2007 Competition Log

[blandy]

Well it’s a new year so time for a new log , previous edition can be found here. Last year was a pretty poor year for training for me, the only real goal of mine that I actually achieved was a blue belt in BJJ. I received my belt in March then only trained intermittently and then took a big break in training from July till September following relocating to a completely different part of the country. I have been back training regularly since October and feel I am probably only just getting back to the level I was at in March.

Main target for the year is to compete more often, the new school I am at is a lot more competitive with a lot of people taking part in BJJ, Sub wrestling and MMA. I took part in the Urban Gorillaz Northern Open BJJ Tournament at the end of November where I took 3rd in the blue belt super super heavy and aim to compete as much as possible this year. Next competition is Cleveland Coastal BJJ Tournament on Jan 7th.

Looking back through my goals in previous logs I have mentioned cross training in judo/wrestling and muay thai in the past, however apart from a few kick boxing classes this hasn't happened. Again this is some thing I plan on adding this year but we shall see

My conditioning did improve quite a bit over the last year, however I have made no effort at all with my diet really so my weight hasn't changed at all. This is some thing that I need to plan better and keep a track of.

[blandy]

Monday 1st January 2007

Bas boxing tapes

10x2 minute rounds

14oz gloves, no mouth piece, used focus mits. nice start to the new year

[blandy]

4th January 2007

BJJ class

Sparring class

Worked with a couple of different partners at first just free rolling, started with a fairly new guy so stopped ever now and then to help him with stuff he was having problems with. Finished with 6 minute rounds with a short rest in between, did about 6 rounds mainly with the other blue belts and brown belt instructor.

Key points I remember were:

• From guard had good success with cross gripping my opponents sleeve, breaking the posture and then over hooking their arm and working for a collar choke and then switching to a arm bar or elevator sweep depending on how they defended.
• From half guard had trouble coming on to my knees after establishing a under hook.
• Felt sloppy passing guard, was breaking peoples closed guard open or removing their hooks if they were playing open guard with a good success, but was pretty lethargic when it came to actually executing a pass.

[blandy]

Friday 5th January 2007

BJJ Class

Sparred for the entire class again. Worked on positional sparring mainly, swapping partners as we went. Did rounds of sweeps from guard only, subs only, subs and sweeps, escapes from under side control, defending when your back is taking and then finished with a few rounds starting from the the feet.

[blandy]

Sunday 7th January 2007

Cleveland Coastal BJJ Tournament

Small turn out for my division, just the two of us. Turned out to be the guy that I lost to at the Northern Open last year. Long story short I lost by armbar, made a number of mistakes I just wouldn't make at training and at a number of points didn't excute stuff that I know how to do normally.

[blandy]

Tuesday 9th January 2007

Sandbag complex's

6x Bentover row
6x power clean
6x Push press
6x Bentover row
6x power clean
6x Push press
6x Zerccher squats

30kg sandbag, 1:1 work:rest

2.25
3.05
2.44

[blandy]

Wednesday 10th January 2007

BJJ Class

Warmed up with 3-4 rounds of guard passing drills, bottom guy could only sweep. We worked on some moves from knee on stomach when they push on your knee to defend. We covered the kimura, falling back for and armcrush and spinning round for an armbar.

Sparred for 3x5 minute rounds at the end.

[blandy]

Friday 13th January 2007

BJJ Class

sparring class, we did 6 minute rounds, each round with special rules.

1. Eyes closed
2. passing guard, higher belt (me) had to have one hand in their belt
3. Switched rolls so I had my opponent in my guard and again could only use one arm
4. could only finish with a gi choke
5. could only finish triangle
6. could only finish with armbar
7. could only finish RNC
8. could only finish straight foot lock

[blandy]

Monday 16th January 2007

BJJ Class

We worked on a number of attacks from side control, depending on your opponents hand positioning. We started with one hand hooked behind their head and the other hand under hooking their far arm.

Opponent has correct hand positioning, near arm elbow is on your hip to help create space as you shrimp and their far arm is under hooking to hide it from submissions. From here we worked for a step over armbar.

• First we switched our hips towards their legs for reverse scarf hold, your hand nearest their legs holds on to their gi Pants and pushes away from you so they cant drive into you.
• Shrimp you hips backwards so you can force their nearside arm out of postion.
• Switch your hips again so you are back to side control, their nearside arm should now be trapped pointing straight in the air. As you switch underhook their farm arm with your arm nearest their legs, the other arm is used to help control their nearside arm. Keep your elbow in tight to control it.
• From here switch you hips again to sit through to a modified scarf hold, be careful not to swift your hips to far up towards their head or you wont have space for the next steps, Maintain control of their arm by grabbing at the elbow and keeping you elbow tight.
• Lean your weight over them and then pass the leg nearest to their head over in and pull your heel in tight. From here you sit back to apply pressure to the elbow.

Opponents far arm is trapped out of position (straight up in the arm/grabbing your head) and trapped on the side of your head nearest to your legs, from here work for a key lock.

• Release arm from behind their head and move it so the elbow is on the mat pushing into the far side of their neck.
• Grab the wrist of this hand with your under hooking arm, this establishes the keylock grip.
• Hide your hand near your own ear, don’t grip their arm too hard to give away what you are doing.
• With nothing controlling their head or their hips your opponent should decided to turn into your to get back to guard, as they try to put their arm across your neck to help create space you can grip their wrist to complete the keylock grip.
• Push their wrist to the floor and drag their knuckles along the floor towards their hips.

Opponents far arm is trapped out of position (straight up in the arm/grabbing your head) and trapped on the side of your head nearest to your head, from here work for a step around armbar.

• Your arm nearest your head over hooks their far arm, grab your own gi collar to trap the arm. Your other arm goes by their hip to block out their guard.
• Tripod up and begin to circle round to north south, the hand by their hip prevents them from following you.
• From north south use the strength of your legs to push them up on to their side.
• You should be kneeling behind them with your knees in tight behind their back to prevent the turning back into, you should still be gripping your collar trap their arm.
• Your other hand can now post on the floor near their head, use this to carry most of your weight so you can hop to your feet and into the armbar, one leg over their head and other against their ribs. You should be nice and tight in against them with your hips right in against their shoulder.
• Squeeze your knees together and sit back and to finish the armbar.

We rolled for 4x6 minute rounds at the end with a different opponent each time.

1. Another 1 stripe blue belt that used to compete a lot in pro mma. He passed my guard by bear hugging my legs and then driving them to ground and circling round, passed to mount and then got his feet on my hips so I couldn’t drive him back down, from here he slowly worked for an armbar. Second go I got top position and passed to side control but he managed to get me straight back to guard. This is a big part of his game and I have a lot of trouble controlling him from the top.
2. A 1 stripe white belt. Let him get side control and then worked back to half guard, old school sweep, passed to mount and then worked for arm bar.
3. Four stripe white belt. I pulled guard and worked towards trying to gi choke him by pulling the bottom of his own gi behind his head but his defence was nice and tight. Switched to an arm drag and took his back. Had a real struggle and couldn’t finish him from the back, he actually got back to guard a few times ( but with his arm trapped across in and arm drag position so I could take his back immediately).
4. A 3 stripe blue. Pulled guard again but he went straight to combat base so I couldn’t close my guard. Switched a spider guard and controlled him, he stood to pass and still managed to keep control. He sat back down to combat base and switched to a sort of Del a Riva Guard. Controlled both of us his sleeves and managed to sweep him, as I came on top he got butterfly guard back. From here he was working for a gi collar choke that I postured out of.

[blandy]

Wednesday 17th January 2007

BJJ Class

rolled for about 15 minutes before class with a white belt mainly concentrating on working open guard with 1 hand/no hands.

Covered a number of sweeps when you opponent stands up in guard, all starting with cross gripping the sleave of the arm on the same side as the leg they raised first.

First sweep was similar to This one. (I have shameless ripped off his photo's to help with my description so make sure you check his site out.

• As opponent raises first leg up, crossgrip the same side sleeve and and grab behind his foot of the rasied leg with your other hand.
  
• Put the foot on the same side as his raised leg on his hip and push back to stretch him out. Your other foot hooks behind the knee of his other leg.(similar to the below photo but obviously you will be crossgripping his sleeve
  )
  
• make usre you maintain a strong grip on his sleeve, keep your elbow in tight to your body. This generates momentum to help you come on top of him.
• Push with your foot on his hip (really kick the foot out hard) and pull on his ankle to sweep him backwards.
  
• his momentum should pull you on top to a position with your leg that was on his hip in a knee slide pass postion to make it easy to secure side control. Pull up hard on his sleeve to stop him being able to move
  
  

The second sweep shown was the sickle sweep (bit different to the way shown on that link)

• As opponent raises first leg up, crossgrip the same side sleeve and and grab behind his foot of the rasied leg with your other hand.
• Both foot go on his hips to push him back to create space and break his posture.
• The leg on the same side you are cross gripping their sleeve stays on their hip
• The other foot goes behind their free leg
  
  as I side it is a bit different to the way shown in that link. in this picture I would be cross gripping the guys left arm, as well as grabbing behind his left ankle.
• push on thier hip and pull on their bottom leg to push them backwards

Third sweep was sweeping him directly over your head.

• Get a double sleeve grip before the opponent stands
• both feet on his hips to push him back to create space.
• one foot stays on his hips and the other hooks behind his knee as a de la riva hook.
• pull foward on both his sleeves so his weight comes forward and you can take it on your legs.
• lift him over your head and rollover one shoulder to take top position.

Sparred 3 rounds at the end, one with a 1 stripe white belt, 1 with my brown belt instructor and one with his soon who is a green belt. Nice light easy technical rolling.