Frodo's Grappling Log

5-12-2007

Went to Khristian Geraci's to train even though I crushed Kris back in a December tournament. Like Bill and Donny and Drew, he trains from his house. But his facility isn't as good as their set ups. Kris and his brother have fights comming up, so we just rolled the entire time. He was a little better this time, since he knew what to expect. But I still did well and tapped everyone.
 
5-14-2007

Got my ear drained today. The otolaryngologist took out 4.5cc of blood. My ear feels better already! I asked not to have the pressure bandage stitched into place so I can still train for the tournament.

...

Went to SCMA. Santino had us just do a lot of drills from:
  • Side control.
  • Mount.
  • Guard.
We finished with some rolling. I used headgear.
 
5-15-2007

Went to Pitt. We continuted the drills:
  • Side control.
  • Kesa gatame.
Then we finished with some rolling.

...

Went to Drew's FightLab with Pat. We did a round robin of:
  • Wrestling to takdown.
  • Grappling.
Lots of drilling and sparring is good before a tournament.
 
5-16-2007

Went to Donny's. Pat showed up today for the first time. We covered the Lockflow #1 before even more rolling. This is a week of sparring! I rolled with Donny 3 times, but I got a lot of positional dominance this time.

...

Arrived late at SHJ because we went overboard with the rolling at Donny's. Randy was showing stuff. I still got to do rolling from standing, though.
 
5-17-2007

Went to the PGC. I had Aaron show a lot of takedowns:
  • Hi-c from an underhook.
  • Hi-c from an underhook with arm rotation ("microphone" rotation).
  • Cutting the knife out (single leg finish when he sprawls).
  • Cutting the knife in (single leg finish when he sprawls, basically a better version of igor's turtle sweep).
  • Single leg defense with whizzer to powering your foot out.
  • Single leg defense by shouldering to the mat.
  • Three-leg sweep counter to the single leg.
That's when I stopped him. We went over so much, I have to go back and get him to explain them again so I don't forget any details. I'll be drilling these for a few weeks I guess. We finished with some rolling.
 
5-19-2007

Went to SCMA for no-gi (too much traffic for gi). We practiced some mount techniques:
Rolled with a Rigan Machado MMA fighter named Andrew. He had on the blood-stained vale tudo shorts and rash guard and seemed very experienced. However, I still dominated. Maybe he took too much time off and needs to get back into it.

...

Went to the GFC with Brian and Joe. Bob and his mom and girlfriend went seperately. Sheri, his son, and Lon Chaney and his girl friend, and Donny's wife came too. There are a few others I didn't know that well from UFF too. Donny cornered Billy. It was a long trip, but Joe drove.

I liked most of the fights. Maia was really impressive, and I was surprise that you could twist the shoulder that way during the sweep. Intentional or not, that was one of my favorite moves of the night. I really liked watching the Cardellas/Dias fight too. I rarely get to see two black belts fighting each other in MMA both using their jits to fight. It was a war with lots of counters and recounters, but I am glad Cardellas won. He not only did more damage from the guard, but was more active than his opponent. This was my favorite fight of the night. I also like the two heel hooks of the night as well in other matches. Textbook perfect.

My boy Bill got destroyed by Jacare. I don't know what happened, he just made a series of mistakes and Jacare was perfect as usual. Billy really is better than his performance last night, but neither his strategy nor his mindset seemed to be together. No excuses, Bill was outclassed that night. Hopefully Bill bounces back and Jacare continues his domination in bigger orgs.

I was also disappointed with the result of the George Bush/Vinicius Magalhaes fight. Both me and my friends thought Magalhaes barely edged out a victory. We also thought he should have tried to take it to the ground earlier. He had good groundwork and had some good kicks (what was that in the beginning? LOL) but took a little too much damage I guess.

I can see why the GFC sold so few tickets. There were too many technical difficulties, slightly overpriced tickets for the demand. They could have gone without the Jiu Jitsu infomercials too. We liked the GFC pyramid, though. If they just polish it up some, then the event as a whole would probably get a lot more ticket sales. It was still entertaining, though.

P.S. Jacare, don't do your jacare-imitation when the audience's home-town team just lost to the Gators...
 
5-20-2007

Took day off. I got to stop these rest days!!!
 
5-21-2007

Went to SHJ for judo. Brendan came today for the first time. He seemed to really enjoy it. I bet he misses his old judo days in Europe. We did some partially alive drilling:
Finally we did several rounds of randori at the end of practice. Randy got thrown because he graduated from CMU yesterday!

BTW now I should be just about caught up.
 
Are you permitted to talk about the jury duty? have you done it in another htread? Could be intresting in the MAyberry
 
IDK. Serving on that jury was one of the most boring things ever! They kept repeating the same thing over and over and over... One juror got kicked off for falling asleep.
 
Rolled with a Rigan Machado MMA fighter named Andrew. He had on the blood-stained vale tudo shorts and rash guard and seemed very experienced. However, I still dominated. Maybe he took too much time off and needs to get back into it.
Or maybe training 8 days a week, 25 hours a day makes you good?
 
Or maybe training 8 days a week, 25 hours a day makes you good?

No, he is definitely rusty at least. He is in the black gi in this hilite video from the last tournament he (and I coincidently) were in. However, it was his first gi competition (he is used to no-gi and mma) so that showed a lot of courage. Just because you train at a big-name academy doesn't mean you are automatically badass. Badassness must be cultivated...
 
5-22-2007

Went to Pitt to grapple a little. Bobby, Randy, Bryce, Scott, Norm, and Brendan came today. First we did some rolling for about an hour. Then I had a short private lesson with Bobby. We discussed:

  • Old School Sweep tips:
    • When executing, keep his near leg trapped with your legs.
    • Grip his foot, not his shin.
    • Afterward, keep your head pinned to his far hip.
    • Also keep his leg tight and not loose.
    • Consequence of disobedience: being triangled.
  • If you try old school, and he defends by using his far hand to interfere:
    • Grip his arm at the elbow. If you grip at the wrist, he can post on his elbow.
    • Pull it into you and drive him to side control.
  • Half-X rolling sweep.

We did some rolling too.
 
5-23-2007

Got ear drained. My ear doctor is very nice and very skilled, so it doesn't hurt much to get my ear drained from him. It is freaky when he gets all the fluid out and the needle slurps like when you finish drinking with a straw.

...

Went to Donny's and rolled for a bit.

...

Went to SHJ. We covered:
Finished with some rolling. This was the first time I met Boris IIRC.
 
5-24-2007

Helped Bobby do private lesson. He went over arm drags:
  • Push arm to wristlock.
  • If that fails, try armdrag of death to rolling sweep or take the back.

...

Went to PGC. Bobby came too IIRC. We began with some rolling, then covered some simple ankle lock and heel hook defense. We finished with more rolling.
 
5-25-2007

Went to SCMA. Drilled. Rolled.

Weighed in at 151.6 pounds. Saw Phil and Bobby do judo demo at the Kumite Classic. It was pretty good, though there weren't many spectators. Jeff bought some mancino mats (series 200 I think) for demos from the event organizers. They are pretty good mats!
 
5-26-2007

Competed in Kumite Classic. Ah, there's nothing like competing in this tournament. It was the first real grappling tournament that I entered (after about 1 month of training 2x a week), so the KC means a lot to me. Randy and Bryce helped referee and man a table so they could watch for free. Bobby also refereed for a mat, but left so he could coach me and compete on his own periodically.

I did both gi and no-gi. First the kimono matches. While waiting I saw some amazing purple, brown, and black belt competitors. They were very inspiring. Now for my matches:
  1. First match against Chad Sicari.
    • Started kuzushi for takedowns, Chad pulls guard.
    • Froze for a second.
    • Broke guard with combat base sit.
    • Passed with x-pass.
    • Got kimura from side control, Chad establishes half guard.
    • Switch grips so I can pass again, keeping kimura.
    • Reestablish figure-4 on kimura
    • Step over head. finish.
  2. Second match against Nathan Fitzsimmons (sorry, no video).
    • Beat him by points
    • Could not submit him even tho I tried!
  3. Third match against Tim Koren
    • He goes to a Lloyd Irvin affiliate in Washington DC IIRC.
    • I got a sweep
    • He had a good guard, tough to crack
    • He opened guard, I made a mistake and he locked in a triangle, but it wasn't set
    • I fought it, but I went to my back to get it off before rolling out. He got a sweep for that, tying the score.
    • Tim won by advantage.
I was disappointed for losing in gi, because I was winning and made a stupid mistake. Lessons learned. Now for no-gi after shedding the gi:
  1. Fourth match against Jason Eisner (no video).
    • He is from Renzo's in NYC I think.
    • I pass his guard and establish side control
    • Jason is very tight and I can't do subs.
    • To avoid the stalling penalty, I switch to north-south.
    • I switch back to side control, get high, switch to mount.
    • Try shin sub, doesn't work. Try going for chokes/armlocks, but he is too strong and tight
    • I win by points
  2. Fifth match against Simmler Tebo (no video).
    • Wrestler from Boston, he beat Tim, who beat me
    • He shot, I sprawled, took his back
    • Tried for a choke, he defends well. he escapes when I try for body triangle
    • Easy to break his posture, but hard to submit. End up in weird half guard.
    • I am up by points, gets more frantic as match is almost over.
    • I go for a toe hold and tap him out with 5 seconds to go.
  3. Sixth match against David Sachs
    • MMA fighter and wrestlers from Pittsburgh Fight Club. Cool guy. He cut weight to 144 yesterday, but they combined divisions as I suspected.
    • He was very strong. Sprawled when I shot in, but I pulled guard.
    • 0-0 the whole time.
    • I switch to half guard, but he gets an advantage for that.
    • Too tired to do anything. I lose by advantages again.
I had on a green shirt and cameo shorts in no-gi. I got 2nd in both blue belt and advanced no-gi, 145-160. I made a stupid mistake in blue belt and lost by an advantage. At the end of no-gi, I was just too tired and also lost by advantages. This was a good experience because I know I have to work on both drilling more to prevent those mistakes and on my strength/cardio so I can win even if I'm tired. I also need to be more active from my guard and not be so passive.

I'm happy though; because, I had 6 matches so it was really fun. Some of my friends complained that the tournament took too long or they only had 1 fight, but they only did no-gi so I just laugh at them! ;-)
 

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