Confused and forgetful

I’ve been away from BJJ for a month, due to family stuff, a vacation, and a cold. Went back this week starting on Tuesday. I’m so rusty—if it’s even possible to be rusty when you barely know anything.

We went over pretty much the same stuff in both Tuesday and Wednesday’s class. So I’m not sure why I can’t remember much. I’ve seriously got to start bringing a notebook. (Being a perfectionist and a geek, I’ll likely go to at least three stores looking for the perfect tiny notebook that has a slot for a pen and maybe also a screwdriver or something, because one day I might need a screwdriver on the mats, you never know.)

We did some work from guard:

Prayer hands
Uke’s in your guard with hands posted on your hips. Bring your hands under them into a prayer position (I mean, I don’t pray like that, but whatevs, I’ll remember the term). Extend with your legs and break uke’s grip with your hands.

Elbow grip
Uke’s in your guard. Cup uke’s elbows from the outside and rip outward.

Pistol grip
Use your left thumb to hook uke’s right sleeve up. Pistol grip the sleeve with your right hand; slide left hand under uke’s wrist to grasp your own wrist. Pull back with arms and your legs (core muscles), letting go with your left hand to wrap uke’s arm and grab their left lapel (keep your left elbow pinned to your side). Feed the lapel with your free hand.

“Combat stance” guard pass to side control
You’re in uke’s guard. While maintaining your base and posture as much as you can, rock a little (optional) and get one knee on the ground right behind a glut. Slide your other knee back and turn sideways, using your hips, to break the guard. Immediately move the first knee up and position your leg vertically, perpendicular to uke’s leg, and slide the other knee up a bit (Jonathan calls this combat stance). Underhook uke’s near shoulder and keep pressure on him with your shoulder. Put your first knee to the ground (keeping pressure on his leg with your foot). Swing your free leg around, post your free hand at his hip, and transition into side control.

Cartwheel variation (?)
After the guard break above, get your underhook and shoulder pressure going, then kind of cartwheel your legs up and over. Switch into scarf hold. (I’m probably remembering this wrong.)

Leg variation
After the guard break, bring both hands behind their legs and sort of stack them with their legs in the air, sprawling out with your weight on them. Slowly work your legs around and move your head to let their legs drop, then transition into side control.

Worked some butterfly guard too:

Butterfly to side control
Underhook uke’s arm and trap their other arm. Roll onto your side (the side that’s trapping their arm), using your hooks to help get uke over. Switch into side control.

Butterfly sweep to side control
Straighten one leg and slide your arm through the hole that created; hook under uke’s shin with your hand. Roll over onto your side (the side that’s underhooking—keep your hand flat) and use your hand and foot to sweep.

Variation:
If uke posts an arm to stop your sweep, use that (and your hooks) to roll them over in the other direction.

On both days we did kimura and armbar drills. Wednesday night about ten kids came in—probably hanging around the church facility we use—and watched the warm-up and drills. They snickered when my partner hit me in the face with a leg during the armbar drill, and then they left.

Rolls on Tuesday:
I rolled with Blake and Chris. When rolling, Blake is constantly moving and mentioning things I should be seeing. He’ll let me try stuff, but if I don’t have the right technique he’ll pull out. I don’t remember if anything I did worked; mostly I was fighting futilely for an armbar as it was the only thing I could think of at that point.

Afterward, he said my game at this point should be shrimping out and getting to guard. No need to fight for arms or position; focus on guard. Drill the triangle, too. Experienced peoples, your opinion, por favor?

Can’t remember much about my roll with Chris. I do remember an unsuccessful cross-choke. The next day he mentioned it to Jonathan and said I’d almost gotten him with it. Hmm.

Rolls on Wednesday:
Rolled with Chris again. I remembered what Blake said yesterday and managed to shrimp out and recompose guard at one point. I’m not good at estimating weight—the other day I found out that both Steven and Jonathan are ~150 pounds, so I’ll compare everyone else to them in the future—but at one point Chris had all his weight on me while simultaneously doing an armlock, and I could not breathe or shrimp. I tapped (both to the armlock and the weight) just before things went black. Dangit.

We restarted and then he accidentally smashed his forearm into my throat, right on my jaw. I’ve got to boil my mouthguard and take it to class; if I hadn’t been clenching my teeth for protection, might’ve bit my tongue.

Rolled with Steven. He reminded me to upa. I remember that the roll was educational, as it usually is with him, but don’t recall any details.

Jonathan rolled with me several times and walked me through a lot of stuff. I remember an omoplata. Also did a successful upa into side control, and then he let me have an armlock. He says I’m a fast learner. Learning’s not usually the problem; retaining, recalling, and executing a technique is where I have trouble.

In conclusion: I’m glad to be back at BJJ, if still confused and forgetful as ever, and I am sore all over. Can’t wait for next week!

Intensity

I’ve been sitting on two posts for a couple days. Mostly I typed up brief technique descriptions after class and then crashed. Been tired this week, undoubtedly from not sleeping enough and eating way too much chocolate.

In Monday’s Foundations, we reviewed the guard pass we’ve been working for the past few weeks:

Guard pass to side control: After you break the guard, get knee over uke’s leg by hip. Slide your left arm under their head and pull shoulder down w/grip on collar, leaning into uke with your shoulder. Pull right foot back and out behind you, past left foot, to stabilize. Post right hand behind uke’s hip under glut as you switch your knees into side control.

Main class was pretty short. We did some takedowns.

Single-leg takedown 1: Parallel open stances. Left knee down, grab behind their left knee. Penetration step—your right leg is planted at a 90º angle, straight behind uke’s leg. Stand up, keeping your head inside uke’s hip, and pivot on your back foot toward your back to take down.

Single-leg takedown, now with more heel action: Same opening. Stand up, straight-backed. Cup under uke’s heel with your left hand; press on uke’s knee with your right elbow; crank and take down (no step needed).

We spent a lot of time on this one.

Counter to cross-choke: Purple belt Sean showed us this one. You’re in uke’s guard; he reaches up to cross-choke you. You grab uke’s collar, fingers inward, and pull out the slack on one lapel hard. Pull the other lapel across uke’s throat, and get that fist in their throat. Make sure your arm is straight. Stand up and lean all your weight on that arm.

Rolled with Blake first. Think he’d seen the guillotine choke I did on poor Susanna last week, because he made some comment about avoiding the guillotine. *facepalm* He set me up for an armbar but I couldn’t figure out how to do one on my own. He told me to grab it, hip out, get my leg up over uke’s back and lock the arm, but stay tight. He pulled out of it because I was too loose.

Rolled with blue belt Sean (Shawn?) next. Super nice guy. He showed me that if a guy tries to stand up in my guard to pick me up and slam me on the ground, I need to get up with him—do a sit-up and hopefully overbalance him, then take him to the ground; or, do a sit-up and jump out to standing position.

Probably biggest realization of today: I need to up my intensity, even in drills, and offer a bit of resistance after the first few reps. One of the guys made a few comments to that effect when we were working on the takedowns. My first reaction was to feel a little defensive—the partner I was working with at the time was a newbie and didn’t know to breakfall, so I’d been going easy on him. And when he was trying to work it on me, I didn’t offer any resistance, as he was still trying to work out the mechanics and wasn’t fully going for the throw.

Yet I can definitely see his point. We’d accomplish nothing in training if we didn’t offer realistic feedback to our partners. There has to be a balance between allowing time to learn the mechanics of the technique and then trying it with uke resisting.

Any thoughts on intensity, o wise and learned peanut gallery?

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!