tallgeese

3/6 Light day, finished up 2 day rifle course and was spent. Short shoulder rehab. Abs 1.25 miles on treadmill.

3/5 Abs Squat Bench Row 40 min free roll, no gi.

bushidoman, you are spot on. It's the 5x5 program. I've really liked it. I started ground up with it coming off my shoulder injury since it was making it a horrible effort to lift ANYTHING with the upper body. That program, in conjunction with rehab work really made a difference. I try to vary up my lifting and conditioning from time to time, sometimes even taking extended time away from it if I have plenty of mat time. 3/4 Drilled arm bar from guard. Move to omo, triangle from omo. 15 min free roll, hard. 20 min MT work, mitts and bags.

3/3 Abs 1.5 miles on the treadmill Squats Overhead Press Deads

Congrats! That's huge. The trek to black belt in many arts is arduous, but in BJJ it's epic. Well done and enjoy the new accessory!

3/2 Drilled hip work. Reviewed arm bar from guard. Reverse arm bar. Then on to omo plata. 40 min free roll.

'Grats! Very nice work.

Welcome aboard!

3/1 Drilled one handed roll, no hands roll. Hip Drills warm up. Covered arm bar from guard, reverse arm bar from counter. 40 min free roll.

Thanks for the vote of confidence, bro. For me, it's hard not to go to Rickson Gracie. I also appreciate Robson Moura for his epic guard game. Lastly, I've really come to admire Roy Harris for so much more than just his BJJ.

2/28 Live warm up of top control series. One hand tied down. No hands hip drill. Drilled D'Arce series. 30 min free roll

2/27 Hip Drills Abs Squat Bench Rows 1.75 miles on treadmill.

Welcome aboard! Looking forward to hearing your perspective.

Cutting my teeth? Sorry. Just an expression. Just get used to doing it for the first time. Training camps are highly useful running up to tournaments. I've had great ones, bad ones, and a large number of mediocre ones. They demand time, focus, and physicality on top of your standard training. Throw in a diet and you've got a serious event on your hands. However, being the first time you've done it. Work into it slow. Get a feel for it. Struggle with some little issues of increased training. Or add a conditioning routine, ect. Just a couple of little additional stressors. If this goes well, you'll have a better idea of how much more you can handle next time, ect. It's a building process. Work at it slow.

The choice of what to use takedown-wise is always dependent on several factors. Your preferences, their movement, what's working out as grips between the two of you, ect. From a strictly BJJ perspective, tournaments and such, I can't offer much in the way of real opinion. Those who know me, know that I am a guard puller. That said, good takedown mechanics are still a must as often efforts to utilize takedowns are helpful in setting up your guard pull. Yes, I'm one of those guys. That said, I have had real luck at work with a couple. Neither are very high-speed. But I'll argue fundimentals all day. First up, the standard body lock take down series from all directions. Very useful. Next, a double leg or variant. And last, an underhooking trip. All have been very helpful for landing me on top of offenders. The difference often being: a) skill of the other guy and, b) the gi grips making it more difficult to execute shots and such.

Can't say that I have. I'm sure I've seen it, heck, maybe I even do it. But names are something that is so regional and specific to gym that it's almost impossible to assume any kind of standardization. However, if it's what I'm thinking of, I agree that the kimura sweep from bottom side is pretty sweet. It's something that I hadn't done for the longest time, but has become pretty standard in my arsenal these days.

Favorite, for me, has been the combination of things that I've wondered across over the years. Primarily, due to the nature of the job I'm in, I actually use a lot of BJJ. It accomplishes control and fits into law enforcement well. I certainly appreciate the standing joint manipulation out of my initial arts, and a striking background has also been helpful. It's just been the right fit for the right circumstances. The fact that I've had success makes that blend my favorite. However, I think that finding jiu jitsu was VERY helpful for me given the goals of LE. I will concede, that this is a highly individual answer and all the intrinsic factors that make up an individual and the environment that they use those arts in make "favorite" a variable answer.

Hip bump and scissors have to be listed due to utility across time. It's almost impossible to talk about sweeps without looking at those two. I personally like the elegance of the standard spider guard sweep well executed and a ball n chain kind of sweep from what we call a koala guard (I've heard it called sit up guard as well, but I know that too has multiple uses across lineages). I like these two because they play to my open guard game. Also because, like I said, I think that they are really beautiful in execution.

2/26 1.5 miles on treadmill Abs Squats Over head Press Deadlifts

2/25 Drilled lapel chokes from side mount. 40 min free roll.

I never carry one, despite the fact I think I have a couple floating around. I've spent so little time (like next to none) that I'm not certain it's a viable force multiplier for myself. I'd be better off with the pen quite frankly. It's more intuitive in emergency application. I'm not saying that they aren't useful, I just don't have the training to successfully deploy it. That's what any weapons use choice come from at it's core- is the individual wielding it trained to do so.

There are decent dudes at each level; however, you are correct that technique defiantly rules in the higher divisions. This also holds true in age divisions. As people get older they get smarter about their roll. Even competitively. The 30+ brackets all, by and large, sport people that actually have to go to work on Monday for a living. This means less explosion and more tight, technically sound games. I've competed at every rank I've been at. The experience has only gotten better as I've a) gone up in rank, and (surprising) b) advanced in age bracket. On a totally different subject, 4 years would be an eternity at white belt. Think of it this way, if you spend 4 years as white and 3-4 at blue you're 7-8 years in. That's close to, if not getting, a black belt. Provided that you're in close proximity to a black belt instructor and some upper ranked people to test and expand your game. 10 years used to be the norm. 8 is getting pretty common just because of the sheer number of qualified people to train with frequently has exploded (at least here in the States). Early in my martial career, when the UFC's hit. I'd travel 2 hours from where I went to college to take private lessons (wait for it.....) with a blue belt. Yup. It was that hard to find legit people. Now, I train at a gym with a black belt coach. A couple of browns. A handful of purples. Enough blues to lose count of and a small army of white belts with stripes. All quality at their rank. Consider as well, 30 min from us is another academy similarly outfitted. Within an hour are two more on top of that. The change is incredible. And the product quality is soooooo much greater. I spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $200 bucks back in the day, two trips that tallied to at least 8 hours and 6 months of my life just to get a basic Americana from a side mount I could barely outline the important points of. Of course people rank faster now. You can spend 3 nights a week at a gym being coached thru all your movements and reminded constantly of important points by your black belt coach and his cadre of upper rank guys. Granted, that's assuming that there are immediate access to black belt level coaching. If the BJJ scene is somewhat more sparse in Finland (and if I remember right from some of your earlier posts, XO it sounds like it might be) then longer times would be the norm.

Good work!

Thomas Cleary has the best translation of Five Rings I've found to date. I've checked thru a few and his was top notch. I'll have to check and see what my current copy of Art is War is.

2/24 Shoulder Rehab Abs Squats Bench Rows 1.25 miles