Really good class. Thursdays are specifically tailored for 200+lbers.
Worked DLR and HQ passes and DLR sweep when opponent stuffs far leg
Then had three colored belts lay on ground (me included), while rest of class cycled through for 1 minute of trying to pass guard then 10 seconds off. We did that for 12 rounds. I was gassed, but didn’t give up guard once.
Then positional sparring from close guard and side control. Highlight here is I passed the purple belt who always gives me trouble’s guard, got into side control. He tried to wrestle up and I took his back, elevated up with my feet on his hips, had a lapel across his neck and arm above head isolated when two teenagers were picking around wrestling and fell on us. I didn’t get to finish sub, but he was dead to rights. I won’t claim the sub on him yet. Still have to earn it.
We then sparred for 5 rounds. I got Adam Wards Butterfly 3.0 and working on expanding my Z Guard game. Was able to get my leg entry from K, hit an undertook to take back, John Wayne sweep and the move of day. Big focus on not tying up my bottom leg between opponents and keeping both knees framed. Next step is to turn top knee shield vertical and insert for lazy butterfly. I think lazy butterfly is next evolution or my guard game. I feel good about entering K and Ashi/SIingle X (depending on rule set).
Huge Wardz fan. Some great BJJ Scout material on him for free on YT, if you haven’t seen it. Also love hearing about all that positional/specific work - might have been my favorite way to train.
I’ve watched every Ward video I can find. Part of buying the series was supporting him, because his content is so great.
This is one of my favorite ways to train as well. I always have specific things I want to train and the fluidity of a spar doesn’t always allow you to get there. Especially as I continue to build my guard game. I missed F2W last night, because I was watching WNO. Some big highlights were Rana hitting a heel hook very early. She looked super comfortable in debut.
The Jay Rod vs. Ronaldo was fun to watch. Ronaldo had great wrestling counters for Jay.
Tainan was no surprise, he’s technically great.
Ryan Aitkin might be one of my favorites of recent to watch. He’s strong and plays a good guard game. Pato was fun, but he couldn’t finish.
Both Rana and Pato were attacking the leg from knee shield the way I’ve been working lately. Cool to see them do it at a high level. Here’s the entry, where she locks onto that leg and works the sweep. In my matches last month, I did this, but rolled towards them vs. moving to ashi/SX.
I got about 8 rounds in at open mat. Good rolls, just focused on:
Inserting butterfly hook from half guard and hit lazy butterfly sweep. I successfully did it about 3 times
Staying more on side than back from half. This instantly led to me taking peoples back
Passing from HQ
Lot of focus on hip switching and knee cut
Locking opponents hips, with outside leg, grabbing lapel and far side pant and backstepping
Few notable rounds:
Friend was recently promoted to black belt. I hadn’t seen him in about 8 months. He got 2 times, but lots of movement on both our ends. I passed his guard for a hot second before he proceeded to sweep with my own gi
One of the two purple belts on my list was there. I took his back, from half (as noted earlier) and sunk in a bow and arrow. Most people would have tapped, but he did some forceful knock on my strangling arm and tucked his chin. We kept going and I controlled his back for most of round getting him belly down. Just couldn’t finish.
Then worked with a whitebelt. He’s about 6’, but much much lighter. He wants to develop a half guard game, so just gave him some A, B C options to learn.
Headed into final week of work. In the office this week, no work is expected of me. Just sitting, waiting to hear back from interviews I had. I don’t expect to get any of them, despite how well they went. Found out my boss has been keeping tabs on my interviewing process, he mentioned he ‘gets an update and knows the hiring managers and their bosses’. He tried to make it sound like he could put in a good word, but honestly, I think he’s just torpedoing me. I’ll find out my severance package on Friday.
Decided to go into office way late and got a spontaneous session in with friends I hadn’t seen since Origin camp. Three purple belts and myself. Had a good time, was able to hit all the sweeps I wanted and land subs. In the five rounds, my guard was not passed, I was able to keep myself under opponent even if they had cross face and undertook and use butterfly to lift them and get into SX or K. Twice I was in an upright north/south position (me on my neck) and I went into donkey guard, pulled them down with legs, rolled them on their stomach and took the back.
Used all my plates and my 40lb weight vest for that final set. Went up smooth, but wasn’t a huge fan of posture so stopped at a triple
If I need more weight in future, I’ll have to goblet squat my 85lb KB 100lb med ball or 150lb med ball in future. haha I kind of like the challenge of that over buying more plates
First time really pushing any weight on belt squat, so hard to say it’s a PR. First time I’ve attempted that much. Sets of 10 at 320 will probably be where I work from here on.
I took a job offer I got yesterday. I was given six work weeks to find a new role. Currently a lvl 7 out of 9. I applied to a handful of 7s, three 8s and one lvl 6 and had interviews for nearly all the roles… (at one point, thought I’d work a promo out of the deal) sadly, the only role that made it through interview process in time was the lvl 6 role. Given I only have until Friday, I took the demotion. I’ve got some side things I’m pursuing that could be very big, so I’ll pursue that. I should have a lot more mental capacity and time, given my new role is less demanding. We’ll see. A job is better than no job, even if it’s a step back.
Thanks @raven78 and @burien_top_team. Last day was yesterday. Was a weird day. Said bye to a few friends, but most of them were off for a long weekend. Didn’t even see my boss. Just left. Sent a final teams chat in our group with my boss and immediately left. Ha. I start new gig on Tuesday and can already tell it’s super chill. Had 20 or so welcome messages and cat memes. Nice welcome back to tech vs. strategy teams.
All in all, I’m starting to see the positives. Will go from 60+ hours of work to 10-20, plus side hustle.
To be clear, the side hustle is just doing remote version of my old company. I landed a new contract that will give me two years of work. I’m going to create an additional company to segment the client base. Then just keep scaling. I don’t want to work more than 20 hours a week on it. In past I delivered and ran company. I’m just going to operate the company and hire people to deliver. Last thing for now, I really wanted to prove to myself I could be successful in corporate life and rise to a senior role. I did that. I refined skills, made connections and developed new ones. It was a 3 year experiment and I’m ready to start my own thing again. More to come.
Friday
Pull ups
30
High incline bench
10x135
10x155
5x5x175
3x8x175
DB Bench
3x15
Tricep Ext
30
Saturday
Pull-ups
30
KB Swings
100x85lb bell
DB Lat Pullover
3x10
KB Row
3x8x85lb
Cable row
2x20
Curls
100 reps
my wrist is fucked. Not sure if it’s from BJJ or from pull-ups. I’ve been targetted for wrist locked a lot lately, but also pull-ups have been killing me with wide grip. Chicken or egg. Probably should chill out on pull-ups
Friday was best chest pump of my life
Saturday was best arm pump of my life
Started eating higher carbs last 3 days
I’m getting leaner. It’s weird. Have lower stomach veins, but my body is holding fat right at belly button. Going to drop carbs again this week
Small open mat. I think people are enjoying the long weekend. Not much to write about, lackluster roles. I got 7 rounds in. I was feeling slow today. Had guard passed and just worked defense. Was able to escape mount and back control from a purple. Got submitted twice. Once via straight arm arm bar from bottom side and by heel hook from a 150lb white belt who sat back with it from knee shield. Bstard.
I shouldn’t workout tomorrow, but it’s a day off and I probably will still.
Feeling pretty stuffed. I cleaned out ice bath, so might jump in this afternoon.
Normally, I’m every other week in office, but my new role requires me to go in this week. So, I’ll be back to back weeks. Annoying, because I get more done at home. Although, it’s much easier to control food intake at office. Will keep it strict with high protein.
I feel really close to my end goal leanness wise. I don’t want to stop now, so going to push to end of month and see how I look. If I have to, I’ll go until 3/15. That’s 1.5 months longer than I wanted to, but will be worth it to go into summer trying to gain size.
Yesterday’s open mat kind of made me feel deflated. Things are getting a bit stale. I’m working on expanding my game and happy with that, but I need to train somewhere new again. I’m going 3 months at same place, similar outcomes to situations. Since schedule dictates my schedule, it’s hard to find other places… Currently my schedule is TR night and Sunday afternoon, with occasional early morning on MWF or rare T/TR morning. I think I’ll do a different affiliate’s Thursday and maybe go to a new affiliate I’ve never been to earlier on Sunday. @burien_top_team, would love to hear your thoughts on keeping the momentum when you have dejavu rolls with same opponents each week? I’ve tried to switch between affiliates every few months.
I’m trying to systematically work through guards to sweep/submission. For example, closed guard:
Arm drag back take
Arm drag arm bar
Hip bump sweep
Guillotine
Pendulum Sweep
Open up to Half > explore half
Then, Half Guard:
Arm Drag to back
Kimura
Underhook to back
Choi bar
Scissor Sweep
K Guard > now explore K
Grab far leg and work Single X > now explore single X
Grab far leg and roll into saddle > now explore saddle 9. Grab far leg and extend into Waiter > now explore waiter 10. Transition from Z to lazy butterfly > now explore lazy butterfly
^^ This has been my process for last 1.5 years. I’m currently working bolded areas and move to next series when I can confidently get to that position. Obviously, I still work details for passing or transitions, but this my very specific positional objective when training. Some side quests have been:
Tripod passing
blocking hips when passing
Controlling hips/elbows in scrambles
Darce/Anaconda
Keeping legs tight and compressed on opponent to limit moving
etc.
Summer is my favorite, because I don’t have to take kids to school. So, I can go to our main HQ school for 630 class. That’s always a brutal 6x6minute round with strict 1 minute breaks.
It’s interesting. For my first 17-18 years of training, I trained at the same school and often with the same teammates over and over again.
I found that it depended on the relationship that you build over time. With some guys, it was always about war, going pretty aggressively start to finish. With others, it tended to get lighter and lighter over the years, “friendlier” for a lack of a better way of putting it.
Each type of teammate would give me different options. I might go way out on limb and play a radically different game with a “friendly” partner, or maybe focus on escapes (not “defense”). With the aggressive teammate, my game is likely more limited, but since I know where he’s coming from, I can decide how much variation I want to test.
I also used to go through “roll like Roger” or “roll like Marcelo” modes from time to time.
Another option to refresh might be to do more “attribute-free” training which I think we talked about (I’d seen a Shawn Williams Instagram post or something). The opposite end of the spectrum to try might be something like a Gordon Ryan-esque “calling your shot” and only allowing yourself one type of submission or guard pass, or something like focusing on taking and re-taking the back as many times as possible.
Your approach to grappling is exceptionally strategic. I can see how easy it could be to feel limited training with the same partners repeatedly compared to someone whose training approach was less focused.
Appreciate your thoughts! I’m going to think through how to work them in.
To some extent I have this, but often times, people see a 6’4” 230lb opponent and go hard.
This may be a problem. Perhaps I should chill a bit and just flow more? I got fairly regimented because I could only train 1-2 times a week and wanted to make sure I used time well.
High Incline Bench
10x135
10x155
8x175
5x185
3x205
2x205 - couldn’t safely get the last one
DB incline Bench
2x20x52.5lbs
Tricep rope Pulldown
2x12
Wrist is marginally better. I could support the weight but was still moderately painful. Feel good with weight tho
DB Bench and Triceps were done with the Surge Challenge protocol of slow eccentrics for 5 seconds and final set a 30 second in the hole
First day at work… job is very very chill. My boss is chill, the pace is chill, the expectations don’t even exist compared to my last role. (Ex. If ppt boxes were slightly out of line, missed a comma in text or made the ‘M’ in ($M) a lowercase, the world would come to an end)
A quick thought on this. I don’t think it’s a problem. Just a challenge in the current circumstance.
I think both “Escape Artist” and “Attribute-Free Training” might be good ways to implement a flow-based training that won’t leave you feeling as if you’re wasting valuable mat time.
I like the escape artist approach. I was listening to John Danaher on the Fight Back podcast (Jake Shields) and he mentions 80% of sparring sessions take place in a disadvantaged spot. I’m going to propose to folks that I start in bottom side/bottom mount/back exposure for awhile.
I’m not sure how to go without attributes. Strength is easy to mute, as I generally don’t try to out muscle people, but long legs and flexibility seem harder to remove .
Wednesday
Pullups
3x4 - Went with very slow eccentric, hang for 10 seconds, then up again. My wrists do not like this much.
Z Press (maybe? Seated on ground, legs in front of me, pressing from a pin)
10x135
8x155
2x3x155
Machine OHP
20
3x10 - 5 sec eccentric, 2 sec pause in hole and explode up
Lateral Raises
3x12
Tricep DB OH ext
3x12
first workout at office and damn, we have a great setup. Nicest squat rack I’ve ever seen, assisted pull-up/dip, commercial machines, DBs up to 120lbs, cable machine, etc. best of all… a trap bar and SSB.
I’ve always been too busy to ever explore the gym and see if worthwhile. New job is sooooooooo chill have time to eat meals and workout
quick nutritional update:
every morning I crack open a 42P shake and energy drink. Get ready for work and get kid up for school
Get to office and pickup 6 scrambled eggs, a ton of butter and one biscuit
Lunch I’ve been eating 2 slices of cheese pizza and 42p shake
Late lunch, 42p shake and workout
Dinner at home has been meat and rice or meat and tortilla. Veggies thrown in of course, but don’t track them
I’m eating way more, but mostly protein and feeling great. Every workout is really good and feeling leaner each day. I had cake last week to celebrate my last day of previous role and had zero effect on how I felt. Almost feel like my body is running way more efficiently and can process excess sugar.
