Krav Maga, 3/10/16

Today the warmup wasn't as intense. We had a smaller class size too (four students today vs eight on Tuesday, but the rain may have something to do with it).

First we worked on an arm drag drill, then did a "head block" or "head catch" or something off a one-handed collar tie. Basically, uke puts one hand behind your head, and that forearm on your clavicle, for control. You turn your body, catch his arm as you escape it, and ram the top of your head into the side of his (for gravy you can step behind him for a trip / gedan ate kind of thing). In both the arm drag and head thing, the guy's reaction of pulling away from you (or trying to stop you) just helps you do the technique on him. Aikido, anyone?

Next we worked on one guy doing an arm drag into a rear naked choke. Then into a bear hug from the rear (under the arms). For the bear hug variation, the other guy would counter by:

• Dropping his weight
• Throwing alternating back elbows to the attacker's head, until enough space is created to....
• Turn around and push his head into place for an enthusiastic knee strike, hammerfist, etc

Then we moved on to a standard pummeling drill, working on footwork, and imposing our will vs flowing with our partner's energy. There were karate-like ideas here, of being relaxed until it was time to exert. Relax while pummeling, then BAM into the guy as we come into position.

Lastly we worked on three different ways to deal with a muay thai clinch, and drilled them back and forth a good bit:

1. The "CPR" technique; Put one hand over an arm and one hand under, both on his chest like you're doing CPR on him, and push away. When space is made, get him into a clinch of your own, and he does it to you.
2. Reach around the back of the guy's head and secure an ear (or eye, or whatever). Then with the other hand, grab under his cross-side elbow, and twist both like a big steering wheel. Difficult to resist! Then secure a clinch of your own and it's his turn.
3. If you can't do either of those, use a hand to spear between your head and his, and push his face away by his eye region (kind of like gyakugamae ate). Replace with your own clinch, and trade turns. 

We ended the class by putting it all together. Flow drills, to help get lots of reps and build reaction time.

As I drove to the class today, I could not get the smile off my face, in anticipation of training. As I came back, I was wishing I had spent the last several months doing krav instead of BJJ.

Krav Maga, 3/8/16

So I went to the trial class Tuesday, and really enjoyed it. We started with an intense warmup. Actually, it was less of a warmup and more of a "wring you out" session. The stretching portion afterwards was heaven compared to the conditioning.

We drilled foot movement in all directions, and a 1-2 punch combination focusing on body rotation. Then we partnered up to work the following drills with focus mitts:

• 1-2 punch to focus mitts, then step off the line to a safer position (while practicing footwork)
• Same thing, followed by the mitt holder shooting for a double-leg takedown
• Same thing, adding an "arm block" to defend the takedown
• Same thing, following the arm block with an arm entanglement and counter attacks to finish

Next we did a choke-from-the-rear defense which was similar to what I've done in aikido and judo, except instead of ending with a waki-gatame or takedown, there were more knees to the face, etc to finish.

Then we did a similar drill when the rear choke is replaced with a knife to the throat. Like in aikido with Pat, a knife can change things real quick. The drill ends with bad guy getting stuck with his own knife.

At the end of class, we put it all together. One guy would be in the middle of his group and perform the following, in sequence:

• 1-2 punch to a guy holding mitts...
• ...after which a different guy tries to double-leg you, and you have to defend, arm entangle, and finish.....
• ....at which point, guy #3 either chokes you from behind or holds a knife to your throat, and you deal with that as practiced.

It was all nicely paced and controlled, but still intense. Seemed like a good group of people, and there were no thugs, like I've found (at least a few of) in BJJ classes.  I joined the school, and I'm going to my next class in a few minutes!  I guess for now I'm a Krav practitioner!

Judo Study Group & BJJ, Jan 25-26, 2016

Judo, 1-25-16

We reviewed our yellow belt throws, then worked mainly on ukigoshi (still a little sloppy for me) and koshiguruma (we're getting pretty good at that one).

BJJ, 1-26-16

We drilled a few options from closed guard (bottom), including pendulum sweep, hip bump sweep, and kimura. I had a few rounds of live rolling, all of which started from standing. I felt like my judo was going my way today! I got a kouchi gari against another white belt, a drop knee seoi counter, tani otoshi, sumi gaeshi, and I countered a tai otoshi with a tai otoshi of my own against a blue belt, and an osoto gaeshi against a brown belt. Lots of throwing folks around today!  I had some good transitions, good pressure, and a successful americana against the blue belt. Fun rolls!

BJJ, 1/21/16

We drilled some guard passing motions, while dealing with a couple defenses bottom guy might resort to when you're passing. Then we drilled a few arm drag techniques from bottom, while our partner was in our guard. The first one was a really tight arm bar, then an Americana, then a sort of pendulum sweep. All very slick.

I did 4 rounds of live rolling, and did about as well as I normally do, nothing much to note.

Karate, 1/16/16

We did what I'm going to call "homeopathic" karate training today! The first principle of homeopathic medicine is similia similibus curentur ("let likes cure likes"). The oversimplified idea is that if a patient has a headache for example, the homeopathic doctor might give him something that causes headaches in healthy people to cure the headache of the patient.  Fascinating stuff!

Anyway, one of the troubles I've been having in my karate development has been slowness. Taking too long to initiate and/or complete a technique, or taking a long time to step from one stance to another. In my teacher's words, "like I'm dragging a heavy weight behind me".  Today, we warmed up doing our blocking series while holding 10 pound dumbbells in the blocking hand. Then, for about half the class, I was attached to a resistance band that was constantly pulling me backward! I had to step through kicks, punches, stance changes, etc. What a workout!  For the last part of the class, without the band on me, my teacher was well pleased with the quick improvement!  I may start doing that at home occasionally too.

I went through a few reps of heian nidan, and I need more work on my kime. I can't think of anything analogous to kime in aikido or judo - kake doesn't really need kime, usually.

Finally, we sparred for several rounds. We used karate gloves and mouthpieces so we could go a little harder today, and what fun it was!  I got popped in the eye a few times, kicked in the gut, but nothing bad.

A couple things to note: My teacher insists I'm probably really about green belt level in skill. That's great news to me, as I'd rather be a yellow belt with green belt skill than a green belt with orange belt skill. I might test for orange at the end of February. The other thing is my homework for the whole week; he says my biggest enemy is tension. Apparently I'm still really tense while doing a lot of kihon, kata, or kumite, or anything. I'm a pretty analytical guy, and to try to think "fast, relaxed, & powerful (not to mention "with correct technique")" it all just jumbles up and conflicts in my head. I think that's what's bogging me down. We'll see how things go this week.

Karate, 1/9/16

After warming up, my teacher introduced me to something he's trying with all his students this year. He's noticed that when students perform kata, they aim for meticulous technique, but are more lazy about it when doing kihon. In order to encourage more care during kihon, he's come up with a few "micro kata".

They all begin in a front stance and are done on both sides. So, assuming a left-foot forward front stance, the kata run as follows:

• Left rising block, right rising block, left punch to the face, right punch to the body
• Left outside block, right outside block, left punch to the face, right punch to the body
• Left downward block, right downward block, left punch to the face, right punch to the body
• Left forearm block, right forearm block, left punch to the face, right punch to the body
• Finally, perform all of them end to end

All of these are done with a hip switch for every technique, and it is quite a hip workout!

The kicking microkata are also performed on both sides, and assuming a left foot forward front stance, go like this:

• Right front snap kick, landing in a right foot forward front stance
• Step backward into the original left foot forward front stance, then left front (lead leg) snap kick
• Bring feet together and do a right side snap kick 90 degrees to your right, and land in a right foot forward front stance, facing that same 90 degrees to the right of the original direction
• Execute a right roundhouse kick toward the original direction you were facing, landing in a right foot forward front stance
• Execute a right back kick, landing in your original left foot forward front stance

Whew! I hope all that made sense. I'm going to try to get a lot of reps in over the next week.

Next we worked on heian nidan some more. We did some fine tuning on my side snap kick toward the beginning. I still need to increase my speed when moving from one step to the next (we figure I'm thinking about it too much). I need more kime in my techniques in general, and I need to punctuate the kiai techniques more. 

This karate experience, in traditional Shotokan, has proven to be a much more precise approach than either judo or aikido. That's a mixed bag to me; I can see the drawbacks, but there's also something in me that loves it. Even if it can be frustrating at times. Sensei is constantly fine tuning my karate. While I do enjoy it, and know it will make me better, I can relate to a quote from Funakoshi from Karate-do, My Way of Life:  "This constant repetition of a single kata was grueling, often exasperating, and on occasion humiliating."   Ha! You said it, Gichin. 

We ended the class looking at some sparring applications. Kind of a triple punch designed to cover a lot of distance and overwhelm an opponent. I am always amazed how my teacher can seem almost to teleport, haha. He will be way too far away to do anything to me, and next thing I know, he just lightly tapped me in the throat. I really look forward to getting better!  Now that I'm not doing judo two nights per week, I hope to practice more at home.

BJJ, 1/8/16

We started class by doing a standing pummeling drill, and a discussion on some situations where pummeling well is useful. When we were pummeling competitively, I stunk at it!  Apparently even the other white belts in class had wrestling backgrounds. One gave me a tip about not flaring my elbows when I did it, which I was apparently doing.

The main class lesson was about leg separation and guard passing. We worked one pass, and an alternative for when bottom guy gets savvy. While drilling the passes, I felt like my top pressure is way better than it used to be, especially my shoulder pressure.

We had four rounds of live rolling which wore me slap out. I think a strength of mine is surviving on bottom more and more. I end up in bad positions pretty quickly with more experienced guys, but I'm getting better at fending off / frustrating their attacks. Of course that's all while striking isn't allowed - I might be way worse off if they could hit me!

Oh, we started the rounds standing again, and I got a nice, smooth kouchi gake / maki komi takedown on one guy. The other guys just tended to pull guard rather quickly.

Judo, 1/4/16

Last night I had the pleasure of going to Pat's grand-reopening of the new dojo space for Mokuren Dojo.  The lesson was a pretty deep dive on deashi barai, the advanced foot sweep. MAN it was good to get back to Pat's style of training again!   We started out teaching the new folks to fall, then moved to the foot-sweep-to-control drill. I can attest that doing a few years of that drill back in the day helped with my timing and sensitivity in my recent, more sportive training environment.  Pat talked a lot about how in a sense, Judo is about control. Whether it's controlling ourselves, or being able to control a crazy guy that might hurt us or themselves. So rather than just trying to bust our partners with a slick deashi, we worked on protecting them as they fell, and maintaining control of them so they had to fall on their butt, facing away from tori.

It's great to be able to practice Judo that jives perfectly with my aikido, both practically and philosophically.

After class, Pat gave me a couple osoto gari pointers for the study group I'm working with. I'm looking forward to trying it out later today, along with the sweet deashi goodness we went over last night.

I think the relaunch was a success. I was glad to see such a good turnout, and hope that bunch sticks with Pat for years to come.

BJJ, 12/29/15

After stretching, we worked on partner drills for scissor sweeps, knee & elbow escapes, pendulum sweeps, and S-Mount arm bars. The version of the pendulum sweep we did was way easier than the one I'm used to. The "pendulum" leg didn't have to do much at all except get out of the way.

I rolled 5 times. I dominated the first two rounds, then fought a black belt (I tapped a lot), a blue belt (I tapped even more), and a brown belt. The brown belt was in the UFC years ago, and has another fight (in a smaller organization) coming up, so he wanted to start all his rounds standing. I was pleasantly surprised at how I did while we were on our feet! Of the 5 times we stood up, I threw him at least twice! One was with an Osoto gaeshi counter to his Osoto gari, one was an ouchi counter to his tani otoshi, and I forgot the other one. And the times he did take me down, it wasn't decisive. Of course he decimated me in the ground, haha. But I felt great after throwing him.

We got a rare treat at the end of class. The instructors had a Q&A for things we've been having trouble with. I was shown how to properly do the running escape from side control. I've been getting into the first position a lot but haven't been able to complete it. Apparently I wasn't controlling top guy's arm. Can't wait to drill it more!  Good class!

BJJ, 12/15/15

Today we started by doing the both-guys'-hands-in-their-belts guard passing drill. That's exhausting. Then we went over fundamentals of the lasso guard. How to get into it, key points, common mistakes, etc.  Most of our drilling time was spent doing a lasso sweep when your opponent moves around to the inside, or pushes your leg that's on his hip to the outside. It was kind of like this:




Live rolling was a pleasure for a change, and I was pretty happy with my performance, if not my cardio endurance.

Judo, 12/14/15

Last night we worked on miscellaneous mat work in our rank groups. I'm still having a little trouble with the stock turnover, but just because it's new to me. Worked on a butterfly sweep a lot. We didn't have a "whole class" lesson, because the juniors had a promotion night and cut into the adult Judo time. I did one round of ground randori against an enthusiastic white belt who's only been coming a month or two. He had good pressure, and goes a little hard, I guess to compensate for his newness, but my defense was good, and I was never threatened. He was asking if he could work his scissor sweep on me, so I let him. He's having trouble with it, so I showed him the way I tend to do it (keeping my partner away / stretched out rather than pulling his weight on top of me). That seemed to work ok for him as well. We got a few more reps in after class. It's nice to be able to help guys that are even newer than me.

To end the class we had several rounds of tag-team randori, which is always fun.

BJJ, 12/10/15, and a Rant

I'm kind of frustrated. I've been thinking lately about the typical BJJ pedagogy. At least it's typical to every BJJ school I've ever been to: About half the class (if that) is warming up / stretching, and learning and drilling a technique or two, and the other half of the class is spent rolling. BJJ guys take some pride in the fact that it takes SO long to get a black belt (~ 10 years), but I think the same level of proficiency could be achieved in a much shorter time if more time was spent on technical work, and less on drilling, up till purple belt or so.

I'm not saying eliminate live rolling for lower ranks, just spend more time building a foundation. Rener Gracie has been a big proponent of a similar method (his students don't roll until blue belt). His reasoning is that jiu-jitsu is a martial art designed for weaker people, but the typical approach weeds out weaker people so only the tougher ones ever make it past white belt. I know that's a generalization, and people will argue, but speaking from the perspective of a weaker person, who gets frustrated when he can't do anything with higher ranks (or even other white belts, depending on their experience), I agree with him. Most people aren't going to keep taking that kind of punishment long term. Yes, sticking with it will make them stronger, but it's questionable whether they will stick with it.

There are a few reasons I think it can be so punishing. First, like I said, there isn't enough of a foundation when you first begin. You're expected to learn by experience as you go. "Oh (six months later), I see that letting my elbow get far away from my body opens me up to an attack".  Why not teach things like that on the front end instead of waiting for the universe to reveal it to them. Thankfully I've got enough experience (and had some exceptional teachers) to know enough fundamentals to at least survive for a little while against better grapplers. Secondly, I don't know what it is, but I find Judo's spirit of Jita Kyoei ("Mutual welfare and benefit", or as Pat puts it "you and me getting better together") is missing from every BJJ school I've been in. The typical student (especially white belt, but I've rolled with some blues like this too) just goes so hard in rolling, like there's money on the line. If live rolling is supposed to be a learning experience, it just doesn't strike me as the most efficient way to learn something, going pedal to the medal, all-out, out of the gate. This approach seems to be encouraged (or at least not discouraged) by the instructors. This might sound like whining, and maybe it is; I just feel like it's a shame that jiu-jitsu could be such a beautiful art, but it gets "thugged up", and a lot of the gracefulness is obscured by current training methods.

That brings me to today's class. A guy I'll call Captain Sambo was teaching the class, and had a room full of white belts doing an advanced rolling armlock (we did some basic ones first, as well as some grip breaks). Basically, the white belt I was drilling with was not being at all cooperative. He was trying to stop me from drilling every move we were working on. I don't know if he thought he was doing them better than me because I was actually letting him practice the techniques, but whatever. I just had to work a lot harder to get them to work, and they didn't look as pretty. He was much newer than me, so he probably just didn't know how to be a good drilling partner. Anyway, he was going hard even during drilling. Like he didn't get the point that there was no trophy up for grabs, and we were supposed to be learning the techniques. During the rolling armlock thing, the guy hyper-extended my elbow. Kind of badly. It didn't hurt as badly during the rest of the class as it does now, but it seems to be hurting more and more. Anyway, I was able to finish the class, but don't think I'll make it to tomorrow's class if it's not feeling much better.

To sum up the rest of the class, I rolled with the same white belt first. He was huffing and puffing, and going all out, but I survived everything he tried. I stayed safe, but couldn't work on much offense. Still valuable I guess. Good thing he didn't have a knife.  We started each round standing, and the next white belt I went against seemed like he really wanted to throw me with deashi. I countered with a fine tsubame gaeshi and dropped him soundly. Then I went with a black belt, and of course got nowhere. Next roll was with a white belt that I pressured pretty well the whole time, and submitted him once. Last roll, another white belt, strong guy, that got me with an armbar on my by-then-hurting-much-worse arm.

I'm considering not doing BJJ any more. I still enjoy the kickboxing class a couple mornings per week, so I'll probably continue doing those. I'm still doing Judo a couple nights per week at a much cooler school anyway.  I need to reevaluate whether it's worth me continuing to do BJJ there. It's a sport-oriented school, anyway, so maybe the effort I'm putting in doesn't have enough of a payoff given my personal goals and interests. I guess I was hoping getting more mat time in during the week would help my Judo. Maybe I can still drill with friends a couple times a week for lunch. We'll see.

Judo, 12/7/15

Last night our rank group worked on all pins and escapes, chokes, and armlocks for yellow, orange, and green belt.  The whole class then worked on okuri iri jime (I think). Clock choke, in BJJ. I didn't realize the clock choke is the same as koshi jime, with one hand placed differently (it grabs a lapel instead of going on the mat in front of the guy).  We also worked on putting weight on the guy's head if he tries to get up out of it. Instinct makes you want to lean on his back to keep him down, but weight on the head does it way better.

I only had one round of light ground randori last night. I tried out that nifty collar choke I mentioned in my previous post, and I'm pleased with it!

This Week in (My) Martial Arts (Dec 1-5, 2015)

It's been a super busy week, so I haven't had a chance to post. My wife is still recovering from hip surgery, so I've been taking care of her, the house, etc, and I've fallen behind in my training logs.

To compound matters, I've trained a heck of a lot more this week than normal. I've joined UFC Gym, and in addition to a couple of pre-workday kickboxing classes, I've added no less than three BJJ classes per week! They offer them at lunch, so it should be easy for me to make most of the classes.

Here is the breakdown, as I remember it:

BJJ, 12/1/15
We worked on a ground mobility cycle that took us from kesa, to side control, to ushiro kesa, to mount, then up the other side. Basically everything except north-south. The focus was on not getting rushed, and constant pressure.
We also worked on an Americana and straight armbar with the legs, both from kesa.
We wrapped up the class with five, 6-minute rounds of rolling.

BJJ, 12/3/15
We reviewed the two armlocks from the previous class, then went over the following choke from mount:



We rolled for three, 6-minute rounds to end the class.

BJJ, 12/4/15
We reviewed the two arm locks again, then looked at another choke from north-south. I hardly remember the details, sadly. I need more drilling.  We ended with four rounds of rolling.

Karate, 12/5/15
Promotion time is coming up, so 90% of the lesson, we worked on my orange belt promotion material. Kihon, three-step sparring, and heian nidan. I need to fix the following things in heian nidan:

• My spear hand is too high
• My back foot always turns out on the second kibadachi, for some reason
• I need to work my hips more in that same transition

We also went over my tendency to do things really slowly. I need to start moving faster. Not just the strikes and kicks themselves, but from the moment it begins, it all needs to be faster. I'm concentrating a lot on doing it correctly, and that's slowing me down. 

Judo, 11/23 and 11/30

The 23rd was just a pre-thanksgiving open mat night. I was a throwing dummy for a fellow orange belt, and he let me work some side control escapes. I got one round of ground randori in, against a yellow belt. One of our school's BJJ students was there watching, and paid me a high compliment: "I like the way you move, very relaxed and flowy."   That's what I'm shooting for, glad it was noticeable.

Last night, the 30th, our rank group worked on green belt throws first, then the whole class worked on the green belt self defense scenarios. I had one round of standing, and one round of ground randori. 

Judo, 11/16/15

Our rank group worked on all the ground work for green belt. As a class we worked on an arm bar escape. I had one round of ground randori, but it kind of ruined my night, haha. For one of the first times, I had good control over my huge buddy I frequently roll with. I had a really tight spider guard working and was getting ready to sweep him. Being a mountain compared to me, he was able to pick me up slightly and sort of slam me on the mat. Then he said reset and stopped rolling.

I had no idea what was going on, but the teacher was nearby and explained to me that by "judo rules" if you can pick your opponent's back up even a little off the ground, it's a stop, and you reset. I was appalled. I thought "What kind of martial art is this, that gives an already stronger opponent a greater advantage?"

For the rest of the roll, every time I got caught in something I'd say "oops, let's reset" in a real sissy voice, to make fun of him. That's a laaaaaaaaame rule! I'll be ready for it next time.

Judo, 11/9 and 11/11

For the first class last week (my first class as an orange belt) we worked mainly on ouchigari and a couple different setups. For randori, I only went once, against a black belt, but did okay. I had a nice tani-otoshi, and got lucky with one tai otoshi.

For Wednesday's class, my rank group worked on counters and combos for green belt. The whole class lesson was about ken-ken uchimata. I did better with it than I did the last time we worked on it. I did 2 rounds of ground randori; once against a brown belt. I almost had him in an inverted triangle, but couldn't finish it. Next was against a black belt. I survived pretty well, but couldn't really mount an offense against him.

Judo, Study Group, and Demo, Nov 4th, 5th, & 7th

11/4/15
Wednesday we worked extensively on rank material, and did maybe 4 rounds of ground randori. I was really apprehensive about my uke, but he was able to help me tweak some technique to make throwing him easier - jita kyoei!  There's a "side entry" to ogoshi that really helped, and pulling and twisting more helped my ippon seoi nage.

11/5/15
My uke came over and we worked on rank material for a couple of hours. I'm really glad we did. I think it made a big difference in our demos today.

11/7/15
Rank test! Three of us tested today - one acquaintance of mine tested for green, me and my buddy for orange. It was a grueling, nearly 2 hour comprehensive test. I feel like I did okay for the most part, especially with the ground work. My ogoshi, ippon seoi nage, and seoi otoshi weren't the best I've ever had, but they were 10x better than they would have been a week ago. In the end, I was promoted to orange belt (gokyu), and felt like I earned every inch of it, haha! I should have another 6 months or so until I'm ready to test for green. I feel like I'm going to grow a lot in skill between now and then, so that's exciting.

Judo, 11/2/15

We got lots of work on rank material. I'm testing Saturday for orange belt, and I'm a little concerned because my uke for my demo is ~40 heavier than me. Ogoshi, ippon seoi nage, and to a lesser degree, seoi otoshi are tough against him. I want them to look passable for the demo.

We ended the night with ground randori. I went a couple rounds, and did okay. Lastly, we did a really neat thing - "Tag team" randori!!  Everyone in our rough size group (10-12 people that night) sat in a circle. Two guys would do ground randori in the middle, and at any time, either guy could tag someone sitting in the circle. Then for 5-10 seconds, the tagger and tagee could gang up on the other guy! It was a lot of fun and introduced a situation where grappling is weakest as a defensive art - multiple attackers. I only got in once, but it was great! Trying to neutralize one guy while keeping the other guy at bay with my feet was tough (but somewhat doable, if only briefly).

Judo, 10/28/15

Wow, it has been a solid month since I've been to Judo class. The tournament prep got to be too much for me, but we're past that now, and back to technical work. That makes me happy.

Last night we worked on all standing and ground rank material for yellow and orange belts (I'm testing for orange next Saturday). We spent a lot of good hard work going through all that material. My partner last night was Kelly, who's 50 pounds heavier than me, so some of the throws were a real chore (seoi otoshi, ippon seoi nage, and ogoshi).

We did a couple rounds of light standing randori and a couple of ground randori sessions. I am SLOWLY improving, I think. My standing randori was way more relaxed last night, and Kelly wasn't able to impose his will in every case on the ground last night.