A look back on July-August 2018
While I was at Derby City MMA in June, I was really lucky and got to have multiple private lessons with Chad "The Beast" Hardy. For our last private lesson, I asked him to do an evaluation on where my Jiujitsu was at. I was leaving for a new state and unsure if I'd be able to find a good JiuJitsu program (I found an awesome one! 😄) I wanted to get a list of things to work on in the event that I would need to take charge of my own progress. I have tried really hard to work on the areas that I needed improvement on, and wanted to do a little progress check after two months.
I did miss three weeks of training while out in the desert with the National Guard, so I meshed July and August together on this one. I did get one rolling session in with my platoon when we laid a giant tarp down and blew off some frustration by grappling. I just wish someone would have grabbed pictures/videos of it.
I was happily surprised to get a good review of my gi game. I rolled well and was able to hang with all of the upper belts while wearing my pajama suit. During my rolls with Chad and the school's upper belts, one big weakness was exposed though over and over again. Toe holds. Over and over again my choke defense proved worthless as Chad would slap on a toe hold and get the tap. I can't remember word for word what was said in the evaluation, so I don't want to use any quotations here. Chad cautioned me though that while illegal at purple belt, toe holds became legal at my next belt and it would be wise to start training attacking/defenses so as to not be behind the curve.
Your no gi though, Chad said giving me a knowing look. Yeahhh it's not the best, I replied. Yeah you're right, it kinda sucks (Brutal honesty was what I had asked for, and it's exactly what I got.) Truth be told I had been skipping out on no gi classes for over a year. My school held no gi every Wednesday night. Training multiple classes every day throughout the week, I decided that date night would be a good fit for the middle of the week. The fact that I didn't prefer no gi though, might have helped to contribute to that decision 😜 After a long time of training like this, there was an obviously stark contrast between the two for me. Chad and I spent a lot of time talking about this as a result. He challenged me with the question of how are you going to be a black belt and possibly have students one day if you aren't proficient and able to teach without a gi on. This question really struck something with me and it's something that I have thought about almost daily. I resolved to quit skipping out on no gi classes and instead get my ass in as many of them that I could.
Triangles and take-downs. The very first technique that Chad showed me in a private was a triangle set-up from half-guard. "Oh, I actually don't really like triangles." Chad, a master of triangles, looked at me like I had just told him that the earth was flat. You have the ideal build for triangles and you don't like them?? He asked me with a shocked look on his face. Okay lets look at some different options off of this half-guard sweep, he said as we left triangles behind. I thought about it all that evening and laughed at his reaction. The next day, before the start of our next private, I explained better what I had mean the previous class. "It's not that I don't like triangles, I've just that I've never been able to really figure them out. Like I practice them during class, but I cant remember pulling one off really ever while rolling." Chad's face lit up with happiness at that. He couldn't teach someone that was unwilling to learn, but he could definitely unlock whatever was blocking my ability to do a triangle. We spent a lot of time every class after that working on triangles, and I left determined to add these into my game as well.
The last thing we covered in my eval was take-downs. This is an area that a many of us Jiu-Jitsu practitioners are lacking in. We love working on the ground so much that we neglect our stand-up. I fit into this category and make it worse because of a long avoidance of take-downs because of a knee injury. Chad had himself had to work through a knee injury in the recent past. He had found solutions instead of excuses, and charged me to do the same.
I walked away from the eval excited. I had gotten a mixture of compliments and corrections. Those compliments meant so much to me coming from someone like Chad. The corrections excited me too. I now had a list of clearly defined goals and objectives to hit. Wherever I ended up from here, I now definitively knew what I needed to work on.
Two Months Later
I sometimes swear to my friend Tony that Chad called ahead and talked to my new instructor at Wakizashi JiuJitsu. Everything that I was told to work on, we've covered past month of training. I was most excited about the school's schedule. No-gi every Tuesday and Thursday for both lunch and evening classes. That meant the ability to now get four no gi classes in a week. I so far gone to every single one that I could. Since starting work I haven't been able to make lunch classes, but I haven't missed an evening class yet.
Triangles and take-downs. You probably wouldn't believe this, but since having those classes with Chad, I've hit a triangle while rolling almost every class. Sometimes the finish hasn't come from the triangle choke itself, instead being a triangle position to arm-bar or wrist-lock, but I break out in a smile every time I lock a triangle. I'd say the biggest difference here was just beginning to look for the submission. Now that I'm actively hunting it, it's like I was walking past it every class before. Chad was right too, I have a build for it and the most often ugly looking triangles I throw up are still successful.
The same thing with take-downs. My new teammates eagerly want to start standing, and I often detect a hint of sadness if we don't. Out of all the areas I've improved on, this one I would say is still the most lacking. I still prefer to work counters over the take-downs themselves, but I did hit a double-leg last week, a prior rarity for me. I still have a long way to go here and have actually been tossing around the idea of perhaps getting into a Judo class. We'll see where that thought takes me, but for now just starting more matches standing is slowly showing progress.
Overall
I had a lot of anxiety about moving out here, I don't think I slept at all for two weeks before the move, but things have started to fall into place and I've been really happy lately as a result. I feel more settled into the new area where I live, and have made some great connections with both teammates and coworkers. My new school has turned out to be better than I could have hoped for, and between the instruction and my teammates, I've seen some phenomenal progress. It's either the weekly reviews that we do, or just having that different perspective, but new techniques and concepts have been "clicking" and getting added to my game faster than they ever have.
I have also felt really lucky to have been welcomed into neighboring schools such as Foster's in Seattle, Jitz Life and Fitness in Monroe, and getting to run into Jeff Shaw at Bellingham JiuJitsu in Bellingham. Training hard with the home team during the week, and then shooting out to get rolls in with new people, has been just the right mix of consistency and excitement that contributes to my personal growth.Upcoming
The things i'm looking forward to for the month of September is getting to watch some friends compete in the F2W Pro next week in Seattle. The week after that I registered for all four brackets in a Grappling Industries tournament. I will get to put that no gi work to the test in competition and see how it holds up. The week after I'll be at a NAGA and hopefully walking away with another one of their belts. Other than that though, I'm planning on keeping my head down and just putting in a lot of work in on the mats and on the job to further cement the progress I've made so far.
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