A month of half-guard

Took the week off last week, as I (and all of my roommates) felt slightly under the weather. (One of them ended up with strep throat.)

A few of our guys went to The Best of the Best Pro Ams in Omaha on Saturday and did pretty well. Jon and Wes got second in their gi divisions and Steven got third. I don’t think Sheldon placed but Wes said he had a huge division.

The guys also mentioned that there were quite a few more girls than what the website had said—I think six in total. Heard someone say that the blue belt from Nova Uniao (the one who choked me out because I waited too long to tap) won most of her matches. I wish I’d been able to afford to go to the tournament; it would’ve been fun. But according to the website the Omaha Pro Ams are held four times a year, so I’ll have other opportunities.

Class

Tonight was pretty low-key. We worked on several half-guard techniques. I feel like we’ve done a few of these before—we probably learned some of them from Jason Bircher when he did a half-guard seminar a few months ago. During September we’ll be focusing on half-guard, so expect a lot of posts on this.

Rolls

Rolled with Cody twice, Chris twice, and Rusty once.

My first roll with Cody, I took it easy, trying to remember to breathe and not scramble for things. He got to side control on me and I was excited about working an escape—and then the buzzer sounded. Second roll wasn’t too good for me; he got me in a triangle choke and I couldn’t stack him. I fought it for probably a minute. Could hear someone hollering at me to posture up and push his hips down. Tried, but every time he’d grab an arm for the armbar and I’d have to fight to get it back. I was having unpleasant flashbacks to fighting that blue belt and did not particularly want to black out again, but didn’t want to tap yet. The buzzer sounded again and I focused on breathing for a few seconds.

First roll with Chris, I pulled spider guard. Tried to do the one pass I could remember. He walked me through it and I landed in knee-on-belly, but we had to stop and move over to a less crowded portion of the mats. I think I landed that sweep on more time. Second roll, he let me get to mount. I tried for a keylock and didn’t know what else to do, because I hardly ever get to mount. He let me work through an armbar. After we restarted, he let me take his back, but I didn’t execute the RNC correctly. I usually forget to squeeze my elbows tightly enough, so I was focusing too much on that and not on my hand placement. I think my free hand was on the top of his head, not behind it. D’oh!

Rusty asked me to roll next. He had some great tips for me: “Take advantage of your speed and flexibility. You’ll never be able to muscle these guys. When you start out, go for an armbar right away.” He showed me what amounted to a flying armbar from the ground and showed me how to transition into a triangle if the armbar failed, and back into an armbar if the triangle failed. He also showed me this sort of lying-on-side armbar, where you cup your hands over uke’s elbow, hip out so they’re lying on the ground, and armbar them.

When Rusty was walking me through these techniques, I felt sort of dumb. These things made perfect sense, much better than pulling guard and then getting squashed under mount and side control. But I also felt hopeful. I could glimpse a time far in the future in which I can readily access a good base of knowledge, see and create openings, and be physically and mentally fluid. That’s the kind of game I want to have: thoughtful, agile, and slippery.

Techniques below the cut.

Little monster

Didn’t make it to class on Monday—my friend’s sister was held up in her apartment parking lot this weekend, so she and I spent Monday evening moving her to a more secure building. Moving kinda sucks when you’re packing as you go…

Was still tired and sore from Monday and my stomach was freaking out on me again, but I went to Tuesday class anyway. My parents are coming into town tomorrow and I won’t have another chance to roll this week.

No technique tonight, just drills and a lot of rolling. The guys are preparing for the Omaha Pro Ams next weekend. Wish I could go, but it’s $60 to enter and money’s extra-tight this month due to an IRS snafu. Plus there aren’t any girls in my experience or weight class. That blue belt I competed against at the Blackhawk Nationals has signed up with a teammate, and there’s another girl in the weight division above them. I need to get to NAGA at some point.

Don’t remember much from rolling. We did gauntlets on Wes, Sheldon, Steven, and Jonathan. I feel like I don’t present much of a challenge during gauntlets, and indeed they seemed to handle me with impunity. But later Steven called me a “little monster” and said I was slippery. Blake complimented me on my guard game and noted that I’m improving in sensing and responding to the push-pull of grip-fighting.

Oh, both of the new guys showed up in gis, so I guess they’re fairly committed now. Nice to have fresh blood.

Six-month evaluation: Processing information

On Thursday, we reviewed bridging and escaping side control again. Worked mostly with Tamra. Glad she’s been coming more this summer; she always shows me ways to make techniques nasty. Gave me some tips on the gogoplata and a sweep done as a guy thinks he’s passing your guard. We are being tricksy now, precious, yesss…

We are also being tired. Thursday was my third night of class this week and I hadn’t taken much time to recover from the tournament. Those of you who train 6-10 times a week will laugh at me, but I was exhausted afterward, sort of like I’d been powerlifting an ice cream truck except without getting any ice cream at the end.

Evaluating

I’ve technically been in BJJ for six months. It’s really been more like four months considering all the trips I’ve gone on and sick days I’ve had to take. Still, I feel like I’m not where I should be at this point.

I’m trying not to compare myself to the other guys when I say that. It’s tempting, because aside from working with Tamra sometimes, the guys are all I see. But they have different experiences, different mental abilities, different physical abilities—even the lighter guys have more muscle pound-for-pound than I do.

Other people are an invalid yardstick. What I’m measuring myself against is myself. And I know I haven’t reached my capacity for learning on a weekly basis. The physical component that holds me back is not complicated—I have sucky cardio and bad sleeping habits, and I need to improve both. The two major factors I’ve identified are both mental. One factor I’m struggling to articulate, so I’ll only cover the other here: processing information.

Linear vs. circular learning

I’m a quick learner and I can replicate a technique after seeing it about as well as the next person, but going to class a lot = overload. Mainly it’s about the sheer amount of information I know is out there hovering over me and how I process it.

I come from a karate background. You have your belt requirements; you learn them; you test for them. Maybe you pick up a couple kata on the side or advance further in your sparring strategies. Otherwise everyone follows the same path until they are upper belts and can specialize. It’s a lot of knowledge, but your progression through that information is linear.

In contrast, there is so much information all the time in BJJ. Every time I go to class, I learn a new technique or position. Every time I drill with someone, there’s something to tweak. Every time I roll with someone, I come away realizing how much I don’t know.

It’s not only the amount of knowledge. BJJ is circular. You learn a technique from a certain position, and you learn variations on that technique, and you learn to do it from other positions, and you learn counters to that technique, and you learn counters to the counters—and then you review the original technique in class and start over. This process can stretch over a time span of months. Meanwhile many other circular processes are going on at the same time.

BJJ is circular and cyclical, thank goodness, or else I might be rocking in a corner somewhere at the thought of all the things out there I need to learn right now. I’m sure that after a few years, the thought of so much information will be an incentive to continue with the art—you never get bored. Right now I sometimes feel like I’m trying to drink from multiple fire hoses. Processing, retaining, and using all of this information is extremely challenging.

Question: as a beginner, what was your learning experience like? How did you build a framework for all that information?

Perfectionism and patience: an unlikely combination

So as you’ve no doubt gathered, I’m slightly frustrated. Five different ideas will be rattling around in my head after the teaching portion of class is done, but when I begin rolling, I can’t figure out how to do anything or come up with a plan. It’s pure reaction and survival.

The reality is that I’m a beginner and it’s going to take me a while to grasp BJJ. This is difficult to accept since I am a perfectionist and not very patient with myself. In my head, I should already have mastered all these concepts and be able to put them to use. Sometimes I really want a training montage like in the movies, except I don’t want to skip ahead to the big fight or whatever—I’d like to skip ahead six more months to when I know just a little more, on the theory that learning will therefore be easier and I’ll suck just a little less.

None of this is a reflection on my gym. The guys walk me through a lot of stuff and give me great tips. They keep telling me I am getting better—Jon said that just the other day, and Steven has mentioned a few times lately that I’m legitimately hard to tap. But it’s a little difficult to hear sometimes over the yammering of my negative self-talk: “Learn moar faster!!”

Ultimately, I’m my only opponent. I just wish I could RNC that voice in the back of my head and not stress out about learning.

I brought a girl!

I brought a girl to class on Tuesday! (Who is also named Jennifer, so that might be confusing to the guys.) She’d actually come to my previous school and loved it. As a dancer, she took to forms and stand-up Japanese jits pretty quickly, but that’s way different than getting down and getting rough on the ground. I already thought she was just about the coolest person on the planet aside from Wil Wheaton, but being willing to try BJJ just proves it.

This wasn’t the easiest class for a newbie, either. We did some passes and sweeps without going into all the positions. Jennifer worked with Tamra and me and did really well. No doubt she has a lot of questions; hope to answer those when I see her later this week.

Did positional sparring from half-guard, partnered with Chris. Managed to work the pass we’d done earlier. Escaping his side control was tougher. Then rolled with Tamra, starting out in side control. I’m focusing on those escapes for the foreseeable future. Hope also to eventually learn some counters so people can’t pass to side so easily on me.

Techniques below the cut.

Tournament!

First BJJ tournament: check! Blake, Chris, Cody, David, Jonathan, Sheldon, Steven, and I competed. We all had fun, supported each other, and represented GCKC well. Took home quite a few trophies too. The Gumby Ninja came out to support me, which was nice—we had fun snarking about the sport karate tournament going on at the other end of the building.

Overall, it was a good experience, if slow-moving. The mat supplier apparently pulled out at the last minute and the mats they were left with were thin and in bad shape. They eventually pulled one set over the other and just ran one mat the entire time. So things took a while.

Waiting; Match Results

The waiting was probably the worst. I’d been worrying myself sick over the past few days thinking about how unready I am, what game plan I should use, what if no other girls showed up and I had to fight the lightweight guys, etc. Having even more time to sit and worry was not a pleasant experience. The guys were really good about encouraging me, but I’m a perfectionist and an over-thinker; I was going to be ridiculously nervous no matter what.

While I waited, I hydrated and cheered for my teammates. Jonathan had only one other guy in his division; they fought for best two out of three. If I recall correctly, Blake won all of his matches (one against Sheldon—Jonathan coached both of them in a sort of schizophrenic fashion). David and Sheldon each won two out of three or four. Steven only had one guy in his gi division and had to pull out before no-gi, but he had a spectacular match. Won it by armbar, 22 points to 2—against a blue belt. I’m guessing he’s going to get his own blue pretty soon. Cody lost one match and won his second via triangle. Chris had nobody in his weight class, so he ended up facing the referee (I think).

My Matches

After most of the guys’ gi matches were done—five hours after the tournament had started—it was time for the women to roll. All three of us. (The registration table had assured me that there were plenty of women in my weight class; turns out they’d all registered for sport karate.) We ended up doing a sort of round-robin thing. The blue belt had offered not to fight us white belts, as she’d been training a lot longer. But the other white and I were willing to fight her; it seemed a shame to come all the way here and not have any opponents.

Match 1: One-Stripe White Belt from American Top Team in Columbia, MO (Dustin Denes Team)
I’d been eying this girl all morning and afternoon. She had a few inches on me and looked like she weighed 160 or 170; did not want her to get on top of me. The guys suggested spider guard and shooting in for a single- or double-leg takedown. Great ideas, neither of which I could pull off in that match. She closed with me pretty quickly and started yanking me around like I was a doll, so I jumped guard. Spent most of the match squashed under her and trying to shrimp out. At one point she was nearly sitting on my face. Got in position for an armbar several times but kept going to the wrong side, though my corner valiantly kept repeating instructions to use “your other leg, Jenn, your other leg!!” The ref finally called time and gave her the win based on points—6 to 2, I think.

Initially wasn’t happy with my performance but the boys said I’d done well. A spectator came up to me and said he was impressed that I’d given up 50-60 pounds but still fought anyway. Pretty sure that if we’d been in the same weight class, things would have gone differently. So I’m not too upset about losing to her—yeah, she squashed me, but she couldn’t tap me.

Here’s some video Gumby took of the match. I’m the tiny one flopping around like a n00b.

Man, watching this makes me feel like I’m suffocating underneath her all over again. I think her game plan was to just keep all her weight on me. Couldn’t figure out how to sweep her when she did stand up in my guard; her base seemed pretty strong. Feel frustrated because I could’ve armbarred her multiple times. Well, I need to drill those so I won’t blank out next time.

Match 2: Blue Belt from Brazil Academy-Nova União in Lenexa, KS
My next opponent was the blue belt, whose name was Renata and whose coach talked to her in Portuguese. Basically, for my second fight ever, I was going to face a Brazilian blue belt.

That actually took all the pressure off me, because I wasn’t going to win; I just had to survive and view it as a learning experience. So I was a lot less nervous going into that match. We spent a little time dancing around before she took me down and off the mat; restarted; got off the mat again (I think?) and restarted. She got to mount and I made several attempts to upa. Could hear my corner yelling “Upa! Which way does she want to go?” Finally trapped the appropriate limbs, bridged up and got her over—and dropped right into a cross-choke. She must’ve had a grip on my collar from mount before I rolled her over, because I didn’t even have time to think about what I’d do from my new position before she set the choke. I remember gripping her collar in a vague approximation of a counter to cross-choke, thinking, “That choke’s really tight, but I don’t want to tap just yet.” Then the background noise faded for a second. The next thing I knew, I was kneeling face-down on the mat like I’d been bowing from seiza, and my opponent was saying, “Are you okay??”

She won, obviously. I got a hug from her afterward and she said our schools should train together some time. Heck yes, I am all for that! I can’t begin to express how awesome it would be to train with another woman, much less with that kind of experience.

Match 3
I fought the other white again in no-gi. Was exhausted by then, but this time think I went for the takedown. Failed. Think I spun under her at one point and she chased me. Spent more time squashed underneath her. She was tired too—I believe her match with Renata had gone longer than mine—and at one point she just lay there on top of me. The guys were yelling for me to block her hip and shrimp out, and I tried, but her pressure and weight were too much. Figured I’d try to escape when she started moving or doing a technique, but she didn’t. The ref said, “Come on, girls, work,” and I wanted to reply, “I would, but I sort of can’t breathe right now,” except that speaking would have required being able to breathe.

She won on points, again. I was just happy to have survived. I think one of the guys had another match, and then we packed up and went home around 4 or 5pm.

In Conclusion

Wow, I’m glad that’s over. Quite the experience. Cody and Blake taped most of our matches; I know for certain that they got my first and second ones. Hope to post their footage eventually.

So proud of all the GCKC students. Everyone held their own. I think that of all the schools there, we showed the best sportsmanship, and we definitely showed our skill. I’m proud to train with these guys.

Regarding my performance: When I started this blog, I stated that I’m not in martial arts for tournament records and trophies. I went to this tournament to test my skills, and I count this as a success. Though I lost all of my matches, I didn’t tap to either of my opponents—who both weighed more than I did and had more experience—and I survived all three rolls. For self-defense purposes, that’s a good sign. Just need to drill some basic techniques and work on my escapes from side control.

Now what to do with my two losers’ trophies…?