Hey,
Just wanted to let you know that I havent died! I have had a few other commitments that needed taking care of, but will be back on the mats soon.
Over N Out
Is what my nan would say. Especially to the amount of sweat I produced on Friday at class. I honestly think I am the biggest sweat monster there, infact, I could be the sweatiest mo’fo’ anywhere in the BJJ kingdom!
Anyways, Fridays class was touted as a beginners class, and I actually found it harder than the one during the week. The warm up was a little longer than before and harder too. There is a deep dark secret that I have been harbouring for a couple of years and it came out in the warm up… how physically inept I am at doing a backwards ‘rolly-poly’. Strange thing is I can clearly remember doing them as a kid, but some how I have lost the technique! Maybe I will be able to do them after I lose this extra weight i’m carrying!
The class itself was great, there were a lot of drills where I really managed to disect certain moves and familiarise myself with some of the grips used. We covered several ways to break the guard, scissor sweep and reversal and an armbar from guard.
The second half of the class was more of a rolling/sparring session. All of the blues and purples were on the mat and all whites were lined up ready to face them. The aim of the exercise was for the white belts to break the blue belts guard and not be swept. This was actually really fun, and very hard at some points too! My first opponent was a powerful blue belt called Jason. Before we had started he gave a lot of useful advise on the basics for me and I appreciated that a lot, one of the most useful things that he mentioned was to use my size and power to control the person beneath me, as a lot of the guys there were smaller. We rolled hard and he dominated me and swept me in less than a minute! Short but sweet! The next blue belt was smaller than me so I decided to use Jason’s advice and managed to break guard once (using the technique we were shown that night) and muscle the guy around a little, however he recovered guard and then swept me like lightning.
At the end of the class was free rolling, Jason picked me out as I was the biggest guy there and he wanted to used my size in escaping side mount. I managed to stay with him a couple of times and control him a little with my weight, so I am more than happy. By the end of class I was shattered!
When I woke up on Saturday morning I was really stiff and sore, especially my right thigh. Hopefully I will be able to run for class on Monday!
One of the big weakness’ I have is that I have no power in my hips and really do need to work this, I was finding it difficult moving on the bottom from side to side using the hips. I will have a look on the inter-web to see if there are any drills that I can find. If anyone has any advice please share.
Over ‘N’ Out
Just a quick one - Does anyone out there have any tips or tricks on how I can deal with the missing skin on the knuckles of my hands and the tops of my feet? I read on another blog that there have been varying successes with the spray plaster, or should I just use tape? (any specific kind?!)
Please email or comment if you have any suggestions!
Over ‘N’ Out
..and a good one at that!
So last night was my first class in a year (pretty much), and it was fantastic!
The night started with the usual warm up session, I remember my brief stint last year, and to be honest I was that out of shape then I was gassed by the end of it. I am glad to say that my more active lifestyle over the past 6 months has actually helped my fitness a lot, the warm up last night was no problemat all.
The first portion of the class after the warmup was a drill on passing the guard to side control. Now being a newbie, I am going to refrain from writing the actual techniques up here, I will more than likely get it wrong! The other techniques that were covered were various chokes by using the gi and grips around the collar of the gi - both from side control and full mount. I found the chokes quite fascinating, purely because of the simplicity, and variations available.
The last session of the evening was sparring/rolling. I sat out the first few but joined in towards the end and rolled with a guy called Vince. now Vince’s ethic with me was dont stop working, and although I was completely shattered after 5/10 mins, I really liked the way he wanted me to work, and it is something that I feel I respond to. He gave me respect for being a newbie, but there was also that underlying work ethic that was pushed from the word go, and I really like that.
At the end of the night there was a promotion, Thien was promoted to purple belt. It was at this point when the family side of jiu-jitsu started to show. The sence of a team shone through because everyone in that room was genuinely happy that he had been promoted.. or maybe they were happy because they knew what was coming next! - the whipping! The newly promoted guy had to walk the length of the gym 3 times, and the other students had the pleasure of whipping them with their belt. I counted roughly 28 other guys in that room, so he would of had at least 80 ‘lashes’. Now reading this it might sound a bit harsh, but everyone, and most importantly the ‘whipee’ was laughing and smiling like a cheshire cat. So it was all in good jest.
I also want to say something about the instructor for the night, Wilson Junior who was excellent. He took the time from the class to show me (and my newbie rolling partner) the moves again, and how each individual step impacts the goal that we were looking to achieve, but more importantly, when I first walked through the door he introduced himself with a smile, shook my hand and took the time out to have quick chat before we got started. That for me got things going on the right foot.
I have skin missing from the tops of my feet, my hands ache from all the gripping and feel as though I have been hit by a truck. More importantly, I am looking forward to the next class!
Over ‘N’ Out.
Ok so here is post one. The ‘genesis’ of my BJJ life.
I am kinda disappointed that this post has not come sooner. To be completely 100% honest I am probably 6 weeks late in writing this, correction, I am 6 weeks late in getting my lazy ass back to BJJ. I think that this is the point where I write a couple of excuses, such as work, and being busy blah blah blah.. but I am going to save you from all that.
I will be attending class as much as possible this coming week, that I can guarantee! The strange thing is, as I sit here thinking about going I do get a little bit nervous and I am not sure why. It’s not that I will be the ‘new boy’ to the class, I can handle that. It’s not the fact that I am out of shape (as I am probably in better shape now than I was the last time I done BJJ last year) maybe it is just a little bit of those two reasons mixed with a dollop of the great unknown.
Nerves are a funny thing, and they can be handled in many different ways.. Which reminds me, check out the guys at the fightworks podcast who’s last podcast was on handling nerves in BJJ competitions. Anyhow, I am sure that 2 mins after stepping back onto the mat I will be ok.
As this is my first official post I want to tell you about some of the other areas of this blog.. I have the obligatory ‘about me’ section, that actually doesnt give away too much! I also have a tongue in cheek weight graph, which will show any weight loss that I incur as a good bonus to BJJ, you can see my rating from ‘fatty boom boom’ which I am now, all the way down to ‘twig’ . I doubt I will ever get down to that, but hey, one can dream! Some of the other areas that I will be posting some information is in the pictures and video section, so keep your mince pies open.
Feel free to leave any comments or advice on my posts. I want to be able to not only share my experiences through BJJ here, but get advice from you guys out there from the feedback you leave.
Over ‘N’ Out
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