#open mat

Me when all of my drill partners were MIA (injured, sick, on vacation) and I had to skip pre-open-mat drill session:

Me when I realize I now have tons of energy to go competition intensity on consenting upper belts during open mat:

Day 1676

People of the internet, still hitting the mats on the regular.

I’m feeling much more confident with Jiu-Jitsu and panicking a whole lot less during the rolling. I stay calm, breathe and have figured out how to not get as gassed as quickly.

The big guys still get me but even when I roll James (think The Mountain from Game of Thrones) I last a lot longer and my defense has improved. I’m getting into tactical positions more effectively (guard, mount...).

The one thing I’m not managing to do is string an attack together. I can control from guard but not choke or arm-bar or any other attack yet.

Damn.

Got to keep on working it.

COACHLESS: Optimizing Solo Sessions

Making The Best Out Of Open Mat & Solo Sessions  Khru Dave Gomez of Wolfpack Boxing Club, Miami, FL. (Credit: Magnificent Moore Photography) Have you ever shown up at the gym only to find out that you’re the only one there? Maybe your coach had an emergency and needed to step away, or your training partner bailed on you. You still want to get a good workout in but do you know how to structure…

So, you want everyone to drill/grapple with everyone else? Here’s how.

1. Figure out how many matches will happen at once: that's the number of people divided by two, rounded up. 2. Assign each location a number.  Everyone finds a partner and a spot.These could be circles, rings, mats, etc. 3. One person in each location is labelled 'up'. The other is labelled 'down'. The labels don't matter, as long as you keep track of which you are. 4. The person labelled 'up' in location number 1 is stationary; he or she does not move after grappling. 5. After each round, everyone else moves in a simple pattern.     --If you are in circle 2 and 'up', move to circle 1 and 'down'.     --If you are in the last circle and 'down', remain in the last circle but become 'up'.     --If you are in any other circle and 'down', move to the next circle and remain 'down', so 1down moves to 2down, 2down moves to 3down, and so on.     --If you are in any other circle and 'up', move to the previous circle and remain 'up', so 4up moves to 3up, 3up moves to 2up, and so on.

Sunday 01/31/16

I took my 6 yo daughter, Phia, with me to no-gi open mat today. It was only a few of us, which was perfect. I played some Gracie Games with Phia and let her do some cartwheels and rolls around the mat before getting a few rolls in. 

I rolled with Kate first, who I outsize by quite a bit, but she’s a purple belt so I can only do so much with overpowering her. She tapped me a few times including a guillotine from guard, which she said I should have pulled down on her shoulder instead of trying to break her guard. I managed to finish an arm bar from guard on her though. Her arm was slipping out as I tried to set it up (#nogiproblems) but I improvised a nice little trick where I reached between my legs to grab behind her shoulder and pulled it down back in to keep the arm in and then tipped her over to finish the arm bar! 

Then I rolled with Jaime, a seasoned blue belt, about my age, who brought his 8th grade son to roll as well. It’s always good to roll with Jaime because he talks to me about everything through the whole roll and lets me know what I’m doing well or what I should have done. I never submitted him but I got mount a few times and he said I was giving him trouble, not letting him get what he used to get on me, and basically just a lot harder to submit. I’ll take that... for now.

Saturday 10/17/15

We worked some stand up self defense to an overhand strike using a baton/stick. At close range, we used an entering movement and blocking the arm, reaching under close to the hand to grab the baton, slide down to the end as you rotate and pull it out of the grip, bending them back with their arm in a sort of shihonage position (note: I did go for the arm lock here when I couldn’t reach the baton for some reason). Or you blocked and moved to T-Position, then bring both arms under their arm and step across the front for a foot sweep. From long range, we raised the arm on the side of the strike - pinky up - to let the strike slide down, trap the arm, step to T-position, then hip throw (note: I think you could go straight to the hip throw if you wanted).

On the ground we worked on moving to north-south position and applying a north-south choke (which neither I nor my partner could apply successfully). We looked at using that to set up a move to a mount with their head in-between your knees. I can’t remember how that worked right now.