So, I went back to BJJ.

I’m gonna take it slow, just one class a week. My school no longer offers a monthly rate for just one class a week, so I’m going to need to fight the temptation to go more than once…But I’ll also need to fight the temptation to go all out, train hard, roll ’till I can’t stand anymore, and say ‘yes’ to anyone that wants to roll… Man, I’ve got a real challenge!

After two months off, I wasn’t surprised at the plethora of new faces and the many new faces with skill. I am surprised, however, at the growth of women joining the academy. There used to be just one regularly training girl and now there are four.  That and there were a lot of promotions recently…

Class was a blur. It was all rolling. And since it was rotation rolling with a base row, there were no noobs to roll with. This return wasn’t as great as last time. My technique felt worse than ever and I was just one big pile of suck.

I sucked big time. And my suckiness must’ve seemed even more sucky as I did only every other roll and I turned down more offers to roll than I can remember. Oh well, injuries suck.

Oh, and I forgot to trim my nails so when I pulled guard once, half of one of my fingernails popped out and completely went the wrong way. I yelled ouch, bent it back, and my opponent said “you should cut your nails before class!” That made me suck even more.

Besides all that, rolling again was nice. It feels great to be back. I hope I get to stay for the long-term this time around!

Ous!

Since the last time I went to BJJ, it has been two months.

After the first three weeks of time off, my shoulder felt like it had recovered and felt great - then while doing my physical therapy exercises, I went and did lat pull downs with 40 pounds. I felt something crack or pull in my shoulder and I was out of commission again. Bummer.

Since I foolishly signed a one-year contract when I had restarted BJJ, I was seriously thinking of getting a doctor to write a letter to have the contract cancelled due to health reasons… I had accepted (and went all sad and stuff) the fact that I would stop BJJ

But my shoulder has started feeling pretty good again, and I just can’t stay away from the jits… so I will start BJJ again but take it really easy. If I hurt my shoulder again, that’s it. It is a sign, no more jiu-jitsu for me. I’ll take a multi-year break and go take some Muay Thai (man, I miss kicking).

I don’t really feel like saying much about other parts of my life, but here’s a quickie: I’ve been at my new job for three months now, grad school still sucks but is going well, and (obviously) snowboarding season has ended. Oh, and I’m shopping for a ring…

I have broken all the rules on “how to be a good blogger”.

My biggest sins:

• I have not created any content
• I have not linked to or shared anything
• I have not responded to any comments on my blog
• I have not responded to any posts on any blog
• I have not read any other blogs
• I haven’t even logged on to my blog account in the longest time

To the readers of this blog (if there are still any):

I am extremely sorry. I just haven’t been very good at this blogging stuff. With BJJ being the main focus here, it’s been pretty difficult keeping this up…my experiences in the past 54 weeks have been frustrating and discouraging. Hope that changes soon.

My shoulder sucks…

It’s been more than a week since I last went to a jits class but my shoulder feels like it went back 5 months in terms of post-surgery recovery.  It hurts when I sit, type, walk, stand, lie down, do anything or nothing.  It’s a low level chronic pain inside my shoulder, not painful enough for me to say “ouch” but enough for me to feel uncomfortable.  This really bites.

If my shoulder is still this way in a few days (friday), I’m going to take a month of jiu-jitsu to recover.

Actually, since my shoulder is feeling this way, I should take a month or two off anyway.

Here’s the technique we went over in BJJ Class 93. I’ve been doing this sweep for a while now, but have missed a few key details…

Nogi starts with Boarder in his closed guard.

Nogi sits up a little as he reaches for Boarder’s collar with his right and grabs by the elbow with his left. Nogi also begins to open his guard.

Nogi hipscapes backward and rotates a little to the side. He positions his left leg flat on the mat against Boarders leg. Nogi’s right knee is by Boarder’s chest, with his leg pressed against Boarder’s upper body. Note that Nogi hooks his right foot on Boarder’s body. Let’s call this part Step 3.

Nogi sits up, bringing his upper body closer to Boarder. This is the step I always forget. Against lighter guys, it doesn’t matter. Against heavier or more skilled guys, this is crucial to getting the sweep.

Keeping his arms tight, Nogi leans back thus bringing Boarder with him - this upsets Boarder’s base, and makes the rest of the sweep much easier to perform.

With Boarder off-base, Nogi does the rest of the sweep as usual. He pulls Boarder with his arms, scissors his legs together, kicking his right leg up and over.

Nogi lands on mount on top of Boarder and can use the grip he has on the collar to set-up a choke. Or whatever else…

Going back to step 3 - if Nogi doesn’t have space to put his left leg on the mat, as the case might be in the pic above…

…Nogi can put his foot on Boarder’s knee…(arms moved out of the way so you can see the foot/knee)

… and push down on it, sliding Boarder’s leg back and removing his base. This can also be combined with the little sit-up, so as to help with the sweep better (arms moved out of the way so you can see the foot/knee).

Here’s a pic of what I was trying to say in the post on BJJ Class 92.  I didn’t really look for it online but I took my own pix…

This is a throw with the arm/shoulder positioned poorly. The arm is too far away from the body and puts the shoulder at an increased risk of getting injured.

Here’s the same throw with the same grip on the collar. Much better on this pic since the arm is closer to the body, not out and to the side. The throw is easier to execute and much safer for the shoulder.

Since this type of throw has to be executed quickly, there’s always a chance that the arm will be positioned incorrectly - and “”RIIIIP!!” injured shoulder. So like the purple belt that pointed this out said, it just might be better to not to try throwing with this grip.

And I won’t.

This was monster of a class - 2 hours long. Granted, I wasn’t active the entire two hours, but it was still long. Oh, and that’s not counting the extra 30 minutes I spent before each workday class just stretching my shoulder and the rest of my body.

I spent a good part of the day debating with myself whether I should go train or let my shoulder rest a bit. After going back and forth a bit, it’s obvious to see that I decided to go train.

Class started with drilling a throw (I really gotta learn what all these different types of throws are called) by yourself against a wall, but with a squat mixed in after you do the throwing motion. We then paired off and started drilling jumping guard. The kind of jumping guard where you’re both standing up, and one of you jumps up into guard, and the other guy has to keep his balance and be able to hold you both upright.

Then we drilled a very tiring and highly technical sweep, where you drop down after jumping guard, do spider guard, hipscape between your opponents legs, and make them fall to the ground, where you can establish side control, knee-on-belly, or what have you. Then to make things even more tiring, we practiced the sweep while your partner is trying to pass guard. I’ll illustrate this sweep with my snowboard instructors soon, promise!

I was paired up with tall S (to distinguish himself from the other S), a tall experienced white belt, during the sweep drill, so we paired off for rolling. I’m glad to see that I really do enjoy rolling - as soon as we started, I pulled guard, did spider guard, then proceeded to set-up the sweep we had just been practicing. I LOL’d as soon as I realized that I had just set up the sweep. I had a hard time doing the sweep while rolling because, as I mentioned earlier, it’s very technical. And I think the height difference, with tall S being much taller, made it harder for both him and myself to do.

Anyway, tall S also likes the triangle and manages to catch a lot of fellow white belts with it, just like the other S. So I was on the alert to avoid any triangle set-ups. During the entire roll, I was at the bottom playing defense. I had a few brief moments where I wasn’t on my back, but they were brief. I couldn’t keep him in my guard. I don’t think I even managed to even get closed guard. Anyway, I just kept defending and defending as he would go from North-South, Side control and mount. This went on for a long time. Then at one of the times he mounted, I reversed him, got sloppy (I did want to try the triangle escape that the other S showed me), got caught in a triangle and couldn’t even start to set-up the escape. After that, I was just gassed. I was so gassed and light-headed from the choke, I think I thought about taking a nap right there. But feeling empowered from Supercrap’s post on pushing yourself, I decided to keep on sparring, even though I didn’t have enough energy to even stand up. Well, I barely put up a fight when I had the energy, so I knew I was going to be working on nothing but my defense the whole time. And boy did I! I defended really, really well. My mind went back to the Jedi defense drill we did in BJJ class 91, and that’s just how I defended. If he went for one move, I would roll slightly to one side to neutralize it, if he went for another, I would go the other way to neutralize it. I defended my neck oh so well, even his attempts to set up chokes with his gi. I could tell he was getting frustrated cause he muttered “shitzy” or something like that a few times. I did tap to a gi choke attempt, although I had protected against the choke, it turned into a neck crank. I wanna keep rolling with this guy. Once I can keep him in guard or even maintain a top position, I’ll know that my game has really progressed

I sat to rest for a while, and after several minutes I rolled with P. I had gotten some energy back, but was still way exhausted. I concentrated on staying very technical and tried to do the open guard sweep to knee on belly, which I’ve been trying to do but haven’t managed to pull off yet, and he passed my guard. I was able to get half-guard and I don’t remember how I swept him (I was trying not to do my bread & butter Eddie Bravo half-guard sweeps, which I kept using on him before). I got side control, knee on belly and swung around for the far-side armbar, kinda like this. I still keep forgetting to squeeze my legs together and use my hips more when I armbar, so I landed kinda loose. He was able to stand and stack me, but when he released the pressure, I was able to trip him and finish the armbar. It’s the first time in a real long time that I was able to do an armbar, and even moreso, able to do it when being moved upside down and on my stomach. It wasn’t an easy sub to sink in, so I’m adding this one to my tap counter.

Right after that roll, I felt a sharp but mild pain on my shoulder. I iced it and sat around for some 15-20 minutes then went home. I’ve been icing it since my shower.

The next class I’m scheduled to go for is either two days from now, or on the weekend, 5 days from now. I think I just might pass on them and rest. I can’t risk this shoulder. After a few weeks, I stopped telling everyone I roll with not to pull the arm, since nothing has happened. I will tell every single person I roll with, even if I’ve told them several times before, not to pull on the arm and to avoid doing stuff to my right arm/shoulder, and I will always roll up my sleeve as a constant reminder for them while rolling . Also, before any submission to my right arm/shoulder feels like it is going to be completed, I will tap and yell out. I will not try to escape it, I will tap immediately. I will do this for as long as it takes until the shoulder feels normal again, even it takes all year. And, even if it doesn’t ever return to normal.

Class 96 was a weekend open-mat session. After stretching and warming up, I started rolling.

I started with V (was this how I named people before or am I just starting this now?), a white belt who I remember from last year. He’s bigger than me and always did the kimura. He didn’t go for the Kimura this time, but we had a good long roll (or it seemed long). I completely gassed. I don’t remember how the roll went exactly, but I think he spent a lot of time trying to pass my guard. At one point he passed, I think he mounted, and I think I reversed. Anyway, I ended up in his guard trying to pass. While trying to break his guard open by pushing down on his hips, he grabbed my right arm and started pulling (armdrag). The pull, plus my pushing down and away on his hips put pressure on my right shoulder (the bad one) and it started to hurt. I think I yelled “stop!!!” or something cause we both stopped what we were doing, then I muttered something about his pulling my arm, me pushing away, and my injury. We rolled a bit more after that, but I got too tired and had to stop.

While resting on the side, I started talking to P. P is a newish white belt (3 months or so) and we started talking about this BJJ seminar he went to. He showed me a few moves that he learned, all of which were pretty cool. One was an open guard sweep that I would like to try out while rolling and hopefully incorporate in my game. I also showed him a bicep squeeze that I learned before, as the initial set-up of the cool sweep starts out kinda alike. We rolled a bit after that and he worked on his side control. I found it kind of funny, cause I think I was able to do most of the submissions we had shown each other. I tried the cool sweep, but it really opened me up for a guard pass, which he did when I tried it. I did several subs (which I’m not adding to my tap counter), but mostly just worked on technique and trying to get the leverage right.

After all that, I did one last roll with S. S is a whitebelt with experience, though I don’t remember how much. Anyway, he really likes the triangle choke. So while trying to pass his guard, I got caught in a triangle. I was trying to escape, escape, escape, but I couldn’t. Just as I was starting to think that I should tap, he pulled out on my right arm, the one caught in the triangle, and quickly triangle-armbarred it. I tapped quickly, but not quick enough as I felt something in my right shoulder. Again.

My shoulder felt ok, but it was time to call it a day. Well, I asked him about some triangle escapes, then I called it a day.

The day after, late in the evening, I found myself in AG’s friend’s couch propped up on my right elbow. I didn’t notice at first, but it got uncomfortable for my shoulder, so I changed position and leaned on my good left shoulder instead. On the way home, I was hugging AG as we were commuting home in the subway standing up. My arms were around her, but the bumpy motion of the train and my arms being around her resulted in my arm being gently tugged every so often. I had to let go of the hug as my shoulder was aching mildy. Not good. I went to bed that night not sure what to think of it…

Another great class today!

Warm-ups were done individually. I did a lot of arm and shoulder exercises, for obvious reasons, and several hip/leg stretches, as my hip has been acting up again.

We immediately went to a double-leg stack guard pass to armbar. I worked the pass and armbar on both sides (going left and right), and the weaker side feels very awkward, loose, and lousy. Weird thing is that, at this very moment, I can’t remember which side is my better side…Oh well. I did finally get to take some pix of my snowboard instructors showing the moves - hopefully I can post them over the weekend.

After that, we did rotation 3-step sparring. This has one person do three moves, then the other person does three moves, then the first person again and then back and forth. The three moves might be 1) pull guard, 2) sweep, 3) armbar from mount. The other person might 1) escape the submission, 2) pass to side control, 3) mount. So any three moves that flow with each other per person. This was a nice way to spar and it was nice to be able to concentrate on actual technique and trying to flow from position to position. With live rolling, it gets easy to concentrate simply on just defending or maintaining position. While those are important too, taking those parts out of the roll opens it up to a different way of thinking and strategizing. It was nice and I wouldn’t mind doing it again.

Since it was rotation sparring, I found myself out of the rotation a few times, waiting for the next spot. At one point, one of the purple belts that was training (but not with the class) asked to roll, regular rolling that is. I feel like that roll has been the most beneficial since I came back to the jits. Some tips I picked up:

• when passing spider guard the way I usually do (grab the pants cloth by the inside of both knees to control the legs), it has to be done quickly. Standing up is fine (which I seem to be doing a lot of lately) but I have to quickly drop down to put my weight on my opponent again when the pass is complete

• when defending a kimura when under side control, trapping your arm by your legs is only a temporary escape. It’s better to quickly hipscape away

• when defending against a choke, there is a point where I have to stop defending my collar and actually work on removing my opponent’s wrist. I have to pay more attention to that point in time and take the necessary action rather than continue to fight a lost cause

There was also something about not standing up when I’m not passing, cause then I turn the game to judo, which I don’t want to do. Anyway, after class I rolled some more with a white belt. Nothing significant happened other than I couldn’t really pass and he couldn’t really establish guard. Stalemate.

This class was great! Well, I don’t know if I’ve ever thought of any class being bad - there’s always something to learn or work on and people to roll with….

Warm-ups were different from the other classes, as one of the purple belts led it. We ran in circles, did leapfrogs over everyone several times, and did a lot of jumping. With the day being 60 degrees and very humid with light rain on and off, it was probably the first really hot training session of the year (it was mine at least). Needless to day, we were all spent by the time warm-ups were over.

The armbar from guard drill was next after warm-ups. It’s still very tiring to do and I gassed after the first 20 reps. I was able to slowly work my way to 50 reps, but man, what a workout on the legs, abs, and neck!! We worked an armbar to triangle from guard move after that.

Positional rolling was after, with just one person playing guard and the other trying to pass. In the first round, the guard guy could only go for arm/shoulder subs. In the second, only chokes. Third was chokes and arm/shoulder subs only. The fourth was chokes, arm/shoulder subs, and sweeps.

I rolled with a guy with a few months less experience than me and who was back for only a month from a long break, just like me. Except he was out from BJJ for two years and I was gone for just 9 months. Anyway, I got to work a lot on my passing technique. It’s feeling less and less sloppy which has me feeling much better. Am still making some mistakes such as bad grip or arm placement and I seem to have only two passing techniques: get some distance, press legs together, pass and get distance, pass one leg over guard, then pass the other. I gotta fix them up and work on some other techniques. Twice I went for the basic under the leg pass and gave away the triangle - one I was able to escape from but both times were because I forgot to grab my opponent’s lapel after passing my arm under a leg.

Working on my guard, I don’t seem to have a submission game. None of my attempts were even close and my set-up attempts were all seen a mile away. I really have to work on this. My guard defense seemed pretty good, with my opponent unable to pass my open guard at all. Once he got half-guard, but I was able to quickly sweep him over. I really want to get to play my guard defense against someone better than me cause I’d really like to see where I am. Least I know that my guard offense needs a lot of work….

Sparring from my back became a different game once sweeps were permitted, as I started sweeping left and right. Mostly the basic scissor sweep and the sit-up/kimura sweep. I was able to get an ezekiel choke from mount off a sweep pretty quickly, but stopped going for subs after that. The first sweep felt like I muscled it and really wanted to work on the technical side of it.

Since returning to the jits, here’s how my game has felt: bad offense on my back, better defense and sweeps, horrible mount, decent side control, less sloppy passing, and lousy turtle attacks. The bad, horrible, and lousy parts are really bad, horrible, and lousy, whereas the better, decent, and less sloppy stuff I’m not really sure about. I’ve been back for just a month and haven’t had the chance to roll with a big variety of people yet, so I don’t really know what better and decent really means. Less sloppy on the other hand is just something I feel.

Whew, what a long post…