Jump rope is serious business

I stopped coughing up crap long enough to go to class on Wednesday. (Yep, sick again, because I have the worst immune system in Kansas City.) During the technique explanations I sat there thinking dully, “I am not going to remember this.” Did scribble down some notes afterward. Spent a good amount of time drawing a sketch that’s supposed to be a top-down view of tori in mount on uke (to demonstrate an aspect of position), but that ended up looking like a sad amorphous blob, or possibly an extremely foreshortened dwarf holding a spear.

Class

Suffice to say class seemed like an eternity. Jonathan just came back from a trip out east to the mothership, so he ran us through a different warm-up that left me half-dead (being a quarter dead to start). He injured his knee, so he taught but didn’t roll.

Class was pretty small. Only one of the new guys was there: Sean, a high school kid who moves like a wrestler even though he’s never wrestled. I’ll need to find some nickname for him so as not to confuse him with Sean Sharp.

We worked on armbars from mount. After rolling, I stayed for Sheldon’s class, which was more of a cardio station workout. Almost died during jumping rope—not due to coordination issues, although I haven’t jumped rope since I was a kid, but because I gassed too quickly. Either I had incredible cardio when I was nine or that cProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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d really sucked the life out of me. I almost passed out twice, but kept grimly hopping while staring blankly at the GCKC banner on the wall. Kinda hoped the jaguar would eat me and put me out of my misery.

Rolls

Sheldon had a tournament coming up, so we ran a gauntlet on him. I always feel absolutely useless during gauntlets. My technique and size aren’t much of a challenge; I’m sure people view getting me during a gauntlet as a break. This time I didn’t jump in.

I rolled with Sean while he was waiting in line for the gauntlet. He seemed to want to start from his feet, so I let him. He took me down and submitted me pretty quickly. I think he might have gotten me in a guillotine at some point. He’s picking up jits so quickly that it’s insane. The last person I saw learn that quickly was David, but David does have a wrestling background. Sean’s going to be a BJJ monster.

Next up was Matt. (I believe this is our fourth Matt? Running out of nicknames…) He trains up north with Jason Bircher but comes to GCKC occasionally. He was recovering from a shoulder injury and looking for a light roll, so Jonathan suggested he roll with me. I was happy to get another roll, though a little glum about having my thoughts confirmed—I can be squirmy, but in the end I am a “light roll.” It’s going to take a lot of work to become a challenge for the bigger guys.

Pushed my thoughts aside and concentrated on sparring. We had a nice long roll, during which he tapped me often but was always willing to show me what he did. He had this sweet little forearm choke from side control that I should try out sometime. After he armbarred me, I asked him about the escape. I know Blake and Steven have tried to teach it to me, but for whatever reason it hasn’t stuck in my head until now: palm up, roll your hips toward your thumb side.

Tried a flying armbar after that. Didn’t get it, but will keep trying. Did successfully pull off something I’d been thinking about while out sick: whenever guys pull me into their guard, I should go with their momentum and knee through instead of fighting their muscle. So when Matt started hauling on me, I slid through and got over into side control. Heard Jon yelling, “Good, Jenn, good!!” from somewhere as I transitioned. Though Matt quickly shrimped out, I was happy about pulling that off. And apparently I am not just a light roll, I “flow.” Definitely could protest that compliment, but I am determined to record and accept any good feedback, because with my personality it’s way too easy to focus on the negative.

Now that I have covered last Wednesday’s class, it’s time to go to Tuesday class. I may add the armbar techniques to this post later if I can decipher my notes.

Post-tournament

I was still tired from the tournament on Monday but went to class anyway. Had a couple of new new guys, as well as a couple of sweaty newish guys who started coming last week. Don’t remember their names. We worked some basic escapes from side and mount during class.

Rusty and Tamra (Jake’s wife) came by. Rusty’s a long-time friend of the school who I somehow hadn’t managed to meet yet. He came out to support us at the tournament on Saturday and ended up reffing half the matches, as the original ref had wrenched his ankle on the terrible mats. He gave me some great tips and walked me through some techniques, and said I’d done really well in the tournament considering the weight and experience difference.

Rolled with Jonathan. Was pretty exhausted—hadn’t rested well even after the tournament—and I don’t remember much, except that we restarted three times.

Rusty rolled with me at the end. Again, more of a pause-and-teach than a full roll. He talked to me about takedowns first, because he’d seen how I hadn’t been able to deal with the other white belt in our matches.

Rolled a bit from there—got a spinning armbar. Pretty sure he gave it to me. Retaught me the armbar. Then Tamra taught me a butterfly sweep. Pretty sure Jonathan taught me this a while ago.

Chatted with Tamara a bit afterward. She and Jake train with Rusty twice a week, I think, at a local college where he’s an instructor for the fire department (I think). She showed me some bruises from a nasty roll and we talked about guys who don’t want to tap to girls. I mentioned that that’s one of the things I love about GCKC; the guys here are great about rolling with me, generally. But I try not to roll with the new guys straight off—I’ll watch how they roll with the other guys first and see if they have any modicum of control. At that point we realized one of the new guys (one of the returning ones) was sitting close enough to hear our conversation. Think we managed to pull off a “Oh, but this guy seems cool” save…oops. Well, if he overheard anything, maybe it’ll prove educational. So many guys aren’t used to doing sports with women.

Techniques below the cut.

No-gi night

First of all, fifteen seconds of how my school breaks down walls: http://vimeo.com/13465235. Literally. (I mean that in the literal sense of “literally,” not the slang sense.)

On to some succinct class notes. I went last week but was too lazy to write anything down, and life stuff kept me too busy earlier this week to attend class. So Wednesday’s the first time in a week. Hate that. Must make more time for jits!

Wednesdays are now no-gi days: an hour and a half of no-gi class, then another hour or more of striking class. I’ve got to get some better shorts to roll in…but I did get one of our new school T-shirts. Jonathan got me the extra-small girl one, but it’s still a bit big—need to throw it in the laundry for a few rounds of shrinking.

We began with pummeling. Elbow push to set up two takedowns (gable grip around back and pivot; gable grip around front, pick up, and slam). Armdrags from half-clinch. Jonathan had me try a judo throw, but we didn’t practice it. Double-leg takedown.

Worked techniques most of class. Rolled for a few rounds. First roll was with Jonathan, who was exhausted from the recent remodel. He reminded me about upa. Let me take his back twice, and let me have a guillotine, Americana, and kimura.

Rolled with Chiefs Matt twice (we have three Matts; this one comes occasionally to no-gi and wears a Kansas City Chiefs shirt most of the time). During the first roll I was fairly active. Tapped him almost right away with the armbar from modified flower sweep. Tried one of the guard passes but I don’t think I was controlling his legs well enough. He tapped to a guillotine that wasn’t quite set, though he said it was tight. I got flattened out a few times and tried to shrimp out to no avail (he’s maybe 2 1/2 times my weight). He kept fighting for my hands from top and I didn’t want to give them up.

Second roll, I was more tired. Played lockdown a lot from half-guard top and bottom, but I couldn’t ever remember any techniques from there despite my fumblings. I heard Jonathan tell me I’d just given up mount at one point after getting top half-guard. In half-guard from bottom, I had an arm around his head and was thinking I might try something; Steven said I had to be in guard for whatever I was apparently trying to do. After the timer buzzed, I felt a bit bad that I’d stalled out most of the round, but he said something about good defense.

Didn’t stay for Sheldon’s striking class at 7:30; too tired. I’ll be back next week, though; I love it. Though I think the guys are a bit afraid to hit a girl.

In which our Protagonist learns Stuff

Earlier today, I was fixing my friend’s computer and chatting about how my first BJJ class was in a few hours. She asked me, “Do you like being in school? You’re always taking a class.”

It’s true. I love learning for the sake of learning. Accumulating knowledge and having fun with it is one of the primary reasons I study martial arts. Since I’ve been on break from my Japanese jujitsu school, I’ve been antsy and dissatisfied with my life. It got so serious that I was thinking about taking up crocheting just to have something to do. I mean, I guess crocheting is pretty okay, because you can make yourself all the scarves you want. But I’d rather learn how to control people in scarf hold. So I was relieved when I got an email a few weeks ago that Ground Control-Kansas City was reopening.

The first class was tonight in a church basement. The room was covered in wrestling mats that hadn’t been cut down to size but seemed in good shape. Jonathan, the instructor, greeted me as soon as I walked through the door and introduced me to a few people. I’m horrible with names, but I do remember that two of them were named Sean. There were about ten other students, mostly white belts, and I couldn’t remember their names if you paid me. Maybe next class. I do know that Jonathan’s a blue belt under John Rallo (a Renzo Gracie black belt) and is certified to teach. One of the Seans is a Pedro Sauer purple belt and helps out with class every so often. So I know three names, sort of.

I wasn’t the only newbie there; the guy in the salmon-colored gi (…okay, so it was actually kind of pink) had brought his brother-in-law. We beginners were separated from the others during most of the evening. The half-hour class before main class is called “Foundations” and covers basic positions and techniques. Jonathan taught us side control and guard.

After we played around with both positions, we learned (I think during main class):

Armbar from guard
Uke (the one receiving the technique) is in tori’s (your) guard. Grab uke’s right hand at the wrist with your left hand. Slide your right arm under uke’s left arm to cup the elbow of the right arm. Prop your left foot against uke’s right hip, squeezing your knee tightly against uke’s right arm. Once you have full control of that arm, push against uke’s hip and bring your other leg up right behind uke’s shoulder, pressing down on uke’s back. Release your left hand and post it against uke’s neck, then bring your left leg around to join your right leg, sliding your hands down to uke’s wrist (should be thumb up). Arch your back while keeping pressure on uke’s back.

Guard pass to side control
You’re in uke’s guard. Bring right leg up so you’re half-kneeling; keep pressure against uke’s hip/upper left thigh. Press down on uke’s right leg with your left hand, hitch your left leg over so your knee lands on the ground and against uke’s hip, and grip a lapel. Move your right leg and stretch it out behind you. Plant your right hand under uke’s hip, and move your left knee to below uke’s armpit and your right knee to uke’s hip.

I think that’s all we learned. Probably wrote it all down wrong, so laugh if you like (personally, I’m a fan of laughter, so go right ahead). Hope I can establish the habit of writing and then go back and correct everything once I have a better BJJ vocabulary.

The last 10 minutes of class were used for rolling. Everyone who wanted to paired up and sparred. I watched for a while and avoided the other newbie (who was frantically flailing and grunting and nearly running into walls). A couple of the guys invited me to roll with them. Bungled their helpful instructions half the time, but had fun regardless.

Jonathan called me out to roll with him. We started from the knees—thank goodness, because I couldn’t remember any takedowns, except maybe Osoto Gari—and of course wound up on the bottom. Tried to remember to breathe and just went with my instincts. At one point he said, “Whoa, some natural jujitsu there!” No idea what I did, but that made me kind of happy.

It was a great experience overall. Jonathan’s running it as more of a club, not a school; though there’ll be structure to the classes and testing for people who want to get belts, the whole thing has a pretty laid-back atmosphere. I was the only girl (so what else is new), but Jonathan’s wife is going to come and one of the guys said he’d get his sister to try it.

I enjoyed class tonight, and am pretty sure I’m going to sign up for 6-12 months. Wish I’d joined the school a year ago, but at least I’ve finally started BJJ. So excited, you guys!