Sunday
6x25x80lb KB Swings w/3xpullups between sets
Cable rows
4x15
Cable face pulls
4x15
Monday
4x25x80lb KB Seings w/15 lateral raises between sets
30 pull-ups
Tuesday
2mile 40lb vest walk in 28:37
20 pull-ups and 120seconds bar hang
Weight: 225
Tuesday - off
Wednesday
Hit a night class, first one since April of last year. Rolled with the last purple belt who owns me. We both are competing tomorrow night, so we went 3 hard 6 min rounds. First one was very hard fought. I almost had his back, with arm extended over his head, but couldn’t lock in my far hook, before he drove into me. Learned some key things tho, against good wrestling background folks, an over under pass breaks my guard quickly. I need to do better at creating angle and having my legs operate at different planes. My initial contact is thighs or hips, with both feet and a sleeve grip. I need to go with a shin/thigh and shoulder or keep knee tight to chest until they react. Feel very sore today and body weak.
My weight is a very frustrating 226. Have to go very light today to make it in morning.
Good luck on the competition!
The over under pass is brutal. I trained with a black belt here at Mako who said he doesn’t even use it in training very much because he thinks it’s so powerful of a guard pass. It’s my go-to against the toughest guards.
BJJ Scout did a great investigation into Murilo Santana’s game; Santana is a master of the over under pass. If you’re looking for strategies to defend against it, his videos might be tool for reverse engineering …
This is great, thanks!!
Thursday
Completely off. Had one meal yesterday - 1lb of chicken breast and 2 hard boiled eggs. Then had 3 protein shakes throughout day. My weight at night was 226, so felt good.
Friday morning
Weight: 222.9! Damn. Made it with room to spare, I didn’t manipulate water much at all. Just dropped carbs and upped water to flush myself out. Making 218 on 2/1 should be easy from here.
Good luck regarding your competition!
Thank you! Getting very real now. Just gotta make it through my meeting less day at office.
Here’s a quick screenshot from video weigh in I did. Was too tired to think about taking an actual photo. My face is very sunken in compared to normal. Lotta people at office have asked what I’m doing cause I loom smaller (in a positive way. Haha)
Now I’m on path to gain weigh before tonight. Hoping to reclaim up to 235.
at 7:17 is how I escape, when I can. Maybe 25% of time against good opponents. That’s how Tim Kennedy passed my guard. For tonight, my plan is to try and disengage quickly if that happens. Then, it’ll be back to lab before 2/1. After that, I’ll try and build a system of A/B/C responses.
The older I get the more I realize the harsh reality that there is no more improvement that can take place at this point. I am what I am about 2 weeks out, my best hope is to be that person at 90-100%. Occasionally, magic happens that pushes you past what you have done previously, but that is a very rare scenario.
Meant to do this write up yesterday, but got distracted with life and didn’t want to use my phone.
The rules changed a bit this past week leading into matches, which I really liked. You got 1 point for a weak submission attempt and 3 points for a good one. The difference between good and bad is simply effort required to get out of it. Late stage defense essentially. I should have changed my plan based on this. More on that later.
First match was pretty early. My plan was sit to guard (he was a 21 y/o wrestler), get to RDLR/Zguard, enter K and move to leg locks.
Second match (no video yet). I sit to guard and enter same position. Normally, I would be looking choi bar, but they had seen my work nogi and were reluctant to enter too close. I do not remember much, because adrenaline was very high, but he got mount at one point and went through a series of sub attempts - paper cutter, Ezekiel, Americana, arm bar, but didn’t get any. I did a trap and roll on the Americana attempt, ended up in his close guard. Got free, then let him sweep me into my half guard (benefit of a non traditional point system is I don’t care about being swept to my favorite position). I had about a minute left and was down 4-0 and knew I had to pull the miracle sub, which I’ve gotten some good people with. I pushed hard into him with my knees, then pulled him tight and got a loop choke. I held it for about 20 seconds, he was turning red, threw my leg over, but my forearms were gassed. I got 3 points… at this point, I’m exhausted thinking I need to sweep… which is dumb. I should have gone for a choi. He was giving me his arm. I was tunnel visioned into thinking I should grab the arm and butterfly sweep him for points. I lost 4-3.
It was a really really good experience for me. Despite losing both, the most valuable thing was I’m not good at competing, when my match is center stage, people are close and yelling things. I was incredibly distracted. I need to tune it all out. I had a cross face and underhook on top half and pulled the cross face out, rather than squeezing tight, using my head and tripod’ing to mount like I do every single time. I passed both their guards easy, I just failed in pressure. My wife joked after that I’m not an instinctual person, I’m a very technical person (something she says alllll the time) and use technique to make up for my lack of instincts. I always argue with her on this point, but might concede she’s right finally.
Back to wrist. The adrenaline was absolutely insane. My elbow popped a bit when he cranked the armbar, but I could tell was fine. I didn’t realize until an hour after first fight and 30mins before second that my wrist was properly F’d. I didn’t even know he was cranking on it with the arm bar. I’m wearing a brace, but there isn’t a position where my wrist doesn’t hurt.
Final thoughts: A sub only fight has way more intensity than a competition with 20 other mats, scoring by points for sweeps and positions. In fact, most rule sets don’t give any benefit for sub attempts. I was not ready for it. Cardio wise, I was great. Mentally tho, I didn’t have time. It was all go, bull in china shop from opponents.
Saturday
Morning Weight: 227
Belt Squat
20x90lbs
15x180lbs
3x12x230lbs
Leg Ext
5x20
Bar Hangs (with straps, cause F’d wrist)
3x90 secs
Great writeups, totally understand on the adrenaline and trying to remember wtf happened in that previous match etc…
Was this a ‘warmup’ comp for the bigger upcoming weight cut event on the 2nd?
Suspect I may be similar - and have an upcoming comp that’s submission only based too. Love the posts, keep 'em coming!
Do they give points? This one was unusual because points weren’t awarded for position, but submission attempts. Made everything more aggressive.
Sunday - did a workout
Monday - did a workout
Tuesday and Wed - didn’t do a workout
Thursday - morning weight: 226. Weight has been fluctuating between 222-226. I’m going to make it to class tonight, only 10 days until next comp.
I’ve only competed in submission only events, and for the one’s I’ve done, there are no points awarded. You win by submission. The only exception is, if you go the full round without a submission, you go into an overtime scenario, where you both have an opportunity to escape from a hold. The fastest to escape OR the quickest to score a submission from the hold wins.
That’s how my recent comp was supposed to be. The promoter got a wild idea to give points to sub attempts, which made everyone way more aggressive.
I’ve now seen three different rulesets with three different approaches:
Curious on thoughts from others, @burien_top_team, @twojarslave
@dchris I’ll link it in my thread but first 2x rounds sub only (then points in OT if it’s 1-1). But there’s still penalties and catch/points for partial subs? It’s all a bit weird and funky as it’s a new organiser and new ruleset for this comp compared to historical comps here in Adelaide.
Have tagged you in my post just now.
Have been meaning to share a few thoughts. Will swing back through later.
W/re2 tournament rules, I’ve really enjoyed the EBI rules, though I know it’s become increasingly common to game the regular time and try to just win the overtime.
Aside from that, I do like Fight2Win rules. No points, per se. But three judges who decide on the winner if there is no submission. The criterion is effective submission attempts, which I think is an effort to avoid the submission-spamming that can happen if a purely quantitative approach to sub attempts is used.
This is a great launching point for a rant, especially since both of my coaches just teamed up to bug me to hit up an open mat. They’re both so far now, but I’m overdue.
To me it all depends on what someone wants to get out of grappling. I chose to never pollute my head with points strategies, deliberately going out of my way to know very little about the specifics. I get the concept, though.
Going for points is, in my opinion, nearly mutually exclusive with training to handle violence with your bare hands. Not 100 percent, because you’ll always be growing more capable than before, but that re-ordering of priorities is how we ended up with so many schools where very little is done on the feet and “serious” competitions with shameful and un-watchable butt-scooting and donkey guard.
I know of a few rooms where, say, my old bouncing co-worker, who does not lift or train, could walk into and have zero people capable of consistently bringing him to the ground under normal sparring conditions. He’s 50 and probably around 350lbs right now. I’ve never sparred with him, but I’ve watched him work.
Contrast that with the place I mentioned in Portland, where I’d say most normal-sized purple belts and above would figure something out within a minute or less. Even the blues and senior whites will have a somewhat organized toolbox and get him down occasionally, even if he’s a bigger puzzle box than most. Browns and blacks would likely be very quick and decisive about it, or at least be able to if they chose to be aggressive.
As a sport, it’s perfectly fine if you want to play points games. All grappling competitions are games, and sub-only isn’t THAT much closer to a “real” fight than IBJJF points rules are. I only competed in sub-only, which was a worthwhile experience but not something I aspire to do at a high level.
Introducing points introduces incentives to train in a way that’s less effective in a violent situation. IBJJF rules and points are basically the same thing that happened with Judo over the last century, but less entertaining for casual spectators to watch.
From everything I’ve learned about all this, what’s going on in that room in Portland is probably closer to Judo as it existed before becoming an Olympic sport than Judo is today. In Kano’s time, Judo was training all of grappling that worked, excluding all “too deadly to train” techniques that can’t be trained with intensity against resistance.
As to my favorite “BJJ” competition format, I present more of my coach’s coach’s ideas.
My coach floated the idea of me competing in one of these “burners” that his coach put on, but I decided that the risk outweighed any reward and did not put my name forward in my late 30’s. This “Reality Check BJJ” is, all things considered, my favorite BJJ competition format I’ve ever seen. As a concept, it introduces a significant amount of realism that forces you to respect strikes in your grappling.
As an aside, ALL of the curriculum at Jay’s school respects strikes. That’s why you’ll learn a side control escape there where you glue your ear to the person’s arm in the hopes that they rip it away to strike, allowing you to get back up in base (to your feet). It’s basically a Turkish Get Up, but with a body.
His whole curriculum is (mostly) cross-compatible between gi and no-gi, as well. I really can’t say enough good things about the genius of the methodology this man had developed. Kind of like original Judo, part of the genius is in what he DOESN’T include on the curriculum.
He’s produced quite a few high-level grapplers and locally competitive fighters, but no UFC champions. What he has produced is a LOT of VERY dangerous people who have real capabilities. The first gal in this video (wearing the leggings) was a three or four stripe white belt at the time, and her organized response and his coaching is quite evident here.
Edit: During the course of my rant I lost sight of addressing the rather wild idea of sub attempts for points. I’m not surprised it was more fun to watch, as it encouraged more activity.
To me the really interesting thing to ponder is how “BJJ” would look after 10 years of re-ordering the training priorities around winning in this competition format. Would something emerge that tops donkey guard?
If I exclude my local competition format I linked above, I think F2W put on the best grappling competitions overall. It is probably the most watch-able, too. I’m proud to have gotten tapped out by a few people who’ve competed and won in it!
re Video - red cheeks for some, that ladies match was epic! @twojarslave
I’m glad you enjoyed it. To also give proper credit, the female coaching in the video is a pioneer in women’s MMA and also co-owner of the gym. Maine somehow lucked out with an extremely unusual husband and wife pair who have successfully created really dangerous copies of themselves for decades.
I’ve come to conclude that the entire operation is a benevolent pyramid scheme, but scheme is the wrong word because you can actually climb the pyramid. It still preys upon those who occupy the lower levels, as it must to properly operate.
I liked this particular version of the BJJ cult and still do because they all carry the torch for every single person who shows up to martial arts in the hope of being harder to beat up and becoming more dangerous with your bare hands.
100 percent, as advertised, whether you’re a powerlifter or a domestic violence victim. It is a room full of Mogwais exposed to water, long in the process of multiplying into the legion of rude gremlins unwelcome among those who behave differently.
Will get back to everyone’s comments later today.
Morning weight: 223!
This is a new low for me. While I hit 222 last Friday, it was in a fasted state. While the number is good, came down from 240ish in October, I hoped to be much leaner. Not surprising, I somewhat expected to overestimate how lean I was/am. Rather than end cut on 2/1. I think I’ll push to 215 then reassess.
I went to night class last night. Not a lot of bigger guys, due to cold that’s been going around.
First round (8mo white belt)
I’m being less nice to white belts and going for sweep, submission vs. just playing guard. Got S Mount and transitioned to triangle finish on my back. Then a head and arm triangle and finally I intentionally got into the loop choke position I couldn’t finish last Friday in the competition, but cleared my hips and finished it as a Canto
Second round (Purple belt who has my number)
Much better rounds with him. To counter his over/under, I did an arm drag on the ‘under’ arm. This slowed him down quite a bit. I nearly got an arm bar on him, when he stood up and used his knee and other arm to scrape his arm free, I rotated and took the other arm as time expired. He got me mid round in a head and arm triangle
Third round (brown belt)
We started in my closed guard. Wasted 3 minutes just hand fighting and going for positions. He stood up, so I grabbled leg, went from K > SX and rolled for a straight ankle. He was able to pull free, stood up in my half and then snatched my ankle and got me in a straight ankle lock. Typical brown belt things
Fourth round (purple belt again)
Solid round. He got me in a straight arm bar from side control or smashing me in half, can’t recall. There was a moment when he was going to pass my guard and I threw a Hail Mary by grabbing his far sleeve and pushing against his bicep. It worked great and I recovered guard.
This is the issue with all point system rules. There’s always a way to game them. Completely agree regarding EBI. Passively passing guard because you know you can win EBI is a lame strategy. Likewise, IBJFF scoring winning by advantages and a single pass. ADCC has this issue to an extent as well. Where you can continue to rack up KOB points, for instance, side control > KOB > side control > etc. There’s also a lack of engagement in first 5 minutes, until points come on.
@twojarslave, you’re lucky to have a school with that caliber and curriculum, especially for being in a low populated area. I’ll be back in Maine this summer and planning on traveling alone. Now that I have a good feel for the area and schedule, I can go off camp when I want.
Training at D5 schools, I can get the pure IBJJF jiu jitsu. The main school teaches combos to get a quick x amount of points. There’s an affiliate close by taught by an MMA competitor, who focuses on wrestling, a hobbyist one that has a great schedule and gives us keys and then plenty of former seal, berets, etc. who teach combative jiu jitsu. There’s really a great plethora of styles based on what you are looking for all under one affiliate and within 20-30 minutes of each other. I don’t train combative jiu Jitsu as much as I’d like, but when I have, I find it terrible. lol it’s a whole other world to be aware weapons.
Once a month, a school I go to very frequently has an LEO week. The instructor was a former Special Ops and combative instructor. We wear street clothes, have gloves, OWB gun/knife holsters and nerf guns. Starting from standup, positional control to not give up your weapon or allow them their weapon and take them to ground for cuffing is a very difficult task. Other scenarios include being knocked down and having someone throw punches, while you are on back. Round ends, not with time, but with submission due to overwhelming impact or taking control of situation and restraining aggressor.
This is incredibly true. Every blue belt is trying to encourage white belts to continue, so they aren’t bottom of pyramid. haha
