The past week rolling was eventful but definitely not as tough and rigorous as it potentially could have been. Firstly, I have implemented a new calisthenic routine that will be practiced diligently and consistently Monday to Friday. The routine is rather complex but contains burpees, jump rope, hand stand and L-sit holds, lifting gargantuan bags of sand, pushups, squats and bjj squats. The BJJ squat is my newly formed exercise which involves the performance of a squat then enacting a kickback with a leg so as to mildly simulate a guard pass. Second, training was fairly good but in the interest of being ready for competition, the rolling could have been much tougher but sometimes things are out of my hands in terms of finding active rolling partners and participating at an academy that is able to facilitate active rolling. On Monday, Andre was MIA and Joel acted as substitute　instructor and we practiced variations on achieving one of my most cherished submissions, the darce. Tuesday entailed Jimmy's wrestling class and solid progress was realized as I drilled out a simple ankle pick. As a consequence of the ankle pick drill session, I have solidified a concept of the pick and must now implement the technique with the usage of patience and persistence in attacking it rolling whenever the chance presents itself. 
Additionally, in the wrestling session, I had the fortunate circumstance of David advising me on a more successful method of hitting the single leg from the bottom which is simply to grasp the leg and stand up on it and take the guy down. 

   Wednesday was eventful with the attendance of a Braulio Estima seminar. Estima explained fundamental methods of hitting the triangle with cool variations from being sidemounted, I will continually strive to implement these techniques in my game. Estima also elaborated a bjj philosophical discussion on the emphasis of concepts in BJJ in substitution for an overarching emphasis solely upon techniques, and this mantra is in my will allow grappling activities to be raised to new heights as techniques and movements among the myriad numbers of BJJ practitioners will continually diversify. 
 Thursday, presented me with a confidence jolt as I begun to notice my wrestling abilities are  showing signs of improvements as I am currently able to simply just stand with Joel clinched without being taken down left and right. As the week reached its culmination, I performed my open mat rolls, drilled out some more techniques and administered kit dales method of grasping the omaplata via grasp of the arm with guillotine, choke.

   
  To the end the week, me and my grizzled BJJ friend Jimmy drilled and discussed techniques. The basic guard passing and taking advantage of the many leg drag occurrences left me rather entranced. The most fundamental thing I could take away from the whole training session was a basic delariva sweep conducted via grasp of the collar and steering wheeling the opponent to the ground, and I can't wait to pull this off on the mats and of course in competition.  

Rolling was off to a good start this week as Andre's class was massively enlightening and enjoyable as usual. My current BJJ goals include the development of a strong leg drag and tonight Andres illustrated intricate details upon how to administer a strong formidable drag. Andre specified the end position of the leg drag where the downed leg of the opponent is pinned to the ground with the shin, then the attacker's grasps either the opponent's leg or the inside collar grip while the other hand grasps the top side of my opponent's gi at the base of the neck. This particular movement structure essentially pins my opponent and is immensely strong, and at this point I either pass for the side or take the back dependent on the opponent's reaction.

 While rolling, I had the opportunity to roll with a Saulo Ribeiro black belt named Joe. I learned abundantly the roll with a key point being that when I get a knee on belly and my opponent goes to strangle, I kick his backside forward alleviating the pressure on my face and giving birth to an opportunity for en escape. The movement is essentially basic but immensely functional.

 Wrestling session with Jimmy was good although a measurable amount of frustration was present as my development wrestling-wise is being stunted on the basis that I can only actively practice the daunting craft once a week. Additionally, I have discovered a need to find good training partners for each session as the guy I went with was rather lazy and undisciplined. Nonetheless, the things I learned tonight were the reaction after the single leg is caught where I create space against my opponent's head and sprawl my legs out and swiftly move to my opponent's back, and at that point I will work to administer my submissions (peruvian neck tie, guillotine, arm bar). During the wrestling, my confidence was turned up as  I did discover that my no-gi guillotines are beginning to shine, but against more talented and careful opponent's I am certain the fearsome moves would not be as effective as my opportunities would be rarer.
 
  The rolling week moved on forward and at the culmination of the week I was presented with a dilemma. Throughout my BJJ as well as boxing experience, I have continuously been under the impression that drilling is necessary and critical towards skill development. However, an article and interview presented by a resolute BJJ competitor, Kit Dale, seemed to dispute that notion as he espoused the fallacy of drills for BJJ. The abstinence of BJJ drilling mantra prompted me to ponder the efficiency of drills from the perspective of myself and not of any other individual. On one hand drills are good for developing muscle memory of moves but the muscle memory from my perspective comes from doing the actual physical movement which can be developed with BJJ style calisthenic movements and rolling while understanding the concepts of techniques can be garnered through strong attention to detailed instruction and critically viewing BJJ matches. To this end of understanding BJJ concepts, drilling can be quite necessary as I have discovered my understanding of BJJ concepts can come about through drilling. In the end, the conclusion I have conceived is to put an emphasis on rolling  and place integral importance upon the activity and be certain to plan on committing all my energies to each rolling session.

 As a further understanding of BJJ concepts, this match video should produce some key ideas and concepts in implementing strong leg locks. Rumina Sato definitely deserves accolades and recognition in being able to smoothly pull of these aesthetically pleasing leg locks.  

This past week was resoundingly wonderful as I got gold in my first BJJ tournament as a purple; however, it can be said that the process of attaining the gold medal is controversial as on one hand I beat a competitor who competed in a weight class which was 3 levels lower than mine. Furthermore, one competitor was a bit aged. A conclusion can be made that I did not face the most grueling competitors out there on the vast ever growing BJJ battlefield yet nevertheless, I feel great and ever more confident as a BJJ competitor.

 This week in Andre's class, I was enlightened to new methods of scoring a kimura sweep. First part occurred with grasping the kimura from guard and patiently waiting and allowing the opponent to pass guard. Upon the conclusion of the pass and allowing the clueless opponent to achieve sidemount, an individual will hip in and then move to sweep the opponent into a sidemounted kimura. In this week's rolling session, I've come to discover that my berimbolo defense is still not too good and because of this circumstance I am prompted to discover and implement a diversified arsenal of defenses as opposed to solely relying on a single attack. The experiment may allow me then to acknowledge the best most effective way of defending the berimbolo or delariva, and then I can focus on one or two methods of defense.

 Thus far I have the following defenses to the delariva and berimbolo:
  JT torres push knee outside while having elbow inside then knee slice
  Back step and dive
  Ankle lock
  Turn front foot out horizontally and leg drag

 And it goes without saying, I will be working into my game these counters courtesy of Marcelo Garcia:

 

    The last few days have proven to be intriguing and this circumstance is of little surprise as I am deeply immersed in my hobby based on martial skills. Over the weekend, I was able to catch a decent UFC card with some spectacular submissions especially coming from the formidable Luke Rockhold. Additionally, the Jones/Teixeira match up proved to be an enjoyable as Jones  easily tooled Teixeira, however, I do believe Teixeira had some slight advantages against Jones with close inside boxing moves, thus I would love to see how Jones would fare against one of my more favorite mma fighters Daniel Cormier. 

  As for BJJ　training and studies. Over the past few days I was able to further understand how to stop and break the delariva guard such as by allowing pressure upon the far outside leg with reinforced strength coming from having the elbow inside the knee. Joel further elaborated on the many creative uses of the uchimata. Andre displayed an intricate manner of hitting the butterfly pass such as by pinning your chest against the opponents chest. Jimmy, the 46 year old crazy ex crossfit guy who likes to do handstands, instructed me upon an effective manner of grasping grips from inside the spider guard as well as attacking the basic guard attacks with an emphasis on keeping the opponent's base down. I am still working my wrecking ball  pass and it is becoming more effective,but I must always remember to grab opponent's collar and pull that shoulder off the ground. Also, through recent readings on BJJ mastery, I've begun to restructure my training so that I will roll intensely as much as I drill and stress emphasis on all of my weak areas. New moves I wish to master will be conducted upon white belts or for that matter less adept BJJ practitioners while working what I do effectively will only be conducted with the higher level belts; therefore, I can have the chance to alleviate the bottleneck. Specifically, this new training method would entail torriando on high belts, leg drag wrecking ball pass on low belts. Triangle on high belts, umoplata on low belts. Flower sweep on low belts, x guard sweep on high belts. Lastly, I have been watching an abundant amount of Rudolfo Viera matches and this one with Leo Leite has proven striking as I have discovered that Viera not only has robust techniques in passing guards but also in even pulling off the berimbolo.  Viera mildly reminds me of a guy who can play dual sports.

    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