Math and BJJ

So apparently when you go on vacation from work there is approximately 100x more things to do than when you left ten days ago. This has been the story of my life since January 3rd, but thankfully I've been able to train relatively consistently.

Shaolin has added a new BJJ drills class on Tuesday nights for the new year. It is largely a conditioning class based off of functional BJJ drills, like arm drags and takedowns. It serves a few purposes as it'll improve strength (I had to drag someone across the mat by their belt last time), conditioning, and drilling necessary techniques. There is no live rolling in this class at all.

I think drilling is a really underrated part of jiu jitsu. Many people (naturally) want to get as much rolling in as possible but I think it's really important to drill techniques your instructor shows you, especially since techniques often build off of and into various sequences and positions. In this way, I think jiu jitsu is a little bit like math. When you first start taking math, you learn what numbers are, followed by addition and subtraction. Slowly you learn addition and subtraction with double/triple digit numbers and move onto multiplication and division. This spirals you into Algebra, Trigonometry, Calculus, statistics, and other realms of math. However, you can't learn algebra without first learning how to add and subtract, and without algebra you certainly can't do trig or calculus. Similarly, in jiu jitsu, you start off with learning a few basic things, like what guard, mount and side control are, and moves like the americana and armbar. Then you learn how to use and manipulate open guard along with its extensions like spider guard and the de la riva. From there you have more sweeps and submissions which all build off of one another. But how could you have ever learned that spider guard sweep if you couldn't even figure out how to get there from closed guard?

Sometimes I think that's an issue with jiu jitsu. People want to learn fancy sweeps and submissions without first mastering the foundations. This is not to say that you shouldn't learn things like the berimbolo or inverted guard or even that you shouldn't eventually base your game off of them; I just think it's important that those things come after you've really understood the concepts behind more basic moves like closed guard, the triangle, etc. And even if you don't ever use something that intricate in your entire jiu jitsu career, it's important to have knowledge of them, because you will probably have to at least try and counter those moves at some point. I train with a few people who love the berimbolo and even they that's their go-to move, I still can't do smack from their closed guard.

I just registered to compete in the Long Island Pride tournament in the beginning of March. I'm anxious to compete again because even though the last tournament of 2011 ended on a high note for me, I know I can do much better and really want to redeem myself from my losses. Since I'm having a really tough time making the nogi classes, I'll be entering only the gi division.

Pain, Redemption and Learning

I haven't posted lately because I've been busy competing and then helping my family with Christmas preparations, but I finally have a loaded blog post! In two weekends in December, I competed at Grappler's Quest in New Jersey and the Renzo Open in New York City.

There's no nice way of saying this, but I went unconscious for the first time ever. My first match was nogi at GQ and like an idiot, I went for a single leg with my head on the outside. I've drilled the single leg several times and NEVER put my head on the outside, but I was in such a rush that I had my head on the outside. My opponent took the opportunity to grab a guillotine and it went to the ground. I felt myself fading a little but I thought I could muscle out of it. Next thing I know, I'm waking up to a referee yelling in my face. For the record, this ref. was AWFUL. My teammates were on the side yelling "SHE'S OUT!!", and he only pulled my opponent off of me when I started twitching. He didn't even turn me over and shake my legs to wake me up- he just waited until I regained consciousness.

Needless to say, I was very embarrassed. Being choked out so soon in front of so many people was mortifying. After I saw this girl compete against the other ones, I knew I could have done much better against her. I was angry and upset, which unfortunately carried over into my gi matches. I opted NOT to do the absolute nogi after this. It was interesting to note that there was a range of competitors in the nogi advanced women's division. Nyjah Easton ended up winning the division. Being a brown belt, she was the most advanced competitor; the rest were blue belts like myself.

My first gi match was against a blue belt from 50/50 BJJ. I didn't get submitted, but I was unable to gain control at all during the match. For a great deal of it, we were on the ground and I had the single leg (head on the INSIDE this time), but could not capitalize. I think being angry had drained some of energy. I ended up losing 3-0 (I think I may have had 1 advantage). Fortunately, I had one more match which I won on points. My opponent was someone from Josef "Ze Cobra" Manuel's school in New Jersey. She was aggressive, but I managed to maintain top control. Her coaches were calling me on stalling, but I kept attacking for the baseball choke from side mount as well as other submissions, so I'm pretty sure that's not stalling! This victory gave me third place in gi. I was still quite upset and basically threw the medal in my bag.

I took the train in to NYC the next day and went to open mat at Shaolin's, as I really wanted to drill the things I needed to work on. I drilled the single leg many times, worked on guillotine defense, and then rolled for 35 minutes straight.

On Saturday the 17th, I competed at the Renzo Open at the MMA World Expo in NYC. I was feeling more confident for this tournament. My parents actually came to this one because they want to learn a little more about BJJ, which I appreciated! Lots of people from Shaolin's were there, so I had people coaching and cheering me on. They made it an open weight blue belt division, as not enough girls signed up to have separate divisions. I am terrible at guessing weights, so I'm honestly not sure how much bigger or smaller these girls were weight wise, but they were around the same height. My first match was against a girl who was a little shorter than me. I was able to establish grips early, but could not get the single leg. She ended up pulling guard, and I was able to stack and pass to side control. I was then able to get mount and secure an Americana. My next match was against a girl who I'm pretty sure was around my size and height. This was a much tougher stand up battle. She actually went for a guillotine, but she had her hand under my chin and not my neck. Since we went out of bounds, we had to restart in the ring. We had a brief argument with the ref. because she tried to get the fully locked guillotine, but I protested that she only had the chin. I eventually gave in and defended that guillotine anyway! I was able to pass her guard to side control. I eventually mounted her and went for submissions until the bell rang. My final fight was against a girl who was taller but more lanky than me. I've rolled with her before- she's a more experienced blue belt from Renzo's school in Manhattan and I knew she had a really good spider guard. This was an awesome back and forth battle. I was able to pass her half guard and get side control. I honestly forget many of the details, but she ended up in my guard at one point, so I swept, but she ended up getting the top position. I was up for most of the match by 2 points and one advantage up until then, so she ended up winning by one point. Therefore, the final score was 3 points to 2 points with 1 advantage. I was disappointed I lost, but I am happy I fared well against someone I knew had more experience than me. And a second place medal isn't too bad!

Despite some tough losses in these past 2 tournaments, I definitely learned a lot about what my strengths are and what I need to work on. I have a couple of my matches on tape, and I have been poring over them so I can improve for next time.

Hope you all had a good holiday! The next tournament I plan on competing in is the Good Fight on February 4th, but I'll be taking training a little easy from now until after January 1st.

Winter Competition Time

Have not updated this lately because as usual work is crazy and there has been nothing of interest BJJ related until the past few days.

I signed up for two competitions in December- Grapplers Quest on the 10th and the Renzo Open on the 17th. I feel like I've been working on enough things that I am ready to compete and test what I've been learning. I treat these tournaments almost the same way I do big IBJJF tournaments. I am not the kind of person who will do well if I take smaller tournaments more lightly than the big ones. I understand they are not as prestigious as IBJJF tournaments, but I know there will be some really good competition out there. I imagine that Grapplers Quest will be the most packed because it's more well known. I've managed to keep my weight under control enough so I don't need to worry about cutting too much and the weight classes for the Renzo Open are in my favor so I'm on the lower end of the weight range.

Of course gearing up for competition is more difficult in the winter, especially since Thanksgiving and my birthday were last week! And everyone seems to be eating chocolate and Christmas cookies! I had one piece of my birthday cake and put the rest in the freezer for after the 17th and am trying to eat as healthily as possible. Nice move by my parents who hid all the leftover dessert in the basement- I don't think about munching on that stuff when it's not in plain sight! :)

After the 17th I'll be easing up on training a little. I'll go a couple of times a week, but I have some nagging injuries I need to take care of. I'll probably try and do some strength and conditioning stuff, mainly bodyweight exercises and sprints, as I don't have access to a gym.

Next time I post it will most likely be competition results!

How Should Guys Roll With Girls?

I could only go to BJJ once today (Thursday the 3rd- I'm writing this kinda late at night!), but it was the mixed levels/competition class so there was a lot of rolling. I was the only girl in class today- normally there's at least 1-2 more but I think people's schedules have just been crazy lately. I rolled with a 17 year old blue belt male and felt I was able to execute my techniques very well. I was able to mount some pretty good offense and was able to deal well against his sweeps. However, I noticed that he was significantly more aggressive when rolling with the guys in the class.

My philosophy for when men roll with women is that they should treat girls like men who are the same size as the girl is. For example, if you are 170lbs and you're rolling with a 130lb girl, the guy should roll as though he was going against a 130lb guy, assuming the two are the same belt level. He shouldn't muscle the girl around, but he should NOT go too easy and let her pull of techniques. I've gone against guys who think they're rolling at the black belt finals of the Mundials, guys who let me pass their guard (what?!), and guys who treat me no differently. I'd rather roll with the last category than be injured in the first one and not improve my game in the second one.

I was a little disgruntled about this and spoke to one of my friends at the gym and he said "Well yeah he wasn't going to go nuts against a girl". My response was that he should never "go nuts" against anyone but he should have used the appropriate resistance. If I ever rolled with Shaolin, I'm sure he could arm triangle me about 100 times in a five minute period, but he wouldn't. He roll against me but probably be able to neutralize all of my attacks and execute his own game appropriately while keeping a good flow. That's what a more experienced person should do against someone who isn't the same level.

This makes me wonder if all the guys at my gym and other gyms have this mentality. It's hard to tell, but I feel as though I might just tell the people I roll with the be a little more aggressive. You aren't doing girls any favors by going lighter than you would against a guy who was my size. If the guy is bigger, he should try and use his technique and hold back on his strength when rolling with a girl, or anyone who is smaller than him for that matter.

I'm not sure how many people actually read this, but I'd like to hear some feedback on this topic.

You Break My Heart!

I've been EXTREMELY busy with work the past several days. I had a 49 hour week last week, worked 12 hours yesterday and had to go in an hour early today! Still, I managed to go on Monday and tonight for three hours each time. Today it was ROUGH getting to class. There had been chocolate at work all day and I was feeling the lack of sleep and yesterday's work day kick in. But BJJ is the dopeness and I needed to burn off the chocolate!

Shaolin always seems to catch me when I'm getting swept from the top in half guard. Not that it's a rare occasion, but I'm glad he always sees it because he takes me aside and tells me what I'm doing wrong. On Monday he saw me get swept and said "Ayanthi! (or in Shaolin's case Aaanthi!) you break my heart!" He showed me that if someone grabs the arm on the same side as the trapped leg, I should not post the leg on the opposite side, as they will just sweep me the other way. Instead, I should pressure downwards, sprawl my legs, and pass to the side of my trapped leg. I've really been working my top game these past few days and I can see lots of improvement. I feel as though every class it gets harder for the other students to sweep me when I am on top in half guard. I've also gotten a lot better about exerting top pressure and making sure the person doesn't have enough space to move.

Today I finally got out of work early enough for the 5:30pm nogi class. Shaolin taught it today and it consisted of a pretty tough warmup with lots of rolling. I wish there was more nogi in the schedule. I'm of the belief that nogi is not as simple as just taking off your gi and rolling; there's different techniques you need to use when you can't grab onto lapels, sleeves or gi pants. (For the record, I am NOT a 10th Planet fan!) It's important to drill passes, sweeps and submissions that are more effective in nogi than in gi BJJ. Nogi was followed by two more BJJ classes. As Shaolin noted today "Ayanthi loves the mat! She is my sneakiest student- she managed to get in three classes- how?!" The perks of being a girl and above a white belt are that I can take any and all of the classes.

The reason Shaolin lets girls above white belt take the beginners class is because he always wants the girls to roll together. He has no problem when girls roll with guys, but it is definitely different rolling with men than it is with women, and I imagine he wants us to be comfortable in competition against women. In today's beginners class I had the chance to roll with Jody, who is a 3 stripe white belt with a pretty fierce spider guard. She is determined to get all the techniques correctly, and I think she'll be a competitive force if she continues to train consistently.

The Future

Today I went back to the Grappler's Guide Academy. It was an open mat day and I thought it would be a good opportunity to switch things up a little, not to mention it's kind of rough to hike out all the way to NYC just for Shaolin's open mat every week. One of Jason's old students who now trains full time at Lloyd Irvin's Camp Springs location was visiting as well. I didn't get to roll with him, but I did get several good nogi rounds in. My work schedule doesn't coordinate well with the days Shaolin holds nogi classes (which are only twice per week anyway) so it had been a while since I did nogi.

One of the good things about being at Jason's school is that a lot of the guys are significantly bigger (at least 20 pounds more) than me so I really have to focus on technique. Jason also teaches more leg locks than Shaolin does, and is also great about ensuring that students do NOT crank or ever really finish a leg lock. My first round I was leg locked and wrist locked quite a few times and then got used to watching out for them. I got to roll with Jason for a round as well. I don't really get the chance to roll with black belts but it's the best opportunity you have to see where your weaknesses are. Jason has been preparing for NoGi Worlds in California so he took today easy in terms of rolling. I could tell he was looking out to see how I was executing each technique and as expected, Jason was always one step ahead of me. He wasn't really going for submissions but definitely working to better his position at all times. At the end, he pointed out that I needed to work on the knee cutter pass. I'm still not really used to doing the knee cutter in nogi, but all you need to do is get the underhook in the opposite leg you're knee cutting and go for the pass.

I'm pretty certain I'm going to do the Grappler's Quest in December in NJ. Apparently the Abu Dhabi Trials were postponed until next year, so maybe if I have more time when that date is announced I'll be able to compete in that.

Additionally, I had to have the "what are you going to do with your life" talk with my parents the other night. They weren't too pleased that I wanted to work for one more year before attending graduate school, but frankly, I don't have time to visit schools, study for the GRE, take the GRE, write a personal statement, and apply to graduate school with my current work schedule (and would like to make some more $$$ to pay for higher education!). I don't even have weekends to myself- I'm working 3 out of 4 weekends this month! The point of my saying this is that they told me that training will really have to take a back seat next year if I'm applying for graduate school in fall 2013. This is something I obviously knew, but didn't want to really address. I hate not being able to train at least three times per week, and having next to no training next year is really going to be rough on me. I doubt whatever job I get next year will be as taxing as mine currently is in terms of hours per week at work, but regardless all that work for graduate school is going to take up a lot of time and is ultimately more important than training. I'm going to try my best to take morning classes or something, but I'm really hoping I don't stagnate too much next year.

All Work and No Play...

...makes me crave BJJ! See that rhyme? :)

This is the first time in 7 days since I've been on the mat. Work has been nuts lately and I was hoping to make the 5:30 class today, but only got the tail end of the 6:30 and the full 7:30 class, as I had a meeting that went over time.

That all being said, I was not in the best mood. Between not being able to train for the past week and missing the first class, I was pretty frustrated. It's not the greatest idea to unleash your frustrations while rolling, because (shocker of shockers) no one will want to roll with you! So I tried to focus all this energy onto learning what Shaolin was teaching.

The drills in the advanced class built off of one another. The sequence was this:

- begin standing in front of the person who is laying down. grab the knees and step to the side to knee on belly

- person on bottom turns into you

- person on top puts their hands on either side of the head of the person on bottom and jumps to the other side

- person on bottom goes for the single

- person on top circles to the back

- as the person on top circles to the back, the person on bottom blocks the leg and gets the high crotch to step out and take the back

We did these step by step over the course of half an hour. Definitely a complicated sequence but it's a nice option as opposed to just sprawling when someone gets the single leg.

Shaolin has extended the Monday and Wednesday classes from 8:30 to 8:45 so we can get some longer rounds in. Additionally, students can stay until 9pm to get some extra rolling and drilling in. However, Shaolin himself leaves at 8:45pm and some of the purple belts monitor the class until 9pm. Rolling was better than expected for me. One big thing I've been trying to focus on is making sure I post my leg when on top in half guard. Otherwise, it is very easy for the person on bottom to sweep you and/or take the back. This happened to me a couple of times during one roll today, and Shaolin came over to show me that I had to maintain top pressure and head control to avoid this. I appreciated that he was watching and really noticed what I was doing wrong. Rolling was much more smooth after that, and I even managed to sneak in two triangle chokes during two separate rolls! This is not common for me, as I always seem to get stacked and passed when attempting the triangle. I've been trying to break my opponents posture when they are in my guard, and I think this has helped me in setting up submissions, particularly the triangle.

I'm hoping I can make it to BJJ tomorrow. The rest of this week is going to be crazy at work and I need BJJ as an outlet!