Friday, March 9, 2012

First tournament is in the books

Well I lost my first match via an arm triangle with 30 seconds left. My hat goes off to my opponent who showed what 3 additional years of experience will do for you. I pulled guard and controlled him for about 1.5 minutes before he passed to half then eventually to side control then mount. I trapped and rolled and passed to half guard then got swept into an arm triangle.

The day before my tournament I tweaked my back on some spider throws (which had no affect on the outcome of the match) but I have taken a week off to recover. Today was my first class in exactly 1 week. We practiced bottom guard armbars.

Basically, arm drag your Publish Postopponents right arm across your body and place your left foot on their hips. Use your foot to rotate your body towards your opponent's free arm while climbing your right leg up your opponent's back. Now push your opponent's head out of the way while bringing your left leg over their head. DO NOT CROSS YOUR LEGS.  Grasp their hand with your right hand, make sure their thumb is pointed up, lift your hips, push your knees together and drive your heels into their body.

Friday, March 2, 2012

Weigh in in 4 hours

So late last week I decided to register for my first tournament. I was 7 lbs over my desired weight class, and a crazy work schedule that would make it tuff to drop the weight. I registered at my walking around weight (heavy weight) and waited patiently until the brackets were released. Then I made my 2nd dumb mistake (my first was waiting so later to decided to compete). I Googled the guy I was fighting. He is a cock strong, former olympic trials competitor with serious wrestling. So on Wednesday (2 days ago), I requested to drop weight classes. So in addition to cramming for my first ever tournament by stealing training hours wherever I can get them, I also had 2 days to drop a little over 5 lbs.

In my week of preparation, in addition to working 60 hours at my job, I squeezed in 9 hours of Jiu Jitsu and 5-6 hours of cardio, all while starving myself. I am now about 1.5 lbs away, which I should be able to sweat off in the sauna before weigh in, in a few hours.

I have not logged most of my training this week, because I have had very little downtime. In short, today we focused on proper positioning from the bottom spider guard. We covered how to pull the opponent back to you with the ankles to the thigh, push them away at the hips, grips on the sleeve, and positioning of the legs on their arms. We learned how to shift our legs as your opponent tries to pass as well as 2 sweeps, if your opponent leaves their foot in arms reach.

Yesterday we covered kimuras from bottom guard along with a bottom guard sweep. We also went over taking the back after a kimura attempt. After class, I worked on guillotines from the same position. I did almost 6 straight hours of some form of training, without only about a 20 minute break midway through.

Anyway, I am as ready as I will ever be.  update to come.

To make maters worse, today we worked almost exclusively from the spider guard, and being on the losing end of 30+ spider guard sweeps has my back very tight. I am extremely appreciative to everyone who has been working with me, giving me the extra attention, advice, and training hours I need to be ready tomorrow morning.