Owner: Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu - Steve's BJJ Log URL:http://www.stevebjj.com Join Date: Thu, 10 May 2007 13:45:59 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: This is a training log chronicling my ups and downs as I learn (or try to learn) BJJ under Lotus Club Black Belt, James Foster. Site statistics:Click here
Well I'll be damned! 2007-07-19 18:35:00 I'm a treehugger. I was over on one of my friend's blogs and she posted a link to this political test. I don't do many of these, but this one looked intriguing. Here are my results. If you're inclined to do so, take the test and let me know how you scored. You are a Social Liberal (70% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (26% permissive) You are best described as a: Democrat (26e/70s) Link: The Politics Test on Ok CupidAlso: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test Read more:damned
Tuesday and Wednesday BJJ Classes 2007-07-20 17:26:00 I realized that I didn't write up these two classes. We worked on the same techniques: passing the half guard.I did get a lot of sparring in, particularly on Tuesday
. It was a small class, and so I got four matches with a wide range of skill levels. Wednesday
I had a chance to roll with Big Rick, one of our purple belts and just an all around big guy. He's up around the 300 lbs range. Funniest part was when, after I basically resigned myself to 5 minutes of defense and trying not to get squished, I pulled guard and couldn't even close my guard. So, I got a good grip on his lapel with my right hand, controlled his right arm and brought my right knee in to try a basic scissor sweep. He said, "You can't even close your guard, and you think you're going to be able to sweep me?" I laughed... nervously, "Haha... yeah." Shortly after that, as I tried to break down his posture he passed my guard.So, you can probably guess how I did... a 185 lbs white belt against a 300 lbs purple Read more:Classes
Dave camarillo VS. Dan Camarillo 2007-07-24 09:24:00 A lot of people I know have very little idea what BJJ looks like when done well. Of course, there are a lot of videos on YouTube, but this one is particularly good. This particular clip is Dave Camarillo VS. Dan camarillo at the HCK All Comers tournament in 2002. They stay busy the entire time, and you'll see several good takedowns as well as great movement on the ground, some acrobatic guard passing and many submissions attempted including armbars, chokes and you name it. While this particular match doesn't end with a submission, I think that's more a testament to the physical chess game and these particular guys' skill.If you want to have an idea of where I'd like to be someday, I think this is a good example. Let me know what you think.
Sunday BJJ Class 07/22/2007 2007-07-22 21:28:00 Had an awesome class today. Looks like we're continuing to work on passing the half guard, so technique today was review. I think I'm getting these okay in drilling, and am having moderate success in sparring. Doesn't work every time for me, but that's from me not minding my base or in some cases allowing my opponent to secure an underhook and try to sneak around to my back.I rolled again with Big Rick. I damn near went to sleep. I was working my half-guard pass, but he hooked my leg in a way that made it impossible to work my knee out. As you can see in the picture, his hands are almost as big as my head. This is me trying to keep shoulder pressure, head low, hips down and work my leg out.Shortly after this picture, he secured a tight choke, similar but not quite the same as an Ezekiel Choke. At first, I wasn't as concerned about the lapel grips as I was focused intently on my feet. Then, when I first felt the choke, I thought I could get out of it, but he was too strong. Read more:Sunday
BJJ Class Tuesday 7/24/2007 2007-07-25 14:44:00 Okay, I mentioned yesterday that we learned a new sweep. First, however, I want to say that I'm am SO SORE today! My arms are sore. My hands are sore. My neck is sore. I'm sore. We ended up doing sort of an open mat time at the end where we just sparred with whomever we could... no time limits or anything, and more along the lines of 45 minutes or so of sparring. Okay, so the sweep we learned is from guard. I've got my opponent in guard and I want to sweep him over to my right side. I'm going to start by getting a good grip on his left lapel with my right hand, just a straight hold so that I don't raise any red flags that I'm going for a choke or anything. Then pulling with both my feet and my right arm, I'll break down his posture and once he's collapsed I'll feed my left hand, palm toward me deep into his collar as though I'm going for a simple cross collar choke, similar to this one but from guard. The defense against this is often to fight the arm, and to tuck t Read more:Tuesday
Pictures from Class 7/24/2007 2007-07-25 00:01:00 Just trying out a new thing. I'll write up class when I can. We learned a nice sweep from guard. Here are some pictures. To be honest, my kids too the pictures and didn't happen to get any from when I was getting completely dominated for most of class! I tapped more than Sammy Davis Jr. tonight! :) Read more:Pictures
this is a test 2007-07-29 09:54:00 Ok. I'm sending this from my iphone. It's not nearly as easy as on a fullsize keyboard, but not terrible either. It really does all of what they advertise, although there are a few things i am going to miss.First is voice recognition. With the bluetooth headset, it is very handy to be able toake a call without having to pull out the phone. Safer while driving, too. That's the biggie. Mainly, i just wanted to see how practical blogging on tje train will be.Oh. What is very cool is that i habe youtube, wifi internet, and can also add my own videos. So I'll always have some bjj techniques to watch
Sunday bjj class 2007-07-30 09:08:00 In yesterday's class
we went over the saw sweep that we've been working all week.Several promotions. I received me second stripe, as did Keoni and Jeremy. Josh got his fourth stripe and will be a blue belt before long. I'm not sure I've mentioned it yet, but a promotion of note was for Todd, a new purple belt. Todd has been training for longer than James (the Black Belt under whom we all train). As James tells it, Todd and James were black belts at a Karate school back in the 1990's. They both discovered BJJ at the same time and started trying to learn it on their own. It was Todd who first sought out "real" instruction, training at one of the early schools here in the Seattle area. Todd was a blue belt before James even started training formally in BJJ. Long story short, Todd schools us all. He's been sandbagging for a decade. :) Seriously, though, he's a good guy, and willing to share almost everything. He's always willing to say, "Hey, there's a good armlock fr Read more:Sunday
Tuesday BJJ class 8/7/2007 2007-08-08 09:01:00 I was able to make the 6:30 class
last night and I'm glad I did. We went over a few ways to break open an armbar from the top. It was a small class, so sparring was fairly intensive, too. I had three matches but sat out the fourth. I was on the edge of getting sick. Okay. Technique learned were two ways to break a bad guy's grip when you're determined to crank the armbar. First is a sort of stackingethod. It's very simple. I've got my heels back and my knees tight togetherwith my hips tight to his near shoulder. Keeping my legs in good position is a detail that a lot of guys forget andif my hips aren't in tight, I won't have a fulcrum for my submission. Now, bad guy's defending. He knows he's in trouble and is going to lock up his arm. First technique is to start by reaching through to my shoulder with one arm. I need to keep my chest in tight and then reach through with my other arm all the way to my opposite shoulder, working my way to the end of his arm.Second Read more:Tuesday
Sunday BJJ Class 08/05/2007 2007-08-06 14:20:00 Well, it was my first class since last Sunday
. As a result of a... we'll call it inconvenient commute from my home in the hinterlands of King County to downtown Seattle, I was unable to make it to class at all during the work week. HOpefully this week I'll be able to make it on my regular days. It's clear that for the next few months it's going to be hit and miss for me, but I'll get into class as often as I can.Training was good, but man am I ever sore after a week off. We did several drills as warmups. I really like warming up this way. In the armbar drill, we control both arm either at the wrist or cuff of the sleeve, and then to start I can push off of the hip to swing my leg around for an armbar. Not going for the tap... just trying to keep it tight, elevate the hips and get good position. Then swing around to the other side, hopefully with enough momentum that I don't have to push off. The idea is to create a rhythm, and it's also a great lower ab workout.The kimu
Tuesday BJJ Class 08/15/2007 2007-08-15 10:09:00 Tuesday's class was fairly small class. We worked on a variation to the triangle, a technique to finish when the opponent gets his arm out. We also learned a technique for finishing the standard triangle when your opponent just doesn't want to go to sleep. The triangle variation is going to be difficult to describe. It is essentially replacing his arm (because he managed to pull it out) with my own. So, I'm on the bottom and however I set it up, I have my opponent in a triangle. Maybe it's not very tight yet, or what usually happens to me is that I don't lock it down fast enough and he gets his arm most of the way out before I can really cinch down the hold. Regardless, I now have his head locked in the figure four, but without his arm, there's no choke. It may be uncomfortable for him, but unless I'm fighting someone who just doesn't know better, he's in no real danger. So, let's say I have my right leg around his neck, and my left leg locking it down, and he mana Read more:Tuesday
Sunday BJJ Class 08/12/2007 2007-08-13 09:16:00 Relatively large class on Sunday
. We ran through a decent warm-up. Lots of drills, which are always fun. Technique on Sunday was the same as we'd been working on all week: unlocking the armbar when the villain has his arms locked up. Coach also made the announcement that Allen Mohler is going to be in town on September 8th and 9th. This will be the Grand Opening of Foster BJJ's new location, and a two-day seminar with Allen Mohler. If I remember correctly, the 8th will be gi and the 9th no-gi. I'm planning on making at least one day, possibly both if I can swing it.I won't spend much time detailing the techniques. They were functionally the same as I described on Tuesday. Sparring was really fun. I worked with one of the more experienced blue belts in my first match. He wanted to work from the bottom, so he pulled guard. I felt pretty good getting around his guard. I managed to avoid submissions, and while I couldn't secure any submissions of my own, I maintained a lo
Sunday BJJ Class 08/19/2007 2007-08-20 10:27:00 It just doesn't feel like I'm getting to class ever anymore! Once or twice a week is killing me. My elbow held up well yesterday. It felt strong, as long as I don't hyperextend it or put a lot of lateral pressure on the joint. I'm going to get in the habit of wearing a sleeve over it from now on. Just a little compression seems to make a big difference in keeping the joint stable.The techniques for this class were taught by Todd, one of the purple belts. He showed us a couple of his favorite sweeps. One from spider guard and the other from de la riva or maybe more of a modified spider guard. Todd doesn't really worry much about labels. He just does what makes sense to him, which seems to work. We've learned a few different ways to pass spider guard (which I'd forgotten until I went back and looked just now), but not a lot on how to use spider guard. The first technique was the De La Riva/spider guard (sort of) sweep. In this position, I'm on my back and controlling Read more:Sunday
Tuesday BJJ Class 08/28/2007 2007-08-29 16:15:00 Whew. I finally made it back to class. I managed to scarf down an apple and some granola before I left work, but I'm accustomed to eating something with a little more protein prior to class. As a result, I had a predictable hypoglycemic response and got very nauseous. Nothing major, but ugh. Felt really good to get back to class.We were, as a group, chastised about our hygiene. Actually, it was the no-gi class prior to the gi class I attended... but still. I completely understand. The environment in a BJJ school, like that of any grappling school from high school wrestling to whatever, is an ideal one for bacteria. Ringworm or Staph are things we all watch out for. So, yeah. I guess I don't mind the occassional reminder to shower regularly and wash my gi. I don't think I'm one of the culprits, but that didn't stop me from surreptitiously sniffing my gi to make sure it was April Fresh.Techniques for this class were a couple of ways to take a person's back from side con Read more:Tuesday
Wednesday BJJ Class 8/29/2007 2007-08-30 13:26:00 Yesterday's class was fun. Overall, it was a lighter workout than on Tuesday, but that's okay by me. I was beat after Tuesday's class. Warmups were pretty good... lots of ab work and then in lieu of technique we worked on a lockflow drill, and then 3 minute rounds against one of the upper belts. Sparring was relatively light for me, because my right elbow is still not 100%. It's doing okay, but while we were doing the sitout drill, it got tweaked a little bit. Nothing major, but I want to be gentle with it. So, the lockflow drill is one I've done before, but never as shown by Coach Foster. We've done it a couple of times during warmups. It was a great workout, and in order to do it, you have to really mind your hip movement and technique. It starts with a basic armbar from guard. So, I trap an arm, get one leg high on the shoulders to prevent my partner from posturing up and then swing the other leg around into an armbar. The counter to this is for him to stack me up Read more:Wednesday
Sunday Class Addendum 2007-09-24 13:28:00 I don't know about anyone else, but I tend to mull things over. I'm very comfortable letting my brain crunch the information on its own time and let me know when the heavy lifting is done. As a result, I experience "Aha!" moments fairly frequently. Some are big "Aha!" moments and others are... not so big. Most are actually of the relatively minor variety, but still "Aha!"It occurred to me a few minutes ago that I've been mulling over the explosive bridging motion. It bothers me that I can't seem to do it well, but it dawned on me that something else bothers me, too. It's that, for me, this seemingly natural motion is very foreign. That's the "Aha!" discovery (I told you most of them were small). What specifically popped into my head was that when I try to bridge up, it feels like it did when I first tried to do the Vulcan hand... thing. You know the one, where you seperate your fingers into a V? It feels exactly like that, knowing that your body can do it and sending the signals Read more:Sunday
, Addendum
Sunday BJJ Class 09/23/2007 2007-09-24 10:30:00 Sunday's class was really full. We had several people in the class I've never met before. One of the guys was a judoka who was training no-gi. I guess he's a very high level competitor. All I know is that he was quite good on the ground.Technique was once again a return to the basics. We worked on an escape from a sit out or scarf hold position. The image to the left is essentially the control position. The only significant detail I can see between this position and what we are taught is that White would have his base leg (left) up with his foot on the ground so that he can drive into Blue.Some things to note are that White has his head nice and low. He also has Blue's left arm isolated and in a very vulnerable position because of both the underhook and keeping his right knee up tight under Blue's shoulder. You can't see that, but where Blue's right hand is peeking helplessly up over White's left arm, it's also somewhat isolated and immobilized due to White's right thigh shov Read more:Sunday
Wednesday BJJ Class 9/19/2007 2007-09-20 12:08:00 Yet another thing I love about BJJ is that even when classes just kick one's ass, they're still fun. I'm not sure than anyone who hasn't grappled with a determined partner knows exactly how much energy is exerted. If you don't know what I mean, try this as an experiment. Have someone who's in good shape and maybe a little bit bigger than you take a good control position. Doesn't really matter what. Now, set a timer for two minutes and just try and get him off and stand back up. Whether you or he has any training at all, I think you'll find that at the end of two minutes, you'll be very tired. The point of all of this is that there are days when you put out, work hard and at the end you're sweaty and sore. Then there are days when you REALLY put out and end up just flat out exhausted. Yesterday was one of the latter days for me.The technique we worked on was a basic escape from mount. So, a guy is on top, his hips are in front of yours which means you're basically be Read more:Wednesday
Monday Class - Drills and Conditioning 9/17/2007 2007-09-18 12:15:00 Yesterday, I had the chance to make one of Jeff''s drills and conditioning classes. It also happened to be the day when Rick and Bing were installing the 3 sided cage for the MMA guys. It looks great. I know where my pictures will be taken! :)What's great about the drills class is that there's no sparring, but there are timed drills. During warmups, we did a ton of abs, and worked all sorts of positional drills. We also did some timed drills where one person tries to maintain a control position and the other person just tries to escape. We did mount and side control.My elbow is still a little gimpy, but not too bad, and my toe is healing well. Tape is great. I do want to make it clear that I chronicle my injuries major and minor just so that I can kind of keep track of them. It's a contact sport and the benefits far outweigh the minor bumps and bruises. To be honest, the bumps and bruises are kind of fun. Read more:Monday
Why we do this: part duex 2007-09-17 22:51:00 Warning: This post is going to be somewhat long, and maybe a little self indulgent. I get a little tired of reading on other blogs and in other martial arts discussions about how BJJ guys aren't real martial artists, and how martial arts should be about building character. I want to focus on character development, specifically how I believe that a system like BJJ is better for character development and inner strength then most schools that focus on breathing, kata, black belts, tradition and respect. My belief is that the character development in BJJ is not unique to BJJ, although it is becoming so among martial arts. It's my contention that my kids learn the same lessons by applying themselves to any activity, be it a sport or learning to play a musical instrument or any activity where success can be marked objectively, but for which they have a passion to succeed. You see, there are two things to be learned, and it seems like the only lesson we want to teach our kids anymore
Sunday BJJ Class 09/16/2007 2007-09-17 22:21:00 There's a lot of discussion on the internet about ego in Martial Arts. It's often asserted that there is a lot of ego in BJJ. I just can't see it. Frankly, I can't imagine how ego could thrive. It's such an unforgiving undertaking that anyone with any amount of ego must necessarily be driven away. Most classes involve failing over and over again. Sure, there are minor successes, but the classes are primarily about trying, failing and trying again.So, then, why keep training? There are a couple of answers to that... at least, for me (the only person I can really speak for). First is some kind of ineffable quality. It's an addiction for many who try it that is unexplainable. In trying to explain this quality, I can only say that it's like when I was a kid playing tackle football after school in my cords and button up shirt knowing that my mom was going to kill me. The feeling that I remember after dragging my friend literally 20 feet into the endzone, bouncing off of tw Read more:Sunday
Mohler/Foster Seminar: Day 2 2007-09-09 20:15:00 For the record, I'm not a small man. I'm normal sized... 5'10". James is just a big dude. This is a picture of the two BJJ black belts who taught the seminar, James Foster
and Allen Mohler. This was after the second day. I got a lot of mat time and learned a ton.I'm not going to detail any of the techniques. It's just too much. We worked guillotine counters, from side and from within guardcounters to single leg takedowns (head out and head in). These were warm up drills. As I said in my last post, I just have to figure out a way to get to Kent by 5pm on Mondays for Jeff's Drills class. I really feel like it would help me get off this plateau I'm on.Techniques we learned included the Gogoplata, which is a choke from guard where you choke your opponent with your shin. This is what it looked like when Nick Diaz shocked everyone by submitting Gomi last year.We also learned a thumb choke, very similar to a guillotine in that it is a front facing choke. The main differe Read more:Seminar
Mohler/Foster Seminar: Day 1 2007-09-09 12:18:00 Injury report: My little toe is all screwed up. The down side is that it's pretty bruised and tender, the bruise extending up onto my foot and making it painful to bend. The up side is that after it heals, it will now match my other little toe, which has looked like a sausage for about 8 months since this exact same thing happened to it. I should be fine with a little tape. The seminar started with a very light warm-up and then some drills. The drills we worked on were partner drills where we'd work to regain guard and things like that. These drills, and seeing the ease with which Coach Mohler went from one submission to the next really brought home that I need to go to Jeff's Drills and Conditioning classes on Mondays. These sorts of drills are fun and very and the lockflow drills will help me down the road. One of the drills we worked on was a way to take the back on someone who's turtled up really tight. In this drill, we'd start with the our partner in a strong turtle Read more:Foster
, Seminar
Mohler/Foster seminar 9/8/2007 2007-09-08 21:17:00 Today was the first day of two working with Allen Mohler. I really got a kick out of the work we did today, and in having the chance to meet another BJJ Black Belt.First, two things unrelated to the BJJ. As I talked to Coach Mohler before the seminar, my first thought was how much he looks like Michael Keaton. Anyone who knows me knows I'm a geek. Between my wife and I, we have every geek stereotype covered. Seriously. Every single one. Star Trek, computers (my first was a TI 99A, although I also had a Vic 20 with a 300 baud modem... smokin'). Oh, competive math team, Dungeons and Dragons and literally anything else you can think of. I'm mentioning this so you know that when I say that Michael Keaton is the best Batman from the movies, I do so having given it some thought. Because for some subsets of geekdom, who is the best cinematic Batman is important. So, I guess you could say that Allen Mohler looks to me like Batman... sort of. Tell you what. You make the call.The other thing Read more:Foster
No classes this week 2007-09-04 13:42:00 Looks like the next class I'm going to be attending is the 2 day seminar with Alan Mohler and my coach, James Foster next weekend. I'm travelling for work, and with the first day of school being today want to make sure I get some time with my kids to debrief. I'm sure they'll have lots to talk about.So, in the absence of any BJJ related information, I thought I'd share a couple of healthy food related things I've recently discovered. The first is Matcha Green Tea. I've been drinking lots of tea for about a year now, and really enjoy green tea. My favorite by far is a Jasmine Pearl Green Tea, just like this, although not from this company. The leaves are of high quality and I've found that 10 or so of the pearls will rehydrate and last me all day... or at least 3 to 4 cups of tea. Basically, the little balls steep in the water and become a surprising number of tea leaves. In the end, it looks a little like pond scum, but tastes pretty darn good.But I digress. On my way to Starbu
Sunday 10/7 and Tuesday 10/9 2007-10-10 18:28:00 I made class Sunday
and also last night. Wow, it was humid in the school last night.Class on Sunday was a lot of fun. We had a light warmup and then went into technique. Coach opened up free rolling early on Sunday, so I worked with Sean and Bill on some stuff. I like rolling with them because they're a lot bigger than me, which gives me a chance to work on stuff I can't otherwise. I also got to roll briefly with Hyam and just as I was going to get squished like a small bug by Big Rick (Brick), we broke off for birthday cake. Whew. :) I joke about that. I was actually looking forward to it. Rick is big, but I firmly believe in working on what I'm worst at, and I continue to believe that my weakest area is under side control/north south and mount. Last night we worked on a great move from a tough side control. When my opponent gets me really pinned down with deep control under my head and control of my leg, this is a technique I can use when I just can't get back up on my Read more:Tuesday
If I still enjoy my birthday, does that mean I'm still young? 2007-10-10 17:09:00 While there are so many people in the world and only 366 (at least, during a leap year) possible days upon which to be born, I still think it's neat to share birthdays, particularly when they're people you like. Coach Foster and I share a birthday, which is very cool. Of course, he's... a little young
er than I am... and maybe a little more athetic. Damn, now I'm getting depressed. I'll bet he'd kick my ass in video games, too. Nevermind. Enough about that.I also share a birthday with my dad, which growing up was always made to be a treat. Excepting a few rebellious years in my youth, my dad and I have always been close, and I've never felt like I was being cheated out of a share of the limelight by sharing his birthday. On the contrary. Even as a young kid, I always felt like it was a special thing to have been born on his birthday, and I appreciate it even now.My son's doing extremely well in school this year, and we believe that this is in large part due to the personality of Read more:enjoy
Blogging 101 2007-10-05 10:53:00 As I get more comfortable blogging and begin to open up the topics to include the occasional post outside of training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, I'm finding that I just don't know a lot of things that other bloggers take for granted. I think it has to do with how I came into this entire subculture of blogging. Where most bloggers go into it with the intent of starting a blog, gaining readership and trying to market their blog and, in some cases, make some extra cash, I stumbled into blogging largely by accident. My coach recommended that we all keep a training log and suggested that setting up a blog was really easy. Turns out he was right.The result is that I sometimes don't know simple things. Like, what is a meme. What a strange word. Turns out (thanks Google) that meme's are "a type of Internet meme that requires active participation by the blogger and rarely traces back to an originating source. It's often a series of questions that a blogger answers to share some persona Read more:Blogging
Wednesday Class 10/03/2007 2007-10-04 11:43:00 Big class today, and after my sinus infection my energy level was kind of low. It's been a week and a half since I last made a class and I was feeling it. Fortunately, warmups were somewhat light and technique involved an escape from a straight ankle lock.In warmups, we worked on our armbar and armbar defense from guard. I enjoy that drill and like to take any opportunity to work on my armbar from guard. So, as soon as you feel the armbar getting locked in you react first by stacking your opponent. The instinctive response is to try and stand up and pull your arm out. That would be the wrong thing to do, and would only serve to straighten your arm out, sinking the armbar in tight and possibly blowing out your elbow. So, keep your arm bent and really put pressure on your opponent's hips and legs. Next, I grab my opponent's collar, thumb in and get some pressure on his neck with the blade of my wrist. He's trying to armbar me, so I'm not too concerned with his comfort. Th Read more:Wednesday
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