As the title suggests, I made it to two BJJ classes this week. Last night I tested the hip/groin out by rolling a little harder. To this point, I’d been going very, very light. I’m happy to say that it held up with less pain. I’m still going to physio and I do still have pain, so I’m still being cautious. However, it’s nice to see that faint light at the end of the tunnel. 🙂
The end
May 14, 2014
There was a good mixture of skill levels at BJJ tonight. 7 souls in total. 3!blue belts (myself included), 2 seasoned white belts, and 2 newbs. We started off class with Lockflow 12. I seem to flow it pretty nicely. I need to focus on smoothing out the transition from the triangle choke to the shoulder lock. We also practiced Lockflows 10 and 8. They are pretty good.
Rolling was fun. I tried to work on shutting down the speed of the smaller man in roll one. I used my weight and strength advantage to guide him in to advantageous positions. It worked ok and I finished a nice head and arm choke.
Roll 2 I tried to focus on feeling where my opponent wanted to guide me. I tried to feel his center of gravity and his momentum. I was able to finish a “cobra hold” from top half guard! He seemed pretty impressed and surprised. He’s a lot better than me, so any time I get the tap, it feels good. The “cobra hold” is above… It’s very painful hold. The rest of the roll was ok. I got caught in a couple of strangles, but defended well against the leg attacks.
Roll 3 I had my way with a white belt. I worked at trying to move my hips. I started from disadvantage and visualized my way from escape, to position, to submission. It worked quite well. I made a couple technical errors, but finished all but one submissions I wanted.
My final roll was with a high level white belt. I was pretty tired. I wanted to take a break but he didn’t have an opponent so I went in. I spent most of my time in disadvantaged position. I worked to breath and relax and wait for my moment to explode and sweep or reverse position. I had several sweeps from side control and several from bottom half. I was too tired to work for submissions. lol He did a pretty good job of setting up guillotines and anacondas, but ultimately couldn’t finish them on me. I made fun of him for that. 🙂
Even though it was a good night and I was fairly happy with my flows, I couldn’t help but feel like I didn’t want to be there. I’m just not motivated…
The end.
Tuesday night BJJ was a little different. I don’t often attend Sean’s class. Not because I don’t want to go or anything, but because typically, Tuesday is busy with the kids sports or the Mrs is working out and I have to stay home and make dinner and such. But I had nothing going on last night so I decided to attend. There weren’t many in class. Just 4 eager souls.
Sean has taken it upon himself to create his own lock flow. It has a lot of really interesting techniques in it. Stuff that I have never seen before. I think he put a lot of effort and creativity in to it. Included are a crucifix, wrist locks, leg scissors, and a calf crank from the truck. Good stuff!
Class ended with each person picking a position that they wanted to work on. The object was, you started in that position and if you were able to better your position or get a submission from there, the round ended. If your partner was able to better their position of get a submission, the round ended. It was fun. One guy chose to start having his back attacked. I tricked him by switching from the classic RNC attack to a full nelson. Lol.
Sean chose to start from being mounted in a head and arm choke. I saw that the other guys were trying finish the choke by using their head and neck to try to apply the pressure on Sean’s carotid. I made a quick mention to them about flattening out more and using their own shoulder or upper chest to apply the pressure. I know why Sean picked that position. I have a pretty good arm triangle. I have spent a lot of time working on it. LOL. He’s always trying to figure out ways to get out of bad spots like any good Jiu Jitsu fighter. So far, including last night, he hasn’t figured a way out of mine. 😉
I chose north/south. My goal was to either make enough space that I could spin around in to half guard and come up to attack, or bring my legs and hips up over my head and try to take the back. I was successful with the first, but couldn’t figure out the latter. All in all, it was a good time.
Tonight is the final Grizzly Gym in house tournament of 2013. Hopefully we get a good turnout. I’m looking forward to competing against my teammates! Grrrr!!! intimidating face
This weekend is the 2013 ADCC Worlds. Grizzly Gym professor, Mike Martelle will be competing in the +99KG bracket. It’s a pretty stacked event. Unfortunately he has drawn Roberto “Cyborg” Abreau in the first round. While you always want to have confidence in your professor, and assure him he is going to kick some ass, this particular draw makes it hard to keep that conviction in the encouragements. lol. I’m sure Mike would be the first one to express these sentiments. Afterall, Mr. Abreau has been the gold medalist three years in a row. Regardless of the outcome, Grizzly Gym will be cheering him on. Everyone is proud of him. Go kick Cyborg’s ass Mike… *yikes
Mountains to Mats 