Well 2012 has started off with a bang for me!

This past week I had my first real "A ha!" moment. It came when I was working with our resident 330# newbie with a wrestling background. He's a great guy to roll with because he is aware of his weight and he is still very deliberate in his movement. Anyway, he has been working his guard passes, and they are pretty tough now... I was having a very hard time keeping my position. My instructor has shown the butterfly guard during several sessions earlier last year, but I haven't worked the butterfly guard very much at all. When I did work it, I was definitely working it wrong as I was struggling with my larger opponents.

To get to my "A ha!" moment... as the class was ending, I asked "the big guy" for another few rounds and he was up for it. I told him I wanted to work my butterfly guard. He let me position both hooks and 2 underhooks and we went to town. He quickly worked my underhooks out because my grip fighting was terrible (opportunity area ). The only real thing I remembered from my earlier butterfly guard lessons was to "get my underhooks" and to "maintain my hooks, no matter what". At least that is what I remembered. At one point, I was able to rock back and lift and I almost swept the big guy, and I wasn't even trying! Whoa. Coach saw the technique from across the mat and commented on it. It was purely an accident on my part, but man did it work! I couldn't quite finish the sweep as I didn't know to post my back leg. The "almost sweep" was a moment of enlightenment for me. It proved to me several things about jiu-jitsu in just a few seconds. Position, leverage, weight transfer, technique (when applied properly) can enable a person to do almost unimaginable things. I never would have thought I could have handled that kind of weight so easily! Maybe it was a fluke, I hope to find out over the course of the next few weeks. I am so excited!

That leads me to another first for me... my first private lesson. From this forum, I have learned that privates can really enhance your training. Up to now, i have spent so much time and energy on just staying healthy and getting to class, but now I find myself in a good spot - both from a health perspective as well as time. Guess what my request for content was.... yep... butterfly guard! My instructor has a strong butterfly guard (he uses it on me all of the time!) He gave me a couple of things to consider :

1 - I must fight for my underhooks and fight to keep them.
2 - use my arms to better control my opponent. With either a stronger overhook, or flaring my underhooks up very high on my opponent to prevent their digging my underhooks out
3 - maintain my hooks and wait for the opponent to make the weight transfer to initiate the sweep (patience)
4 - keep my forehead connected to my opponent with good posture
5 - strive to re-establish my position if I lose any aspect it (posture, hooks, underhook/overhook, forehead)

So, tomorrow during our open mat session, I hope to work on this some more. There are 6-8 guys in our club that I can foresee using the butterfly guard to both slow them down, as well as to gain an advantageous position whenever possible.

I can't wait until tomorrow!

-Slimbeaux

Merry Christmas to all!

It's been awhile since I last blogged. A lot happening around here with the holidays. I got most of my shopping done the week after Thanksgiving, thanks to all of the Cyber-shopping. I filled out my Christmas list for my family, it was 95% Jiu-Jitsu related.

I have really enjoyed this past year of learning. I am extremely lucky to have a good school, instructor and training partners. My son is still rolling and I am starting to see technique in his rolls! It is so exciting to watch him.

I am in a very mellow place right now. Recently got my second stripe and almost immediately went into a slump. The one thing I have been successful at during my recent rolling sessions is protection. I still struggle with my finishing techniques, but I know that is due to me being in too big of a hurry.

One thing has changed for me though, I now recognize this (my Jiu-Jitsu education) is a marathon - not a sprint. I am trying to be very patient and let my game come to me. At 47, I expect to have another 40 years of training - God willing.

My goal for next year is to increase my stamina. Right now I am pretty gassed at 80 minutes. So, the goal will be to be strong at 120 minute mark. I know to be successful, I'll need to use less energy during my rolling sessions. But, another component will be to improve my lung capacity and core strength.

Protect. Patient. We'll see what happens in the coming months.

Best wishes for everyone in the New Year.

-Slimbeaux

I am back in the saddle! Woo hoo! I was able to roll again tonight after a 2 week layoff due to my ringworm. I even had a minor breakthrough in my guard passing work. More on that a little later.

Now for some perspective.

My 2 weeks is inconsequential as it compares to some other folks challenges. I have friends at the gym that have real injuries that take much longer to heal, and others (like Scifigal) have some real challenges ahead. We are rooting for her!

I should be ashamed of myself for bemoaning a measly 2 week layoff. The truth is the layoff helped my shoulder too.

The reality is that I am damn lucky. I am 47 with a healthy body (for the most part), a great attitude, and I live where good BJJ instruction is pretty easy to find. My wife supports my jiu jitsu addiction, and she supports my jiu jitsu goals as well.

So, that is why my mood is almost always happy. It is actually the only emoticon I use most of the time. If they had one for content, I would use that one too.

Now for my break through. I have been struggling with my guard passes. We have been working closed guard passes and the pass that my coach likes and thinks I should be using, has not been working well for me. I am having a very difficult time getting my posture. Then, once I posture up, I only have a good pass about 1 out of 10 times. It has been very frustrating. We will continue to work it, but tonight he had me try some open guard passes and that is more my thing! So, now... I may try to step back after my posturing and get free of my opponent and work the bull fighter pass. At least tonight, the bull fighter pass was working great for me. We'll have to see how well that holds up over time.

It gives me some hope for the near term. I am looking to compete for my first time at some point in the next month or so, and my goal was to have some familiarity with every aspect of the game: Stand up, take downs, protection on bottom, aggression on top... you know the basics.

Anyway, today has been a good day and I look forward to tomorrow!

-Slimbeaux

Dangit. I thought I was doing everything right.

I learned early-on about skin-related challenges to the BJJ player and took steps to take care of myself and my training partners. I bought the ABC products: skin sanitzer, body wash and lotion. I have used these items almost religiously, after my sessions.

I always wash my gi (belt included! ) immediately after every session. I always use the ABC body wash as I shower, as soon as possible after every session. I almost always use the ABC foaming skin sanitizer on my hands, face/neck, feet and lower legs, immediately after every training session.

And I STILL GOT some funk in the middle of my back! Been treating it as ringworm for the past 7-10 days and it seems to be responding.

I am very frustrated. At this point, I don't know whether the ABC worked great and I just couldn't reach that one part of my back and THAT is why that one area is the only area affected. Or is it that I would have gotten ringworm no matter what I was using?! I don't know. I also realized that I have been neglecting my back in my "clean up" process, so now I have to find a better way to clean my back too!

Treatment. I started off with an old bottle of tinactin. And, while that worked on the itchiness, after 3-4 days the spot still seemed to be "mad" as my wife put it. When I mentioned it to my instructor, he told me to swab it with bleach and then apply some lamisil. So, we changed strategies to follow his advice and that seemed to really work pretty well.

At this point, it has been about 10 days now and the spot on my back is pink but no longer "mad." The wife said it looks like scarring my have started. The fact of the matter is that I have assumed what was on my back is ringworm. I have a Dr. appointment schedule in a couple of days, so hopefully by then there will be nothing there for them to see!

I treat every experience as a learning experience, so for now... I am taking the following new steps:

1 - washing Gi/rashguard in hot water more often
2 - find a way to scrub my back too
3 - when something itches and it shouldn't, check it out the instance I notice

This forum has been a huge help in dealing with my skin challenge. Thanks to everyone for their posts!

-Slimbeaux

I am having fun! These past few weeks of jiu-jitsu training have been great. My shoulder still hurts, but it seems to hurt a little less every class. I have to keep my elbows in....

I am getting stronger in my core and my endurance is improving. This is THE best I have felt in 20 years!

Recently I have noticed improvement in my armbars, mostly due to my improved body movement. Something Rener said to me at my mount submission seminar really helped. I wasn't using my weight right and he pointed it out. He said "... don't feel bad for the Bad Guy. Make him feel your weight." I'm still not 'heavy' on my training partners, but putting more weight on them has freed up my hips and legs to move easier.

In the past few weeks, I have stopped watching tons of video and have tried to focus on the basics more. In most positions, I now know at least one thing I can do to defend, or to prepare for the next position. The advanced belts seem to almost enjoy rolling with me more, now that I am beginning to recognize positions/defenses/counters. I started tapping earlier too, I mean once they have me 'caught', it is more fun to tap and start over! It allows them to try more techniques and it keeps me from wearing myself out.

All in all, I am very happy with where I am in my training.

Back to basics.

Recently, I started thinking about having some private classes. Privates seem to be an important part of the development process and I haven't had any private lessons up to this point. I talked to my instructor about it and he gave me some great advice. He fully supports private lessons and offered to work more with me one on one. I feel blessed to have found such a great school to work on my jiu-jitsu game. He asked me what my goals were and I had to consider what that meant. The bottom line is that what I want is to be technically superior at the basics, and limit the number of techniques in my game. Especially as a white belt just trying to survive!

What we decided is that what I really want is more drilling time. I bought Andre Galvao's: Drill to Win several months ago and we are going to use his book as a structure for the next six months. The first month is on diet, and I have that part under control. The second month starts with fundament BJJ drills, so we are going to work up a schedule for incorporating these drills into my daily routine. Many drills I can do by myself or even with my 9-yr old son. It should be fun.

Use it or lose it.

Well, my Rener Gracie seminars are a few weeks behind me now. The mount submission drills we have been doing in class, so I have some confidence that I will get those into my game. The backmount and triangle seminars have given me a lot of trouble in remembering what we went over, but every class I try to recall the steps to the techniques. At the time Rener said that each of us will only take a portion of the content with us. He was right. My documentation strategy failed me, so next time I need a new strategy to help me remember the training.

Our school has some success at the Grapplers Quest in Houston as part of the UFC Fan Expo. It was great to be able to watch the guys compete. Competition will be incorporated into my training in the future.

For now, focus on the basics and train hard.