This week's training session has what become usual  light and easy. Andre's class was of course eye-opening and well detailed. Andre illustrated a basic method of achieving side-mount by way of passing the half-guard and from that point, he moved on to sidemount where he creatively showed a way to take the crucifix via knee-trapping the arm in sidemount and pushing the opponent over and then using your legs to manuever them around the opponent's arm into a crucifix position. He then illustrated a counter to a common reaction of the opponent going to turtle and flowing with it rolling with the arm trapped into a shoulder lock. The rolling session was fairly light and I noticed a weak area as Joel was able to counter my kimura from half-guard  by attacking the arm-bar which is a move I have too often neglected and must be researched. Wrestling class was quite awesome as the class was substituted by a well-trained greco-roman wrestling specialist and champion who showed a variety of wrestling moves. The movement I can explicitly take away from the class is the hand break followed by moving under the opponent's arm then waiting for my opponent to clamp my arm and whereupon I re-clamp my opponent wrist then thread my leg inside and take his back. Light rolling proceeded afterwards and I was able to get tapped by an intricately set  up guillotine choke administered by my friend Marco, so it is yet another area of research that needs devotion. Anyways, it was a cool session.
 On Wednesday, I made the decision to change my routine and headed to Barum's for rolling and I learned some rather provoking things. First, it was nice to have Alfredo oversee our training and rolling as he noted weaknesses in my game and opportunities for improvement. The two rolls with the black belts Fernando and Harlan proved to be very enlightening as I learned that in order to continue control over the opponent, it is necessary to move or in other words flow with the opponent. Fernando showed me through simple rolling why it is an absolute must to break grips as his incredibly strong grip grinded me directly to the ground. The next few days were exclusively rest in preparation for the tournament, and on Saturday the tournament occurred and I truly put on an awful performance. I struggled to pass the guard of a guy who was continually attacking and in the process he hit me with an arm bar off my stack pass. The second match was against an opponent said to be skilled in judo and since my Judo skills are less than stellar, I made the regrettable decision to pull guard and this fateful decision led to a perfect opportunity for my opponent to institute his strong top game against my rather weak guard game. Consequently, a new direction in my BJJ experience will be put forth whereupon I learn to attack creatively and effectively from both guard and half-guard. Additionally, I will be of course devoting more time to training staying after class to roll and drill. To that end of rolling and drilling, I have noticed that I often fall back to the turtle when rolling yet I don't answer well from that position;therefore, the following instructional may prove to be useful.

This week's training started off prosperously. Starting with training at Figueroa BJJ, I had the opportunity to mee the legendary BJJ practitioner Carlos Valente  and he showed some different methods of hitting the bow and arrow style choke and one of the integral elements he emphasized was pulling the collar downwards and sinking the choke in, and this point is something I often overlook. Overall, Martin Figueroa put on a fun and illuminating session as I got to put in some good rolls and noticed my BJJ skills still need work in particular with my open guard sweeps and landing proper arm bars, my game perpetually needs improvement and this session provided me a reminder that I must always stay motivated for each and every session. Wrestling class with Jimmy was of course good. I am still striving to hit the ankle pick and one of these days I'll catch it. Elements of focus were when clubbing the head I must strive to constantly revert the head back and forth and never keep it static as these action open up opportunities for a varying amount of take-downs. Additionally, when going against larger opponents, it must be emphasized that I should not get in close and pull them down rather it is necessary to work with them on the outside and attack. Lastly, the wrestling session prompted a recommendation to hit wrestling attacks from angles rather than straight on. Hitting attacks straight on will often be proven unsuccessful so I should do my best to abstain from them.
  Moving on throughout the training week, Brian illustrated a basic method of hitting a half-guard pass, or in other words his interpretation of the Esgrima pass and he highlighted the point of ascertaining that the opponent is looking in the opponent direction of the pass, and this look is caused via my shoulder crushing his chin. Thursday followed with a training session at 10th planet which was as usual quite amazing. The instructor at the session, Ryan, displayed a effective way of hitting the butterfly sweep and the sweep would be accomplished through attacking the opponent just like in wrestling at an angle as opposed to straight on. Ryan then showed off a fascinating yet overlooked method of hitting the north south choke after landing the butterfly sweep and it involved taking the north south position while moving towards the opponent's body in order to make certain the opponent's chin will be cranked upwards by use of my lat then driving the lat downwards to establish the choking/tapping position. The rolling at the 10th planet session was quite good but one student named Charles actively used the inverted guard and my answers against it were lackluster as he repeatedly implemented his game upon me tapping me out left, right and center with a myriad of leg locks. Additionally, further study into developing a stronger guard attack is necessary since I had an enormously difficult time striving to establish dominance via the guard. Following the no-gi session, Friday judo class, proved to be enlightening and humbling as I received instruction in an art that is definitely unfamiliar territory to me. The thing I can take out of the class is a nice set-up for the uchi-mata and tai-otoshi that comes through pulling the opponent circling around and then ending up in a position whereupon his arm is pulled to my chest while his shoulder is facing directly upwards towards the ceiling. At this point, I am able to have two options of either trying and landing the uchi-mata or the tai-otoshi. The last training session of the week then occurred on Saturday at the Barum BJJ open mat. The first roll was humbling as I got beat up brutally by a young blue belt as I was in awe how he hit me with a beautifully set-up triangle coming about through my bad habit of leaving my arm dangling out. After the roll, my rolls turned out to be less than ideal but the biggest discovery I noticed is that my half-guard passing was off and I need to display more patience in passing from that position. I also learned of a new defense against the baseball choke which can come through grasping and pulling in the elbow that is not torquing inside of my throat and from there the fearsome choke can be easily stopped and I can be put into a more advantageous position.

  As a last part of this blog entry, the competition video of Marcelo Garcia is a display of what I can only hope my Jiu-Jitsu skills may one day mimic.

The BJJ training and research sessions this week were eventful yet a bit relaxed as I planned on a partaking in a restful week leading up to the Sunday competition. During the weekly wrestling session, Joel introduced a magnificent way of countering the single leg via positioning myself horizontally with his legs and allowing myself to essentially dive forward while extending my hand downwards to the floor. Through conduction of this diving motion, my opponent will follow and I will land into a very beautiful darce position. The following day was a gi session and the uchi-mata judo concept and technique was reviewed followed by a light rolling session whereupon I was able to figure out my gameplan for Sunday. The Thursday session was also fruitful as the trainer Nick elaborated on hitting the ankle pick nicely from standing up.  Nick also explicated upon the bottom position with methods of successfully hitting armbars and kimuras. Furthermore, a problem that has befallen me for many years occurs when I land a solid straight armbar but then my opponent bridges into me destroying my nicely set up arm bar.Nick introduced a solution towards stopping this destruction via allowing the opponent to bridge in but then using my leg set upon his head to push him back into the arm bar. Lastly, a problem that I have encountered for many years is locking the kimura from half-guard and again in Nick's patience he explained that he does not even really attack the kimura from the bottom rather he locks the kimura in and uses his bottom leg to kick the opponent upwards while still holding the kimura. From this point he locks the kimura in when sidemount is reached. If the kimura cannot be administered from the sidemount position I can then pull him over to his side grasping the kimura to my chest very deeply and cranking it on without use of arm strength  but with active utilization of the spine. It can be concluded that it was an enlightening week.

  The worlds are a week old now so I cannot comment on it too much but this match really stuck out in my eyes in terms of competition.

    To conclude the week, I participated in the Dream sub-only Jiu-Jitsu tournament and was defeated. The lesson I can take from the experience, and it is quite cliched, but focus and adherence must be given to basic BJJ skills as I neglected basic kimura defenses and the opponent grasped the locked the fearsome kimura in efficiently and swiftly. Furthermore, I discovered that I lack a fulfilled competitive mindset as I did not aggressively pursue and strive to dominant my opponent as thoroughly as I could.  Lastly, my stand-up wrestling skills are a bit out of tune, thus I somehow have to work those areas into my training in order to become the most formidable BJJ competitor I can be. This is what learning is all about.

  BJJ practice and learning is perpetual and this week was again progressive. Monday was hectic with a truly amazing session with the attendance of open mat at Barum BJJ in the morning. I arrived at the place at around 9ish and began practice with my regular drilling partner as we reviewed and went through passing drills, and shortly thereafter I managed to roll nearly nonstop for around 2 hours and as a consequence I got closer to my goal of rolling until I am completely exhausted and grips cannot be maintained while each and every person is tapping me. During the open-mat session, I had the providential chance of rolling with a black belt straight out of Brazil named Maurino and he was absolutely amazing as he prompted me to fully recognize the importance of gripping as he actively and creatively utilized variously styled grips to completely demolish me, and these actions reminded  me of the explicit principle for BJJ training which is the importance of always breaking grips.
  The next day training, Tuesday, was the wrestling session and it was more than decent as Joel showed a way of hitting the twister from bringing the opponent down into what I would term the wrestling half-guard, and the rolling was good as I discovered I have a weakness for the straight ankle lock so study of defenses against it will be necessary. Wednesday was another Gi session and Joel introduced the method of attacking the arm drag from the point of when an opponent's monumental momentum is moving forward for the guard pass whereupon I grasp the arm and pull him down and take the back. From the back, a nice Peruvian neck tie can be set up through use of gripping the gi in substitution for the darce set up used in no gi. Thursday was momentous as I attended a 10th planet shool for the first time at 10th planet Vista. The instructor, Giovanni, instructed me on the importance of shoulder rolling and how to hit the berimbolo through the ankle pick from the arm drag pulling back and threading my leg through to the opponent's hip, extending my arm to the opponent's opposite hip, rolling unto my shoulder and grasping the back. The rolling at the school was amazing to say the least as I got beat up and realized I should have a better understanding of the application and defense of the twister, rubber guard and the chin grip as I got annihilated in those areas. Nevertheless, I discovered my armbar submissions are half-way decent and the rolling session at 10th planet was overall quite fulfilling and I now plan on making it up there weekly. This week is IBJJF worlds week and regrettably I could not compete in the vaunted competition  due to commitments at work nonetheless I am of the strong belief that IBJJF can be construed as a bubble as it is riddled with bad calls and dubious reffing; As a result of these sentiments, I am immensely excited to participate in matches that concern themselves with the bottom line of submissions and this participation will be realized as I will plan on instituting my submission skills against formidable opponent's at the Dream sub-only jiu-jitsu tournament on June 8th.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M18hSLJyKeA

  Then of course the culmination of this week prove to be quite intense as I had the first chance to attend the IBJJF worlds tournament. I attended simply the first day which was quite a sight of massacres as the men were really separated from the boys with well known stars tearing apart the competition. Matches that illustrated the notion of outclassing were readily seen as formidable and renowned BJJ players such as Torres, Viera, Satoshi-Souza, Estima and Lo to name a few subdued their opponents via sub or 20 plus points to 0. A match, however, that caught my attention was the following and needless  to say I was enthralled.



  Commentary on the worlds can be perhaps a blog post unto itself so I'll save my energy and time for that. As the week ended on Sunday, even with the Worlds in full effect, I was able to head on over to Barum BJJ and roll at his open mat session. I, however, was unable to completely mop the floor with a lot of the participants on the mat but managed to feel confidence in my movement as I am beginning to pull off my basic moves cleanly and fluidly. Instruction from my regular black belt level rolling partner, proved to be fundamental to my learning as he elucidated on some integral points for my game. Conceptually, in my opponent's guard, it is of focus to make certain that my opponent does not pull me down with his hips and legs and from that point I can start enacting my passing game. Secondly, he espoused a slow but efficient method of hitting the leg drag from being knee shielded by an opponent. This leg drag can come about through pressing the inside of my head upon my opponent's legs while simultaneously pinning  his other ankle on the mat.As the leg passes a determined threshold on my chest, I pass the hand gripping the ankle to knee shielded leg and drag the leg in, pull his pants up near his hip and move my head forward to my opponent's chin, and at that point I am able to achieve an easy leg drag pass. Unto next rolling session, I will strive to implement it and that's it for today.