tallgeese

Welcome aboard KF!

Congrats, Brian! Not only is the number amazing, but the quality and care of each post is evident. In fact, it was one of your threads that made me go from occasional lurker to a member of the community. Thanks for everything you do, Brain. Congrats!

1/16 Drilled passing the spider guard, under and over. 30 min free roll.

Cool! Glad you found it useful ps1!

1/14 Drilled guard passing focusing on the butterfly guard. 35 min free roll. PTK: focused on diamond footwork and bridging off the flow. Finished with technical sparring.

Glad it's got you thinking bushidoman! Working the legs to control distance early in the pass is the key. As for grips vs. no gi the immediate modification is going palm to the back of the elbow and grip to the wrist rather than the use of the material. More importantly, your hip movement MUST be on. There is no compensation thru the grip. This is aided by early detection of the pass. I start looking for this as soon as the double unders start to go. That allows your reaction to match his action. You short cut the OODA loop if you start doing it that way. Also, bear in mind the gi game is a lot about the push/ pull control on body parts and gi grips. Without that, things become more dynamic, and this is no exception. Work driving the knee once it's in the upper arm. I know, I'm usually against such things, but no gi is a bit different animal.

There are several and it can be daunting. For my money, the most historical (for the time period it covers) scholerly, and well researched book on my shelf (and my favorite) is this one: http://www.amazon.com/Heavenly-Warriors-Evolution-Military-Monographs/dp/067438704X It's a great read with great history and the warrior mythology that it led to. Highly recommended. Also, check out: http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Samurai-Martial-Feudal-Japan/dp/4805309601 This is a great view of historic arts and the systemic patterns that led to todays arts. Very complete. The Nitobe text that chiliphil1 refers to is excellent as well when you're looking at the established bushido of the post- Tokugawa samurai. http://www.amazon.com/Bushido-Soul-Japan-Inazo-Nitobe/dp/1568364407/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1421253578&sr=1-1&keywords=bushido It's heavy on philosophy (by heavy I mean completely) but you get a good overview of the concept. This goes to the late era mindset of the samurai. Your comment about the Bubishi is common and one I've had about several texts. Consider the difference in culture, time frame, and language and it's easy to see how this can happen. I always look for good, credible translations. When in doubt, go with Cleary for these things. His Book of Five Rings which includes The Book of Family Traditions on the Art of War by Yagyu Munenori is the best of the long list of translations and can make things way easier. Good luck and let us know if you come up with some you like specific to this.

1/12 Drilled guard passing. Standing knee in break with same side knee pass. 30 min free roll. Night of PTK. Ranging angle footwork. Strike mechanics in conjunction with foot work. Worked into controlling the combat distance followed by some bridging for more advanced crew.

Welcome to KF!

Welcome aboard KF! Glad to have you. It sounds like you have a great attitute about the matter. Keep that up and loving the art.

Everyone has given solid advice. I'll add- "Relax" Sounds easy, right? Realize that while this is important and you should train as hard as you can for it, you're there to have fun (at least most people are). Enjoy it. Enjoy the learning, don't put too much pressure on yourself about it. Good luck! Keep us posted..

This week in class was about transitions from closed to open guard. This is all about building confidence to be versatile from guard. By utilizing this transition time, you open the window on opportunity to attack, sweep, or anything else you might want to do. In this recap we look at using this time to counter the double under pass. This lets us start our recovery prior to a full static position achieved and greatly enhances our chances of recovery. Check it out and discuss:

Happy B-day!

Happy B-day!

1/10 Drilled the week's material. 60 min free roll.

1/9 Drilled attacking from transition from closed to open guard. Omo. 60 min free roll.

1/7 Drilled transition from closed to transitional spider guard. Then counter to double unders. 20 min free roll.

1/5 Drilled transition from closed guard to spider. Worked on defeating the transition and then focused on recovering guard from the pass. That's where we're working this week, recovering from pass efforts PRIOR to completion of the pass. 40 min free roll.

Congrats!

We are back from the holidays and back at training. This week was all about the closed guard. One of the things I noticed in the last rotation of training was a tendency of some of our people to really shy away from working guard or use it very statically. So, we kick of the new year with some really aggressive work from the bottom. Here, we talk about some of the concepts we drilled all week in various manners and move into the tactics of the hip bump sweep. One of THE sweeps you must understand in BJJ. Even if you never use it, the technical skill set it develops is the foundation for many more advanced sweeping maneuvers. The details are important, this is a sweep I see botched a lot. And I've been guilty of it myself. We also talk about using fundamental movements to begin to set up more advanced attacks from here. So: As always, discussion welcome and encouraged.

Hope to hear that you're back at it soon.

1/3 Reviewed week's closed guard materials. 45 min free roll.

1/2 Drilled pendulum sweep followed by pendulum to triangle. 40 min free roll.

Okay, so I've been a bit lax on chronicling workouts over the holidays. They have happened, but not with the frequency that I'd like. As it turns out, racing to the home stretch with a gym eats up a lot of time. Who knew At least we're getting there and within a couple of weeks it should be done. 12/31 Drilled guard mechanics and maintainence. Hip bump sweep. To Kimura. 40 min free roll. PTK We worked strikes mechanics on 1 and 2 fluids. Then reverse triangle footwork to diamond foot work. Then put the strikes in. After, we spent some time beginning to bridge. Finished flowing with some of the veteran players.

12/22 Drilled Q and A with group over last cycle of material. 60 min free roll. PTK footwork and Form. Focused on Abecidario and Quatro Cantos.