Quick update, I forgot to write a post last night, but I weighed 157.2. I ate a massive dinner, 3 pieces of Parmesan crusted chicken and some mashed potatoes and rice. Then we had striking practice, went over the Thai clinch some, and rotated through partners for 10 3 minute rounds of sparring.
mma
All posts tagged mma
Well, I was right. Last night a couple people got stripes, and Logan was one of them. I think he got his second stripe on his purple belt, and Casey got his third stripe on his white belt. Well deserved on both counts. Then, surprisingly, I saw Casey this morning when I was handing out fliers at the shipyard, apparently he works there. I felt like I got hit by a car last night after jiu jitsu. I got up at 5:30, handed out fliers like usual, then napped for a while, went to class, found out one of my other classes was cancelled, and went to New World.
I went to the new class Mike is doing from 6-8:30, then immediately drove to the club’s practice until 10:45. We’re still going over stuff from bottom half guard at New World. I’m really not a fan of half guard, at all, but it’s helping me make sure that I get up on my side all the time. We only rolled for like 30 minutes, but I was still exhausted. I was trying to pass Jason’s spider guard, and I couldn’t even bend my arm enough to get a grip on his pants.
At the club practice, we did some stuff from back mount, and then I taught the sneaky choke. As an interesting twist, Gigi almost choked me unconscious with it later hahaha. I knew it was coming, but I was planning on rolling her as she turned. Unfortunately, we were at the edge of the mat, so I waited, and she almost got me. I didn’t really want that to happen, so I trapped her arm and rolled and just made sure her head didn’t hit the floor. I practiced a bit with my handstand where I start up on my shoulders like I’m stretching my back, then kick up and push into a handstand. I’m to the point where I can do it most of the time, pretty much anytime I can do a handstand itself haha. I’ve been so exhausted recently because Russell and I have been texting each other once or twice a day with a quick little workout to do. It’s usually 100 pushups or squats, sometimes crunches. This week I’ve done probably…600 ish pushups and squats, which my lazy ass isn’t used to. Plus 6 or 7 jiu jitsu practices, 2 and a half hours each.
On a different note, I just found out that Jacare is fighting next weekend and I’m a little sad about it. I love Jacare, he’s actually the background on my phone, on both the lockscreen and home page. The lock screen is him after winning a fight doing his alligator jaw thing, and the homepage is Roger Gracie breaking his arm in that 04 Mundial match. Unfortunately, next Friday is Valentine’s Day, and the 15th is my girlfriend and I’s one year anniversary. I think I might be able to swing watching the end of the fights after I take her to dinner, hopefully. Jacare is fighting Francis Carmont, then Lyoto Machida and Gegard Mousasi are fighting. I think Jacare is going to dominate Carmont, because Carmont’s pretty limited, mostly just a strong wrestler. Jacare’s striking has improved so much, and he’s obviously explosive and great at jiu jitsu and judo as always. I’m predicting Jacare by second round TKO, and I’m calling the upset, Mousasi over Machida by decision. That’s just a random call, no real interest, but I’d like to see Machida lose. I don’t really want to see him fight for another title.
Ugh, I’ve been so lazy about writing on here. I need to start doing it again more. This week was basically all snow days, meaning no practice with the club team, so I went to New World more often. Yesterday was a great day because I went through the fundamental and advanced classes and rolled with Logan and then Mike, and Mike and I sat talking for a while. Mike told me that he thought I was young enough and good enough to be really successful in jiu jitsu and said that he thinks I should commit to it fully while I can. He told me I should move to California or Brazil after I graduate. It was a pretty amazing moment because it provided some sort of validation to my dreams of doing jiu jitsu full time. I would absolutely love to go to Brazil and teach English and do jiu jitsu for a while, but it’s a bit impractical, and I’d have to leave behind Augusta. It’s really unfortunate to be tied down like I am when it comes to jiu jitsu, but she’s pretty great. I don’t know yet what I’m going to do, I guess it’ll depend on how the next year or so goes, but I would really really love to go to Atos in San Diego. Also, Gustavo Machado is coming to our gym on March 1 to give a seminar. Mike said there would be promotions and stuff too, so that’ll be fun to watch. I think Logan and some of the others may be ready for some stripes.
I haven’t been writing much, frankly because there isn’t much to write about. I’ve just been sitting at home, no jiu jitsu. I’ve been doing some kettlebells and stuff, and I did 10 rounds on the heavybag tonight, but that’s about it. I’m a little worried about what I’ve been eating because there isn’t too much healthy stuff in my house, and I don’t have any money to go buy my own food. I can’t wait to get back to CNU and bjj. I’ve been thinking about the Pan Ams, and I told my mom. She told me I can’t go alone, which is ridiculous because I’m an adult, but there’s no need to make her mad for no reason, so I’m going to ask my dad to go with me. Hopefully that’ll work out, but otherwise I’m hoping to save until the summer and take a trip to either San Diego to visit Atos, or San Francisco to visit Ralph Gracie’s gyms and maybe Michael McDonald’s. San Francisco would be good because my aunt and uncle live near there, so I’d have a place to stay, but I’d rather go visit Atos. I guess we’ll see, but those plans are keeping me from going crazy sitting around at home until school starts again.
Weight:
Monday morning: 165 – I ate whatever I wanted until practice time, and then I was too lazy to cook after practice.
Tuesday after practice: 160 – I went after my 9:30 class to grab some lunch at the dining hall. I got some grilled salmon and two apples. I ate the apples later on, and baked two chicken breasts, a pound total. Late that night, I had half a pomegranate, some star fruit, and a kiwano melon.
Wednesday after practice: 156 – I ate an orange and some grapes throughout the day, and drank a bunch of water. I actually ate a clif bar before coming to the library because I wasn’t sure if I could make it through a 15 page paper without anything to eat. About 5 hours into working in the library I had some unsweetened tea because I was sick of water. Man, I hate unsweetened tea.
I haven’t posted in a few days because I’ve been ridiculously busy. I was home for Thanksgiving from last Wednesday until Sunday, then came back to school and had to immediately start working on a paper. The paper was a 10 page paper on pirate ships of all things. It was miserable. I went to practice with the club Monday night. It was a gi day, and Brendon and Christian came to practice with us. I think I only got to roll with Adin. I swept him at the beginning of our roll, then quickly passed to half guard. I transitioned frequently between half guard, side mount, mount, and back mount throughout the roll. I briefly ended up on bottom at one point because I attempted a north south choke and got rolled, but I rolled him back, I think before my hips even hit the ground. I came close to submitting him twice with arm triangles, then attempted an armbar, but finally caught a bow and arrow choke. I could tell that it was really tight. I started pulling and then felt his fingers slip out of his collar and it got even tighter. He held out surprisingly long, but I guess I wasn’t pulling all that hard. Tuesday we taught some mount and back mount escapes to review for the new guys for the tournament this Saturday. We figured that since it’s submission only, they should probably be refreshed on how to escape so they don’t end up in mount for an hour. I rolled with a few people, including Gigi for a while. Gigi’s getting good, but she’s still a bit overaggressive. It’s really easy to sweep her because she pressures forward too much. Nobody else put up much of a challenge unfortunately, so I didn’t sweat as much as I was hoping, despite wearing a sweatshirt and long underarmour tights. Tonight was a striking practice. Ben, one of the other coaches, was back for the first time in a while. He’s a senior and applying to law schools, so he’s been busy. After the warmup, I went over uppercuts, then walked around and corrected for a while. Afterward, I had everyone go four 3 minute rounds on the pads with 30 seconds of rest in between, then switch partners. Then I had anyone that had them get on their 4 oz mma gloves, and showed some mma grappling techniques. I talked about space and tightness when it comes to mma, and how space is your enemy on the bottom, because people can posture up and punch you. I showed a basic transition from closed guard to butterfly to a technical standup, then an escape from bottom mount. Then we grappled a bit with 4 oz gloves and light punches. I rolled with Ben. He’s taken almost a month off of any physical activity, but he’s ridiculously strong, as usual. He’s about 155-160 pounds like me, but he has that lanky strength, and he’s like grappling with a pile of tension bridge wires. The first roll, I tried something stupid to escape and ended up giving up my back. He ended up getting me in a triangle from the back, but my other hand and wrist were still in it. He pulled my arms apart, trying to go for an armbar, and I tapped. Both of my arms were stuck, and I didn’t think I’d have time to tap once he started actually trying for the armbar. Our second roll, I managed to sweep him with a DLR sweep. I’ve been experimenting with DLR in mma, and it works pretty well. I’ve heard that there was a variation of it used in early Vale Tudo and they’d throw upkicks to the face while maintaining distance, and I can believe it. It’s pretty easy to keep them from punching you if you have any sort of sweeping ability and control the ankle and use your free hand to keep their hands away. Once I got on top, I went for an arm triangle as a way to pass half guard, and eventually slid out. He turned to try to escape the arm triangle and I turned it into a seatbelt grip from backmount. He was doing a good job of turning into me, so I stayed in technical mount for quite a while, kimura gripping his arm, threatening the back take, armbar, and arm triangle. Eventually I got his arm isolated from the other one and changed my figure four grip so that I was gripping the back of his hand, bending his wrist. I used that quasi-wrist lock to make sure he couldn’t grip his other hand, and threw my leg over for the armbar. We only had a few minutes left of practice after that, so we just sat and talked, and he filled me in on all his law school applications. He’s a smart guy, and applied to Harvard, Yale, and Stanford. Crazy stuff. Gigi also told me that I should go do hot yoga with her to lose my last few pounds. I’m considering it, but I don’t really feel like paying the money for it, and I’ve never done yoga. I’m sure it’s great, but I’m pretty busy and poor. I’m currently in the library, it’s 6 am, and I’m taking a break from writing another paper. This one’s a 15 page paper about the environmental policies of Brazil and Canada. It’s brutal. I think I’m about 8 or 9 pages in, and it’s due at 3 pm. I’ll probably finish it no problem, but it’s rough coming up with more to write. I also have class at 9:30, so unfortunately I’ll probably have to skip the noon class at New World. I’d like to finish in time for it, but I don’t really see it happening. 7 pounds to go for the tournament Saturday. It’s USGrappling’s submission only tournament in Ashland, VA.
Last night was Thursday, which means it’s the second gi practice of the week with the club. We showed the roll from half guard to back, then the roll from turtle to back. Then I showed the Gerbi choke, named after Yarden Gerbi, a female judoka. It’s essentially a Peruvian Necktie, using the gi. From the top sprawl or turtle position, you get a deep underhook then open up your gi. Pull the lapel in front of their neck to your other hand and pull tight, then rotate out to the side that you have the underhook. Just like the Peruvian Necktie, put the crook of your knee on the back of their neck, then your other leg over their lower back. Kick out with the leg over their head to finish. After that we moved on to free rolling. I rolled with Adin, one of the other coaches and blue belts, first. I passed his guard and went for a paper cutter choke then a cross choke. The paper cutter was close, but after I let it go I got swept. I recovered guard and swept back, then passed again. I ended up finishing with a bow and arrow from side mount. Then I rolled with John, and Chris, a big wrestler. I got a bunch of cross chokes and arm triangles and mounted armbars.
On a more embarrassing note, I ate 9 donuts yesterday, which is funny, because I lost weight. I also went to the gym for the first time in several months yesterday morning. I did some cleans and deep squats, then some arm exercises with a 45 pound plate that we used to do for wrestling. I did 5 different ones, two sets of ten or ten each way, depending on the exercise. All of this means that I’m pretty sore today, so I’m glad that there are no classes today. Unfortunately there are no classes at my gym until Monday, because one of the fighters from my gym is fighting in Bellator today, and Mike, the black belt from my gym, and Rod, the Muay Thai instructor, went to corner him. Rod is also a brown belt, and a tiny guy, so it’s awesome to see what he can do. The guy from my gym is Keith Bell, and he’s fighting a Bulgarian sambo guy, Blagoi Ivanov. Ivanov is undefeated, and seems very well-rounded from what I’ve seen of him, so it’ll be a tough test for Keith. I’m excited to see it, as it’s the first big promotion anyone from our gym has made it to.
I decided to put my diet on hold today because I remembered that Thanksgiving is in like a week and my grandma makes some of my favorite food. I was 155 ish after practice, but then I went to Waffle House and had some sweet tea and grits and hashbrowns and a chicken biscuit.
Tonight was a striking practice with the club. I had everyone do cartwheels and handstand walks as part of the warm-up (they’re terrible at them). Then I had them drill 50 jab-cross combos, then taught how to properly throw a hook. A few people were struggling with the idea that you’re not supposed to throw a hook with your power hand, ever. Too much watching fights and not enough actually training. After that I had them just throw hooks for a while so I could come around and correct their technique. The next combo was a jab-cross, partner throws a hook to the body, block with your elbow, end with a hook. Some people were having trouble figuring out which side to throw the body hook on, so I had to walk around again. We ended the drilling with 25 body kicks each, to reinforce the technique I taught them last week. Today was the first practice that everyone had both their 16 oz gloves and mouthpieces, so we sparred for a bit. We did 3 minute rounds, switching partners each round, and managed to rotate through almost everyone in the room. About half the team doesn’t have any striking experience, so there was a bit of a learning curve in knowing how hard to go. Josh caught Justin with a punch he didn’t expect and knocked him down. Luckily he was okay, but I had to talk to Josh and settle him down some. We were only going about 50%, but I accidentally gave John a nosebleed because he ducked right into my hook and it hit him perfectly in the nose. I apologized profusely, but he smiled about it and said it was no big deal. He did some TMA before starting BJJ and MMA, and has a bad habit of dropping both hands whenever he throws a punch. I wanted to help him drop the habit, so anytime he threw a punch I’d just jab him in the face. Eventually he started to figure it out, but it took a while.
I hate sparring with the big new guys, because they don’t know how to control themselves power-wise, and they hit harder than they intend. I didn’t get hit hard by anybody, but I slipped a few wild, winging punches that would not have been fun. Fortunately they don’t have a great deal of technique, so I just throw my jab continually until they calm down and realize they can’t just rush in and expect not to get countered. All in all it was a good practice, and Russell texted me afterward to say that it was a good workout and his lead arm was sore.