For the last couple of months it has been pretty common for my elbow to hurt me after practice.  In particular I think it got a fair amount worse during a submission grappling tournament about 6 weeks ago where I had to face some really, really big opponents.

I’ve iced it.  I’ve done ibuprofen.  It will get feeling good, and then it will start hurting again.  Sometimes it even hurts in the wrist and up toward the shoulder as well… Definitely a tendon.

Well, I just kept hoping it would get better, but finally hurt it pretty good last week (actually, I hurt it gripping the chair in the dentist’s office believe it or not), and decided it was time to go see the doctor.

Doc says it’s Tennis Elbow.  Unfortunately he then proceeded to give me a whole lot of no-quick-fixes.  Apparently it’s an issue with the tendon, but isn’t inflammation.  That means that Ibuprofen may help with pain, but if you think taking it to keep the inflammation down is a good plan, you’re doing yourself no good.

He’s also not a big fan of Cortisone shots.

So, the plan is: several weird “drop-catch” exercises (put your arm on a desk, hold a light weight in your hand with the hand hanging off the edge of the desk.  Lift the weight up with your wrist, then let it “drop” by going limp in the wrist, but tense up again to “catch” it before it goes down all of the way.)  He says this will help to strengthen the tendon, and that doing these is really about all that can be done.

He also felt that Judo and Jiu Jitsu shouldn’t be a problem to continue (although I really don’t think he understood what in the heck they are.)  But that if practice makes it really, really hurt (he says 6 out of 10 on the pain scale… is that like a crotch kick?) that I may want to back off.

I’ll keep you posted on how this progresses.  Kind of a bummer really… was hoping for a magic shot or pill I guess.  Anyone else been through this?  Have any suggestions?

• Execute a three-punch combo, closing the gap with shuffle footwork
• Immediately step back out at angle, anticipating counter attacks and defensive readjustments
• Burst into opponent with a two-hit combo

The first set of strikes isn’t necessarily to hit a home-run – it’s to close the gap and set up the KO punches. If they land and do damage, great; but you want to put your fists in their face, disguising your encroachment towards a better positional advantage.  You cut away with a burst step, 30-45 degrees to the side, preferably away from their power hand. Your opponent will likely try to square back up to you or throw counter punches, but you’ll be to their side (looking into their ear) beating them to the punch.

I haven’t really standardized what I call this combo – “3 cut 2”, “five hit combo”, “3 slip angle counter”, “1-2-3, 1-2”.  What would you call it?

Anyway, to illustrate a bit more about why cutting out of the line of attack is so important, I appeal to someone far greater than I to show us: Fedor.

One more vid, from our local taking it to the MMAT guys (Brandon Kiser) . It plays off that theme – distracting your opponent with a punch to set up your footwork … and that footwork enables a hard hitting blow.

I’ve been doing Judo and Jiu Jitsu for about three years now, and have been choked more times than I can count.  But up until this week I had never been actually choked all the way out.  I’m sure many or most of you have been through this before me.  But for those of you who have not, I wanted to share my trip down the rabbit hole

Well, for starters, the last week had been rough.  I have been on call for work, and had several issues arise at night to interrupt my sleep.  By Thursday night I was exhausted, and feeling pretty run down.  I don’t use this as an excuse for getting choked.  The choke was a great one.  I just found it interested how this element played into the night, and wanted to share.

That night at Hidden Valley we were working on chokes.  We also had a lot of newer students who have not worked their chokes much.  As I am normally pretty tough to choke, I worked with a lot of people that night to help them perfect their choke skills.

Now, as I said, I am normally pretty tough to choke out.  But when I do almost go out I find that after I tap out and am released my lips will go numb and tingly for a few seconds, my vision will tunnel, and I will be disoriented.  Not unlike a head rush from standing up too quickly, but with the addition of the numb lips.

Normally I might feel this once, or maybe twice in a night when we work chokes.  But it was getting that close literally every time.  I have never run into this before.  I am curious if others have seen this when they are run down and tired?

Things got really interesting when I was working with Little Hermosillo on his cross collar choke.  I asked him if he wanted it easy, or a little resistance.  He said to make it tough.  I resisted, and recall thinking he had it tight and I needed to tap.

- break for a trip down the rabbit hole -

Have you ever had one of those dreams where you go to work or school with no pants?  When you try to fix the problem it seems like you can’t no matter what.

Well, I started to wake up from a deep, deep sleep.  I was convinced I was having a dream about being in Judo class.  I was dreaming that I had fallen asleep in the Dojo, and was asleep for several hours, and that everyone was just standing around me.  Furthermore, I seemed unable to get my limbs to work right.  As I tried to move them they just flipped like fish flippers.

As I became more aware, I was sleep convinced that I had been asleep for quite some time (at least an hour.)  I looked up and asked those looking at me, “What’s going on?”

The response was, “You were unconscious.”

I was baffled… Still convinced that I had been sleeping for some time.  “For that long??” I asked.  Only to find out that I had only been out a few seconds.

Again, this may not be news to anyone else, but just in case you have ever wanted to ask “What’s it like to be choked out?”  I thought I’d share what the trip was like for me.

I don’t know about that claim, but I have a healthy respect for wrestling and what it has to offer jiu-jitsu. I know jiu-jitsu is the gentle art, but every BJJ player out there could benefit from the power, speed and emphasis on dominant positioning in wrestling. You know it’s true.

Last week’s Saturday class featured some Greco-Roman arm drag, wrist control and takedown basics, taught by Jeramy Hunt-Loveless, a freestyle national champion, all-American and Greco-Roman world team member.

I asked Jeramy after class if he would be willing to do a quick review for the camera. I apologize…the camera work here is a bit shoddy (I promise to work on that for future videos):

Thanks again to Jeramy and Lars Oveson for the video.

A quick note about the arm drag. Jeramy really emphasized that rather than using force to pull your opponent’s arm across your own body, you hinge your elbow across their chest and keep your forearm close to their sternum. You just roll the shoulder in a little. Then you step in and isolate the leg. If you try this on someone, you can see that the effort is very minimal…it’s not about de-basing your opponent, it’s about minimizing their ability to attack/defend by creating an advantageous angle.

I personally think this has great application for BJJ standup. (…)
Finish reading Greco-Roman Principles for BJJ Stand-up.

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I’m giving up submissions. That’s right! I’m going on a total submission diet. Between now and October 1st, I will be attempting absolutely zero submissions during training.

Introducing the….

Don’t worry…I’m not a defeatist. There is a method to my madness.

My reasoning is thus: if I am not allowed to submit my opponent, I’ll be forced to roll with only positioning, control and defense in mind.

It’s part of my new experiment to develop my positioning game, which I feel needs a lot of work. My coach knows about the project, and I’ve asked him to help me do some analysis on how my game changes during this period of time. At the end of the month, I’ll do a write-up and let you know how it turns out.

There’s an ulterior motive, too. I’m trying to buck Mr. Ego.
(…)
Finish reading The Zero Subs Project…Me vs. Ego.

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We worked on two unconventional guard passes this Saturday, along with a painful catch wrestling choke and some Greco arm drag / takedown techniques. Dave substituted for Brandon, who will usually be conducting the Saturday class. Brandon’s training partner taught the Greco portion, which was worth of it’s own post…maybe tomorrow.

At least once every few months, Dave will go over a technique for passing the guard that more resembles catch wrestling than BJJ. In fact, he learned this technique from Mark Schultz, an Olympic wrestling champion who studied BJJ with Pedro Sauer.

The technique uses momentum to flip the guard player onto his stomach when they won’t open their guard. The person on top does a “box jump” (posts off of the guard player’s hips and hops to his feet), keeping the weight low and the feet back to avoid an easy leg trap. Then the top person drops down to one knee (either side), posts with the hand and kicks the other leg over their opponent, deftly planting it on the mat. This rotates the opponent’s hips around and plants them on their stomach. You should have trapped a leg in this process, which opens up an ankle lock, calf cutter or other painful submission. Or you can pass the leg and take the back.

I’ve learned this one before, but when trying to apply it I always had problems because instead of keeping my posture up while kicking the leg over, I would effectively just turn around to my hands and knees. It’s crucial that your hip movement is powerful and the kick rotates your opponent’s hips 180 degrees, but your hips only rotate 90 degrees.

The guard player can counter this move by blocking your kicking leg with their hand, so it may be wise to trap the hand before you kick the leg over.

Another unconventional guard break is what Dave calls the “Mowgli” after the Jungle Book character. The Mowgli accomplishes the same task (flips the guard player onto their stomach). If someone has you in closed guard and they will not open it, box jump, then pick one of their shoulders and do a powerful bear crawl, keeping your hips low, toward and over that shoulder. The movement will flip them onto their stomach and break the guard.

Now for the real pain.

Ever been like me in this video… in the position for an anaconda or a D’arce, but unable to get the angle to finish? Enter a catch wrestling strangle hold that both cuts off blood and hurts like crazy. This is another Schultz move, and can be done from standing or kneeling, and uses this exact setup. And it doesn’t matter if their arm is defending and preventing the triangle…it attacks the neck on the opposite side of the trapped arm.

To perform the move, thread your arm clear around his trapped arm to the point where your radial bone is cutting across the neck of your opponent. This may require quickly twisting your torso around and pushing your arm through, to the point where your head is more or less in your opponent’s armpit. Yeah. Now your squeezing power is all focused on the far side of your opponent’s neck. Either grip your wrist or gable grip, then pull your forearm into the carotid artery by squeezing. You’ll get the tap either from pain or from the choke.

Dave said that particular move is not fun when an Olympic wrestling champion performs it on you. I can only imagine.

We didn’t really roll today, just practiced these moves. I did, however, experience practicing with a female grappler for the first time. Since I am horrible with names and I don’t want to print the wrong name, I’ll forego that this round. It was definitely an interesting experience, though, since she was at least two feet shorter than me. We found out rather quickly that the first guard passing move does not work well with an opponent who is a lot shorter than you. When I tried to flip her by kicking my leg over, she just stuck to my torso and moved with me instead of flipping. When she tried it to me, I could easily keep my guard closed even when she rotated. The best move for both of us was the Mowgli, which seems to work regardless of the size difference between training partners.

I was grateful for Georgette’s post about rolling with women. The practice went well regardless of the height difference and my inexperience in training with a female training partner.

PRINCIPLES:

• By shifting your angle, you can attack different areas with from the same position.
• Power comes from the hips. Yet again.

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Shortly after being soundly defeated in his rematch with Edgar, BJ Penn released a statement claiming that Frankie had done some serious wrong doing.

“It’s clear to my whole camp and me that Frankie greased his head and all the air molecules around it.  You can literally see the way my punches are gliding off a cushion of greased air, never even touching his face. If it wasn’t grease it must have been reverse-polarity punch magnets, installed in his brain, physically pushing my hands away from connecting. Whatever it was, it was utter bull****.”

When asked if the total assbeatery he received at the hands of Frankie qualified Edgar to be the lightweight champion, BJ Penn responded saying, “If you want to have your teammates pick you up on their shoulders for the judges, trying to steal the decision, then fine.  Then that’s the guy you are. He’s starting to think he’s this great fighter, the all time best. Take those delusions of grandeur and flush them down the toilet with your anti-damage spray and your excessive-win creams.”

Frankie Edgar’s camp has not yet  responded to these allegations.

Great class tonight by Dave. We worked on side control escapes, which gave me a great chance to apply the things I’ve been learning from Gerald lately.

We worked three escapes from scarf hold. These sort of assume your opponent is controlling your head and one arm (judo scarf hold or kesa gatame), not both arms (what BJJ players call scarf hold), although I imagine the techniques can be modified for if your opponent has both your arms.

Rolling today was position training, and I paired with Ben and Matt (white), then Jerry and Jason (blue). The goal was escape from side control or submit from the top. I was on top nearly the entire time. Since I’m not doing submissions (more on that later), I focused purely on shifting my weight and position to maintain control, and experimented with moving between side control styles.

I was particularly happy with my roll with Jason. First, he helped me tighten up my side control by spreading my knees apart. This both helped trap the hips and helped trap the head, a double whammy! Later, I pulled off a slick crucifix hold. But the best was, I had a definite moment where a principle sank in and the angels sang “hallelujah!” As Jason was struggling to get out from under me, I found myself being pushed up off the ground and nearly swept a couple of times. I countered this several times by shifting my hips and allowing my body to roll with his efforts instead of against them, sort of like staying on top of a ball (am I sensing a reason for the popularity of Swedish exercise balls in jiu-jitsu training?). I was honestly very proud of myself for doing that intuitively. Six months ago I would have been swept.

TECHNIQUES:

1. Create a frame. With the opponent in scarf hold off to your right, create a frame with your left forearm against their neck and your right elbow against the floor, connecting in a gable grip. You may have to hip out and fight to free your elbow and place it on the floor, but this is the best place for it (keep control of your own elbows!)
2. Sweep One: Hip out and backward repeatedly, creating greater distance between your and your opponent’s hips, pushing with the frame until you can basically sit up and pull your own legs into a kneeling position, having reversed the side control. You can assist yourself with your left leg at this point by hooking it around his head and kicking down, like leg wrestling. If your hips are right, the momentum of kicking down helps you reverse and can bring you up into a kneeling side control.
3. Sweep Two: Gable grip right under their ribs, pull up sharply and arch upward and over your opposite shoulder. This rolls them and reverses the side control.
4. Sweep Three (my favorite): This is a new sweep that I don’t recognize from any previous classes. Which is cool since it’s been a while since Dave has taught something that I haven’t seen at least once.

   To execute the sweep, you hip out strong, then come over with your top leg and hook your opponent’s top thigh, much as if you were throwing in hooks to take the back. Use the hook to pop your bottom knee through, and close the figure four on the leg. You can then arch your back while gripping your opponents head or gi, while rolling to the left. This does two things – it breaks down your opponent’s offensive posture and even their grip, and it allows you to defend from kesa gatame and go straignt into back control or mount. A very sweet sweep. I imagine this one would be a lot harder if your opponent does a BJJ-style scarf hold and not judo kesa gatame (the difference is in BJJ we trap the far arm and lie across the chest, instead of trapping the head and the near arm. Probably to avoid sweeps like this.)

5. Another technique I learned today from Jason. If your opponent has side control and is trapping you with his knees in, the basic tendency I have is to hip out. At this point, Jason switches very quickly into scarf hold. But there is a window of opportunity there. When hipping out, I can simultaneously put my lower knee into the space created when he switches positions. It’s a quick movement and preempts his attempt to close the space by switching to scarf hold.

</ol

PRINCIPLES:


• Hips are everything. Move, move, move the hips.
• A failed effort in one direction can result in an opportunity for another direction. For example, failing to execute sweep one – let’s say your opponent follows you and keeps his hips close to yours so you can’t push him over – can create an opening for sweep two. He follows you, so when he comes into you, use the opportunity to hook the leg and go for sweep two.
• Every transition leaves an opening (but you need to be fast and smart to exploit it!). Using this principle, I will be adapting my shrimping drills to include bottom knee in.

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]]> http://www.utahmartialart.com/2010/08/escaping-scarf-hold/feed/ 0 http://www.utahmartialart.com/2010/08/arm-bar-escapes/ http://www.utahmartialart.com/2010/08/arm-bar-escapes/#comments Thu, 26 Aug 2010 16:02:52 +0000 Utah Martial Arts Feeds http://www.utahmartialart.com/2010/08/arm-bar-escapes/ This Article comes from Arcanum Brazilian Jiu-jitsu Blog
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Last night had another no gi class with Gerald. We worked on some basic escapes from the straight arm bar – starting with rolling the wrist out and twisting out over your opposite shoulder (I forget what it’s called…the basic arm bar escape illustrated in this YouTube video).

For the last couple of classes, I have been pre-empting techniques in my mind. Meaning, I have found that as we review a technique, I am just barely beginning to see the fundamentals the techniques are based on, ask questions and see outcomes using those fundamentals.

Today I realized that to execute a straight arm bar, your opponent has to have your head trapped with his leg.

Of course I already knew this and have drilled these types of escapes. But but it never really sunk in that this particular fact represented an opportunity. What if I prevent him from getting that leg over? What if I sit up before he can catch my head? What if I block his leg with my arm? What if I push his leg back off once he has it there? I’ve seen and even practiced some counters that involved this, but for some reason tonight this principle really grabbed hold in my brain.

As it turns out, this was the direction the lesson went. The next escape was to still twist your caught wrist to avoid the lock, but also to bridge and throw your arms up, which puts the leg on the floor above your head. You then trap it by scooting onto it with your neck and shoulders, and sit up into guard.

Attendance was small and for some reason felt super-informal. Partially that was because I was running on my last 10 percent. Having stayed up till odd hours of the morning working on gi ideas for Seymour’s dang gi-design challenge, I was wasted.

I ended up practicing techniques with two other white belts: Clint, who I met for the first time tonight, and Matt, who came over from U.C.T.C. and is basically at the same level as me in the learning process.

The insanity began, though, when a high school wrestler, Adam, got paired up with me for sparring. I just knew he was going to try and break me in half.

And he did try. I was determined to remain calm and not get into the muscle game. I really, really didn’t feel like getting into full-fledged fight just to show him that I knew a little jiu-jitsu.

He started to sink in a guillotine almost right away by pulling my head down with breakneck speed. That’s wrestling training for you. Fast and strong. Luckily, I’ve defended a million guillotines and while he out-paced me, I was able to work into a safe position (recover guard) and work out of the hold. Since he was obviously not going to roll casually, I did not really try to submit him or defend myself. Maybe that’s being a schmuck, but I didn’t care. I didn’t feel like rolling that way. He proceeded to climb onto my back and try and rip my head off with a rear naked choke, which I tapped to.

After I tapped I (hopefully kindly) reminded him we were just training, not actually competing, and told him I wasn’t really up for sparring full out. I asked him if there was anything he wanted to work on instead of spar. He didn’t know much guard passing, so I showed him the basic guard passes I use – I don’t know if it helped him but hopefully it was useful.

From there I rolled with Matt, and it was a great experience. We talked a little about how we are starting to really understand the value of rolling slowly and flowing in order to learn the balance and leverage principles. I was able to pass guard using an opposite side toe hold and hold him fairly well in side control, but when I tried the barbed wire arm bar setup we learned the other day, he escaped every time and reversed me. I think this was because I did not maintain sufficient control of his far arm and did not keep my weight on him properly.

Matt got a nice toe lock on me when I tried a double-leg sweep after he stood up in my guard. Second time I’ve been caught with that hold in a week. He graciously pointed out that this is because I am not following my opponent up, but instead staying on my back after executing the sweep. Talk about a facepalm…we’ve gone over that many times but for some reason I had forgotten that crucial step.

I tried to focus on maintaining balance and flowing. He turtled up nicely several times and I need to learn how to break this down. Got a nice crucifix hold when he went for a single leg, which I always seem to end up transitioning to an upside-down triangle and arm bar from the bottom.

TECHNIQUES

1. Arm bar escape 1 – When you feel the arm bar coming on (as soon as opponent starts to sit back) twist your wrist so they can’t line it up and lock the joint and point your hand to the mat above your head. Then bridge and using your feet, walk over the opposite shoulder to end up on your knees. Keep in tight

(…)
Finish reading Arm Bar Escapes.

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]]> http://www.utahmartialart.com/2010/08/arm-bar-escapes/feed/ 0 http://www.utahmartialart.com/2010/08/crazy-ass-gi-design-challenge-the-tmu-scorpion/ http://www.utahmartialart.com/2010/08/crazy-ass-gi-design-challenge-the-tmu-scorpion/#comments Wed, 25 Aug 2010 16:52:12 +0000 Utah Martial Arts Feeds http://www.utahmartialart.com/2010/08/crazy-ass-gi-design-challenge-the-tmu-scorpion/ This Article comes from Arcanum Brazilian Jiu-jitsu Blog
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Check out my latest submission for the Crazy-ass Gi Design Challenge! I was up till odd hours of the night working on this, but the results paid off.

(Check out my other designs here

The scorpion is a great logo for a jiu-jitsu team. It’s unique and it really pins down the essence of jiu-jitsu…control your target, then sting. Dave Johnson is the purveyor of the original logo, which you can see on the Team Machado Utah blog or on my home page. We’ve talked for a while about doing some creative designs based on the scorpion theme, so this is my first effort in that direction.

I figured this could be a gi with two pairs of pants. That’s how nice it is.

Here’s the gi top paired with yellow pants:



And finally, paired with black pants:



I must have this gi.

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