This past week in rolling and BJJ training was decent neither pathetic nor glorious. On Monday, I began the session drilling out a guard pass series of the kickback pass, lawnchair upon on the knee slice failure, leg spread across to knee slice, wrecking ball pass and wrecking ball pass to leg drag. As class started my usual Monday instructor Andre was not present and Joel strolled in to cover his class. His topic was the basic judo hip throw and Uchi-mata. My basic judo hip throw technique will require a lot of time and effort but my uchi-mata is not bad and my overall impression is that it is a slick technique as the video shows.

 Tuesday was the wrestling session and it was an enlightening experience to say the least. Beforehand, I had the slight chance to drill out arm drags and a turtle attack from cyborg Abreu. Jimmy, my adept and experienced wrestling coach, introduced a strong method and set-up for the ankle pick. The effective and direct technique involved snapping the opponent's head down with the club grip and then picking out the ankle. If failure occurs by way of the opponent moving the leg back then you move to attack the single leg.

 Thursday entailed a no-gi session whereupon the illustrious up and coming MMA fighter Nick instructed us on a basic knee slice followed by hip switch guard pass. The technique was very cool and interesting and followed along the lines of one of my new hero's: Mario Sperry.

 Friday was open mat at Barum's and the experience entailed getting beat up by numerous black belts while simultaneously providing enlightening and inspirational elements. First, I was able to finally begin landing and setting up my umoplata techniques and my armbars felt slightly stronger. My strengthened armbars can be surmised as I am essentially just conducting an imitation of my instructor and rolling partner Joel's armbar techniques.  Second, my knee slice became much more formidable when I extended arm across my opponent's body as I let my knee glide past his guard. I have discovered that this new format of performing the knee slice requires an allocation of confidence as I actually let go of my opponent and just let my body flow like water.

It's difficult for me to blog about nothing more than BJJ, but the activity is an integral facet of my life. Recently, in regards to my BJJ training, a new motivation towards improving my no-gi game has sprouted. Perpetually, I have abstained from no gi jiu-jitsu as I lack the opportunity to establish firm control over my opponent and exude dominance over my pitiful opponent. However, after participation in a no-gi tournament and working with talented new training partners that practice BJJ with a t-shirt and shorts (more or less), I am beginning to fancy jiu-jitsu without a thick piece of gripping fabric. The attacks I am striving to develop in this area are of a abundant variety. My guard passing is decent but my opponents predictably move to turtle position with swift immediacy at which point I must start attacking the back. The back attacks could be constituted as crucifix attacks or for that matter just basic fundamentals.  Wrestling,  arguable a readily manifested area no-gi, is performed in a less than stellar fashion by me and I often get stuck in guard or half guard after being taken down.Therefore, I am able to express grand gratitude at having the opportunity of having a robustly experienced wrestler improve my wrestling performance. As a result of my weak wrestling skills, I am regularly taken down and end up in guard or half-guard, and  my only guard attacks come by way of triangles and kimuras which pulled off with limited success. Lastly, as a form of attack in no-gi, leglocks will soon become an integral part of my game. It seems I have a ton of work ahead and thankfully I have direction, so patience and discipline will be my goal.  

  Over this past weekend, I have also been watching full matches of the latest Abu-Ahabi championships. There were a lot of great matches. One match that particularly sticks out is the quarrel between Rudolfo Viera and Andre Galvao. My big thing in Jiu-Jitsu is guard passing and with that characteristic in mind I have invariably looked up to good passers such as Viera. One thing that is fascinating with Viera is his use of options as he readily switches his attack and this aspect of his game is on crystal clear display against Galvao as Viera swiftly passes Galvao's guard and gains formidable dominance. The importance of having an arsenal of 2 or 3 options for any positional attack will be crucial for my BJJ skills development as. I cannot be a one-hit wonder and must ditch techniques when they quite simply aren't working in substitution for techniques that may have a chance.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50JpjhpSolA

Training was interesting last night to say the least. My wrestling skills are a big defect of mine and there would be an unfortunate opportunity cost to take to strengthen this area. Nonetheless, I still learn a lot from my current wrestling coach Jimmy. The wrestling area where I may make considerations for development would be in clubbing the head down and placing my chest over his head, dragging my opponent down and then taking the back.As for other areas  where my no-gi skills need development, I have discovered that the 10th planet techniques of the electric chair and twisters present themselves with so much prevalence, I must take advantage of these techniques and implement them.

 In my recent BJJ viewing experience, this match has caught my eye. It is interesting how AJ closes the distance to work against Gianni's game by doing a stack pass. Then Gianni is able to create distance and implement a very smooth berimbolo game whereupon, Gianni swiftly attains back control. Upon taking the back, it's fascinating how AJ defends the bow and arrow choke and this aspect makes the video worthy of further research and study.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATyNcDIoxyc&inf_contact_key=bc2a48a8b4e5fdbf495f422fa1fa50b7b527d28929bb66f938a4abba0dee398b

Weekend was rather interesting as I competed in my first no-gi tournament in well over 2 years the first in the states, and, needless to say, it was eye-opening experience. First, the people at the tournament could be best described as loose. One fellow was dressed as a power ranger and had me baffled as to why he choose the outfit as he personally elaborated that it was arduous to breath in, thus it can be resolutely concluded he just wore it for show. Other fellows competed in stylish get-ups such as no shirt and dirty and ragged beach shorts. Lastly, one fellow wore a wrestling smock and had thighs of uncanny enormity, I could only imagine the type of training this man has gone through and the genetics he possesses.
  Second, I competed at the highest level yet in my BJJ learning experience. Faced a top brown belt competitor, a high level 10th planet student directly under Eddie Bravo and then a division 1 wrestler. I, unfortunately, lost all the matches. Lessons learned are as follows: learn and defend bravo attacks, develop a smarter stronger single leg attack and hit the kimura from the guard and half-guard more smoothly.
 
  Onto the next matches and a new move to drill and master.

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40aRGlMPWVc

Well back to blogging once more. I no longer reside in dirty, crowded, filthy yet insurmountably fun Taiwan as I moved onto sunnier and healthier San Diego. It is practically to remark that San Diego has a vibrant Mexican restaurant scene while it also simultaneously holds an uncanny Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and MMA scene. Therefore, it makes sense to blog about my own personal BJJ journey out here as I have nothing else of viable interest to blog about.
  My Sunday rolling session at Barum BJJ was fun as always. The training session goal was to land a baseball choke from sidemount as I have steadily developed a fascination with the submission culminating from Magid's Hage implementation of it on Clark Gracie, Gui Mendes upon Samir Chantre and finally from getting brutalized by it on Friday evening. As I began my rolls, I steadily forgot the goal as I simply went for my usual game of passing via torriando, knee-slice and my submissions only came by way of guard triangle. The learning opportunity from the session was to be careful of and wary of wrist submissions as they can come out of nowhere and can be an instant showstopper, thus it is integral to always be moving and moving fluidly from position to position. Additionally, further study must be given to landing the knee-bar from sidemount as I am discovering I am bit off in this area.

  In BJJ viewing, this video caught me attention. I relished seeing Vinicius Silva use pressuring passing as it is an aspect of my game I wish to continually develop.