Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Jiu Jitsu’ Category

Blue Belt Week 87, August 16, 2013 Medical Insurance / The Helio Gracie Tournament in October

Posted in Jiu Jitsu, tagged , , , , on August 19, 2013| Leave a Comment »

If you don’t have medical insurance, should you be doing jiu jitsu?  I would say probably not a good idea.

As I was paying the bills, I noticed that I had accidentally skipped a month on my health insurance premium because the premium was double than normal.  I checked my records. I had skipped a payment.   Oddly enough, I didn’t receive any notice in the mail warning that I would be kicked out.   If a big claim happened, a bad injury, the insurance company could deny the claim because the premium wasn’t on time.  I quickly mailed in the payment.   I wondered how did that happen?  It was a mistake on their side and I got side tracked on my side.

Going to the hospital in the United States is expensive.  An emergency room is an expensive place. Over night stay is expensive.  An ambulance ride could be in the thousands of dollars.   My next high priority will be to get the health insurance premium on automatic payment.

I think I am ready to return to training.  After two weeks, I don’t have any throat pain.   For sure, I will be a lot more protective of my neck. I will be a lot more conscious of tighten my neck when anyone practices a choke and to protect the neck, chin down.  One good thing about my injury, I did learn some anatomy of the neck.

The Helio Gracie Tournament is coming in October in honor of Helio’s birthday.  There is no sparring.  Basically, its technique demostration so I will be loading up on the fundamental classes in preparation.

Read Full Post »

Blue Belt Week 86, August 10, 2013 Clock Choke Injury

Posted in Jiu Jitsu, tagged , , , , , on August 10, 2013| 1 Comment »

Be careful with the clock choke, a.k.a., the baseball choke.  It was the last series of chokes from the back we reviewed in the advanced grappling class on Tuesday morning.   The slack of my gi laid incorrectly diagonally across my Adam’s apple.  I was on all fours, table top, while the choke partner was hanging on my side, shoulder in, facing the opposite direction.  As I stated earlier, the choke wasn’t working because of the position of gi slack diagonally across my Adam’s apple.  I had 165 pounds of pressure on my Adam’s apple for 10 seconds and no choke.  Class ended.

As I drove away in my car,  the pain started.  I knew something was wrong.  I was having trouble swallowing and my voice had changed.  Perhaps the Adam’s apple was jammed into my vocal cords.   If my condition didn’t improve by the next day, I would go to the emergency room.   My condition did improved and has slowly improved everyday.  From the internet, the injury could take up two weeks to heal.

Read Full Post »

Blue Belt Week 85, August 3, 2013. Fine Tuning the Mata Leon

Posted in Jiu Jitsu, tagged , , , , , on August 1, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Fine tuning the Mata Leon. If you want to get a good mata leon choke, make sure your choke arm is deep and the elbow of your arm lines up with your opponents chin and underneath. The choke arm makes a v shape. Once you have that, grab your bicep. With the free hand, monkey grip the back of the opponent’s head. Before, I did the Mata Leon by placing the back of my hand on the opponent’s head. That was bad technique. When the opponent is being choked, they will reach, grab, for the hands in desperation. If the hand, on the neck is cupped, then they have nothing to grab. Squeeze. Beware the opponent, may get off a punch but will soon be knocked out.

Changing topic a bit, I also learned a new throw, Kouchi gari, another tool for the arsenal. I also learned how to escape the classical judo pin. The classical judo pin was a side mount, one wrapped arm under the elbow and wrapped head with the legs scissor kicked in front. Ironically, with a 30 second pin, I had won third place in the Midwest Regional Judo Tournament in Chicago in the late 70s. I was amazed how easy it was to escape the classic judo pin.

Read Full Post »

Blue Belt Week 84, July 26, 2013 What does a golfer, plastic surgeon, and a Jiu Jitsu student have in common?

Posted in Jiu Jitsu, tagged , , , , on July 22, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Answer:  Small changes, or corrections, in a golf swing,  facial symmetry, and jiu jitsu technique have big gains in performance, appearance, and survival.

A few weeks ago, I watched a video on YouTube, motivational speaker, Tony Robbins, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nZcbIGlCQk .  Tony Robbins spoke about how small changes could have big gains.  Tony gave a few examples, the plastic surgeon and the golfer.  The first one, according to scientific study which has shown that beauty was a measurement, for example, the ideal distance from the top of the lips to the nose was 3 mm, just as an example.   So if a persons distance was four mm then the plastic surgeon would try to reduce the distance by one mm, which would be a very small measurement for a big change in personal attractiveness.

Tony Robbins also gave another example of a golfer not able to hit a ball with accuracy.  When the golfer was taught to adjusted the slope of the club by 1 mm, he was able to hit the ball with better accuracy. There was a flaw in the golfer’s swing that was corrected.

In the Fundamental class, lesson number one, this week, which felt like the 20th time,  I had missed a point in the steps.  In all, I made four mistakes, so I made four corrections to the techniques.  After class, I wrote down the corrections.

Read Full Post »

Blue Belt Week 83, July 19, 2013 The Best Offense Is The Best Defense

Posted in Jiu Jitsu, tagged , , , , , , on July 19, 2013| 1 Comment »

Big gains in sparring development. The gains were NOT submissions, but defense from not being tapped out as often as previous sessions. I would say the development has to do with the advanced grappling class. When an opponent had me mounted and had their knees in the arm pits, I was able to shrimp out in order to get my elbows back down on the floor. Last time I sparred, I was tapped out a lot of times with the arm bar. Also, I learned a technique, from advanced grappling, to keep the elbows together on the chest and hands on the chin. That technique stopped multiple choke attacks.

This week I took the Advanced class which was taught by Professor Gui. During sparring, I was able to use the lesson on arm bar breaks to get a submission.

Back to fundamentals. I bought a new notebook. I plan to combine the notes from two other notebooks with the current lesson. I was trying to make a mnemonic device to help remember each lesson. I think this is the path to mastery. I believe I could get more out of my class time if I become more mindful. Mindful, being more focused, looking for details that I may have missed during previous lessons.

Read Full Post »

Blue Belt Week 81, July 5, 2013

Posted in Jiu Jitsu, tagged , , , on July 8, 2013| Leave a Comment »

All the Valente Brothers dojos were closed this week for summer vacation, July 1 through July 8, 2013. It  is a fact that vacations prevent burnout.  I hope you had a good 4th of July!  What is the 4th of July in America?  That is when the US officially declared it’s independence from Great Britain, back then, that was the mother country and a super power.  We celebrated with fireworks, parades, and picnics.  Along time ago, this was the time of the year in my youth when we would stock up on Black Cats and bottle rockets.

For the holiday, I was in Millersville, Maryland, not far from where I went to high school in the late 80s.  I was about 45 minutes from District of Columbia, a.k.a. DC, the capital of United States, and 30 minutes from downtown Baltimore.  Anyways, I thought about practicing jiu jitsu at a local dojo, but quickly changed my  mind after looking over the web page.  It wasn’t strictly jiu jitsu.  It was a mixture of MMA, weight lifting, aerobics, and jiu jitsu.  Reading the description made me appreciate my school.  However, there was a great Gracie jiu jitsu school in Baltimore, but that was a 35 minute drive, so I didn’t do any jiu jitsu during the break.

Read Full Post »

Blue Belt Week 80, June 28, 2013

Posted in Jiu Jitsu, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 26, 2013| Leave a Comment »

This week in advanced grappling taught by Professor Pedro Jr., we worked on a few passes from the half guard. The passes were easy to understand and to execute.

In class, we watched a judo match where a guy won on a thirty-second pin.  There was brief talk about how the sport of judo has changed over the years from 1981 to now. If I understood right,  I think the 30 second pin had been eliminated.  There seems to be a trend to more throwing and less ground battles.  The truth,  I want to remember  judo the way I learned it back in the late 70’s.  Judo of today and Judo of 35 years ago, not the same.   Will that happen to sports jiu jitsu?  

The throwing class was good; however, I over did it.  I will have to alternate weeks, one throwing and the other sparring.  To hard on my body to do both. Another thing I noticed was that my practice partner in the throwing class, a blue belt two stripes, never slapped to break his fall.  He told me not to worry about it.

Royler Gracie had taught a class on Saturday.   I wasn’t able to attend.

Read Full Post »

Blue Belt Week 79, June 21, 2013

Posted in Jiu Jitsu, tagged , , , on June 19, 2013| Leave a Comment »

On Friday, before and after fundamentals class, there was a lot of gossip on the mat and locker room about an injury that occurred on Thursday evening sparring. Apparently, word travels quickly, a South Beach bouncer heard about the injury at work. He was asking others what happened and to whom. I didn’t recognize the people involved nor do I have all the details. Blue belt and a purple belt. Someone’s knee was caved in. The South Beach bouncer, from the details,  believed the injury was caused during a throw. The injury was to the thrower because he tried to hold the person being thrown, to soften the fall; however, the opponent landed on his knee while his leg was straight and standing. Throwing rule violation, never hold a person, for the purpose of cushioning the fall, after the throw has been executed. Once the opponent was thrown in the air, it was up to them to break the fall. You could throw with less power.

Best training review so far was on Friday when I reviewed the nine pins. I think I have the nine pins down. Here are the moves.

Review nine pins

1) Mounted
2) Shoulder left side from the mount
3) Shoulder right side from the mount
4) Side mount
5) Side mount scissor towards legs
6) Side mount scissor towards head
7) Modified side mount, knee on hip
8) knee on belly, leg out
9) North / South

Longevity, I stopped taking supplements because of severe stomach pain.  I believe the omega three pills spoiled. One of the pills is making me sick. I am beginning to think the supplements from Costco aren’t worth it. The truth is ” you get what you pay for.” I should try to return them. Aspirin can also cause stomach bleeding. Supplements may need some refrigeration. I am full stop on the supplements.

Read Full Post »

Blue Belt Week 78, June 14, 2013. Half Guard / Bad Injury

Posted in Jiu Jitsu, tagged , , , , on June 13, 2013| 2 Comments »

Tuesday, we worked on the half guard from the bottom. It was a good class. At the end of class, Professor Pedro brought to the attention of the class that if we missed a lesson or didn’t get it, the lessons will repeat in other classes during the week. That is good to know. In the future, I may take the same class three times in the same week if I think it is important enough. We did work on hand position from the side to the guard but not as much as I would have liked. I am looking for a solution for my weak guard. Everytime I had someone in the guard during sparring, I get passed. I would like to improve my guard. So, what makes a good guard? What should I look out for? How do I stop a pass? The focus of my sparring is purely defense. I don’t care if I submit anyone at this point. Right after Tuesdays class, I started feeling the effects of the flu.

This week, I ran into my friend that brought me to Gracie Jiu Jitsu. He had stopped training about seven months ago because of a shoulder injury, which needed surgery. It is a fact, injuries are going to happen during your study of jiu jitsu, and sometimes outside of jiu jitsu, a car accident for example. The question will be how are you going to handle your injury and will you come back? Injuries should always be avoid while sparring; however, I am thankful to the guy that injuried my shoulder which was in the advanced grappling class. I hated yoga before. My wife would try to get me to go for the last ten years, and I wouldn’t. That all changed with my shoulder injury. I became a believer of Iyengar Yoga when my shoulder became healed. Yoga also helped in fixing my back. I had terrible posture and now not so bad. I do jiu jitsu three times a week and yoga two times. I am able to let go of anger and forgive without expecting any apology.

When you practice jiu jitsu you have to play SMART! Follow some self rules.

1) Tap..Tap often. Jiu Jitsu is a mind game not a power game.

2) Don’t go full speed unless you talk it out with your sparring parnter. Note, some students want full speed.

3) Beware the dojo drifter. A guy you never seen before wearing a rented gi with white belt who is there for sparring only.

4) Choose your partner before class starts. Someone you know is good.

5) Warm up with a few push ups and do light stretching before class, a must. Coming in cold is just asking for trouble.

Read Full Post »

Blue Belt Week 77, June 7, 2013

Posted in Jiu Jitsu, tagged on June 6, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Hectic week. It was the end of the school year in Florida. Unfortunately, my family obligations interferred with my jiu jitsu studies and plans.  First of all, congradulations to all that were promoted. I regret not being present at the Summer Belt Ceremony on Monday.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »