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.