Progress Report

Today, Caleb over at the Fightworks Podcast posted an XML of the BJJ blogs he currently has in his google reader. I promptly downloaded that and now have about 60 new blogs to keep up with --- yeah, that'll happen! *end sarcasm*

Last week, during my first official business trip, I of course made a jiu jitsu excursion to Evolve Academy to train with Mike Moses and his team. Maestre Moses was SO nice and welcomed me like family. Big shout out to Maestre Moses, THANK YOU! For those of you planning to visit the D.C. area I strongly suggest calling up Evolve Academy and asking if you can train there. I'm not sure how they are with non-Lloyd Irvin people, but it's definitely worth a shot. The only way to describe Evolve Academy is... ghetto fabulous. Evolve is located in a renovated old warehouse storage facility. The mats are well worn in, the water cooler must be from the 70s, and the steal support beams are wrapped in packing foam and duct tape. I LOVED the atmosphere. It gives you the awesome primal realization that you really don't need any high tech equipment (though they do have good stuff to train muay thai) to get an awesome work out. One doubly cool thing was not only did they have "loaner gis," but those gis were clean! That was lucky since I showed up without one :).

Be warned that Maestre Moses likes to crank the heat up during class. I'm not being metaphorical, he literally turns on the heat. The room probably topped out in the 90s and was humid as a sauna. For a while, I thought I would die; then the feeling subsided into thoughts that I only might die, not definitely. By the end of class, I felt great (though tired), and welcomed the radiating heat. The heat keeps your muscles loosey goosey and assures that you wont get injured. I'm ready for Brazil now for sure!

Mike gave me some useful tips to improve my game... specific things he noticed I was doing funky during training -

1. Keep moving -- I tended to get a position and hold it, waiting for the other player to move (at which point I would try to capitalize). He said that instead I should be constantly moving to improve my position. This is something I had noted earlier, but I considered it "pushing the pace." I didn't think of it in the same manner he described. Previously I thought I simply had to move faster. Now I realize that it needs to be a) more methodical and constantly shifting and b)varied speeds to keep my opponent guessing.

2. Efficiency is key -- When opening a closed guard I would always end up very low and back away from them. Then during the transition to cross-knee, or same-side knee pass I would get caught off balance and swept. Instead, since I was already low I should do the under-leg pass (DUH!). I had forgotten all about that one.

3. Knee on belly is not good if the other person is stronger physically.

Now, for a recap of some of my old goals and my progress on them:

1. Stabilizing, controlling, and crushing from top -- This is going well. Since my Boston coach and long-time friend, Dave Ginsberg, did alot to help me out with this one I have been able to relearn what I used to know fairly quickly. Still keeping it on the list.

1a. Choosing one take down every class and trying trying trying -- This went awful the first class I tried it. Today it went slightly better... I'm hoping to continue to improve. Staying on the list.

2. Controlling from butterfly, sweep -- I'm going to butterfly much more often now... sweeps are starting to come back...

3. Controlling from half guard, sweep or take the back -- haven't been focusing on this, too many other things on my mind. Taking off the list.

4. Core strength -- Because of my business trip last week, and another one this week, I've missed the last two kettle bell classes! Curses! Maybe I'll have to get Sharon to give me private lessons at my house (hint hint, Sharon, let's talk about this... I'm prepared to pay money, food, and a swimming pool)

5. Cardio -- Stinks on ice. Tomorrow I go to my first MMA class in over a year. I'll get my butt whopped.

Posting Hiatus

I'm taking a posting hiatus during my first Lockheed business trip.
This one is slightly less glamorous than the Zurch trip I did last year.
It's still cool.
Free food.

Some things to muse on

When I tell people that my Brazilian jiu jitsu school has "like, more than five black belts!" they react correctly by reading my excitement level and responding in like terms. I don't think, however, that they truly grasp how amazing it is to have so many black belts in one place where they speak English. The McDojo epidemic of the 80s and 90s has diluted the importance of all ranking systems in the martial arts for those outside our world.

For those in our world (I take it most people reading this are members of the little crazy bjj world), you will understand how monumental a black-belting ceremony is. Yesterday I attended my first one. Steve Bowers, commonly known online as Steve72, was promoted to black belt. There were eight other black belts at the school, and enough brown and purple belts to fill the mats (us white and blue belts had to wait our turn :P).

Among the black belts there, a couple showed up from out of town including some from Yamasaki in D.C. Brad Daddis was also there! I trained with Brad back during my first year of jiu jitsu at Philly MMA. Incidentally, that's also where I met Sharon for the first time. The were both purple belts. Thinking about those first months and then the ceremony yesterday makes me giggly. Yes, giggly. It's the same giggly that I get when I think about Ara, Victor, or any of the other guys from BU and how awkward they were on their first day of jiu jitsu to how skilled and cool they are on the mats now.

I'm going to be a black belt some day too!
How cool is that?!

For now, however, it's back to the drawing board as far as my game is concerned. Actually, come to think of it, what game?

Up until I left Boston I felt I had a really strong top game. That's what Dave had worked on with me for months: passing half-guard, sweeps from butterfly, crushing in side control, standing passes... oh how I love my standing passes...

Now I feel like it's all gone out the window. *Elyse grasps manically at invisible things in the air*. It's not that I've hit one of those plateaus where I feel like I'll never learn anything again -- it's not that at all. In fact, I still feel like I'm improving every day at class, which is a great feeling. It's just that all of the sudden I've realized that I've given up certain aspects of my game for no good reason at all except that they've, well, slipped my mind.

So here it is, revised A-game improvement list:
1. Stabilizing, controlling, and crushing from top
1a. Choosing one take down every class and trying trying trying.
2. Controlling from butterfly, sweep
3. Controlling from half guard, sweep or take the back
4. Core strength
5. Cardio

ouch :(

My first week of work ended in me developing lymph nodes the size and hardness of walnuts -- strep throat?
No Grapplers Quest for me :(