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Today was a very good day for Ryan. He was able to learn a lot. I think he is starting to get out of "vulnerable baby" mode and into crawling. We are now at the first step of progression in his ground game.
Here are the things we covered.
Guard:
We workedon the two different positions to be in if you are "in" someone's guard.
1) You want to keep your hands in good position, one on chest, one on hip and you want to posture up. Do not look down at your opponent with your head, look with eyes only. Why? Because I said- and because if you look down with your head you are ruining your position which leaves you open for things.
2) We went over the down position. Elbows close to the hips and forearms on the outside of the body, head on the chest for control, and knees forward trying to pinch the knees and elbows together. Not the best of the two, but not bad if they are taking you down.
If you are the person with the guard you want to post up grab their neck, and pull them down to you. If they are away, this leaves you with no submissions.
We also worked on a few passes to the guard.
1) Elbow in the pressure point, then pull the leg over the head and into side control
* Defense to this is to pull them down to you so they can not do it, or to transition into spider guard like we talked about. Grab sleeves and transition into spider and stand up.
2) Reach behind your back to get the leg and pull over head. Remember to hip out when you bring it over or you will get
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Today's class was once again great. Derek did some review and then we went live.
We started with spider guard and then we covered the different positions that the feet can be in to be a spider guard. The feet can be on the lges, hips, or forearms. You are to grip their Gi sleeves with your hands.
We learned two ways to break the spider guard. First we must break grips, which can be done by leaning a bit forward and grabbing your own chest Gi and bringing it back, or two spin around their ankle and then up.
Breaking Spider Guard
1) Break Grips, release right grip, and grab the leg on the opposite side. Keep your left grip on their sleeve, then open up your arms and pop hips, come around and do knee on stomach. Make sure you keep grips on the arm to prevent them from stopping you.
2) Break Grips, and grab ankles. Fake right and fake left and come to knee on stomach.
We worked on sitting guard again too. We went over the basics and how to move and how to sweep. We worked getting to our feet, and we worked from transitioning from one to the next. We worked three basic ways to beat the sitting guard.
1) step in middle and get underhook, grab their other arm and bring knee over their body.
* To beat this you have to put your left hook in and sweep back. Make sure you grab their other leg when going.
2) Step in Middle and grab sleeve and pull hard to your body. Drive down with right shoulder and roll bringing your leg over and into Oma Plata.
*To beat this, take yo
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Yes, sixteen. I got a good schedule this week so I get to go four times which is why I have mutiple posts per day. I teach this Friday with Ryan and Baylen definitely, but hopefully Kyle comes as well.
Todays class was phenomenal. You know I am starting to really love BJJ. I liked ground fighting from my experiences and each person I have ever gone against I usually win, but Derek is so methodical that I know he is going to clean my game up so much. I have some serious bad habits that leave me open for so many things. I know I could smash the average Joe on the street, but I would rather be able to smash most Jui-Jitsu players and then I know my game would be great. I feel I am in the spot to learn how to do that. The Lions Den, in all of my years of training offers the most complete training. I have searched for someone like Mitter Sensei, and I have found the spot. I am glad to be here.
Brazilian Jui-Jitsu/Submission Wrestling:
Today we went over the correct positions from guard, both defensively and offensively. Some basics; if you are the one in the guard you want to obviously post up and keep good posture to eliminate most of the submissions. If you like to play from the ground, that is fine, keep your elbows on the outside of their body and close to their hips to control their hip movement. You also want to control their upper body with your head. Keeping your head on them will keep them from coming up.
Now we worked a couple passes of the guard.
1) When so
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I noticed today that I don't fight as much against my opponents anymore. I try to relax so much that I lose a lot of ability to get out of certain movements in Submission Wrestling class. I feel like I just go with the flow and try to capatilize on their mistakes instead of forcing them to move where I want them, or to take their balance.
I know in Aikido I was the opposite. I still had my Jujitsu training prior to Aikido and I forced everything and took balance instead of manipulating energy.
I felt this was a strong focus in Aikido, at least for me it was.
I am starting my third month now in BJJ and Submission Wrestling and I am still just as relaxed as I was when I learned how to relax in Aikido.
I feel it hinders me at times and I try to force and take things like I used to, but something inside of me makes me want to relax now.
It's like I can never get it right. In Aikido I couldn't relax for the longest time, and now I can't stop relaxing.
My instructor says, "Don't just wait, be aggressive!"
I think, "I just spent years learning how to be passive, and now I have to go back to how I was."
I think I may have done these in the wrong order. I should have gone to BJJ first, and ended with Aikido.
I will be back at Aikido, I just want to learn how to tighten my groundwork and stand up fighting too.
Muay Thai and BJJ offer the best of everything.... Of course I am training in a MMA studio, so that is the focus.
Todays class was again awesome. I learned so much once again, Ill go over as much as I remember.
We worked the guard and how to posture up and stuff the arm bar, triangle, and any other move. We learned how to post up and keep posted (by bringing our arm tight to us). Then we learned how to get the angle with our feet (left back, right forward, hips turned) then we push the leg off of us and pass.
Then we worked when the legs go to the hips. We are to grab a hold of the pants, pull down, and put everything to the right. Pass on the left and keep body positioning on them.
Then we learned to release grips and to move to ankles and fake left, then throw right and pass to knee on stomach.
Then we released grips, grabbed with our left hand, our right hand grabs their ankle and we move open them up and pass on knee on stomach.
Then we worked the sitting guard, and how to stay with them and keep distance or ma ai.
The best position for the top guy is to place his foot in between your legs, and underhook with right arm, then pass knee over. They can defend by hooking and sweeping.
If they hook we can go to Hawaiian Choke and roll forward.
If they stay and sweep, roll into oma plata.
I went over oma plata. I went over the top half guard roll into kimura.
I hate it, so much stuff that I can not remember.....................
I will keep taking notes, but it's so dang hard to keep track of all the moves. I love it. The one thing I love about learning s
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Submission Wrestling/BJJ:
Todays class was very informative. I do not think I will have the ability to remember everything, but I will try to remember as much as possible. BJJ ran into Muay Thai and actually went all the way until 9:00pm. We did BJJ from 6:30-9:00pm. Do you know how much infor we covered? A ton. It was great.
Here goes:
We worked spider guard. Spider Guard is where you control the persons wrists and you use your feet on their hips. We first forked on getting from closed guard, to spider, and then to butterfly. Just to get a feel of what was going on and how we could transition. Now since we went from closed guard to spider Derek said it would be good to learn a few moves from this position.
First sweep was to trap with our left arm, place our left foot on their knee, and to place our right foot in hook position. Then turn to the left in order to do the sweep. This one was fairly easy.
Now next sweep was if that one fails, for whatever reason we place our left leg in their biscept and push 90'while spinningto grab their leg with our right arm. We have to make sure we are close together with our knees, and then we make sure our right knee is on their belt line. Then we push them back.
We learned another whizzer move. We get overhook in spider or butterfly, This whizzer we are going to grab our right thigh and then drive our hips into them and drive the whizzer down.
We worked butterfly guard and the same sweeps. Then he taught us the passes f
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I started teaching again this year. I have been at it for about 9 months now. My students are all yellow belts and they have come a long way.
I started training for MMA with the Lions Den. I came here a couple years ago to check it out. I chose to do Aikido instead. Of course, I would not be where I am today if I had made any other decision. I believe that it all happened for a reason. Aikido taught me great things, and I wouldn't be here making a blog about it if it didn't.
Back on track- I have only had 13 classes so far and I am loving it. I lost a BJJ competition by two points, but I will be back, lesson learned...
My son was born this year, and what better than that?
I have started doing research on the cost of certain locations to actually open up a dojo. I want to do all the research before I make a decision, but I am starting to look.
Once I get all day shifts, I am going to open a school at a local gym, church, or otherwise. Then once I get some students, it's off to start a business.
This year what else? Nothing much.. My son was the tip of the iceburg. You cant top that one :P Unless you had twin boys.
You know one thing we do not have is a darn YMCA or youth center here. We have nothing for children here. This dumb town is so concerned with tourism, they forget about the children. Welcome to Coeur d'Alene where we care more about plane rides over the lake than we do the kids of the person that's
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Brazilian Jui-Jitsu/Submission Wrestling:
We covered Butterfly Guard once again. We drilled the first sweep, which was to our left, while grabbing their arm. We worked Sweep #2 when someone is to base and we grab underhook and go the opposite direction. *Hips are key*
We drilled this a lot and I got semi-comfortable with it.
Then we worked on the defense when someone gets us in Butterfly Guard. We are to tri-pod post. (legs up, weight on their hips and tight in).
Once here we are to push hips (right down) putting weight on the opponent, then switch hips and pass their leg with hand. Make sure we pass the bguard and place that knee right in there. I had a problem bouncing. I need to work on keeping my weight on them the entire time.
We also worked on the defense of the sweep. When someone sweeps us, we tri-pod again putting our weight on their shoulder and at the same time we switch our hips and bring our knee up to their head. Then we slip our other knee up near their head, and pass into mount. Very nice defense to the sweep here. I want to work on this over and over and over.
Muay Thai:
We worked on cardio today.
4 rounds of 2 minutes
Then we did drill sparring. It was again, fun as always.
I feel like I'm doing the countdown to X-Mas. Too bad I do not celebrate X-Mas. :P
So class was good today. We covered a lot of information. I will try and recite it all here so I can remember later.
BJJ/Submission Wrestling:
Butterfly Guard
Positioning-
We went over which position to be in, up obviously and not on your back. Then we covered how to get to that position if the person was driving in. We are to place our hand in his throat, push back and follow up (we also drive our feet toward them to help drive them back). Now if the person is still driving and it does not affect them, then we still use our hand in their throat, and we shrimp out and then up.
*Note: Through all sweeps, we keep whizzer with right arm
Sweep 1-
Sweep one was the same as last week. We trap their right arm, lay to our left side bringing them with us. Drive our right leg (at their knee) and bridge up (tri-pod) and over into mount or scarf hold.
Sweep 2-
If we fail at trianlge our leg gets caught and they base nicely down, then we can not pass, so what we do is we pull out our left leg and wait for the drive. Once they drive, we trap their right arm with our leg, and then sweep to our left.
Sweep 3-
If we want to, we can also keep whizzer, but get underhook of their right arm, then sweep to our right. We must shift our hips to our right side and push out far. Hips are the most important portion of the sweeps. Without good hips, you can not sweep.
Sweep 4-
This time we grab the
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Class was amazing today. We did our normal warm ups and then throws. We spent a little time on throws, but not too much.
Then I went to an elbow combo. Right elbow, left elbow, and then a mt knee.
Afterward we worked on Randori using the hip throw (koshi nage/Ogoshi Nage). It was neat to see them trying to do this throw over and over. I switched it to Ippon Seoi Nage (Shoulder Throw) and then let them continue. I could tell they were all tired so I let them take a short water break, then we started on groundfighting.
We worked butterfly guard, getting up, sweep 1, sweep 2, and half guard sweep 1, and getting to the back. Then I covered how to defend against the butterfly guard. We went live from that position switching partners each time. It was neat to see.
Then at the end we went live to submission. I went with Kyle because I knew he had to leave. I wanted to make sure he had to work at it. He did and I didn't give him anything. I ended up submitting him in arm bar fashion. I remembered his little submission last time, so I tried a little harder this time than last.
Then I Kyle and Baylen go at it a few times. Ryan seemed to try harder than ever so I knew it was time for him to get promoted.
After class I tested Ryan with Baylens help. We covered the first five throws over and over, then getting out of mount and guard over and over. Ryan had to use the restroom to throw up, and then we continued. We did kicks, escapes, and I went over blocks and parries w
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12-30-2005 12:45 PM 
