State of My Arts

It has been a bit of a busy last month and a half.  We moved in the early part of May, from a 4 bedroom house into an even larger house.  So, packing and unpacking and getting things arranged for the house have taken some time.   We now have a nice, big 10 kW solar array installed on our back roof generating a significant portion of our elecricity.  And somehow there’s still a lot more to be done, as I’m sitting here typing this in the office and there are 4 boxes of stuff staring balefully at me.  The moving interrupted my training a bit.  So did yet another bout with poison ivy this week that caused my right eye to swell halfway shut. 

When I get busy, the first thing to get dropped is BJJ.  It was getting to the point where I was questioning whether I should continue taking BJJ, or if I should just drop it.  I do really enjoy it, but I have been stalling out in my progress, a result of averaging fewer than two classes per week.  I was invited last month to test for my purple belt, which I declined — I barely feel qualified to be a blue belt.  The invitation was extended purely on the duration of my training, not on my ability, I’m sure.  I started just over four years ago, though I’ve been unable to train for a number of months in that span due to a variety of injuries.  But the BJJ schedule has recently changed so I can take intermediate classes on Mondays and Tuesdays in addition to 2 hours of open mat time on Thursdays.

Last night was a gup promotion exam with eight students testing for ranks between yellow belt and black stripe red belt.  As a group they did well, though as always there are many areas of improvement.  Testing nights usually inspire me as an instructor, though it is usually because I see so many things I know I need to spend more time teaching rather than because the level of TKD is necessarily inspiring.  Last night was no different.  I think punching combinations and focus on kick placement will be an emphasis next week.

BJJ, TKD, Training

This weekend is another one of our parent school’s Hapkido seminars.  It’d be easier if it weren’t 3,000 miles away, though.  So we’re flying out of Philly tomorrow at 6 AM, which means getting up at 3 AM.  Then, due to a quirk of plane ticket economics, we’re connecting in San Francisco before we fly out to Portland.  We were last out there the end of Novemeber last year.  It’ll be a very long day, though I should have a couple of hours of down time before the evening session starts.  Two more sessions on Saturday, then we’re flying back on Sunday.

And on Tuesday, my wife and I are closing on a new house.  It is close to our current house, and consequently close to the dojang.  Much nicer and roomier, and just fits us much better than the current house.  We’re looking forward to moving in.  And I’m using the whole packing/organizing thing as an excuse for why I haven’t posted recently.

My back is in much better shape after numerous chiropractor visits, and I’ve been training regularly.  This week I’ve been fighting a cold, so not as much training.  BJJ is the first thing that falls off my schedule when I’m feeling a bit under the weather.  At the dojang, there have been a couple of promotion exams recently, including a junior black belt promotion.  I ran a plyometric-type of class last Saturday, and I felt that for days.

My weight ballooned a bit over the last couple of months, but it is back down to around 200 now, though I still want to drop that a bit further.  I’ve added a 15 minute workout in the early morning during the week: 5 minutes on the bike at a fairly heavy resistance level, followed by 10 minutes of lifting, ab work, stretching, or whatever else I feel I need that day.  That’s been working fairly well for me.

So, that’s my recent martial arts life in a nutshell.  Moving and such will keep me fairly busy over the next couple of weeks, but hopefully I’ll sneak in a couple of posts between now and then.

BJJ, Hapkido, Health, TKD, Training

Last night’s BJJ class was a lot of sparring drills.  Normally we drill a chain of moves for a while and then spar from the knees the rest of the night.

Last night had a takedown drill: you “win” if you can lift your opponent’s leg or if you get double underhooks.  After that we did a guard pass/sweep drill.  Win, you stay in.  I was trying to pass a purple belt’s guard, thought I just about had it, then he swept me.  I must have landed funny, because it hurt immediately.  I tried stretching for a little bit, then went back in (trying to pass a black belt), and of course got swept.  I was done for the night.

I figured I wouldn’t be able to make it in to work today, so I slept in a bit.  I picked a local chiropractor almost by random, as the last chiropractor I went to is around 25 minutes away.  At the appointment this morning we naturally discussed how I came to be injured.  So I told him about BJJ.  And he says, “Oh, I’m friends with a guy who trains there.  Do you know ____?”

My response?  “He’s the !&*@# who did this to me!”  Okay, I didn’t speak in punctuation, and I didn’t even say any naughty words.  The sweep was clean, and I’m still befuddled as to how exactly it caused my back to do this.  But I’m still kind of boggling at the coincidence, as I don’t live in a particularly small town.

I’m doing much better tonight than last night, though transitioning from standing to sitting and vice versa is kind of tough, and doing something like tying shoes is almost beyond my capabilities.  Of course, I still went in to teach TKD tonight.

BJJ, Health

Well, I’ve been back at BJJ for nearly 2 months now — minus a couple weeks when I was out sick.  Things are actually starting to come around a bit.  I feel like I’m starting to make a bit of progress again.  I’ve learned a few new things and am slowly remembering things from past years.

The BJJ school has moved, and it is now closer to a five minute drive than a 12-15 minute drive, which is great.  The new place is owned by the BJJ black belt.  In the past, we’ve been in spaces owned by others.  Most recently, we had been in a large TKD school that always had several different classes going on at the same time and felt to me somewhat like a 3-ring circus.  The new space is smaller, and has room for only six pairs of students to spar at the same time, which is plenty on some nights, but last night a few people had to sit out each round.

I’m still one of the worst blue belts — or at least, one of the least effective in sparring, based on my size.  I’m not really particularly competitive with other blue belts my size or larger.  I enjoy sparring with the lighter weights because I get a chance to move and try more things.  Against the bigger guys, I’m in a bit of survival mode, and sometimes I’m not even surviving particularly well.

Yesterday was a pretty good class for me.  I was having some trouble with the moves of the day (a half-mount roll into turtle control, and an open guard roll into an ankle lock), but those eventually came along.  My sparring was middling — I got to work with a lightweight purple belt that I outweight by 45 pounds, and we had a fun roll without any submissions.  I sparred with a young teen orange belt, and worked the move of the day.  I also rolled with two white belts, one of whom was a relative novice, the other is closer to blue belt level.  It was fun to work moves on the novice, though I learned that my arm triangle choke from side control needs some work.

The other item of note regarding BJJ is that with the new location has come a new schedule.  There is no longer a Tuesday class I can go to.  So now I’ll be going Monday and Thursday.  I preferred Tuesday because I could go from teaching TKD to BJJ class on the same night and have Thursday as my workout day off.  But now I’ve got BJJ on Monday, Teaching TKD on Tuesday, Hapkido/Teaching/Advanced TKD on Wednesday, BJJ on Thurs, Hapkido on Friday, and TKD on Saturday.  And that is quite a lot.  We’ll see how it works out.

BJJ

My workouts are feeling good again.  I still have clogged ears, but everything else has seemingly returned to normal.

Last Friday was a gup test, and I was one of five on the testing panel.  9 students tested, and they all did a great job.  It was a good 2-hour test, and even the young ones maintained focus throughout.

I finally taught the beginner adult TKD class tonight after 3 weeks away (2 weeks sick and 1 week with a family commitment).  We pulled out the mats and worked on rolling and falling.  Four students had never rolled before, so it was good to get them some experience.  We went through front rolls, back rolls, side falls, back fall, front fall.  So we ran the gamut there.  At the end, myself and two other instructors did a couple simple takedowns, and I gave each a hip throw.  Just a litle application of techniques there.

BJJ has been going pretty well.  I still stink at it, but some things are coming along.  Yesterday’s drilling focused on collar chokes, and it is kind of crazy how many variations there are.  Today’s drilling was half-guard sweeps and half-mount passes.  I’m pretty pathetic in half-guard, so it is good to drill that.  Sparring has been a bit of a struggle.  Blue and Purple belts at my size (and some of those smaller than I am) pretty much have their way with me.  Some of the stronger and more experienced white belts battle me to a standstill.  But I managed to get a gi choke on a newly-minted purple belt today (okay, I outweigh him by 45 pounds).  Then he came back with a nice armbar that opened up for him when I was defending a choke attempt.  Last night was about my toughest night: one of the bigger blue belts ran a clinic on me, probably half a dozen different submissions in 10 minutes.  But it is all fun and a good learning experience.

BJJ, TKD, Teaching

Well, the cold I mentioned the last time was a bit more serious.  I finally went to a doctor the day before Thanksgiving, and her diagnosis is that it started as a viral infection, then I got a secondary bacterial ear infection and another bronchial infection as well.  I got put on three prescriptions and am now feeling a lot better, but not back to normal yet.  When I take a deep breath, I start coughing.  Ears are still a bit clogged as well.

It turns out my health problems could be worse.  My Hapkido instructor was out sick with pneumonia, and his symptoms started the same way mine did.  And the guy I was working with at BJJ on Monday had basically the same thing as well, though he went through two separate courses of antibiotics (one of which was the same I took).  So I guess this sort of thing is going around this area.

But, not being one to allow such minor complaints stop me, I started working out again on Monday.  I went to BJJ class, which was a normally-structured class: warmup, techniques, then sparring.  One of the techniques was a half guard sweep, which I should really remember because my half guard is atrocious.  Tuesday I had a family thing to go to, so I did the P90x Chest & Back workout instead of teaching TKD and going to BJJ.  The P90x knocked me down for the count.  I had to pause it twice to catch my breath (and push the nausea down a bit), and even then I couldn’t do nearly as many reps as I normally do.

Tonight was the class trifecta: Hapkido class followed by teaching the TKD intermediates (greens and blues) followed by the red and black belt class.  The Hapkido class wasn’t too physically taxing.  But then I kept the intermediate class pretty high energy since we had two visiting teenage 2nd dans who just moved into the area and are looking for a new school.  Hopefully they had fun.  Anyway, I joined in with most things and gave myself a pretty good workout there.  Then the next class took most of the energy I had left.

Being out sick for several weeks allowed my inner glutton to surface.  My caloric intake remained about the same (until Thanksgiving), but without exercising I put on some weight.  My BJJ partner thought I felt more like 225 than my current 200.  And tonight I told one of the black belts that I put on 6 or 7 pounds in the last few weeks, and she said “Oh, is that all?”.  I’m taking that to mean that I look like I put on more like 15.  Okay, she didn’t really mean it that way, but it makes a better story that way.

Regardless, I need to lose some weight, so I’m trying to eat less without necessarily counting calories.  Trying to get from the 201 I weighed at today down to 194 by Christmas.  Then I’ll screw it up by gorging on cookies, but at least I’ll have gotten down to a better weight before I do.

BJJ, Hapkido, Health, TKD, Teaching

Last night, I finally went back to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.  I hadn’t been there since last December, so it was great to be back.  The class was a pretty good size, something around 20 people.  Most of the blue belts were familiar, but of course there was a whole new crop of white belts.

Class started off with the normal jog around the gym, inside/outside sliding, backwards running, etc, plus ab work and pushups.  Then we did a couple of partner take down types of drills: from a lockup position, 3 steps back into a single leg takedown as well as 3 steps into a fireman’s carry type of position.  Then we drilled chokes for a while.  Ezekiel chokes from side control, mount, guard, and back control.  I felt pretty good with my progress during the drills.

Then it was time for sparring.  We normally start on our knees to save wear and tear from takedowns.  I worked with a black belt for the first match, which was a slow, semi-cooperative roll.  Felt pretty good.  Then I worked in with another blue belt for the second match.  We worked at a slightly quicker pace, and he was cautious with my shoulder.  I outweigh him by 30 pounds or so, and his preferred style is using the butterfly guard.  So I got plenty of balance work trying to avoid being swept.  No submissions in the five minutes or so we were going.

So I made it out of there without hurting myself, which (for me) is somewhat of an accomplishment.  No pain or dangerous situations with the shoulder.  I got to wear my all-blue ensemble (blue Atama gi, blue rash guard, blue belt) for the first time in quite a while — always a nice change from black and white.

BJJ

Now that I’ve hit 3rd dan in TKD, I’m reflecting a bit on where I’m headed.

In TKD…

I’m continuing to teach, that’s a given.  My training will continue as it has been.  I’ve been emphasizing low, centered movement, but I’m still working on improving that.  I also had the chance to watch part of a video from my black belt exam where I was sparring.  To my own eye, I looked slow and fairly immobile.  Some techniques were good, but my movement was only middling.  I need to work on quickness and slipping techniques.  My body type isn’t really built for that (6′ 195, large thighs), but I think I need to improve in quickness and balance.  Added core strength would be a plus.

In Hapkido…

Okay, this one is really easy.  2nd dan test in 2 weeks.  Many of the same principles I mentioned in the TKD section also apply here.  I need to transition from entries into techniques more fluidly.  We’ve been doing a lot of countering drills, feeling the balance and shifting to a different technique when the opponent’s energy changes.  It is great stuff, but I still find it difficult to quickly recognize the balance and positioning, and then figure out my best more from there.

In BJJ…

Finally going to start it back up!  It has been 10 months.  I’ve missed grappling, so I am looking forward to going back.  Here, quite simply, I need need to work on not injuring myself.  I’m going to try to work on technique and fluid movement without relying on muscling my opponent around.  Easier said then done… once the blood starts flowing in a grappling match, my competitive instincts take over.

In Kali…

Well, something has to slip.  I stopped it leading up to my promotion exam, and I didn’t miss it.  I think that means I’m not ready to be a student.

In Fitness…

P90x has been great.  However, for 2/3 times per week, I’m not sure it is the best use of my time.  The number of reps in the workouts is high, but maybe I’d get better results by splitting those reps across more days.  I think I’ll do the Plyo workout periodically.  Maybe I’ll try out kettleballs sooner or later.  If the weather cooperates, I might going jogging more often.  I went for around 2.5 miles on Sunday, and it was almost fun.

BJJ, Fitness, Hapkido, TKD, Training

After the conclusion of last Saturday’s TKD training, there were 3 college-age TKD black belts who were interested in doing a bit of grappling.  I gave them a little taste of grappling during the TKD class showing them a sweep from guard, but of course they wanted more.  There’s the MMA influence for you (hey, it got me into BJJ myself).

Anyway, I showed them kind of a quick overview of a few techniques, some of which they were a bit familiar with: arm bar from guard, failed armbar from guard transitioning into an omoplata, Ezekiel choke, and another funky sweep from guard (crossing the guy’s arms in front, hipping out, putting a foot between the arms, hipping the other way and rolling them over).

After playing around with those for 25 minutes or so, the four of us played around with some free grappling starting from a kneeling position.  We were in TKD doboks, which can’t take the pulling that BJJ/Judo gis can, so I kept things somewhere between no-gi and gi.  The three guys are all very fit, but are all built on the lean side, so my 195 pounds probably gave me at least a 30 pound advantage over them.  One of them used to train at the same place I trained BJJ, so he knew a bit about he was doing, and the other two relied on a bit of high school gym class wrestling and the bits and snatches they’ve picked up over the years.

I kept it light, but did have fun submitting them, with a triangle from mount, an Ezekiel choke, a rear naked choke, an arm bar, and a Kimura from guard.  May have missed one or two in there.  It was nice to roll around on the mats a  bit, especially since I knew they weren’t able to hurt me.  I think they’re all leaving for college in a couple of weeks, so we won’t be able to make it a regular thing.  Too bad, I could use some practice before I go back to BJJ in October.

BJJ

There have been a few bits of news and notes around the dojang.

• Master Morgan’s book has been released, and I have my personally autographed copy.  In his note to me, he makes a crack about me needing a haircut (I’m bald).  It is neat to have a book written by someone you have trained with, if only once or twice a year.  I haven’t started reading it yet, but I will do so fairly shortly and give a recap of it when I’m done.
• As I’ve mentioned previously, this weekend is the children’s tournament at our dojang.  Last I’ve heard, there are only expected to be 25-30 competitors.  I put a couple students who aren’t competing on the spot during class, and just kind of got mumbled “’cause I don’t want to” responses.  Disappointing.  Friday night is dojang prep and ring setup.
• I’ll be testing for my 3rd dan in TKD in September.  It will be my last TKD promotion exam, as subsequent ranks are presented when the head instructor deems they have been earned.  The 3rd-to-4th guideline for time-in-rank is 5 years, so this will be my final promotion for quite a while.  2nd dan Hapkido isn’t really on the radar, either.  Purple belt in BJJ will require me to actually start up that training again, and wouldn’t happen for a few years once I do start back up.  Phase 1 Kali certification might happen at some point.
• Speaking of BJJ, I do miss grappling.  My shoulder is getting a lot stronger, but getting it caught in a Kimura or an omo plata would be a very, very bad idea.  I had been thinking that maybe I could restart in August, as my next doctor’s appointment is on August 5.  But with the upcoming TKD promotion exam, maybe I’m better off holding off on BJJ until after that.
• Sometimes, class attendence is weird.  This week, my intermediate class had exactly 4 students.  Last week, there were 15.
• I missed last night’s Hapkido class because I got stuck at work.  Can’t remember the last time that happened.
• The red belt I had written about a while ago has been coming regularly to Hapkido classes.  It’s good for him and he is enjoying it.  He might still be a bit frustrated with TKD, but he’s fitting in nicely with a different focus to his training.

BJJ, Hapkido, TKD, Training