Good day

After a week off, I was excited about going back to class. I brought my friend Stephen with me, who’s visiting from out of town. He’s never done jiujitsu but wanted to check it out. So of course we ended up doing some quite technical things. He had fun, though.

We didn’t do a warm-up, I guess since there’s an hour-long kettlebells class on Mondays before BJJ class. I haven’t tried kettlebells yet—I confess I’m a little intimidated—so if anyone (especially my fellow chicks) has anything to say on the subject, please comment away.

Class focused on spider guard and some techniques from side control. (I’m going to put all the techniques below a cut in this and future posts, as I’m mainly writing them down for my own good. If I want to highlight a technique I’ll put it in the main body of the post.)

I rolled twice, with Chris and Steven. Didn’t do so well against Chris. Near the end of the round, he tried to take my back and had me sort of on my side in a chokehold. I wasn’t tapping. So he added a body triangle. First time feeling that one—I thought my head was going to pop off.

My second roll was awesome, judging by the high fives I got afterward. Jonathan and Blake were shouting feedback and encouragement, telling me to breathe, relax, escape, and recover position. I was able to posture up in Steven’s guard a few times and think I semi-successfully resisted one follow-up attempt to break me down again. I upaed successfully after a couple tries. He got me under side control and tried to suck my arm out for an armbar; I got it back.

Steven said afterward that he hadn’t been going light. I’m taking that with a grain of salt—I’ve seen him roll with other students and he probably could have shut me down completely if he really wanted to—but he and the others genuinely thought I’d done well. Blake gave me some feedback on remembering to upa correctly and to look for the kimura more often; sometimes it’s as simple as remembering to relax and recognize the opening. He also mentioned that as I improve my game, I should try not to telegraph my moves and start faking openings to put my opponent off-balance.

So that was a good day, best I’ve had in a while. Also! Jonathan said he might have found a few girls. He joked that I would’ve gotten this good earlier if I’d had a few girls to roll with. It’s more realistic for me to roll with guys and I wouldn’t want to be paired with another girl all the time, but it’d be nice just to have other chicks around. Hope they come check out class.

Techniques below the cut.

Open class

I missed Tuesday night because the Gumby Ninja and I went to check out a small group at church. When we showed up, no one was there. D’oh! I could’ve gone to BJJ instead. When I came to Wednesday’s class, Jonathan said that two girls were at Tuesday’s class. One of them was a Marine! So then I was even more bummed.

Only a few guys showed up to Wednesday’s class, and nobody had much energy, so it turned into a low-key open class. For Foundations, we did the guard pass to side control again. Then we had a light warm-up and played around with a bunch of techniques during class. We touched on a lot of different stuff; let’s see how much I remember.

Sweep: Uke stands up in your guard. Hook their ankle with your hand, almost like you’re going to put your hand behind your head on the beach. Keep that side leg on them. Sweep your outside leg around in a circle low to the ground to create momentum; post up on your other hand; do a back roll and pull their foot up to sweep them.

We worked the triangle and two triangle defenses. I like the triangle; my legs are flexible enough that I don’t need to use my hand to finish setting up. Also did some stuff with spider guard.

Triangle: grip sleeves. Foot on hip, pull arm on that side and punch other arm into uke’s stomach. Shrimp out (I think) and push leg up over uke’s neck, as far as possible. Control uke’s far arm by crossing it over your torso and checking it with your opposite elbow. Use other hand if needed to set triangle.

Standing triangle defense: Don’t remember enough details on this one; should’ve worked it more. Stand up with a good base, getting right hand up behind your head. Plant your left foot by uke’s head and use your left hand to clear his leg.

Other triangle defense: Oh geez, I don’t remember it now.

From spider guard, kneeling version: Get one knee and shin across their body. Pull one of their sleeves straight back. Kick them over; land in knee-on-belly. I didn’t quite catch all the details on this one (or the standing version).

Jonathan showed me a couple of armlocks from side control. Keylock (ki block-type movement to grab wrist when they cross-face, grab your own wrist; use forehead to help push their arm down; suck your arm into their hip); if they pull out, do a straight armlock; if they pull in toward their head, kimura (keep hold of their arm, then grab it with your other hand and grab their wrist with your now-free hand; grip your own wrist; get into scarf-hold leg position, then hoist your near leg over their head and sit up to lock).

Rolled with Chris first. He left me room when we were grip-fighting from the knees, so I got him in a guillotine. It’s one of the only chokes I know, so I’ve gone for it a couple times in rolling. Really hope I don’t become “that girl who always tries to guillotine people” to the other students. We restarted. Got in his guard, postured up, think I tried to pass. Ended up in his half-guard and was trying an armlock when the buzzer sounded. Just as well; Jonathan let me know that that position doesn’t offer the type of leverage needed for an armlock.

Rolled with Steven next, one of the few smaller guys. He triangled me pretty quickly and I couldn’t pull off the standing triangle defense. After we restarted, he let me try to take his back, but I didn’t approach it right. Didn’t take him long to get me off and into scarf hold. I fought the choke; the buzzer went off probably two or three seconds before I would’ve tapped. Steven said I’d done pretty well. He and Chris, who’d been watching, gave me some feedback and noted that I am flexible enough to use rubber guard. I’ll keep that in mind for the future; I want to learn the basics right now.

Watched Jonathan and Steven roll next. After Jonathan had a breather, he took me out for a spin and let me work on some things. He gave me an armbar, which I successfully completed with some coaching. Next, I remembered an escape from side control but couldn’t get into guard for some reason. Tried to take his back at some point but failed (again). He walked me through it and refined my RNC.

I really need to start taking a notebook to class…