Wonderful thing is that BJJ is all about family… thought it would be nice to bring the wife and baba out to LEMMA to hang out where I spend a good portion of my life training. Maybe one day I will convince her to start BJJ. Made sure to brew a largr pot of coffee this morning, only -16 out this morning while walking my dog Chucky Lee Norris… had a couple glasses from my favorite 12 year old aged bottle of scotch last night… delightfully hell to get up this morning with the baba fussing all night. I’m soooo thankful for a great wife.

Yay, day off… some guys posted on our LEMMA Facebook group to have an open mat at noon… finally had an opportunity to bring by the baby and the wife for a bit, may get his first shark tank in “not”. I was a little disappointed with the turnout at noon, though. The guys that requested it didn’t even show up. Ah well, ups and downs… all is good though we had a few people turn out… when your at home watching TV or recovering from your late night out… or tell me you have a life out of BJJ, 1.5 hours of training won’t ruin it… truth. Hard to commit I guess… and hey I understand. I have a wife, baby, and full time job as well, sometimes going on 2 hours sleep because of #babyproblems… whats your excuse? Iron sharpens iron, when your at home we all lose on a training partner OTM. BJJ is nothing without training partners. Just my opinion and end rant…

Oh well, it was good enough to get a sweat on… a little pissed at my my performance… in BJJ we tweak our joints all the time, even unknowingly. I must have tweaked my right elbow yesterday or something… rolling with a furious white belt I guess. Gotta roll differently with them… expect the unexpected, I guess defense mode for their 175 percent outputs and scrambles. Had to wear a elbow tensor bandage after warming up with Jesse, still not sure how I hurt it… weird, just push forward they say.

Nice though, learned a new entry and foot placement for a standing double under pass from one of our lovely Nogi 10PJJ enthusiast Jsse Veltri, as well as an introduction to the truck. Jesse Veltri has been training with us for a few years now, primarily focussed in Nogi. He just recently competed at Gracie Nationals as a blue belt Nogi competitor under 10PJJ, got a submission in his first match at roughly 15 mins, but got knockout in his second match. 10PJJ works lol… it freaking works in Nogi competitions as well as has MMA applications especially due to not relying on the GI as primary focus is GI grips. Cool thing about techniques in BJJ is that as a whole it is part of grappling… there is soooo much evolving and changing in this sport and industry. Techniques are evolving, changing, improving, getting more efficient, and relying less on theory, with more on applied application. If you want to beat it… you have to learn it that’s just it, any great master will tell you that. BJJ with a GI and BJJ without a GI are two different beasts. These two styles have different applied applications with completely different grips and friction that could prevent a technique to be used in one but rather in the other. Not going to lie, I’m a GI guy that trains Nogi only in the summer, which worked out to about 2 time a week… if provided another class, maybe once a week… I would attend and it’s the truth.

The great thing about today though, was that I brought my 2 month old finally out to our gym… cutie… can’t wait till I get an opportunity to teach him what I know about basic self defense and BJJ. He is a definite black belt in being a natural cutie.

Warm Up:

1. With Jesse Veltri, the standing double under pass entries to back take, 20 mins

 Rolling:  

1. Steven Maley, hard flow round, 1 x 10 min round
2. Travis Duncan, hard round, 1 x 10 min round
3. Jesse Veltri, hard round with defense, 1 x 10 min round

Maybe we’ll see you out for tomorrow’s 8pm BJJ class!!

Ossu.

-40 c out this morning, the day after Valentine’s Day… Fan-freaking-tastic. Had me mah morning java… walked ma dog, fast it was… no snooping around. Sooo cold out ;p;  Got to the Gym at 9am.

9am training consisted of tabata styled movements with the grappling dummy. 60 secs per movement, with 5, different exercises as hard and as fast as possible. 5 sets total 60 sec breaks between sets.

5 Sets of:
1. 60 sec, knee belly switches
2. 60 sec, side control switches
3. 60 sec, mount to s-mount, alternating sides
4. 60 sec, standing up side control switches
5. 60 sec, side control, push-ups to knee belly, alternating knees

Below is a cool 10 min video clip of me working on the grappling dummy this morning at 9am in slow motion for my 1st set lol… enjoy hahaha.

Turned out to be a very very small group today just me and Furious Scotty Hall… lucky him, he gets private… says him lol.

20 min Warm-up:
1. Jogged around the mat the insides to outside switches for a few laps
2. Lunges, 1 lap
3. Forward shoulder rolls, alternating shoulders, 2 x across mat
4. Reverse shoulder rolls, alternating shoulders, 2 x across mat
5. Side shoulder rolls, 1 x across mat left side & 1 x across mat right side
6. Forward butt scoots, 2 x across mat
7. Reverse butt scoots, 2 x across mat
8. Backwards shrimping, 2 x across mat
9. Forward shrimping, 2 x across mat
10. Backwards break fall to technical stand, 2 x across mat
11. Forward break falls to technical stand, 2 x across mat
12. Inside Z walks, 1 x across mat forward, 1 x across mat backwards
13. Outside Z walks, 1 x across mat forward, 1 x across mat backwards
14. Tri-angles, 1 x across mat

I asked Scott what he wanted to work on and he asked me for a few closed guard submissions and how to prevent guys from breaking out of his closed guard. We went through the arm bar and kimura from closed guard. We discussed key points of control to maintain your closed guard with elbow flaring, sleeve/cross-standard thumb in and pistol grips, cross lapel grip control, and using your legs by pulling your knees to your chest to take your opponent off balance. We discussed how he needs to continually keep his opponents posture broken and off balance with all of these various points of control to keep them in his closed guard. I then showed my variation of a closed guard kimura and what I call the lazy man arm bar

Scott, below are a few cool clips I found on maintaining the closed guard by Stephan Kesting.

Technique:

1. Reviewed closed guard kimura attack, with a monkey and keeping the guard closed.

 Scott, below is a cool clip I found on the kimura by Stephan Kesting.

2. Reviewed lazy arm bar, with a foot on the hip and bringing up the knee on the other side.

 Scott, below is a cool clip I found on the this armbar by Stephan Kesting.

Positional Resistance Drilling:

1. Maintaining the closed guard, 60 sec intervals, 5 reps
2. Closed guard kimura attack, 20 reps, each side
3. Lazy arm bar, 20 reps, each side

Rolling: (5 x 5 mins Rounds)

1. With the Furious Scotty Hall

Below is my 2nd set with a 2.5 min sped up video clip of me drilling with the grappling dummy at 9 am this morning hahaha enjoy.

Hope to everyone out for Open Mat at 12pm tomorrow on Family day!!

Ossu.