long days at work make it hard to focus on bjj or work outs. i have one week of hard training left before the us open. tonight i hit the airdyne and kettlebells. 30 calories and 10 clean and presses with the 36 lb kb's for ten sets. tomorrow is two sets of sparring. i don't know what thursday holds for me but at least one session of sparring.

the american nationals are over and now i have my first foray into brown belt competition. i did good, but there is plenty of room for improvement. i went five fights over all, two in my division and three in the absolute. i got one submission, won the rest on points, and don't believe that anyone scored a single point on me. my improvements could come in being able to advance my position from side mount more often and more aggressively. next stop is the us open in santa cruz.

tonight will be my first night back in the academy since friday morning. i have lots of work and things around the house i need to take care of. this means i have to be really good with my time management with getting ready for the next stage of a three stage plan. following the us open is the no gi worlds.

i trained last week. not a lot since i had to work some pretty long hours. but enough. i ended the week with two sparring sessions on friday and then a long sparring session on saturday. could have put a little more into saturday.

today was good. hit the morning class and sparred with dave meyers the black belt for two rounds and the rest of the guys for four rounds. all told it was about 42 minutes of sparring. my energy levels were better than friday, but not totally where i want them. i'll hit the american nationals hard but i'm looking at it as a warm up for the us open this year. as soon as the american nationals are done i will turn around and begin the prep for the us open. it will be my 7th in 7 years.

i finished last wednesday with about 25-30 minutes of sweep, pass, or submit from the open guard. thursday and friday was spent working. that 6 am wake up to trudge off to work is kicking my ass still. today was a solid hour of sparring with four of the guys at the open mat. need to start working more on my open guard sweeps. they need lot's of work and i'd like to have a few go to open guard sweeps.

so far today, things are going smooth. my quads are a little tight and sore but workable. taught the morning class today. we hit a 6 station circuit with a time scheme of 45 seconds on/30 seconds off. used the power wheel in the middle of it to throw the pace off. followed it with some deep half guard refresher then drilling and sparring. i sparred with the guys for 3 10 minute rounds. i gave victor his birthday collar choke and kept up a good pace the whole time. next stop is some more sparring at the advanced class. first some junk removal and a nap.

yesterday was long. i went to work. then right after work i hit the airdyne/kettlebell work out. did 30 calories on the airdyne, then 8 clean and presses with the 53 lb kb's. did 5 quick sets of that.

followed that by heading over to the advanced class at the academy. missed the technique portion. did the sweep pass or submit from the bottom open guard. there was 6 of us in the circle and about 10 guys in line, maybe more. the goal for the guys in line is to beat the guys in the middle and knock them into the line. i stayed in the middle for 45 minutes straight last night. by the time i got knocked out, i was exhausted. there was some good guys there in line last night so i felt very good about my streak.

today started with me teaching the morning class. i showed how to take the back, then three ways to defend the turtle guard. we followed that up with 30 minutes of drilling and sparring.

i couldn't make it to bjj practice tonight so i hit the kettlebells and pull up bar to make up for it. put my 20 pound weight vest on. hit 5 kb squat thrusters with the 44 lb kb's and 5 pull ups. did 9 sets of that. the weight vest made it heavier and harder to breathe.

yesterday started great and then fizzled badly. i sparred with the morning crew for about 35 minutes. that was after showing some side mount escapes. then with the grand plans of swimming at least 500 meters i set out to run errands. by the time i had a chance to break away to the pool, i felt like crap. i just felt beat down, so nothing worthwhile except hanging out with gaytha came of the evening.

this morning was a great circuit. 20 kettlebell swing 2 get ups on each side, 10 hindu push ups, 20 mountain climbers, and 6 pull ups. repeated that 8 times with very little rest in between. worked some technique and then played sweep pass or submit for about 20 minutes. need to start pushing the pace and the length of my sparring sessions if i want to make a dent in the brown belt competitions coming up.

yesterday was a good steady amount of work. taught the morning class and we did the medicine ball workout. side throws for 45 seconds, then kettlebell swings for 45 for 2 rounds. then overhead throws for 45 seconds followed by planks with leg lifts for 45, another 2 rounds of that. repeat twice. still not healed enough to spar with the big guys, but close.

came back later in the evening and taught the beginner class. we did a circuit with 20 on/20 off scheme. then i showed escapes from side mount. followed by a near side arm bar and the paper cutter. ended the class by rolling with some of the guys while the rest drilled the positions. used both arms this time. rib and pectoral minor felt a bit sore and achy but held up. will see how it feels this morning at the morning class.

last night i got on the rowing machine for the first time in a while. set the resistance to 3 out of 5. rowed for 2 minutes, did 10 clean and presses with the 35# kettlebell, then 5(each side) one legged dead lifts with the 53# kettlebells. did 5 dets, no rest inbetween. while i was doing it it was fatiguing but not brutal and i started to question the effectiveness. once i finished i felt it, and my heart rate was still up at around 145-155.

today is doing the warm up with the guys at the black belt club and then swimming in the afternoon.

yesterday morning was great. hit the academy to work out with the guys at the morning class. 12 sets of 10 6 count burpee pull ups. back and forth with my partner til they were done. really tried to keep the pace up while i was working. then i made a visit to doctor pape. taught the beginner class and then called it a night.

today is small business and then something involving the rowing machine. i need to put that back into the rotation more. it is one of the most useful tools i have at my disposal.

got a really good massage today. i'm using a new massage therapist that my chiropractor recommended. she worked on the pectoral muscle and my sub scapula. now i'm feeling a little out of it.

i finished yesterday out by hitting the strawberry canyon pool for 500 meters. this morning did a circuit warm up with the morning class. we did a 40 second on/20 second off timing scheme. it was good hard work. the eduardo went over some good set ups for straight armbars. it will help out my game immensely.

pectoral minor is still giving me trouble. a visit to dr. pape yesterday helped and was painful at the same time. i have a massage appointment tomorrow. hopefully combined these will accelerate the healing process. i would like to be able to start sparring next week. i've been sparring with the beginners with my left arm tucked into my belt. next week i'd like to be able to use both arms.

this morning i hit the black belt club warm up to get the day started. we did the kettlebell challenge. it's two people, two kb's. you go back and forth with your partner doing 10 reps each for 25 minutes. i'm going to try mixing the c & p's with the airdyne.

right now i'm trying to motivate myself to go into berkeley and knock out 400-500 meters at the pool.

swimming

after a bad start to the morning things picked up with the morning class. hit a 30 round circuit with mostly body weight exercises. showed the guys ways to improve the mount position and attacks from there. showed some decent chokes and a choke to an armbar from the s mount.

hit the berkeley pool after that. knocked out 9 laps in just under 20 minutes, which is 450 meters. not bad after the earlier circuit work. now it's nap time and then i'm off to teach the beginner class at 6.

once a week is better than never

so it's sunday and i haven't posted since the thursday before last. there has been a mild change in my pectoral minor, injury. it did involve the first rib. it turns out while the rib was not dislocated, it had shifted out of place. that most likely caused the rest of the damage. so now that i have addressed that issue, hopefully the healing process will actually take hold.

i had toyed with posting a review of my workouts from the last week, but they weren't anything spectacular. i hit the stairs, swam, rode the bike almost every day, hit a heaven & hell workout with the whole class on wednesday, and hit the airdyne twice. taught every day at least once, most days twice and then wednesday i taught three times. this next week will be more of the same. i'm going to make a flier advertising that i am available for privates as a way to fill some time and up my teaching game. i will also once again try and post more detailed workout and teaching sessions, even though i have failed over and over at this up til now.

tomorrow is teaching the details and problems with chokes. then swimming. followed by teaching the beginner class. i'm going to start sparring with the beginner's and stuff my left hand in my belt preventing me from stressing the pectoral minor. need the sparring work to round out my cardio.

have slowly started to ramp up the training during this period of injury. the southbay open will come and go without me. at this point i'll be lucky if i can pull off the las vegas international. this last week was spent either teaching or doing some kind of moderate workout to keep the system going.

i taught the monday eveing beginner class and then ran the stairs 6times. tuesday had me teach the morning class, then shoot over to the pool, where i knocked out 400 meters in about 13 minutes. i'm not a very good swimmer so that's a good workout for me. wednesday was teaching the evening class again, followed by running the stairs, 5 times this time. today was back to the morning class and the pool. 400 meters again this time in about 15 minutes.

my more immediate goal with the swimming is to knock out 500 meters in ten minutes. with better form than i have now. the long term goal is to get 1000 meters per workout. the stairs as always is to hit 6 rounds every time. the long term goal is upping the number to 8.

the classes were really good this week. i only went over two sections. the first section involved taking the back, with how to take the back from the full guard, plus some of my favorite chokes. the second section was two kore chokes and how to escape the back and defend the choke. today i threw an extra move in with how to escape my favorite way to take the back.

tomorrow i think i'll start riding my bike again, i'll be teaching the morning class and the evening beginner class. then more fun with stairs.

training has come to a stand still due to injury and work. i'll jump back into it on saturday with some stair sprints. i tried to tough it out and failed badly. monday i had a good session at the evening class. 45 minutes of sweep pass or submit king of the hill from the butterfly guard. i had to bow out twice due to the pectoral minor bothering me but other than that i did well.

taught the tuesday morning class, sparred with jesse for about 15 minutes. then helped eduardo with his first private. drilled with jeff off and on through out the session, all told for about 20-25 minutes. then hit the mats with russel. we went at it for a good solid 50 minutes. during each session my chest got progressively more tender and at points shot electric jolts up to my head.

the southbay open is all but a fond memory of something i really would have liked to take a shot at. between work and this injury i feel very unprepared. i have to work today and tomorrow and then will begin hitting workouts that work around my injury. i'll go back to teaching next week to keep my jiu jitsu sharp.

bah

taught the evening beginner class. went over butterfly sweeps and then one pass. then while they drilled the moves i knocked out the heaven and hell work out with the 36 pound kettle bell.

followed it up with the advance class. eduardo had us run through some butterfly passes that took over where the last pass of the beginner class left off. then we sparred i hit the mats for five 10 minute rounds. somewhere along the way i either sprained or strained my left pectoral or a rib. either way it feels like hell. i'll see how it feels in a couple oif days, but the southbay open might be off the table. as the title says, bah.

badly

i keep a bad blog when i am working hard. i am going to recap last week so i can keep focused on getting ready for the south bay open.
this week was spent just sparring.
monday- taught the morning class, sparred with the guys for seven 6 minute rounds.
taught the beginner class and then attended the advanced class, sparred for four 10 minute rounds.
tuesday- taught the morning class, drilled and sparred for a bit with the guys. sparred with russel for about 45 minutes.
wedenesday- took the daytime off and attended the evening advanced class. sparred for six 7 minute rounds.
thursday- taught the morning class and drilled with the guys. sparred with russel for about 40 minutes.
friday- went in early to roll with d. meyers. sparred with him for about 40 minutes. stayed on for the morning class, and played sweep pass or submit with the guys. did two ten minute sessions where i stayed king of the hill through multiple rotations. with one 2 minute break in the middle.
went back for the evening class and sparred for about four 7 minute rounds.
saturday- open mat, sparred for about 40 minutes, took a breather. the played monkey in the middle with cailloux and jui for 18 minutes. i stayed in for the whole time while they rotated in and out every three minutes. it was a good way to end the week.
sunday-did a private and called it a day after that.
monday-took the morning off and sparred at the advanced class. four ten minute rounds.
today- taught the morning class and sparred briefly with victor. not a note worthy day, but a nice break before hitting it hard tomorrow. two more weeks of hard training before the south bay open. wish i had blogged the previous week, it was also a good one as far as training goes.

knocked out a quick abbreviated version of the heaven and hell workout. the full version looks like this:
the set is done four times rotating from left arm to right arm and back after all exercises are completed once. all of the exercises are done one handed. ketlebell size is variable. the exercises are:
5 swings
5 high pulls
5 snatches
5 clean and presses
5 circular cleans
5 rack squats(stepping back with the opposite leg)
20 kb waist circles. 10 one direction then 10 the other.

the second part is 6 reps done for four sets of the following:
1 two handed swing
1 two handed swing to a catch followed by a halo
1 no momentum deck squat

thats the normal workout. ussually i do this with a 44 lb kb. tonight i toned it down a bit, uusing a 35 lb kb. to add something to that i threw on my 20 lb weight vest. i just did the first part of the workout and then followed it with 8 rollouts on the power wheel while wearing the weight vest. i did this for 4 sets.

i got the original workout off of the steve maxwell cruel and unusual kettlebell workout dvd.

a little burned out

been bad about keeping this current. so i'll give an overview of the work i've done. sparred friday night for a while. saturday was spent attending the jeff glover seminar. a very well run seminar. learned a few things. sparred for like 30 minutes after the second part of the seminar. got one round in with jeff and he showed me the various ways my game needs to improve. he caught me with a darce choke at one point. sunday was spent helping out at the belt test.

monday was difficult. i felt sluggish all day, even with two naps. when it was time to go teach the beginner class i took a couple of tylenol. the class went well, and then i stayed on for the advanced class. i was behind mentally. i sparred 3 ten minute rounds and during my third round i was spent. i made mistake after mistake. i made sure to go to bed as early as i could once i got home.

today has gone better but i can tell i am down physically. i taught the morning class. then to keep things flowing i sparred and drilled with the white and grey belts who showed up. one of the few days i was glad russell didn't show up. i wouldn't have given him much of a go today. i think later i'll do a light version of heaven and hell. right now i'm relaxing with some yogurt and cantaloupe.

last night flowed right into this morning. i taught the beginner class. we went over closed guard attacks and then some standing guard openers and passes. then i made them do standing pass drills. once the class was over i want back to being the student and eduardo went over some half guard sweeps to the far side. we followed that with a sparring session where we had to spar with everyone in the room. that equaled out to seven 7 minute rounds. so much for my doing maybe five and calling it a night. did really well even though the workout was still lingering.

mark showed up at this point and everyone went with him for three minutes. i ended doing one of the last rolls, then eduardo changed it and had phillipe roll another 6 minutes with mark, then i took the last 6 minutes.

the morning class was working on half guard protection and recovery. then russel showed up and i rolled with him for about 40 minutes. at one point i tried to bow out so he could get some one on one time with eduardo. he replied that he was actually there to roll with me. which i see as a huge compliment. the way he rolls, because he's blind, is very interesting and different/difficult from my other sparring partners.

tomorrow will begin with court and then it will be time to take ont he battle ropes. for now it's time to challenge my pillow to a duel to the death.

6 barbell thrusters with 95 pounds
6 pull ups
+6 dips
------------------------------------
the 666 workout

the rest interval used to be one minute and the set calls for ten rounds. i also used to do it with 80 pounds. today i did the 95 and cut the rest to 30 seconds. it was very painful at the end. now i'm puttering around the house picking up and trying to drink enough fluids so i'm ready to go for tonight. i'd like to hit 5-6 7 minute rounds in sparring.

i'm still trying to work out the kinks in getting my phone to upload to this laptop so i can share pics and videos of the workouts. i might even throw up some technique i go over in the beginner class i teach.

couldn't do it

started of yesterday with some light circuit work at the start of the morning class. nine stations, 20 seconds on/ 20 seconds off, 20 rounds. just enough to get the blood flowing and the breathing up. then it was onto some more spider guard work. the day took a turn when david meyers showed up. he's a machado black belt, and one of the first black belts i ever trained with. he had a couple of good tips for the students about aspects of the spider guard sweeps i was showing.

once i had the class begin on the movement drills, me and david started sparring. he took apart my bottom game at first. then as i warmed up more i was able to get into it more. he still ran rough shod over me though. then eduardo and russell showed up. all in all i sparred with david for about 30 minutes, then eduardo for about 25, and wrapped up the session with about 20 minutes with russell. i was happy to be included in the session, seeing as it was three black belts and me.

i had planned on hitting the evening advanced class with vernie, but when 7:30 rolled around i was not up for it. now i'm eating breakfast and thinking about what my workout will be for the day. i'm thinking the 666 workout is the way to go. it's a good push/pull type workout.

the other half

taught a decent beginner class. went over spider guard. eduardo sat in and showed a couple of tips. then it was time for the advanced class. we went over some really good chokes from the butterfly guard. then vernie showed a good choke from the top of butterfly guard. sparred for seven 7 minute rounds. the earlier workout caught up to me halfway through the second round. i started trying some stuff that i should save for easier sparring partners til i have it down better. it was more instinctive sparring since my brain was too tired to throw out any fresh and exciting ideas. i felt a step behind through most of the sparring sessions. it was good for me. now it's bedtime and time to rest for the morning class.

half way

the day is half over. my afternoon nap with the dog was cool. i hit the airdyne 30calories/10 burpees workout again today. the goal was to hit ten rounds in under 25 minutes i barely missed with a time of 25:30. i blame my insistant need to do each burpee correctly and painfully, i hate letting my form fail no matter how tired i get.

the second half of the day will be teaching the beginner class at 6 pm. tonight's focus will be what ever section of the belt test they feel unclear on. that will be followed by switching into student mode and attending the advanced class with eduardo. followed by some sparring until my arms, legs or both feel like foreigners to the rest of my body.

winding down my evening. trying to decide what to eat. went to the 4pm competition team practice. we discussed a variety of chokes, and then some interesting positions from butterfly, inside de la riva, and deep half guard. we wrapped the practice up with a round robin of sparring. each guy stayed in for two rounds then rotated out for a round. gave me 3 six minute rounds altogether at the end of thirty minutes. good way to close out the training week.

slipping

was enjoying the time with my wife too much yesterday and was too tired after work to blog about yesterdays workout. right before work yesterday i hit a new work out on the airdyne. ride the airdyne til it reads 30 calories, then hit 10 6 count burpees. try and knock out 10 sets in 25 minutes. i did mine in like 27. i'll get it down to 24-25 next time as i understand the rest period and how hard to hit the airdyne now.

then today at noon i went in for open mat and sparred for 7 6 minute rounds straight with the blue and white belts that showed up for the open mat. now it's time to enjoy some cheese and fruit, take a nap, and get ready for the 4pm team practice.

finished out the evening with four 7 minute sparring rounds at the end of vernie's class. was so tired my abs kept cramping up and my open guard was pathetic.

worked a quick 15 minute circuit with the morning class. lots of bodyweight work today. crescent push ups, windshield wipers, body weight rows, alternating push ups and the like. 8 stations, 20 seconds on, 20 seconds off. the went over more butterfly work. followed all of that with a 45-50 minute roll with eduardo. it was good to get twisted in a pretzel from so many directions by him, reminds me of all the mistakes i make. and need to correct as i roll with other people.

evening

i'm sitting here before bed enjoying my raw milk cheddar and a glass of 2 buck chuck. taught the beginner class. went over some butterfly and half guard variations. then while the adevanced class jumped rope and did burpees i did 6 sets of 10 burpee pull ups. eduardo went through some sleeve and knee grip half guard sweeps. then i sparred for seven 7 minute rounds. need to add more variety to my bottom game. less straight half guard and more variation.

waiting for my post work out steak. hit the airdyne for 16 20/10 second sprint intervals. the goal is to get the rpm to 87-90 rpm every round, but that starts failing after four rounds, then it's to top 85 rpm and then by round 11 i'm trying to clear 80. my normal round number is 10-12 so the extra 4 rounds were painful.

day one of my blogging experiment

i told myself and others i would keep a better blogging record of my training over a month ago when i received my brown belt. i failed in doing that. so now i am going to try again at blogging about both my work outs and my brazilian jiu jitsu training. hopefully i will figure out how to upload videos from my phone so i can show some things i will be working on in the future.

today will begin shortly with some work on the airdyne. that will be followed with some reconfiguring my weight vest so it will accommodate more weight. then i am going to bury a pole in the backyard for the battle rope. making it easier to use that, which will hopefully spur me to use it more often.