Pkhamidar2com's MA Diary :)

I went Judo yesterday. Did ground work, was very good.

What i did

1. learned some basics, which i enjoy
2. learned this shoulder lock
3. drilled in the hold downs, and how to move around the opponent when you are holding them down, and how to move into different positions etc...
4. Randori - 45 minutes - 5 - 6 min each, then a minutes rest or so - higher belts taught me a lot of stuff during randori



What occurred to me after class that i need to do next time

1. Remember to try and grab leg with your legs when they do keskatame
2. Ask a dan grade the different ways of getting someone on the ground
3. Need to improve in fitness as well, too many times was i out of breath and lost strength when holding someone down for a long time, and i loosened, and they got out and chocked me...


How i felt - LIKE A GOD!

Was a pretty tough session. And very out of breath. Some people were most likely being very nice since i was only a white belt (im talking about the dan grades, black belts and possibly brown belters). Some people were just extremely good at ground work (or the more likely possibility of me just being awful), took me down and held me down, and couldnt do much about it. One individual i thought i could wait it out for them to loosen up and get them into a choke (leg lock never came into mind, even though it had been used against me in nearly every single randori fight), but he got me into a hold down, slowly got my Gi in a certain way where he was able to easily choke me haha.

All in all it was great fun. I was sore as soon as i finished. Normally im ok when i finish Judo on Thursday nights, i just get sore the next day. But yesterday the class ended and i was already very sore haha!

I knew from then on i would be very sore the next day, so did a lot of stretching, very hot shower, relaxed, more stretching.

Fortunately the areas i stretched are not sore, but the areas i forgot such as glutes are very sore!

Anyhow, i will end with 4 words.

God I Love Judo

 

ground endurance is a harder thing to get used to.
the main point is to relax.
all the pressure applied is via proper positioning.
and search of "Scully Grappling Drills", that'll keep you entered with hours of drills for grappling.

 

Thanks Zaad. I see so i shouldnt be using a lot of energy when holding them down? So by relaxing, do you mean i hold a tight grip but i relax my upper body while dropping my centre as low as possible? Anyways ill ask my instructors that next time, or one of the higher belters.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXjP50SOwK4"]33 Solo Grappling BJJ Drills in 7 Minutes - Jason Scully - YouTube[/ame]

is this the video you were talking about?

Anyways unfortunately i cant go Judo today. Have to babysit :'(. Ill just go next week. Next week i will be going Tuesday again (god i love Tuesdays, groundwork is really fun, but throwing is also really fun too), and if i dont have to babysit again (unlikley but anything can happen), Thursday too.

In anycase, instead of sulking and being all depressed about no Judo, ill try out some of the stuff in that video

 

yeah thats the vid! theres thousands of hours worth of solo drilling in this vid alone.
he's got a a second vid out two.
Try 20 reps of the first 5 exercises and see how you feel

relax as in dont use any energy to hold him down. try to get good positioning and as much pressure on their chest as possible. it should feel like a ton of brick on them.
the only time you use any strength is explosively when they try to change position and escape or when you want to move position.
I do football or pillow drills.
get a football or a firm pillow an go through the pinning positions in judo by putting as much pressure on the object while keeping balance.

 

So Zaad...

I did those drills last night. Was quite fun, although it was hard to get the hang of them.

Side bridges were quite easy since i do them as a warm up at the club anyway.

I could do...
-Side bridges
-sit outs - back and forth and around
-hip ups
-triangle hold hip
-hip drive
-Bridge Turns


I couldn't do
-leg circles, couldnt get the hang of them or the rhythm
-Compass drill onwards - didn't feel comfortable doing compass drill

Here's the problem, i don't understand where all these apply in terms of grappling (i'm too inexperienced).

For example i know the side bridges, and the turn bridges will help me get out of a hold down maybe, or to make space.

But i dont get what, sit outs back and forth, sitouts around and hip drive do. Would it be possible to show me a video where those things are used?

If i can relate to the actual drill i will have a better understanding. E.g. for the side turns, i can imagine myself coming out of a hold, then crawling into a ball, and then the person will probably try to grab my hand and turn me over or something, or if im very tight roll me over his leg.

Thanks zaad

 

a lot of these drills are a mixture of flexibility and technical drills.

sit outs and sit arounds are for the balance of sweeps, turtle escapes and back takes.

hip up is to improve your hip thrust and balance for keeping and adjusting guard and for bridging. when you eventually join a BJJ club (as im sure you will in the future) you'll see the variations of guard that bjj guys use, hip thrusts are important in this.

the hip drive drill is part of a stand up but also can be used for a variety of sweeps. i use the hip drive drill in a cheeky way and shoot a double leg off it (the guy thinks im getting up and doesnt expect a simultaneous attack.

the bridge turn is something i frequently use for kimura sweeps.

leg circles are for mobility and keeping the opponent distant when your on the ground (something judo lacks cos matches end when one guy gets thrown on his back).

The compass drill is an amazing. I started practiciing it and then we had a bjj purple belt under de la hiva come by and taught us de la riva guard.
the compass drill is what we used to switch through to the other leg.

oh and the hip triangles are to improve your ability to catch triangle chokes.

What jason scully did with these solo drill vids is pretty amazing. he basically gathered BJJ kata.
learn 5 every week. practice just 5 everyday for a week. then learn another 5 until you can do them all.

 

Why will i only see the variations of those guards only in a BJJ club? In the Judo Nee-Waza class you start on the floor if that makes any difference, during randori. There isn't any throwing, or from what i have seen there hasn't been, you do the throwing to the ground during the end of the throwing class just to mix it in. Nee-waza night is just dedicated to groundwork.

I didn't really understand most of the moves you were talking about, so i youtubed them. I feel tempted to try them out, but i don't think that's a good idea. Ill just have wait until I'm taught it

The only reason i don't like the compass drill is because the neck looks like in a really dangerous position, which is why i was hesitant on trying it :/

Yeah i will be practicing those often, every day. And yes i will definitely be joining a BJJ gym in the future, when im older along side Judo. Not planning on giving up Judo. Every day of judo has been amazing, no a single lesson has been bad!

Cannot wait until Tuesday. Another hour and a half of just ground work!!! It would be a dream if i were able to to Judo every day. Just have something to look forward to every day!

 

aye i know how newaza and full randori works. use to do judo too.
a lot of BJJ guard variations are pretty obscure. you wont see things in Judo class like one guy standing vs. one guy on the ground because when you disengage you both have to stand up again. but in BJJ when one person stands up the other person can continue from the ground and leg-hug the standing guy. thats basically what de la riva is.
I did alright in judo newaza against guys who had been training for a couple years cos of 6 months of no-gi bjj.
Theres loads of odd guard types that you wont learn in a standard judo class. theres also a load more submissions you wont learn.
in fact a kimura sweep i rarely one i see judo guys use.

 

I've definately used sit outs in a couple of transition moves for an armlock. Really like Jasons vids

 

also i forgot to mention that the compass doesnt go over the head, it goes over the shoulders and upper back.

 

Oh ok, thanks zaad Ill be sure to forward my small nee waza questions to you in future

I forgot you did Judo lol. Yeah obviously your BJJ helped in judo neewaza, they are practically the same thing are they not? Except BJJ focuses nearly all attention on the groundwork.

 

the rules set is the main difference. hence less teaching guard variations in judo or disengagement fighting.
you throw someone on there back in BJJ, the match isnt over. you can also jump guard and you need to pass guard or you're screwed.
theres also illegal submissions in judo and dont try pulling a crucifix on the back of a judo black belt. he lets you take it cos technically its a pin (him pinning you) in judo even though i was choking him.
i think he was more confused than me.

 

Interesting stuff. Yeah, if i remember what i was told correctly, landing on back is ippon and i think whole match ends, but if you dont land on back, then you just carry onto groundwork.

Had to search up crucifix. Looks pretty deadly, traps your arms so you cant move, and you're chocked. Yeah i wont be joining BJJ any time soon, so dont worry about that. Ill just be learning from my Judo club, and whether or not they teach me that its up to them, they might teach me it without the choke, who knows. And yeah i been told that some BJJ chokes are illegal in Judo.

Was it hard for you to get used to not using those illegal submissions since you were so used to using them? Did you tend to use them a lot, and did they get annoyed?

 

the black belts realised what illegal submissions i had learnt from no-gi because the guy who taught no-gi was a judo black belt from their club that was also a bjj purple belt.
leglocks were off the menu and they told me to not use kimura. i did it a couple times a caught some higher belts. caught one with an omoplata once.
but most the chokes were fine. i learnt how to armbar from a throw in judo and a lot more turtle turnovers and chokes from turtle because its a common judo position.
actually judo was great. they taught us flying armbars as the warm up! i've used it a couple times since.
but the ruleset was easy to adopt to. i got annoyed more because a pin is the end of a judo match but in bjj its just used for control while working for a submission.

 

Todays session: 5 min warm up ==> 15 min practice + theory ==> 1h10min randori

What i improved on

Remember how last lesson i said i didnt use my legs at all? Well this lesson, i made it a special target to use my legs A LOT!

And guess what? The results were awesome! I was able to hold them down easier, i was able to turn them over, many times! I used my legs when throwing them on the floor, one leg out to trip them with, the other leg i used the upper shin to push them and pulled the gi, and then fell over, i jumped over and was on top of them.

Some of the stuff i did, i didnt even learn or drill in, it just kind of came to me. I guess thats the power of randori huh? Do it enough, and you get good at it.

What was really useful was that the dan graders were helping me out a lot, with technique etc... during sparring as always.

One of my aims for that lesson was to get atleast 1 arm bar. I dont know why, but i wanted to be able to pull of atelast one successful arm bar. Unfortunately i never got one properly. I was close, but here was my problem.

When i was trying to do the arm bar, i would do it wrong, so the way i would initiate would mean that it would be an upside down arm bar, where the opponent is facing the floor. I wasnt sure if that would work, or if it was even allowed. So i didnt do it, tried to correct it and they would figure out easily by this point, push my legs away.

But i feel i definitely improved this lesson. I was able to turn people over much more and it was much more fluid. Things came to me as i was doing randori. Sure i couldnt really submit anyone really. I got about 4 - 5 submits, out of the 100eds of submits they got me with haha!

Another problem of mine is fitness. After about 1 hour of randori im tiered, and so when i do randori another match, i get so tiered that i loose strength and cant get out of a hold down.

BTW that reminds me, Zaad, tried that pillow hold down, kinda helped today, i didnt use as much energy, but more that i used positioning, lowering centre of gravity A LOT, and just driving chest in chest or shoulders or something.




I need to go do a shower or i will stink and be aching tomorow :/

Anyways was a great session today. I would like to say thanks to Zaad for that video, as some bits i felt helped. Especially the bridges part, practicing that at home i was able to turn quite a few people over.

Thanks for reading