips.
Got the new Miller book- "Force Decisions"- I'm about ten pages in, and already have about a billion good quotes marked.

"You'll have to do it with one arm"

  “If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun.” THE DALAI LAMA


Friday night no-gi at Sleeper Athletics.

Man, was everybody on my case tonight! It's a good thing that I feel confident that these people actually *LIKE* me, because the harrassment was nonstop today! More dunning about how I get off on crushing the throats of helpless children, dire threats about what various people were going to do to me during the sparring, derisive exhortations to stop being so Care Bear gentle with my KOB's and N/S transitions. Yes, that last from the very *same people* who were riding me about mangling middle-schoolers. Ironically, several of tonight's techniques were of the "Oh Lord, that hurts so bad" or/and "Ye Gods- is that *LEGAL*?" varieties. (I only actually asked the question once today. I find myself asking Cindy this often. I think she may be a bit exasperated with my habit of doing this.)

It was the consensus (of everyone besides me) that I am practicing "possum jiu jitsu". I guess this is a slight improvement over what Bryan terms my impression of a "dead fish"... at least the possum presumably is only *playing* dead...

Standup: one hook behind opponent's head, the other "inside tie" on bicep. Push into hir. When s/he pushes back, tip your bicep-grip elbow up (bringing opponent's elbow up with it), lower stance just a titch, and duck under the arms as you step past and yank that neck hold to try to bring opponent to knees. Follow hir down and end hanging off hir side, with the neck hook transferred to the shoulder (this forearm is now across the throat) and your other arm around hir back and hooked into the opposite inside thigh.

Now: Transfer shoulder hand to bicep and thigh hold to far ankle, Put your head down into hir ribs (I always flub that part) and drive into hir till you roll hir on hir back and get side control.

Next: S/he tries to push at your face. Use the arm nearest hir head to sweep around and force that arm up so that you can lock on a head-and-arm. (Note: that crawling-the-fingers-across-the-mat thing is very good here to cinch up around the head.) Use the "RNC" grip.

You are in top side control. Opponent pushes at your face with hir far arm. Use the arm nearest hir feet to hook the bicep, then swing your body over to sit on hir head. Pinch knees tight. Figure 4. Pull up sharply if opponent is trying to fold/wrap arms to resist. Push hir arm behind hir shoulder blade. YOUR elbow (the one nearest hir feet) should touch the mat. Now sprawl on belly. The leg nearest hir feet should be straight, toe braced to keep hir from rolling you. Kimura.

After I kimura'ed Lamont about a zillion times (with both him and Cindy railing at me for being way too nice: "crush his head"; "That's the gentlest KOB I've ever felt"), I asked him if he wanted to drill something on me (see, I'm a good partner!). He wanted to practice an armbar from mount that ended with him belly-down instead of on his back. Interesting. It often caught BOTH of my arms and locked both elbows if I wasn't careful to pull one under me. Wristlock opportunity as well.

This is a baratoplata, I think(?). You are setting up a triangle, opponent attempts to defend by stuffing hir arm into your crotch. You loop your arm through the triangle s/he has just formed with hir arm (not too deep- for some reason I felt like it needed to be really deep, but it doesn't). Now release your triangle and place your foot on hir hip (opposite side as hir trapped hand). Keep your other leg over hir back. Keep both knees tight to control. This is a shoulder lock. It is not obvious to me which way to crank it once I have it set up, but as soon as I prompt myself that the shoulder should roll back, it makes sense.

Hmmm... we set up this technique from another position, involving a roll... but my mind is blanking.......

Me (getting shoulder cranked): "Be careful...."
Lamont: {dismissive grunt}
Me:  "If you blow out my rotator cuff, I'm going to kill you."
Lamont: "You'll have to do it with one arm."

Sparring: I was letting people force one arm over my head or across my own throat too often tonight. Note that tomoe nage does not work on Lamont, Terry, **OR** Wei. Not only does it not work on them, it ends in my plopping back on my butt on the mat fruitlessly in an embarrassing fashion. I attempted the guard pull from yesterday on Terry, and it failed miserably- he grabbed my foot, single-legged me, and flopped happily down on top of me in side control.

Wei had me tapping like Savion Glover. He is still being fairly nice, but after having worked with me for this long, I guess he has decided it's okay to put on a little more head/face pressure. Now I have bruises on both cheekbones. 

I did cave and have one more Real Pop after class, but it was a 90-cal Coke mini-can.
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Saturday: Both gyms closed for the Revolution. I had a number of errands to run- so to combine that with exercise, I parked at my first destination and walked to the rest.

One of my errands was the Redmond Safeway, where I found to my happiness that they had stocked some of the little 90-cal mini-cans of Dr Pepper. Usually they only have the Coke. It would be nice if they kept stocking the Dr Pepper.

Closed guard and spaghetti-legs

There are times when the body needs to heal, but those are ripe opportunities to deepen the mental, technical, internal side of my game.  You should always come off an injury better than when you went down.   -Josh Waitzkin, The Art Of Learning



4:30 basics. Head-and-arm chokes; and arm-and-head chokes, from sprawling N/S on opponent's turtle. Tighten as much as you can before you roll. You can use your fingers to "crawl" your hand up the opponent's arm toward the big round patch on the back of hir gi. You can roll either way. After having rolled a big guy right over my face and almost breaking my own nose once, I got very leery of the full roll here. I learned *THAT* day that you have to put your face into the space under hir ribs before you roll. I learned TODAY that you can actually turn your face the other way. To make life easier, just make sure the back of your head is going to hit the mat first- that way you don't have to pause and burn brain cells for ten minutes trying to figure out which cheek to lay on the opponent's back.


Ow. Mondo gi burn on chin after doing this.


Positional training from one person in turtle, 2nd person sprawled N/S on top. The class was me, 2 small ladies, a medium-sized 2 stripe blue that I didn't know, and a really tall lanky white belt I've never laid eyes on before. 2 rounds- I had to fight both of the guys, while the women got to pair together both rounds.  :(   Both of those guys whupped me.



Study hall- study hall was quite a revelation today. Today I discovered that after 4 years of BJJ, I do not know how to close guard. Not MAINTAIN it, mind you, we're not even there yet- I am speaking of the simple (heh) mechanics and positioning of STARTING there.


I never use closed guard. I can't get my stubby legs closed around most of the people I train with. The few that I *can*, they simply bench-press one of my thighs to the floor. Once the thigh is on the floor, I feel like it's pretty much over and I'm already beaten, so I let my guard open and mount some pathetic token resistance as the opponent breezes past and settles happily into side mount.


My usual method when asked to close my guard (assuming this is a person upon whom I *can* do so): I grab hir lapels, hike my thighs right into hir armpits, lock my ankles, and clamp. I don't *squeeze* the person with my thighs, but I attempt to mentally forge my legs into an immovable steel frame.

Carlos put me in his closed guard. His thighs were lying on the tops of my thighs like two pieces of overcooked spaghetti.  


It seems that my signature neck-cord-bulging approach is yet again resoundingly WRONG.


Carlos would like me to grab the opponent by the triceps (not seize hir by the lapels and yank hir into my steel-girder guard as if I'm about to bite hir throat out), hook my ankles, and then relax my legs knees-out around hir waist (not clamp them knees-up around hir ribs). Does not compute. And feels WEIRD. Weak. My legs cramped after about 20 seconds. It feels weird because I don't *do* it that way and I'm not used to using those muscles, he tells me.


He pulled up his gi pants and showed us his hairy shins. There is a palm-sized circular area on the back of each shin which is rubbed completely free of hair. This is where his legs rest on the opponent's back while holding closed guard.


"Don't open your closed guard. You are doing half the work *for* heem." Why does that sound familiar? Maybe because Cindy has said that to me about half a zillion times?   (only she says "him" instead of "heem")


"But what do I do when they bench-press my thigh to the floor?" He had Ben bench-press his thigh to the floor. His hip turned in the same direction and the opposite knee came up. His guard remained closed. I had Ben try to bench-press my thigh to the floor. My shorter legs just sat on top of Ben's thighs and he couldn't Kitty-Pryde them through his own leg to the mat.


I'm going to need to play with this, with kitten-level resistance, with a good partner before I can even start to wrap my brain around this idea. I can't believe this is going to work live. But my way sure as hell ain't working. If it does work, I'm going to feel like a real moron for doing such an elementary thing wrong for the last four freakin' years. But I guess I'd rather feel like a moron and get it fixed, as opposed to CONTINUING to be a moron.

Further refinements- baseball bat chokes

Players tend to get attached to fancy techniques and fail to recognize that subtle internalization and refinement  is much more important than the quantity of what is learned…. Depth beats breadth any day of the week, because it opens a channel for the intangible, unconscious, creative components of our hidden potential. - Josh Waitzkin, “The Art Of Learning”

"Bunny Jiu Jitsu" is now blue.... women are invading the ranks of the colored belts in tsunami waves....

Monday evening gi at Sleeper. More neck-squeezing today!

A couple of the same ones we did last week.

Then: You have butterfly guard. Snap neck and bicep down. wrap around head and one arm, gable-grip under opponent's chest. Use the butterfly hook on the side that you have the arm trapped to flip the opponent over. You can run around and entangle hir legs with yours if you wish. Then "RNC" grip and squeeze. This would work for no-gi as well- it didn't use any part of the gi.

Sony caught some flak for being "too nice"... Finally, someone else in here is "too nice"! I think she's even "nicer" than I! She has lovely choke placement, even if she lets go too soon sometimes. Her side control is very good as well.

Lamont is using some calisthenics counts to perch kneeling on one knee with both arms spread out, heels of hands up, eyes closed. He absolutely refuses to tell me what he is doing. Thus I am free to speculate that he is rehearsing a marriage proposal, trying to spin Spiderman silk, or doing a chi exercise which involves attempting to vaccuum Dragon energy out of all of his classmates for his own use.

Rolls with Cindy, Sony and Eric. Sony escaped all of my KOB attempts with alacrity today. I front mounted her about a Brazillion times, and made her do clean upa's with good hip pops and no stinting the arm or leg captures. (I saw Terry doing the same thing to her later, and I called, "You're going to be upa'ing in your dreams tonight!") After she upa'ed me off, I scissor-swept her and front mounted her again. It took her a while to start defending the scissor sweep with any success- or at the very least, scramble after being swept and not just lie there and let me regain front mount.

Eric and Cindy both leglocked and footlocked me upon request, and I tried to escape, with lukewarm success. Eric let me baseball bat choke him about 4 times (both with gi tail and without- I didn't get a chance to try to the gable-grip collarless version, must remember to work that one too). He was running away from them, and prompting me to plant a foot behind his head to hold him there while I finished. I also tried to employ the refinements that Jesse suggested yesterday (more elbows together, more sprawl to the mat, you don't necessarily need to get all the way behind the guy's head).

I was worried about my knee, but it did mostly okay. I was even able to run laps and do (shallow) lunges. The only time it really whined was once when Eric put it in half guard. It hurts now, though. Limping a bit.

I asked Cindy about that spider guard sweep. She confirmed what I had already pretty much decided- that, like kung fu throws, you aren't going to just go up to someone who is standing there flat-footed and try to do this to them. If I'm playing spider-guard and can get the guy to overbalance forward, or commit to a weight-forward attack, then I can do this sweep. Cindy was also pulling her knees abruptly to her chest to overbalance me, then sweeping. That might work for me, especially on smaller guys, but I am going to have to make sure I'm sufficiently underneath them first... and also take them by surprise.

I did have to sit out the last match.... because I thought if I rolled one more, I was gonna upchuck.