Datapoint

Weighing-in consistently at about 76.5 kilos with my runners on.  Pushing towards 45lbs plates on each side for Germans (10 sets of 10), but I’m not quite there yet.  A couple weeks ago I felt confident about being able to achieve 20 chin-ups in a row (16 is easy) but my energy levels are suffering due to a cold.  I’ve been neglecting cardio—occasional stair-running and judo is all I’ve managed to get in.  I special ordered a new pair of runners for my funny feet so maybe those’ll kick me back into high gear.  Left ankle is at about 85% and not a concern: e.g., saiza is easy when I’m warmed up.

Starting to get 3D veins in my right biceps (left biceps is already quite prominent), calves, thighs but I’m sure the holidays will help with that.  Bruises on my hips and shins from falling and having my legs hacked at in judo never seem to heal.  I look like the victim of an unending butt-kickin’.  I privately enjoy being one of the people at the gym that actually looks like he applies his fitness.

Groundwork: been developing my butterfly guard since I purchased Marcelo Garcia’s book on the X-Guard.  Typically doesn’t work well against larger opponents who instead flatten me, but comparable/lighter opponents are becoming easier to control, sweep, puppet around.  I’ve been making poor attendance to jiu jitsu and reasonable attendance to judo, mostly due to the cold weather.  Might cancel jiu jitsu til the Spring.

Standing:  while I had aspirations of developing my forward throws earlier on, I think I’ve more generally geared myself towards developing “kuzushi” (i.e., off-balancing uke).  Pulling up, pulling in.  Made a bit of progress last week, as I felt like I was controlling a (quite exhausted) black belt’s weight.  Of course I didn’t throw him, and he ragdolled me when he felt like it.  These movements involve muscles that aren’t necessarily as developed as I’d like, so even if I don’t manage to perform a throw, I think the repetition is good for me.

Agalloch is blowing my mind.

Options from the Sleeve

Sumi gaeshi is a throw I often attempt and fail, ending up flat on my back.  But sometimes it works beautifully.  Typically I grab uke’s left sleeve with my left hand (especially after ‘baiting’ with my right hand extended) and attempt the throw with that weak connection.  But it’s important to put more effort into breaking him down, reaching far across his back, and to straddle his shoulder with my armpit.

If you do that, you’ve probably got sumi gaeshi.  But maybe not.  So you can fake an uchi mata (successfully executed, this’d drive his face into the mat—not bad in a street situation, suboptimal in competition).  He’ll correct his balance, which makes turning and completing the sumi gaeshi that much easier.

With very few exceptions, it seems good to have an opponent broken down.  Besides the obvious application of sacrifice throws, another “throw” I played with on Saturday is a somersault choke.  I slipped my right hand deep into uke’s right lapel (cross grip), broke him down, then leapt across his back in a somersault motion: this tightened the choke and generated enough momentum to knock him over, but I need to practice it against more resistant opponents.

Another option from a left-handed cross sleeve grip is to pull that sleeve under your right arm, across your body, and to clamp down on it with your right arm.  Get your right leg behind their left foot and connect yourself to uke.  He’s pretty much hosed.  (todo: name this throw.)

You can also pull the sleeve across—as with sumi gaeshi—and do a very aggressive o uchi gari, pulling your opponent down onto the same side as the arm whose sleeve you’ve got.

Finally, a couple words on lapel chokes from the back.  Once you’ve got your over-under, you can use your under to straighten uke’s lapel and choke up on (heh) your over-the-shoulder grip.  From here you can pull down on the opposite lapel with your under grip and straighten the wrist on your over grip hand.  But once you’re deep with your over, you can also trade that under grip for a half-nelson, which removes his arm from play while enabling you to push your fist into the back of his neck to tighten the choke.  If you’re really flexible (if I’d've been warmer I can see this working) you can use your leg to apply the half-nelson.  Maybe it’s unnecessarily fancy, but the result is incredibly strong and truly hopeless for uke, assuming your collar grip can keep up with the torque you’re creating.

Missing the Sport Aspect

Last night at jiu-jitsu we followed up a lesson on Tuesday involving various standing choke/headlock escapes:

• RNC: Toss uke over your shoulder (“hooks in,” yaddy yadda).
• RNC: Twist towards the gripping arm and throw with osoto.
• RNC: Drop the front knee and roll, using uke’s momentum to open his arm (failing this you can reach up and crank his neck while you’re on the ground).
• Side headlock: push head, lift leg and slam; failing that, push head (digging your fingers into uke’s upper lip or nose if you’re an asshole) and wrap uke into a guillotine.
• Side headlock: bearhug uke so you’re perpindicular; squeeze your knees around his near leg; reach behind him for his belt and in front of him for the crook of his leg; rotate your butt to sit in front of uke’s far leg—you’ll end up rolling. (I liked this one.)

I guess this stuff is kind of fun, but it’s so much lacking in the sport aspect of jiu-jitsu that I was feeling a bit disenfranchised after last class.  I’d much rather have been drilling the basics (e.g., triangle choke, armbar, scissor sweeps, cross-lapel chokes, etc.) instead of these situation-dependent headlock escapes.  That, and I only got to roll *once*, and with a bit of a noob (that was good though, I got to practice not using strength).  Still, jj does hurt my ankle less than judo at the moment, so I can’t complain too much.

One thing I noticed was one of the four-stripe white belts doing an armbar against a fallen uke.  He just threw his shin/knee down into uke’s ribs (kind of “bouncing” off him) while pulling the arm upward.  At the same time he threw the leg over to catch uke’s head.  It just looked really elegant and landed him into a great armlock position (i.e., uke’s back slightly exposed, arm torqued backwards, ready for a quick tap).

Unrest

In yesterday’s post I anticipated I’d sleep like a baby, which would’ve been nice since I got up at 05:30 for the gym. That didn’t happen, though.  Even though I was in bed at ~22:30, I was feeling crappy in general and a conversation started up outside my window ~00:00.  Gymming (cable flies, low rows, medicine ball sit-ups, squats, super sevens) suffered accordingly, but I’m happy to report the ankle isn’t bothering me anymore.

Jiu-jitsu was a win.  We covered kesa gatame escapes and transitions, which are familiar to me from judo, but it’s always nice to see a familiar subject under a different light.  These were (1) stuffing your captor before rolling the other way, (2) hipscaping and hooking your captor’s neck with your leg, and (3) stuffing your non-reacting captor flat into the ground.  The only one that’s worked reliably for me in judo are (1) and (2)… (3) just requires too much brute force in practice.  I had to tap once from ankle pain (I was transitioning into butterfly guard and it got stuck, heh) but otherwise it actually felt good to test its range of motion.

After JJ I had a few minutes to kill before my bus came so I went to Tim Horton’s to have a turkey sandwich without the dressing.  I was proud of myself for skipping the ranch but then I ordered a medium iced cappuccino but goddam it was good.

Exercise

Satisfying run at the gym this morning:

• Chin-ups, 2×10.
• Germans (9×10 at ~110lbs+1×10 at ~140lbs)—my best to date.
• Obliques with 25lbs plate.
• Shoulder raises with a horizontal bar attached to two cables.
• More chin-ups (2×10).
• One-armed triceps extensions.

Then I went climbing with my friend Lonn at 12:30 (after a bit o’ hack), but we didn’t get a lot in because I had to go to class. Tonight I’m planning on going to jiu jitsu—I’ll sleep like a baby tonight.

Brute

Last night I played some nethack and finally killed Medusa—first time for me.  I have yet to embark on the Rogue quest (scared of the polymorph traps) but my character has become a serious brute.  One day I’ll write a blog post about nethack.

I slept in this morning, and it felt great.  I tried to have some oatmeal for breakfast with cardamom and cinnamon and sugar in it, but I think I overdid it with the spices and it tasted horrible.  Then I went to the gym, even though yesterday’s workout was horrible (I’ve been sick).  Today’s wasn’t great but I had a little more pep:

• Chin-ups, 10 wide-grip then 10 wide-grip/behind-head.
• Bench, 30, 10, 15, 10, 10 reps with 95lbs.
• Some cycling to break things up (13 mins and 83 calories—pathetic!)
• Squats, 3×10 with 95lbs (testing the ankle).
• Triceps extensions, 5×10 variable weight.
• Concentration curls, 3×10 on each arm, 20 lbs.
• 200 crunches (various).

My ankle is mostly recovered.  I can’t fully extend my foot (e.g., sit in saiza) but I think I’m ready for some judo/jiu-jitsu next week!

Hack’ & ‘Hack

I woke up and scrambled two eggs for breakfast.  I travelled to campus to meet with my friend Lonn, and we played hacky sack for a bit.  By then I was hungry, so we looked for food but all the lineups were too long.  Instead, I bought a granola bar out of a vending machine and we played nethack for *hours*.  I managed to polymorph my dog (via polymorph trap) into a master lich; meanwhile, Lonn found rings of poly-control and polymorph and decided that a master lich was the best thing for him to polymorph into.  I died when an air elemental engulfed and tore my meager 59-hp character to shreds, but Lonn’s is alive and well.  Afterwards, I was so… hungry…

Today my ankle is doing fairly well (hence the hacky sack) but still not completely recovered.  I really want to go back to judo & teh jitz, but not just yet.

Tomorrow I start my Ph.D. studies.  I *still* need to decide on a class to take, but I’m uncertain enough about each of the classes to have to visit each one in turn to make my decision.  I also need to decide on a research topic—my supe is taking several very interesting directions in his research, and experience tells me I’ll benefit by complementing his interests and experience.

Static on the Radio

On Wed June 11 2008 I passed my M.Sc. oral exam. Besides the minor revisions I have to make, this is the end of the road.

It’s getting hard to remember everything that happened, so this is a good time to take stock of the last three years…

Ketchup

Hello, devoted readers! My absence is mostly due to the fact that, for the past few weeks, every day & all day has been spent writing my thesis. It really doesn’t leave me with much of a desire to write here (I don’t know how some people do it!). But today I’m taking it easy, so I thought I’d play some catch up.