Pikeamus' DBMA and BJJ log

[pikeamus]

Having grown weary of body building for a year (well, 10 months really I've been slack for the last month or so) I am returning to some good old martial arts training. My weekly plan (once I get up to speed) will be as follows:

Monday: Lifting
Tuesday: No Gi BJJ
Wednesday: Girlfriend time.
Thursday: Gi BJJ
Friday: Lifting
Saturday: General fun times.
Sunday: DBMA (stick fighting)

I haven't worked out what exactly I'll be doing in terms of lifting. I'll give that some thought today while I'm watching the clock waiting for my friends to come over for watching ufc 98.

Most of you won't be familiar with DBMA - Dog Brothers Martial Arts http://www.dogbrothers.com/ . It's a stick fighting system that is an amalgamation of various Filipino styles and the various other martial arts that it's practitioners have studied. It is very much like mma with sticks. The Dog brothers are famous for their very hardcore 'sparring' sessions, you build up to going pretty well all out without any padding and using real sticks. There are no rules other than at the end of things you still want to be friends so don't go hospitalizing one another.

Obviously you can't spar with sticks very realistically with great frequency so we have sparring sessions about once a month and we video the sessions so hopefully I will have some fun things to post on here. I expect to get owned for a bit unless I'm fighting the other two newest guys as I haven't done any stick fighting in about 5 years. The next stick day is on the 6th of june which I'll be going to as long as I can get the day off work.

I'll post today's DBMA session up shortly, I've just finished my creatine and desperately need a shower :)

Goals:
1. Learn to kick more ass.
2. Have some fun.
3. Maybe think about getting some belts in bjj in the future. Maybe.

Training background:
2 years JKD. Essentially this was mma with weapons work. We did a mix of kali, muay thai, boxing, greco and bjj. There were seperate sessions for boxing but otherwise everything was blended together in the classes, each class would just have a shifted focus. Occasional use of guest instructors for each discipline kept it interesting.
6 months additional bjj at a different club.
4 years wing chun. More useful than you'd think, skills transfer to striking in the clinch and engaging or disengaging a clinch pretty well and is also useful for weapon work.
4 years taiji. This improved my boxing a remarkable amount. The wing chun and taiji were while I was at uni and needed calmer less intense training.


So yeah, I've done a bit of everything.

[pikeamus]

24-05-09 - DBMA

Light warm up.

Conditioning circuit.
Two minutes per station, no rest, 7 stations as follows:

1. Double handed iron pipe drill.
Iron pipe in each hand swing them in one of a few different strike patterns. Continuous movement, mostly works grip and shoulders and doesn't let you rest your core.

2. Melay (filipino word, no idea on spelling) strikes with pick axe handle.
Mostly works back and core.

3. Ground defense drill
Partner exercise with station 4. Lie on your back and attempt to keep your feet pointed at your partner and catch strikes on the soles of your feet (we wear shoes).

4. Attacking grounded opponent drill.
Partner exercise with 3. With a padded stick attack your grounded opponent either striking the legs or, preferably, trying to move around them and strike the head. Lots of sidestepping but this is the easiest station by far.

5. GnP on heavy bag
Just wail on the thing as hard and fast as you can while moving through positions: Knee on belly, mount, knee on belly other side, side control, north/south (knees to head, yes yes), side control other side, repeat. Occasionally pop up and kick the ****er.

6. Leg stick strikes on heavy bag.
Enter with a block dropping down to one knee, strike the bag, exit with a cover on an angle. Repeat. Hard on the legs.

7. 16kg (35lbs) Kettlebell swings.
What it says on the tin.

2 minutes of much needed rest.

Conditioning circuit 2
Same circuit as above, 45 seconds per station maximum intensity.


Stick drills
The rest of the session was single stick drills that I won't go into excruciating detail over. The theme was working up drills for the "Crashing forward with superior firepower strategy". The idea with that strategy is just to overwhelm an opponent with lots of forward movement and aggression.

The drills all began from the pendulum x-strike drill (repeated 45 degree forehand and backhand strikes that serve as attacks and blocks done in time with a partner) followed by one side laying on extra pressure by moving faster and stepping in. This was usually followed by either an empty hand push to create more space and fend off an attempted clinch or by a teep or a leg kick depending on what you wanted to do.


I was pretty pleased with my conditioning for the circuits at the beginning. It was hard but I haven't done any cardio in nearly a year and I've gained about 22lbs of muscle since then as well so I was expecting to be destroyed. Also I started on station 4 so got the easiest part out of the way right at the start.
The skill based work was not stuff that plays to my strengths at all. I'm much more of an evasion and footwork guy (when it comes to sticks anyway) or clinch and groundwork if it gets too hairy. We were mostly looking to avoid the clinch but still be very aggressive and forward moving. The kicking stuff was fun though and one of the guys in the class is a muay thai instructor so it was nice that he could correct things a bit as my kicks are useless.

Overall good session, future write ups should be shorter as that conditioning circuit is used fairly often (I'm told).

[pikeamus]

26-05-09 - No-Gi BJJ

15 Minute Warm Up + Stretching
Standard stuff, though perhaps an unusually large amount of Ab work: Around 250 ab exercises altogether. But whatever, wasn't too tough.

Technique Work
I'm writing this down so I can reread it sometime, I expect most of you know plenty of this already and can ignore all the excess rambling.

We started out with important control points from side control and drilled them a little. Important points were:
1. Keeping weight on opponents chest, not too low or too high.
2. Keeping your knee in tight to opponents hip.
3. Using your shoulder to keep opponents head looking away from you. This makes it much harder for him to hip escape.

We quickly moved on to isolating the nearside arm if your opponent had managed to get an elbow between your bodies. This involved moving partially to knee on belly and sliding your knee across onto their bicep from here you can hold their arm down with your other foot and switch the direction of your hipside leg to control their arm with the bottom of your shin just above their elbow.
A couple of tries to get that movement down and we added stepping around their head to attack the farside arm with either a kimura (rolling your opponent partially onto their side) or an armbar if you wanted to transition all the way to the other side. Alternately the instructor pointed out that once you have isolated the arm with your legs it becomes much easier to start landing some elbows in an mma bout.
After drilling the above for awhile we also drilled a bicep compression from the same arm isolation move. Pretty easy: Once you have the arm pinned position their upper arm in front of your hips and push your hips forward and down. Took a little tweaking to find the correct angle but could certainly be useful.

Rolling: 3 minute rounds, one minute break
I think I did 6 or 7 rounds but I'm not sure. I started out with a guy about my size with a similar amount of experience and moved up in both size and quality of opponent as the rounds went on. My grappling conditioning sucks it seems and I was pretty gassed by round 4.

Things I did well:
1. Every time an opponent tried to pull guard I passed at least to half guard. Most of the time I got to side control.
2. I scored a few subs early on (actually I went 4-2 with my first two rounds, very pleasing) including a nice omaplata from rubber guard. My opponent was posturing up and threatening to pass so I made a (futile but I didn't expect to get it) attempt at an arm in guillotine to distract him, let go quickly and pulled him back into rubber guard when his balance was momentarily upset with the arm already nicely secured.
3. I seemed very good at regaining guard (or half guard and then guard) once I'd been passed.

Things I sucked at:
1. Conditioning.
2. My guard seemed easy to pass. I used to have plenty of success in with a gi at baiting people into attempting a pass and getting a triangle. That didn't work once for me tonight. I also failed to score any armbars from my guard which was my highest percentage submission with a gi. Most perplexing.
3. My guard passing was poor once my opponent closed their guard. I was doing great at moving round open guards or in the scramble but once the guard closed I sucked at getting past it. My base seemed decent though, I think I only got swept once and that used to happen all the time. I guess 22 extra pounds helps :)
4. My triangle defense was shocking. Shocking I tell you.


Overall I loved training no-gi. Rolling like that just felt much more natural with no pesky collar chokes or people grabbing onto your trousers for dear life. Apparently the session that I thought was gi is optional, gi or no so I'll probably stick to no-gi for now.

[pikeamus]

28-05-09 : No-Gi BJJ

15 minute warm up plus stretching

Technique work

Mostly working triangle from guard with a set up and ways to keep attacking when it's being defended.

Set up involved going for a keylock from your guard that starts out similar to an armbar (and can move to an armbar if that becomes easier). Secure an arm, push off from opponents hip on the same side turning your body. Throw your leg up but rather than crossing over opponents head like you would for an armbar just move onto opponents shoulder and link your ankles, squeezing knees together. From here push up hips and twist them across while pressing opponents wrist across to apply the shoulder lock.

The above is a submission in itself but not terribly secure as opponent can often pop their elbow through. Fortunately this allows you to easily lock on a triangle.

Other than this combo we mostly looked at common ways to defend the triangle and things you can do to work them back into it and finish. The only thing that wasn't really obvious to me was, if opponent has linked his hands behind your hips to prevent you from getting the arm across to finish you can reverse the side of the triangle and still apply a choke. I couldn't get a finish with this but a couple of people did it convincingly to me so I'll have to experiment some more.

30 minutes free rolling

I had 4 partners in this time.
1. Guy about my size that is fun to roll with because he prefers to go for things than to consolidate position. This ended up mostly being a positional battle, I nearly locked on a triangle using the set up we'd been working on but didn't quite make it. I did manage a couple of sweeps and one reversal, but was also reversed once in turn.

2. A really strong dude that had probably recently transferred over from the other mma classes. He was sporting all the right gear, was built as hell and full of energy but gave up positions very easily and didn't seem to realize where he was vunerable. He bull rushed me right off the bat and I moved very quickly to his back via half guard and then fought for ages but eventually got the RNC. The rest was a blur, I tapped him 3 more times (armbar, kimura, armbar I think) and was exhausted by the time we finished. I was really pleased with my base in this match, once I'd swept him he would explode up but I was generally able to stay on top (or he'd roll to give up his back and I take an armbar).

3. A dude about my size that tooled me for a bit. I think he subbed me 4 (triangle, kimura from side control, armbar and teepee [which was a ****ing surprise]) and I got him once with a kimura from side control. I realized here I really need to get better and defending my legs. I prefer to work from a feet on hips guard (is that just an open guard or is there a specific name?) but when people are adept at passing they only need to control your ankles for a moment to get around so I need to defend those ankles more. I also need to work on passing guard myself but thats another issue.

4. Here I got absolutely owned for however long this round was by a guy much bigger and much better than me. He hit me with: armbar, triangle x 2, RNC (from a beautiful Garcia esque arm drag), achillies lock and kimura. I never really go close to subbing him as I was out classed, out muscled and out conditioned. I REALLY need to work on my triangle defense, I give that up so easily when trying to pass.

Good times but now I'm broken so it's time for a bath.

[pikeamus]

31/05/09 - DBMA

Keeping this one short:

Warm up.

Double stick clock motion.
Footwork and double stick drills working up to 3 alternating stick jabs with running steps followed by a malayee.

Recap of last weeks 'crashing forward with superior firepower' (single stick version). As attacker a few options:
Crash forward and thrust with empty hand off backhand strike.
Crash forward and thrust with empty hand off forehand strike.
Crash forward and throw left leg kick with backhand.
Forehand, jab, roof and empty hand combo.
Forehand, jab, roof and front kick combo.

The working as defender to a crashing attack. Same combo's as above but done from moving back.

Defending crash attack with L-Step and circle outside to re-engage.

Finishing crash attack with front kick, forcing opponent down with stick pressure across the collarbone, stick choke.




And now I'm off to enjoy the beautiful weather somewhere.

[pikeamus]

01/06/09 - Lifting

This was a weaksauce lifting session as my inhaler had run out and my asthma was playing up. I tried for a bit but ended up having to leave. :(

Squats:
Warm up: 1x8 @ 50kg, 1x8 @ 60kg, 1x8@70kg
Work Sets: 3x5 @ 80kg

Military Press:
Warm up: 1x10 @ 20kg, 1x8@25kg
work sets: 3x5 @ 35kg

Seated leg press:
3x5 @ 95kg

Flat DB Bench:
1x12 @ 14kg
1x5 @ 20kg

and there I had to stop. Small numbers and general fail. For comparison I should be squatting at 90kg, military pressing 40, seated leg press at least 105, flat db benching with the 24's and I'd also planned on doing some calf raises and some dips... I'm not strong but I'm stronger than this session. Asthma = lose.

BJJ tonight and I still don't have an inhaler. Hopefully that won't hold me back too much.

[pikeamus]

02/06/09 - No-Gi BJJ

Warm up and stretching.

Technique work

Arm bar from guard. Set up with overhook and head control with other arm to control posture. Move opponents other arm close enough that you can get an overhand grip on the bicep with your overhook hand. Complete armbar as you would expect (foot on opponents hip to shuffle your hip out, leg up to control back, leg over head, release overhook and secure armbar). Drilled for a 5 minutes.

From previous: If opponent posts free arm out when you try to control it grab their elbow from underneath and hug their arm into you so their wrist is in the crook of your neck. Release overhook and push off from their hip on the overhook side while sliding your other leg up their back. Grip hands together and press down on their elbow to apply the armbar. Points to note: When hipping out only go far enough to bring your knee to opponents shoulder. Squeeze knees together to keep control. Drilled for a 10 minutes.

From previous: If opponent is not tapping to the armbar, either because they are too flexible or you can't get enough pressure on, you can slip out your bottom leg and put it up for the triangle. Must be quick as moving the knee gives opponent space to turn into you. Drilled for 10 minutes.

Note to self: Seemed easy to roll from the second armbar to an omaplata. Experiment more.

Rolling

30 minutes freeform. I had 4 partners:

1. I ****ed up here and neglected to tell my opponent that I had injured my ribs. As such when he landed on me pretty hard when passing my guard something bad happened. I didn't really notice how bad it was until after we finished but I'm in a buttload of pain now.
Anyway, I started out looking to move straight to his back and got close but ended up in half guard. I was kinda happy with that though as I wanted to practice some sweeps from here. Got it once but more often he was passing and I was scrambling back to some kind of guard. I got tapped a couple of times in total but got a better understanding of the lockdown and some half guard stuff.
2. Paired with a new guy next in order to rest my ribs. It was his first class so I was just showing him a few things really. I went as light as I could in terms of strength and just moved where he put me without resisting anything, was quite fun actually. He wore himself out after awhile
3. Worked my guard game some more with this guy but he was plenty more experienced than me and didn't have too much trouble passing. I had trouble getting back to guard but the old school half guard sweep worked at least once. I still got tapped a bunch of times though :)
4. Another new guy, this one had a wrestling background. He was a buttload bigger than me so I was happy to pull guard. He didn't seem to realise that passing should be his objective (even after I told him) and spent all his time trying to keep wrist control. I was content to wait it out and over the course of 6-7 minutes tapped 4 him when he extended his arms too far or tried to push my arms across me and gave up his back. I hope he learned that just looking for wrist control isn't going to help that much, even against a smaller guy but I suspect he'll need to have that hammered home a bit more.



Now my ribs are on fire and I've taken a load of ibuprofen. I suspect this will stop me from training on thursday which sucks but we'll see how I feel.

[pikeamus]

06-06-09 - DBMA Sparring day

One-for-one attack and counter

Goal here is to get used to rhythm and range with a live stick safely as well as practicing you're simple blocks and strikes.
2 Minute Rounds.
4 rounds.


C-Sparring (fighter feeder):

0. Range finding
1. Single head
2. Double head
3. 2 + hand
4. 3 + leg
5. 4 + respect
6. 5 + crash

Pick which level you want to work at. Feeder measures range, tap and begin.
Feeder throws attacks according to level fighter avoids and covers (or crashes).
2 minute rounds.
6 rounds as feeder, 6 as fighter.


Stick grappling
Start from agreed position (in guard, on knees, side control etc.) with one 'matchstick'.
A matchstick is a regular 31 inch rattan stick with one end padded for about 7 inches so it can be used to strike with as well as grapple with.
2 minute rounds
4 rounds.


Full Sparring
This is done with padded sticks to begin with working through matchsticks up to raw sticks. In each case we wear fencing masks and gloves (most people use street hockey but the type is up to you).
The only rules are "You still want to be friends at the end of the day". What this means depends on who you are sparring with.
Even with the padded sticks you still should expect to get bruises. With raw sticks expect big ass bruises and broken fingers if you get hit in the hand, all the way to broken anything else if you get caught really solidly.
Oh and if it hits the floor (and it often does) the ref will remove the masks to allow better grappling. This can also happen if one guy has been stuck in a clinch standing and can't break away.

2 Minute rounds but the bout is ended at the ref's discretion. If things are interesting the ref will let it run over. These are done one pair at a time to give maximum space and to allow the instructor to ref each himself (unless he's sparring). A good ref is essential here.

I only managed 2 rounds of this before my ribs became too painful to continue. Was awesome fun though and I held my own pretty well (didn't even get hit in the first session and landed a few myself). I think it worked out alright but I'll need some more practice before I get a handle on what I'm doing most significantly wrong.



We only have these sparring days once a month because when you are using raw stick you'll tend to pick up too many injuries to be doing it much more frequently.

[pikeamus]

13-06-09 - DBMA

Warm Up
1. Hopping back and forward with with backhand stick jabs on the forward.
2. Safe get ups (with roof cover)
3. Knee + forehand strike with kickback. 4 beats.
4. Safe get up with strikes + exit. Note: Position foot outside hand when getting up.
5. Power walk (walking/running with forehand strikes, double stick or single forehand/backhand).
6. Skip step with strike. Similar to superman punch.

Technique drills
Drill:
1. Umbrella with rock back.
2. Roof rocking forward.
3. Umbrella stepping in.
4. Dodger (horizontal backhand) stepping in
5. Caveman (diagonal forehand) stepping back
6. Backhand diagonal Stepping back.

This is done with a partner. One person is on 1 while the other is on 4.
2 main applications to pay attention to:

First is entering range with an umbrella block followed by a dodger. This works best when opponents guard is on their backhand side (guards remain fluid when you have a stick as a still hand is a good target).

Second is entering with a roof and a crashing, either to clinch or to push off/kick to make space and disrupt opponents balance.

We worked through the drill and broke to practice some of the applications for around an hour. Lots to play with, generally very useful.

[pikeamus]

16-06-09 - No-Gi BJJ

Warm up and stretching 15 minutes

Technique work
30 Minutes.


3 Submission options from side control:

1. Bait opponent for a hip escape and guillotine him.

Overhook the head rather than underhooking and grab opponents chin.
Don't fight opponent underhooking your bottom arm and hipping out.
As opponent turns into you drop back into guillotine, arm in. KEEP SHOULDER UP.
Finish with hand position as described by Garcia in New game series.

2. Arm triangle in north-south

Overhook the head and push you're hand deep.
Use your hips, knee and overhook hand to push opponents near side arm up and across.
Edge round to north south keeping pressure on opponents arm.
Secure triangle. Add pressure with arms and by keeping your weight on opponents arm.

(I sucked at this. Would like to practice more as it seemed easy to get)

3. Armbar as opponent attempts to escape knee on belly.

Move from side control to knee on belly.
As opponent attempts to push on your knee and hip out hook his arm and step over.
Spin to face opposite direction and compete armbar.

(Found this easiest to finish by hooking opponents arm with my head side arm. Seemed like a solid move but I don't really ever see myself going for knee on belly in a gappling match so probably won't drill it that much in the future.)


Rolling
5 Minute rounds, 1 minute rests.

I had 5 partners. Can't remember all the details that well now but I'm pretty sure I only got subbed once. Hit quite a few things myself, spent a lot of time on people's backs. My 4th partner was some kind of cardio machine and was a lot stronger than me so that was a challange. Quite fun though since his technique was pretty poor. I had one great roll with a guy a bit more experienced than me. There were no submissions but we vied for position for the full 5 minutes both having the others back at some point. He was going a little easy (avoiding using all of his significant weight advantage) on me as I'd mentioned that my ribs were injured but I was still pretty pleased that I got into some good positions.

Bad points: I still suck at finishing triangles. Not really sure what to do, I really think my long skinny legs are just not good for closing them up. I lock them on no problem but just can't make them tight enough to get the tap.

Most of my opponents were not quite as good as me so my other (many) flaws were not made quite so obvious today. I think I left my head out and vulnerable for guillotines a bit too often but noone was able to finsh me with one as I'd usually be slipping from half guard to side control then hopping sides.


Ribs still injured but getting better. Don't feel like I'm gonna suffocate in my sleep tonight which is better than last time :D

[pikeamus]

Oh, additionally there is a little novice tourny coming up that I might enter if I can get the day off. It on the 5th of July and there is a <65kg weight class (the lowest they have) that would suit me fine.

[pikeamus]

18-06-09 - No-Gi BJJ

Warm up and stretching. 15 Minutes.
Instructor was a bit of an arse here making us do loads of extra crunches for not shouting the count loud enough. Think he was just showing off to a friend that was watching.


Technique Work

A bit all over the place as the instructor was taking requests and tried to do several of them. 45 minutes.

1. Half guard sweep:

Get underhooks.
Hook trapped leg with outside leg.
Use hook to lift trapped leg.
Push in and down on support leg while rolling over.

Note: If you can't get underhooks (specifically underhook on trapped leg side) you probably won't be able to make the roll. In that case just use legs to make space and return to guard.

(Had some difficulty with this, hard to do on a bigger guy. First impression was that it's not as useful as the Old School sweep ala Bravo.)


2. Escape from high mount:

Bridge and push opponent up as much as you can so they base forward.
Roll back and push fast on opponents underarms with your feet.
Iff opponent doesn't end up clear of your head roll to the side.

(Worked well for me in the drill. In practice much harder to get your hands sufficiently on opponent to give them a push.)


3. Defending straight achilles lock with heel hook:

If opponent hasn't got leg across properly just sit up and mount.
If you can't get fully up pull opponents knee across to his other leg side so his foot ends up by your bum.
Push down with your bum and pull up and across on ankle.

(Seemed to work fine but there were loads of other positions we could be in that would require something different.)


4. Triangle from guard when opponent is passing.

There were some specific examples we covered but frankly we went through it all a bit fast and I can't remember the details. One did involve turning the aborted attempted in to a sweep in quite a cool way, I'll see if I can find someone that remembered it better next session.


Rolling

30 Minutes.

Didn't end up rolling with many particularly good partners today. Didn't get tapped which is definitely a sign that the better guys were occupied. Hit a few things: Couple of triangles which I finished much more easily than usual; kimura from guard; keylock from mount; 3 armbars from some transitions, usually as they were trying to escape mount; 4/5 RNCs. I'm finding it very easy to take the back of a lot of these guys. Most of the people in the class are into mma and are generally bigger and stronger than me. As such they just try and power out of bad spots giving up all sorts of things as they do.

I did roll with one guy that will be in my weight class in the up coming tournament. Tapped him twice in about 5 minutes which is a good sign.

[pikeamus]

20-06-09 - DBMA

Warm up. Various solo movements. Safe get up. Knee and forehand 4 beat drill. Lemenko foot work with strikes (might be wrong on the name - back foot moves in to tap near front, step back, front foot steps back behind rear foot and taps ground, repeat). General shadow boxing with sticks.

Technique work

Full session of C-Sparring. 3 Minute rounds, half spent as feeder, half as fighter. We changed the drill slightly so it became the feeder that can crash and it's the fighters job to defend it. To force a respect shot feeder should switch to a stalking guard and pressure the fighter.

We did this for about an hour with occasional breaks as there isn't enough space for everyone to go at once. Very helpful practice, hope to do more of this soon.

I need to work on:
Moving backwards more. With sticks it's more important to move back before circling as it's easier to track someone if they just move sideways.
Keeping my hands safe. Seemed easy for some people to catch my hands with drift shots (shots that start looking like they're going to the body but actually go for the hand). Need to be better at protecting them.
Cross stepping to protect the leg. I'm butt-scooting too much and just getting out of range no matter what. Need to cross step better so I can counter more easily.
General tightening up and strengthening of all blocks.


After this we did a drill to work on drawing out a strike to counter.
1. Get opponent chasing you by entering their bubble and scaring them with a respect shot. Note: If you don't get them to take a step back you won't have done enough enough to get them angry. It should be: in, respect, out.
2. As opponent comes in step back. If opponent follows step again.
3. Stop moving back and opponent should attack with whatever they've been setting up (usually caveman, sometimes backhand diagonal) since they will still be stepping in and you'll suddenly be in range.
4. Roof and counter (or roof with tip up and counter if backhand).

I can see how this kind of tactic would work nicely. It's quite easy to get in someones head when stick fighting and make them really want to tag you back. As you get to be the one that decides when you get to engage (by stopping moving back) you can quite easily set something up.

[pikeamus]

22-06-09 - Lifting

Squats
1 x 12 @ 20kg, 1 x 10 @ 40kg, 1 x 8 @ 60kg
3 x 5 @ 80kg

DB Flat Bench Press
1 x 15 @ 8kg, 1 x 10 @ 14kg, 1 x 8 @ 20kg
3 x 5 @ 24kg

Hammer Grip Chins
1 x 10 @ -19kg (assissted)
2 x 8 @ bw, 1 x 4 @ bw

Military Press
1 x 8 @ 20kg
1 x 5 @ 35kg, 1 x 4 @ 35kg, 1 x 5 @ 30kg

Horizontal Row (Machine)
3 x 8 @ 45kg


Reasonable workout. My ribs are nearly healed but gave me some problems with the pull ups and military press'. Not too dissatisfied anyway.

[pikeamus]

23-06-09 - No-Gi BJJ

Warm Up
15 Minutes

Technique

20 Minutes

1. Sweep from seated guard

Control head and arm.
On opposite side to the controlled arm position top of foot alongside opponents knee.
Lay other leg on floor parallel to opponent and roll on to your side.
Kick opponents leg up.

(Worked surprisingly well. Thought this was going to be a nightmare against a bigger opponent but my partner seemed to teeter off balance easily.)

2. Guillotine from seated guard

Set up by playing with the previous sweep.
Jerk opponents head to opposite side and cinch in guillotine.


3. Escape out back from half guard to single leg

Similar to sweep from half guard from previous session.
Opponent bases so throw up your underhooking arm and escape under their arm to take a single on the elevated leg.

4. Same move to single leg from seated guard


Rolling

40 Minutes

3 opponents:

1. Decent battle to warm up. I was mostly in control but made a mistake and gave up position near the end.

2. The guy my size again. I was really on form against this guy today and subbed him lots of times. It seemed much easier to sweep him having done some work on that earlier. Didn't get caught today either.

3. Most useful opponent I've had in awhile, this guy was better than me in basically every way. Got subbed a bunch of times immediately off the back but was able to defend well for a long time as we progressed. Feel like I learned a lot about sub defense and regaining or maintaining defensive positions. Best offensive spot I had was from rubber guard which I only attempted in the last minute of the 12 or so we rolled. Rubber guard seemed really useful at stopping his offense while giving me something to attack with. I'm gonna have to try using it more when rolling with guys bigger than me who are too good for my open guard game.

Overall a good session. The technique work was stuff that suits my style and ties in well with a couple of things I've been trying to work on.

[pikeamus]

25-06-09 - No-Gi BJJ

Warm up and stretching, 15 minutes.

Technique work
35 Minutes.

1. Seated Arm Drag to Single Leg

Similar to arm drag to take back but scoop leg and drive forward.

2. Counter to arm drag to single by moving with and taking back.

Very intuitive when doing it, just turn into opponent and take over under control.

3. Arm drag arm bar

Like a regular arm bar from guard but finished with opponents hand trapped by your arm pit.

4. Arm drag, arm bar, opponent stacks, sweep.

Opponents stacks so you can't finish arm bar. Let leg go back over head and reach across opponents back and grip under their armpit so that the arm is trapped close to you. On the other side hook opponents leg with your arm, roll back and to the side to sweep. Very intuitive.


All of this stuff was awesome, fits very nicely to my game.

Rolling
3 Minute Rounds, Around 20 second breaks as we changed partners, 11 Rounds.

Oh god I was exhausted by this. Don't remember too many specifics but it was a lot of good practice. One thing I found was that with a couple of guys the rubber guard was about the only thing I could do to stop them from passing my guard. I'm gonna keep working my open guard game primarily but will read up a bit on rubber guard for those emergency situations.

I definitely do need to work my submissions from mount a little more as I've been getting mount a lot but was having great difficulty finishing things. Managed a couple of armbars but it usually takes me a long time to get them on.

[pikeamus]

28-06-09 - DBMA

Warm up

Lemenko (cross step) drill. Add jabs and jab, rodondo.

Empty hand drills:
Slip jab and takedown.
Catch jab, cover and come over cross to a whizzer position. Clinch and takedown. This one doesn't make that much sense as an empty hand drill but apparently its worth working this empty hand to make it easier when doing it with sticks.

C-Sparring.
Notes from instructor:
1. Watch range more. I tend to allow my opponent to get too close.
2. Work on keeping a snake going when setting up attack. Currently my snake halts shortly before I go to strike which is a big giveaway.

Counters:
Same as last week.

30-06-09 - No-Gi Bjj

Warm up and stretching. 15 Minutes.


Technique
30 Minutes.

1. North south arm triangle

Starting from side control, when opponent tries to underhook move round with their arm and sink in choke.

2. Butterfly guard sweep.

Working from straight arm bar against neck. Opponent counters by pushing elbow out and down, sweep in usual way, using their momentum.

3. Another sweep.

Don't know how best to describe this one. Start from open guard with some distance. Control distance with wrist control and knee under armpit. Sit up and move elbow to opponents armpit. Hook leg with your other arm. Roll back and sweep opponent across you.



Rolling
30 Minutes

Off form tonight. Managed some nice armbar escapes but didn't hit much. Just too hot. Bleh.

[pikeamus]

02-07-09 - No-Gi BJJ

Warm up - 15 Minutes
More intense than usual as the mma coach rather than the regular bjj coach was running things.

Rather than having a technique oriented section we split into groups: those competing on the weekend and some of the better guys to roll with them and the others. I'm competing so went with that group.

Position based rolling, 3 minute rounds fresh partner every minute:
Guys competing stayed in and new opponents jump on in the position the instructor called out. 3 Rounds.

Free rolling, 3 minute rounds fresh partner every minute:
Took it in turns to be the guy staying in. At the 1 minute mark the new partner would jump in to whatever position he could get. 2 rounds for each guy.

Drilling:
Mount escapes.
Armbar from guard.
Triangle from guard.
Kimura from guard or sweep if opponent doesn't defend it.


Mix groups back together. Free rolling. Four x three minute rounds.

Finish with sprints.

I died.

My asthma has been terrible this week and today was no exception. Most of the guys I was training with were bigger and better than me and I got my ass handed to me over and over. A bit demoralizing but good training. I did discover that one of the guys I had assumed would be fighting in a higher weightclass to me is going to be in my weightclass. Walking weight he has about 3kg on me though he seems much bigger and he's much better than me too. I really hope he's not an example of what the average level of competition is going to be like this weekend otherwise its going to be a short competition for me.

[pikeamus]

04-07-09 - DBMA Sparring Day

Warm up. 10 Minutes. Individual preference.

Largo
5 x 2 Minute rounds.
One for one strike and defence work. My rythm is poor but improving. Need to get more creative and stop resetting so much between strikes.


C-Sparring

Start with the defensive feeder/fighter work. 4 x 3 Minute rounds, switching roles half way through.

Introduce 'defanging' ideas. One person cycles x metronome, other strikes at wrist and arm. Begin to introduce this into the defensive c-sparring.

Around 5 more 3 minute rounds.


Full Sparring

2 Minute rounds. I had 5 goes.

1. Against super tall man. Mostly got owned trying to come in. Tall man likes to play from outside and doesn't tend to push the action much. Mostly I was getting hit by his backhand strikes. Definitely need to work at concealing my forward movement more, maybe trying to draw out strikes as I enter so I can counter.

2. Muay thai coach man. This dude is much better than me. I still got caught a lot here, and it hurt more as this guy is more powerful than tall man, but probably not quite as often as this guy is about my height. I did feel pressured all the time as this guy was very effective at moving around and cutting me off. He told me after that I needed to get more aggressive when he attacked as our range is similar so he shouldn't be throwing so many more strikes than me.

3. Stick fighting coach man. Got my arse handed to me. Particularly got hit by lots of backhands again. Really need to work on being more alert to those.

4. Aggro monkey. Traded lots of shots and both got hit plenty. I got frustrated with the aggressive pace and shot a double leg. Took side control and worked a few strikes until he rolled up into my and I grabbed a guillotine. Was tough to get it in with t-shirts and gloves getting in the way but got there eventually.

5. Twinkletoes. We both played from the outside mostly, I didn't really get hit much at all and got a bunch of decent shots in myself. Gonna have to rewatch the video to say much more.

Overall I think my best strikes were probably dodgers to the midsection and backhand rodondos to intercept the arm. Need to improve my defence against backhands as a major priority.

[pikeamus]

12-07-09 - DBMA

Regular session.

Focused on more c-sparring and looked at the simple backhand counter (umbrella, 45 degree backhand). Plenty of footwork in the warm up.



14-07-09 - No-Gi BJJ

Technique Work

1. Heel hook when in opponents butterfly guard.
Hop one knee across and start using it to scoop up opponents foot.
Sit down to the outside and use your inside foot to hook opponents other leg.
Pass outside leg over opponents hips and get the foot behind your other leg to form triangle.
Heel hook against your body.


2. Passing opponents butterfly guard.
Get an underhook.
Push opponent back posting with underhook arm.
Use your free arm to push opponents knee across while arcing back.
Sprawl onto opponents legs, passing to the side.


3. Taking the back when opponent turtles.
Basically the message was: Get your nearside hook in before going for the other side.

Rolling

Felt good rolling today. 5 opponents, 5 minute rounds (I think, wasn't watching and the instuctor didn't say).

1. Pretty new guy that outweighed around 75lbs. Good positional battle. I was finding an active open guard was most effective, keeping distance with my feet and looking for wrist control. Never quite got a sub but was never in a bad position either.

2. Another fairly new guy also pretty big. Hit two subs, one triangle and one kimura. Not much to report, hope this guy continues as I think he'll end up doing well.

3. More experienced chap, again pretty large. I couldn't manage much against this guy and got subbed once then spent the rest of the time trying to get back to a decent position. Next time with this guy I'll try working a rubber guard as every time I tried to be active with an open guard he would pass pretty easily. I did hit a jailbreak to get back to guard once which was satisfying. At one point took a rather painful cup thrust to the nose when he moved to north south. Lost a bunch of skin :-/

4. Dude about my size. Fun battle as this guy doesn't give up. Got a triangle from mount early, had to roll to my back to try and lock it in tight and had to fight for ages to get the tap. Reset and we have a cool scramble battle for ages ending when I find an omaplata in a transition. Reset and go again. I find a triangle and again the dude defends by putting the trapped arm behind my hips. Rather than fight to get it out and finish the triangle I move to omaplata the arm instead. Worked well, will have to try this again.

5. Girl a few kilos bigger than me. Got a sweep right off the bat and spent ages in mount trying to get her arms off her chest. Eventually managed an armbar. Later also got a triangle from guard. This girl is usually more energetic and last time we rolled I didn't manage to sub her so I suspect something was up with her today.


Overall a very fun training session. Felt great to be back feeling healthy again.