The Most Loathed

On 8/3/2023 at 8:14 PM, Sepherina said:

am strongly considering investing in a standing desk and a treadmill

I'll advocate for uplift desks. When I built my office I let myself have nice things and that is one thing I do not regret at all. I haven't done the treadmill thing but have heard some mixed results. I think you have to use it situationally. From others it's my understanding that in order to read you have to walk really slow, which is fine, but if you need to type, you can't really be walking. If you're on calls where you're just listening it can be effective. The one coworker I have who has used one prefers to just take a walk during our morning meeting if she can but in the winter I think she appreciates the treadmill as a choice. I think she uses a separate free standing treadmill rather than a treadmill desk just so she doesn't have to work around it when she wants to sit.

 

40 minutes ago, Sepherina said:

also found some virtual running buddies.  I used to run a lot before I became a mom, and I do miss it.  I have been itching to start again and possibly do a 10K or a half.

No time like the present. I know it's hot but even carving out the time to take deliberate walks will make the transition easier. 

I dunno how interesting this will be to this group but this is a story of how much water weight matters. I had to make weight for a competition on Saturday and the top of my weight class was 235. A week ago my "walking around" weight was 238ish according to my bathroom scale. In high school I wrestled so I know how to shed a few pounds of water but it involves lots of cardio and sweating and can make me tired. However, I recently had a teammate do a thing where you load up on salts and water for a couple days then cut the salts 48 hours before your weigh in and cut the water 24 hours prior but you don't have to do a bunch of running and biking in layers. So I tried it. I ended up weighing in at 231.4 after following my actual, weight loss diet for the week.

So now I know I'm walking around with 5-7 lbs of just disposable water. This tracks with previous experience when I eat bunch of junk food and bounce up 3 or 4 lbs, seemingly, overnight but can also lose 5 pounds in a couple days if I then clean up my food and move a little more. 

 

Water weight is not a weightloss strategy but if you ever see that day after weight bounce and it gets in your head, I hope you can think back to this and feel confident that it's just water and in a day or two of good choices, you'l be back where you started.

Week 1 Wrap Up

Winning

I went to  the meet. I won some, I lost one. I'm finding myself more bothered by the loss than I have been and expected to be. 

Video Playlist

 

Losing

The water cut went great. It was a good test. I also stayed on track with body weight loss. I don't feel like I know what my "actual" body weight is right now. I weighed myself after supper and was 236. A week ago I was 238.6. That said, I had days that week that were at or near 236. So I'm down somewhere between 0 and 2.8 lbs. I'm ok with that range. As the week sort itself out, I'll know more. 

 

Process

Diet

I stuck to my diet up to meet day. I didn't really bother to track my food meet day but I went back and did my best to back into it and I was a few hundred calories over but nothing wild. I have some times of hunger, especially on days I don't train but it's managemable.

 

Training

This week was basically a deload for me. I lifted once and did jiujitsu once. I did a lot of light cardio but that was just to keep the body moving

 

Recovery

This week was about recovery. My cardio was light and easy,  I stretched afterwards. I didn't do as much foam rolling as I'd like someday in the future but it was good for me. 

 

Documentation

Very happy with my documentation

 

Week 2 Kick Off

Winning

Since the gym announced that we're going to the September 20 meet, I'll pretty much immediately pivot to preparing for that. I'm going to throw some energy at my guard passing skills. I'm going to continue to work on competitive mindset as well as staying active when I'm on the bottom.

 

Losing

I'm going to stick with the plan and process. I need to be under 230 for the next meet but I don't think it will be any more of stretch than this one was and I'll do the water cut again.

 

Process

Diet

It's doing what I want. I'm not changing a thing for now. 

 

Training

Time to get back in the gym. It's going to be physically tough this week

• Monday - Marathon Roll (We do lunch time marathon on the first Monday of the month)
• Tuesday - Rec Lift - Push + rowing, Marathon Roll
• Wednesday - BJJ
• Thursday - Rec Lift - Pull + elliptical
• Friday - BJJ
• Saturday - Rec Lift - Push + rowing
• Sunday - Akagi

Recovery

Recovery will suffer just for having time to do all the work

 

Documentation

Sticking with the current program here

 

Other

Next week will be a total mess, schedule-wise

• Monday - Laura has late meetings, no major impact to me
• Tuesday - Pretty normal for me but I need to prep for Wednesday
• Wednesday - Window install begins
• Thursday - Window instal ends, Doctor visit about this weird growth under my chin (I think it's a wart from the mat)
• Friday - Take my car in for the afternoon for service

Somewhere in there we are having a new dinning room table delivered.

 

I'm going to call it for the night but. I will plan to make some time to post more narratively about the meet during the week. 

I'm back from Iowa with a mediocre result. 

I got Gold and Bronze. I be the no gi guy twice in a row for a pretty easy gold. I lost my first gi match which put me in the consolation bracket. I then went against that same guy but he was so beat up it wasn't even a real match. Of course, winning isn't everything, what lessons did I take away? The purpose of this particular tournament was mindset. I went in last time too flat. I tried to come in a little more fired up and ready. My sort of arbitrary assessment is that I went for 50-60% of mental readiness to 75-80%.  In terms of more detailed, on the mat matters, standup and guard passing were my two projects coming out. I was already planning on a big gear shift to guard passing from the last several months of submission work. The match that I lost was lost to a guard player. I think the mindset stuff was important but also, if I had more confidently passed, I would have been successful. Stand up wise, I'm better than 75% of the people I come across from standing but I have a really specific approach when I want to get in close and overhook and underhook your arms. If you're aware of pummeling in wrestling, it's that. The guy I went against three times kept me a few inches away at all times and I just didn't have a great answer to it. 

 

6 weeks t the September meet. I won't have time to gain new technical skills but I can keep working on mindset.

 

The water cut was pretty effective. I ate normally all week, calorically. I weighed in at 231.4. One week prior I was at 238.3, 6.9 pounds. It's not real weight loss in the sense of losing fat. That's a slower exercise that i'm still engaged in. However, for making a weight class, it's effective. I'll use it again in September.

Thursday

Rec Time

Row 300 calories

Elliptical 300 calories

 

Food

 

Body Weight

236.8 starting the day. I ate normally but didn't consume any extra salt load and stopped drinking water after noon. By the end of the day I was 235.

 

Friday

It's early on Friday so the following is a plan but I won't be around later or tomorrow to post

Rect Time

Row 300 calories

Elliptical 300 calories

 

Food

Body Weight

I weighed in this morning at 232.7. That's the power of the salt load, water cut, and a little sweating. I'm curious to see what weight I'll be before I head to Iowa. 

 

This weekend

I'm going to log off from work a little after 4 tonight to have a little dinner before we get on the road. I plan to hop in the car at 235 or less. Right now that's looking super easy but I don't want to get cocky about it.

Tomorrow my matches start at 12:56, currently. More than likely they will start between 12 and 1. That's great for me because it means I can get up in the morning, go weigh in at 8 am, head home and have a leisurely brunch and head over around 11 am. My first bracket is no-gi so I only have one opponent and we'll do best of three. So, best case, two matches and I win, worst case, arguably , two matches and I lose, moderate case, three matches. Gi comes after no-gi for me. The guy who is doing no-gi with me drew the first match with me. Loser of our match goes on the fight the other person in the bracket. Winner of that match fights me. I think this means we could theoretically have 5 matches together and one of us could have a sixth match with this other guy. 

 

After the tournament we're going out for Greek and I will eat anything I want. Sunday we're rushing back home because next week will be a doozy and we need to get a jump on it. 

I theoretically practicing guitar right now but my brain is on BJJ, weight loss, and training. So I sat down and sketched out my hypothetical focus and effort chart for any given week. putting it here for my own benefit.

 

I really debated whether I should put my hardest Strength and Conditioning day on Tuesday or Saturday. I can accept that those two might be a little squishy with one another but the overall concept is sound. My biggest load occurs Saturday through Tuesday. Wednesday and Thursday are my "training weekend".

 

Wednesday

Because my car is out of commission for the moment, I Walked a three mile loop in the afternoon as my workout

 

I'm continuing to try and get close to my calories per day

 

Wednesday was the end of my high salt intake. Today and tomorrow I'm tryin to keep salt as low as possible. So, no salt added to food, no electrolyte drinks etc. 

I'm at 236.8 this morning. I fully expect to be below 236 by the time I go to bed. Tomorrow will be a low water day and I expect to be be sub 235.

Oh yeah, I've been trying to push the gym to send a crew the December BJJ meet. They half heard me. They're sending them to the September meet. I have mixed feelings about this. That's one month from now (When I'm about to have a meet). It doesn't give me any time for development. It means I can't get to crazy but I would have liked the time to drop to 230 lbs. Not sure what'll do with this. 

 

Tuesday

Rec Time

Strength

• Deadlift - failure point is still my hands so I felt like I left a lot in the tank
  • 225 x 3 x 10 
  • my ten reps were mixed grip with a super quick switch of which hand was over at the 5-6 transition. So I had to fully release the weight but kept it as brief as possible
• Barbell Squat
  • 225 x 3 x 10
  • ready to add 5 lbs but also working on a longer pause at the bottom
• Romanian Deadlift 
  • 185 x 3 x 10
  • Add 5 lbs, slow the lowering (eccentric? I always forget eccentric vs concentric)
• Leg Press
  • 360 x 3 x 10
  • push reps higher in the future
• Leg Curl
  • 70 x 3 x 10
• Leg Extension 
  • 110 x 3 x 10

A big part of me wanted to push harder but I'm trying to not wreck my legs as I need to do cardio comfortably for the next couple days and be fresh on Saturday

 

Cardio

Row 300 calories

inclined walk 200 calories

 

Food

Given some stressors yesterday (see below) Laura wanted pizza for dinner.  Fortunately I did some cardio and hadn't yet eaten all my food for the day so I was still able to come in on calories or close. 

 

Other

Well, things went sort of pear shaped yesterday

 

Driving home from the gym. I heard this awful metal-on-metal type sound and it took a while for me to realize, it was coming from my car. It seems like there is something in the axel or wheel that is scraping on something else. The soonest I could get it booked to be looked at is next week. I need to get to Iowa this week. Fortunately, we have a second car so we'll be taking Laura's car instead. My plan is to take that tire off tonight and see if I can find anything obvious but otherwise my car is decommissioned for a week.

Laura is in the office today so I am not planning to get to the gym but I will take a walk this afternoon, after my grill gets dropped off.

 

Additionally, we've been waiting for the call on our windows getting replaced. We were told we'd get a call one or two weeks before. They called last night and wanted to come by this week. It would be nice to have the windows done but not a chance we can swing all that. Fortunately we were able to push off to next week. So, when we get back from the tournament all of our attention will be on getting everything ready for the window swap. I also put in for a couple of days of PTO to account for the fact that I won't necessarily have access to my office (one of the windows is in here). So Sunday and Monday night I'll be running around prepping for that. Tuesday and Wednesday I'll be trying to be flexible with whatever is going on there but I also won't have a car. Will I get to the gym. No idea at this point. I may actually take a week off. I never do that but this may be the time. 

 

There's not much I can do about it and it'll pass relatively quickly but it's stressing me out a bit. 

Monday

BJJ

Stack Passing, my favorite

Double Under

This one looks super goofy but the gist is that your are passing someone who doesn't yet have any grips and is seated or lying down (because maybe to took them down or baked away from them). Lift the feet so they are flat on their back, reach around both of the legs and hoist them up like a clean. Pick a side to go to and start passing that way. I like to use that side hand to grab across their lapel or across their chest to anchor myself. Get their leg on that side high on your shoulder and rotate around it.

 

Over Under Pass

Starting from a similar position, your opponent's back is flat on the ground. One leg is outside your legs, the other is inside but bent. You'll find it hard to pass over the long leg because they can hook you. You'll find it hard to pass over the bent leg because they will keep that knee in front of you. You're going to pass to the bent leg side. Straight leg side arm goes under their butt and grabs their hip (this is the under arm. Bent leg side goes over their leg and grabs the back of their belt, pants or hip, this is the over side. On the over side the knee is still in your way. You can keep that grip and pivot towards the under side until the knee has to straighten because it's trapped between you leg and hip on that side and your over arm. Once the leg is straight you can now pass over it. 

 

• Leon (Brown) - Leon was on fire today. He got two taps out of me. For the first he set up a triangle but didn't make the mistake of trying to choke me. He went for my arm. I tell teammates this is how to get me in a triangle and they rarely listen. He went for an armbar but I fought it off, he went for for kind of americana elbow lock I don't full understand but I fought it off, he went for an omaplata but I fought it off, he went through them all again and caught me in the omaplata on the second pass. Even then I somersaulted through and he stayed with me so I tapped. It was great. He said he was really surprised he finished it but it was great. I forget now what the second one was but it was good too, but submitting me from the triangle is rare. 
• Ben (Blue) - Ben's been out for a bit and it shows. He is still one of the best at death gripping for dear life but it didn't work today. He started in open guard and I knee sliced right through him to side, and mounted immediately. Then I did the work of going for his neck. If I recall correctly, his arms came up to defend, I dismounted and kimuraed him. It took about 3.5 minutes. We swapped and went again. I swept him and took mount but time ran out.
• Shane (white) - This shane is new to me, never rolled before. I took it really easy but swept him pretty quickly and I forget what the first submission was, probably and arm triangle. We traded rolls, I passed and slid into an americana from side. He did the dumb thing and spazzed out, locking his elbow out. He tapped as a result. I could see he wasn't feeling great  coming out of that, I expected him to say something about his elbow instead he said he was done. I asked if he was alright and he said he was. He  then explained that he had a ruptured disc in his neck and it was flaring up. I was like "If  I had any idea I wouldn't have touched your head". Seriously, that's dangerous. I mean, it's his right to choose to risk further neck injuries but I don't know that we're going to roll again. 

After Class

No one was rolling but Joe offered to drill a bit so. I had him put me in lockdown so I could work on passing out of it. I was surprised when he said he knew what lockdown was but then proceeded to have no idea. So I taught him lockdown then I taught him to get out of lockdown than had him drill with me. I was also surprised when one of our brown belts came over and told me he hadn't really seen people use lockdown then talked about how useless it is. I don't love lockdown, it's a bad crutch for a lot for a lot of people but a lot of good players have used it judiciously. He, the brown belt, even admitted I had used it on him last week to make space and pass. There was just a weird disconnect and I felt like he was talking about something he clearly didn't know. 

 

Other

I got a call today from a delivery company that needed someone to be home to receive a delivery. I assumed it was our windows that should be installed int the next couple weeks. When I asked about it, it turned out it was my birthday gift. My parents and in-laws each gave me some cash so I ordered a new gas grill for the deck.  However, it's right during Wednesday class time and Laura is working from the office on Wednesday. The try hard part of me is pained to miss a class. The coach part of me says this is great. I don't need to get hurt right before a meet. I I'm trying to listen to the latter but it's hard. So, no training wednesday, although I'll probably go to the rec for light cardio. 

 

Time to go make dinner, chicken fajitas. Below is my estimated food for end of day. I'm trying to stay closer to my calories for the day than. I have been. I feel a little hungry today and I want to go into Saturday not feeling under nourished. Gotta make weight though. I was 1 lb over this morning, which should be great by the end of the week.

1 hour ago, Teros said:

How long is a roll? Like 12 rolls almost sounds like 12 matches.

I never thought to define this. 5 minutes is "normal". A roll can be any length but across the handful of gyms I have visited a roll is a 5 minute sparring session. Usually it's not 100% of competition level but 80% is pretty normal. My gym usually does 5 minutes on, 1 minute off. I'd say the rest periods are more variable but a minute is pretty normal. 

The biggest difference between a roll and aa match is if you get tapped (or tap someone) you go again. In a match, you're done. We had a woman go to a meet and no one had explained this to her. So she tapped her opponent and lined up to go again. She was confused when the ref was telling her she was done. 

32 minutes ago, Elennare said:

My weight continues to be all over the place during the week, jumping around, sometimes be several pounds, and always a bit higher on Monday than it was over the weekend.  However, I had a crazy weekend (including a *very* stressful interview on Friday) that included probably too many treats, so, overall I'm trending down still, which is good!

Best wishes on the interview.

If anyone wants it H21 now has a formula that will take your latest weekly weigh in and load it into you "current weight" field. To use it click on H21 and hit copy then click on the H cell in your row and paste it. It will adjust to reference your row.

Sunday

Akagi

I got in my 12 rolls. I got the first few in my brain but then fatigue set in

• Blue - new guy I don't know. Smaller than me, pulled and easy tap and was on my way to a second
• Blue - another new guy I don't know. No taps traded. I would honestly give him the roll on points.  I wasn't keeping perfect count but I'd say he earned it. 
• Blue - This guy, everytime I roll with him I feel bad. He's very physically week but also not very good. I tapped him 4 times, I think it was.
• Black - Little guy, we know each other. He lets me work but doesn't give me anything for free. He's a master of getting 
• White - I got a tap. Gave him some room to work, got back to top and time
• Rest - I had planned to rest sooner but kept getting called out
• Purple - I know this guy and he's usually a pretty easy roll. He had some fire today He got a tap on me. Admittedly I was going easy because he is usually pretty half assed but that's my problem, not his.
• Black - Suddenly blanking on who this was now. Needless today, black belt. if there were taps, I gave them
• Black - This guy loves to coach everyone so we rolled for like a minute before he wanted to start coaching me. Admittedly, it was good coaching
• This is where my brain shut down.

Food

The day is not over so this is a projection

I could have left more calories in the tank but I preferred to actually try and get a little closer to target so I made a PBJ and and poured myself a big bowl of cherries. Did you know you can eat a lot of cherries for not a lot of calories?

Anyway, tonight we're doing gochujang tofu so that's in there and I'm going to have a caesin protein shake before bed. 

 

Week 0 Wrap Up

Final 100% training week before the meet and trying to introduce my body to strength training again. Oh, and dieting too. So you know, nothing much going on.

 

Diet

I give myself an A on the diet. We could call it a B if we want for the wine tasting but that was in the plan so I'm sticking with A. I'm in a weightloss phase so being under calories while landing my 100+ g on each macro daily is the sweet spot. I'm realizing I will struggle a little in the maintenance phase to eat enough but that's future-me's problem and screw that guy, what's he done for me.

 

Training

Training was good. I found Saturday's lift dissatisfying but I did the work soI count that as a win. A again

 

Recovery

Call it a B. I did have my final stretch session on Wednesday so that's a free bump up. I got some naps in this weekend. I've been eating well fro recovery. I still am lacking stand alone recovery sessions. I'll say this repeatedly but that will be my focus for next challenge. 

 

Documentation

Totally happy here. I did the best I reasonably could with the uncertain meals in my week. I kept up my posting here. I have my spreadsheet.

 

All in all, a good week. 

 

Week 1 Kick Off

The entire purpose of this week is my meet on Saturday

 

Diet

I will still be tracking calories and trying to stay below a a number but I expect to be much closer to that number every day. I'm really aiming for a +/-100 calories situation this week. MFP should be calc my calories for weightloss but I'm going to try to eat like it's a maintenance number

Documentation.

 

Saturday night into Sunday is a total hall pass on food. My parents are taking me out for dinner after the meet. If I eat too much, totally ok. I'm also buying some kind of candy for the drive back, nothing crazy, like a pair of reese's cups. It was a promised I made to myself today when I bought groceries and filled up with gas and got no junk. 

 

I will be experimenting with a water cut. 

• Monday - Normal
• Tuesday - salt everything, drink so much water it's annoying how often I have to go t the bathroom
• Wednesday - repeat Tuesday
• Thursday - keep drinking the water, cut all salts
• Friday - no salt, limit water to less than half of the usual, I'll go less than one liter for the day
• Saturday - I should weigh in 5 lbs lighter

If I get to Friday and I'm 236+, I'll hit the cardio and lose water the old fashioned way

 

Training

I will train much less this week

• Monday - normal BJJ class, extra roll(s) after per ususal
• Tuesday -
  • Normal Rec Program, legs day and cardio
  • No Marathon Roll - everyone will bug me to come in "If you want someone to drill with I'll do it". They're all liars. The moment class starts they forget and I'm stuck in live rolls. I love them but they are liars.
• Wednesday - Normal BJJ class. Extra rolls TBD
• Thursday - Easy cardio day, exact volume TBD
• Friday - only do cardio if I 'm on the bubble for bodyweight
• Saturday - Compete
• Sunday - rest

Recovery

Skipping Tuesday and Friday are part of the recovery plan. I will also stretch when I go to the rec. 

 

Documentation

Same as this week. I'll be using MFP to try and drive my calories right to the daily amount. I'll keep up my notes here. 

16 hours ago, Kishi said:

So, I mean, yeah, I'd play whatever game I got to play regardless of the color of my belt. I don't see how I'd do anything else. I'm more just trying to keep the social aspect chill.

Totally agreed. I have yet to personally walk in somewhere with a target on my back. I have gone through what I see as "vetting rolls" where they paired me up with an upper belt right away and that person just kind of met me where I was at in terms of intensity. They aren't really going all out but just feeling me out. In one case I got the go ahead and was just integrated into the class, in another I was basically assigned a buddy to train with. In most cases I just show up and no one cares that I'm an out-of-towner. 

 

In my experience, if I show up, chat with the other people there, there's not really a problem. Guys who show up and won't talk, seem like Mr Try-Hard in every interaction tend to get set aside at my gym. It's not totally fair because they might just be nervous but nervous folks can get people injured because they're prone to being spazzes.

 

In the case of the guy who was visiting, I was hearing my guys grumble "no way he's a white belt" and read it as, this guy is going hard and not being a good training partner. After I rolled with him though, I think I took the wrong message. I think he had a different style but I think he was being a good partner overall. I think I gave him a little more of a roll than he was ready for. If I had gone in totally blind, I think it would have been a better time for everyone. So, my bad for listening to my guys having a small freak out. Their bad for misreading, in my opinion.

 

Friday

I was surprised I pushed up against my caloric load for the day. I found myself a little hungry this day but tried to stay disciplined

 

Saturday

Rec Time

Strength

• Standing Press 105 3 x 10
  • I had planned on 125 but I just didn't have it in me so I dropped the weight and barely finished
• Smith Bench 185 x 10, 10 8
  • This just made my left shoulder hurt and felt bad, I'm not sure this is staying in
• Assisted Dip -30 3x 10
• Lat Raise 2x 25 3 x 10
  • planned to be 30 but based on things so far I dropped it by 5. I think I was good for the 30s
• Chest Fly 2 x 30, 3 x10
• Skull Crusher
  • 82 x 8
  • 72 x 10, 6
  • 82 was the planned amount but I couldn't finish with it

A really disappointing strength workout overall. All the numbers looks really pathetic and even compared to my testing workouts they are low. Why are they low? No idea. I guess I'm just overtrained right now .

I keep trying to remind myself, the strength is to help BJJ and BJJ will impact strength workouts and that's ok. It still hurts my ego a little bit. Gotta move past that.

 

Cardio

• 300 calories rowing
• 300 calories ellipitcal

Why did I want 600 calories? No idea but I did. 

I watched Danaher's Jiujitsu At Any Age during rowing and found it really informative.

I watched some AKC fastest dog thing during elliptical and it was a delight to see super happy dogs running as fast as they can.

 

Food

 

Sunday

I weighed in at 235.8 this morning, which is the first time below 236 since mid last week. I'm happy to see it again. My job this week is to keep it below 236 as well as I can. I'll be attempting a low effort water cut late in the week so I'm curious to see how that goes. 

 

Off to Akagi today for my last full session of sparring before my meet. I'm still thinking 10 rounds but if I start to feel beat up or exhausted, I'll call it early. Everything this week about being ready for Saturday physically, mentally, emotionally.

16 hours ago, sarakingdom said:

I have completed a project milestone. Please reward me with congratulations and gifs so that I will associate this event with positive reinforcement.

 

16 hours ago, Severine said:

Also, thanks for sharing the detailed explanation of the jiujitsu positioning and training. Really interesting to read.

They won't all be that detailed but since it was. a small lesson and a running theme of people who read this is "I don't know what the technical bit is about but I'm following" I thought I'd try to give it more context.

 

13 hours ago, Kishi said:

I mean, speaking for myself, the day comes when I'm not a white belt, I'll probably still roll as a white belt if I'm traveling out of town. I'd mean to go easy with folks and try not to present as someone with something to prove. Because, I'd like to think, I won't have anything to prove if/when that time comes.

When you say "roll as a white belt" are you saying introduce yourself as a white belt? I wouldn't do that. Rolling as a white belt (or higher belt) isn't at all about how hard you roll or winning. If anything, white belts are notorious for going inappropriately hard. No, if you and I rolled and I thought your were a white belt I would expect dumb things like catching you in a VonFlue, you attempting to submit me while in my guard, or not knowing when to tap. If you're rolling as a blue to low purple I don't expect those things and I do expect to see you having some small tactics you set up like using an arm drag to set up a hip bump or mounting only to take the back. At higher levels I expect to see a game plan that you funnel me to and I have to try and funnel you into mine. At black belt I just expect to be force choked. 

So the guy who came, he was going hard and he tried to play open guard, which our white belts rarely do. But I caught him in a VonFlue despite not finishing it before I moved on. He had a little more guard retention than most of our white belts but once you passed his hips, he was done. He fought off submissions as hard as he could, hence why I was worried about his arm, and he tended to tap a little late. So, I think my guys were misreading him because he played a different game than we all do but I think it was also as paper thin as almost all white belts' games are. 

 

FWIW, I have gotten the grumble from a few people at gyms that I'm not a blue belt. I've poured hours into my halfguard game and its frustrating to people who only expect me to chain a couple moves that I have a whole hub there and I'm going to keep pulling people into it. However, my game has two hubs, half guard and mount. I can go freely from one back to the other and in either space I can dominate most purple belts and even some poorer brown belts. However, if you deny me those two positions, I'm a mess. So, in my mind, I'm properly a blue belt and until I can range a little further through the positions, that's the place for me. Whether I call myself a white, blue, purple, brown, or black belt, and whether I go 100% or just flow roll with a 120 lb, female, white belt, someone watching me should probably see that and be able to place me around that level. 

 

So, I agree with what I think you meant to say which is "I'll never try to dojo storm people" because that's not a cool thing. But, go with your full toolbox and play your full game. It's much more fun to roll against and calm, capable, and confident opponent than Mr, Try-Hard with only one specific game plan. 

Friday

BJJ

Passing the last 25% of half guard

I take advantage of the fact that my teammates are bad at this so I was kind of bummed that they are all learning how to pass it but also see it as an important part of improvement for myself. 

This is the position we're talking about and we're talking about what to do if you're the guy in the white gi. What you can't see is that his far arm is (probably) between the blue guy's arm and rib cage. The little thumbnail at the bottom right is where he wants to get to, basically freeing that bottom leg. I'll immediately be critical of the image and say, white gi guys hips are too high and are too centered over the blue guy's body. If I'm blue gi guy I'm trying to squirm away from his body a bit to get his underhooked arm close to my body then roll to my left and sweep him. This is the battle we were practicing. I got paired with one of my least favorite white belts but I ended up doing a lot of teaching. 

So, you're the guy on top. Job one is to get the far underhook

This is the view from the other side. You can see how the white gi sleeve is between the elbow and ribs. This is the first battle of halfguard passing. I'm not totally sure what this guy is doing because normally you would keep your head on the other side, you'd keep your hips down and your hand wide as a post. So either he's doing some stuff I don't understand or he likes to get swept.

So, get your underhook, keep your hand out wide, keep your hips low, keep your forehead on the mat. Now you work on the pass.

Referring back to the fist image, the first thing you will likely try is just tugging your leg out and it may work. It probably won't though so you can use your outside foot to push on their lower leg to free your leg. That is often enough. You may have to remove their near side hand from your leg or hip. The top image shows this by how he is pulling up on the blue sleeve that you can see such that the white gi's hand is almost in his armpit. 

If you still haven't freed yourself, everything stays in place and you swing you knee over their midline so your in mount with your foot still trapped. Again you can bring your free foot up to apply pressure to get free. You should also put your bodyweight through their jaw and make sure their face is turned away. Now you can swing their hips back to you and the fact that you have them all contorted will almost force them to let go. No you submit them

 

Rolling

We didn't do traditional rolls. We had some more active drilling rounds during class where I was still not going 100% because this is my game and Adam is pretty meh so I wanted him to have. chance to work.

 

We did a bit of top, bottom, out, where we split the class into three groups, group one take bottom open guard, group two pairs up with them and takes top, group three waits and each pair has a pass, sweep, or submission, the guy on bottom goes out, top goes to bottom, someone who was out comes in on top.

Then we did Winner stays in on bottom. I think I got three consecutive wins for my best run. 

 

After class

There was a guy visiting from out of town and I had heard a couple blue belts grumbling that the guy was introducing himself as a white belt and there was no way he was a white belt, so when he wanted to roll I accepted but assumed he was coming to make a point. This is a thing that does happen in jiujitsu. Much to my surprise I cut right through him and armbarred him. I'm kind of surprised he didn't get hurt, I had the armbar set and he kept going so I added a little more and a little more. I was going to tuck it behind my shoulder which will break it even in training when he got desperate and about broke it himself flailing to get out but finally tapped. He looked like he didn't want to go again so I checked in with him, he said he was fine. Finally we went again, switching rolls (He had started upright, I in the guard so now we did it the other way around), again I sliced through and set up and arm triangle this time. He was squirming but I was just doing my patience thing and eventually he tapped. I later heard a purple belt complaining that he wasn't a white belt, honestly, he is. He plays a different game than we do so it feels odd to us but he's a white belt, decent for  a white belt but a white belt. 

 

I rolled twice with Chris (Brown). No subs either way. I had him on the run for a good chunk of it but I'd all it draw overall. 

 

As I was leaving professor stopped me to tell me my mindset is where it needs to be right now and he was glad to see how I was constantly working and attacking in the live sessions today. I do feel so much better about what I'm going to do in a week than I did last time. I'm pulling for double gold. I should have between 2 and 6 matches but I actually have guys in my age bracket and I am happy to take on other 40+ year olds. 

The synergy of the two lists is a good find.

 

A few months ago I went through a whole thing around possibly leaving my job and it all boiled down to the same flexibility you have in your list. Having the option to start, end, and break at your discretion most of the time seems to make putting all the other things in the right place so much easier.

7 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

That does sound frustrating. I think my dumbest injury is still throwing out my back after a sneeze.

I've done this and I agree.

 

Time to practice ambidextrous hydration?

7 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

Today is a good day. Typed up my letter of resignation and will hand it in this morning.

 

Congratulations

31 minutes ago, Sepherina said:

Following 

 

Welcome.

 

Thursday

Rec

Strength

Upper Body Pull

• Barbell Row 135 3 x 10
• Assisted Pull Up -85 3 x 10
• Seated Row 70 3 x 10
• Lat Pull Down - I had 110 written down but I realized when I sat down that that was for a different machine so I had to figure out my weight
  • 50 x 10
  • 60 3 x 10
• EZ Bar Curl 72 3 x 10
• Back Fly 30 x 2 3 x 10
• Alt DB Curl 30 x 2 3 x10

Cardio

Treadmill, 3.0 - 3.5, hills level 5. I set it for 300 calories and it took about 40 minutes

 

Stretch

15 minutes doing my "normal" routine

 

Wine Tasting

A friend and coworker was hosting a wine tasting for our team at work. I headed over a little early to help him set up then hung around. It ended up being a pretty good sized group, a dozen people or so. He had something like ten wines and served them from mildest to strongest. They were all on the dry side. It was interesting watching different people who were there for different reasons. A couple guys where there to Drink, a couple people were really trying out wines, learning stuff, most were there to socialize. Because I'm fully remote and the rest were not, it was good that I turned up to socialize. It helps humanize me a bit to them. 

I felt bad whenever he'd open a new bottle and I still had most of my previous pour in my glass so I had to dump it but I just wasn't in a drinking mood. I'd get three four sips, get the flavor and just kind of feel done. This is pretty big reversal from where I would have been a few months ago where I would have leaned into the drinking for its own sake. It's weird to feel the difference. It doubled when we got to the restaurant after and everyone ordered cocktails after a whole wine tasting. I just drank water. I don't know why but I just wasn't in the mood. 

Regardless, we hung around together for about 4 hours. It obviously was way off diet but I knew it was coming so within the scope of the week it should be more than accounted for. 

 

Food

Because of the wine tasting and going out for dinner I had to guess at what that looks like calorically. I just arbitrarily picked 4 glasses of wine. I assume it was close to half of a bottle all told. I also looked up how many calories are in an entire Applebee's quesadilla and it was 1,100 so I just found a similar item in myfitnesspal. This is a really rough guess. I'm trying to not "let perfect be the enemy of good" here.

This puts me well over on the day but I've been running low all week so I'm not sweating that on a macro scale. As long as it's one night, no big. 

That said, I was super heavy this morning, 239, and that bugs me. I realize it's water and it'll be gone by Monday but it's annoying and makes me less confident about hitting 236 easily in just over a week than I was and I don't like that uncertainty. 

Wednesday

BJJ

More guard passing fundamentals. The emphasis today was truly on fundamentals. At the beginning we were told we would learn 5 fundamentals. After class I had to ask Stan "ok, so what are the five"? He struggled to enumerate them so I'm going to do my own version here

1. Take them down (if there is no guard, how do you pass guard?)
2. Deny grips and hooks (a good guard player wants 4 points of contact, as the passer you want them to have fewer and you usually want some space between you)
3. Pass what is in front of you (traditionally people are taught feet then knees then hips but often they want to jump ahead to hips when feet are still in front of them)
4. Don't allow them inside your grips (whether you are passing up the middle or out to the side, you want to control them such that one knee and one foot are on each side of you or both or on the same side of you, if you let those come to your midline, they now have a frame and you have to deal with that)
5. Pass into a Mount, Side Control, or pin, in that order of preference. This wasn't in the instruction but I'm adding it because it's true

Rolls

Alex (Blue) - Alex said his neck was bugging him and he wasn't going to go 100%. That's fine by me, we basically just drilled more passing but whoever was on bottom went at about 50%. So we each got a pass to a submission every time but it wasn't given for free either. Good training.

Rob (Blue) - I feel like Rob's ducking me these days. He used to love to roll with me but he's gotten much better, meaning he can now beat some people. I see him roll almost exclusively with people he expects to beat. So I called him over. He moped over. I subbed him twice. I think it's good that he now has some people he can beat up on but he does need to take his licks occasionally. Plush, his guard retention is getting good so it's fun to play against, it makes me work a bit. 

Eric (Purple) - I love any roll I can get with Eric so I was glad when he approached me. No subs were exchanged, which is a win for me against Eric. I managed to harass and sweep him a couple times. The one I most recall was when he was on top in side control and I bumped him such that he had one arm on the ground and one foot on the ground and I reached out with my foot sweeping the arm away and he made a sound like "uh oh" or similar. I think he manages to get back to top in the scramble but the knowledge I surprised him and made him feel at risk was nice. 

 

After Class

Stan (black) - I don't recall the details but I recall that my thought going in was that I needed to keep moving. I could not let him get top and start his little dance that just smashes me into the ground. I succeeded at never being pinned down but overall, I think he carried to roll. 

Stan again - short, three minute round, we went from guard rather than standing. I went for a dumb sit out about halfway through and got smashed for my efforts. After that I was just trying to get out from bottom. I don't think I ever got back to neutral.

 

Stretch

Final stretch session. These have gotten better than they initially were but I'm not totally convinced of their value and I have determined that her only being available on Wednesdays just makes this a no go for me. Planning to focus on recovery a lot more next challenge.

 

Guitar

Lesson was good. We added another song. Theme of the lesson was that I need to learn to key in on the drum and ignore everything else when playing with a song. I found I was really only able to stay locked in if I was actively counting 1/8th nots.

 

Food

I was really busy midday and didn't get to my third meal (of four). I was famished by the time I got to supper.

 

Today is going to be Rec Time followed by meetings followed by a wine tasting followed by the wine folks all going to a restaurant together. I may tap out when they go to the restaurant.  I have a suspicion that I'll be peopled out by then. Plus I don't feel like blowing a ton of calories on a restaurant but we'll see. Maybe I'll feel more energetic than I'm expecting. 

15 hours ago, Sepherina said:

A Quote:

”Beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life. Decided on how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living within that way of life.” - Hunter S Thompso

 

The Question

”In which direction are your habits currently steering your life?

Not to just jump in on your thinking but it just really resonated with my own mindset. 

I personally find this way of thinking to be a key towards success but it also struggles against the push of The World to have a goal, a challenge, so on. If I want something, I try to work back into the habits and systems that will put me on the path and then execute that system. It's way less cool to say "I'm going to go to practice 5 days a week for at least two months then go to a tournament to test my progress" than to say "It's my goal to win double gold in five weeks". The latter is a want and it's what people want to hear. The former is a habit that will push me towards my goal but also acknowledges that I'm not actually, fully in control of the outcome. 

 

1 hour ago, Sepherina said:

Decided this morning that I was going to try and just be in the moment and not multitask.  I am a notorious multitasker and I get bored very easily.

I have found breaking this habit hard at first but once I can get into a headspace of doing one thing at a time to the best of my ability and not splitting my attention, I get so much better at that one thing, whatever it is. I periodically fall out of the habit and have to implement a system to bring it back but it's always been worth it for me. 

 

 

All of this is to say, I hear you and I'm interested to see how another person takes on these challenges and how it feels and works, or doesn't , for them.

3 hours ago, Severine said:

I hope you don't mind me following despite knowing nothing about jiujitsu. I am just intrigued and would like to follow along and offer support and maybe learn a few things.

 

Good luck with the weight loss and the competition. I like the winning/losing juxtaposition.

All are welcome here.

I'll occasionally go out of my way to explain something in jiujitsu, if it's important to a story, otherwise, I see it as me recording things for myself. I don't require or expect people to know or care what I'm saying about techniques or even some of the stuff in rolls. Questions are welcome.

 

Tuesday

Rec

Lifting - Legs

still getting a feel for my strength level since I haven't lifted in a couple years

• Smith Machine Squat
  • 185 x 10
  • 225 x 10
  • 235 x 2
  • I don't know if I've ever squatted on a Smith Machine before but it really changes the dynamics and makes it more quad centric. I chose it since I was planning to go to or very near failure but didn't expect how different it would be
• Barbell Deadlift
  • 225 x 10
  • 245 X 5, 2
  • my grip was the limiting factor so this wasn't much of a test. I think I may have to order some straps
• Leg Press
  • 180 x 10
  • 270 x 10
  • 360 x 10
  • 450 x 10
  • 500 x 10
  • I took more of a power squat stance and it gave me plenty of push. I think I'll use narrower next time and it'll cut my numbers in half
• Romanian Deadlift
  • 135 x 10
  • 185 x 10
  • 205 x 10
• Leg Extensions
  • 110 x 3 x 10
  • This has traditionally been an exercise that causes a lot of leg burn and it still does.
• Leg Curls
  • 70 x 3 x 10
  • My notes say I did 90 lbs last time but I could barely get or a rep or two at that weight today 

Cardio - 300 calories on the elliptical

 

a few minutes of stretching to round out the session.  It took about 90 minutes all told.

 

BJJ

Marathon Roll (60 minutes of 5 minutes on, 1 minute off sparring)

I was trying to hold in my mind last night that this is my last Marathon before my meet (I'll skip it next week to be rested for the meet) and I wanted to get after it. 

• Alex (blue) - Gi with him in my closed guard. I hung on a little two long so I couldn't drop to another guard and he got past. I eventually worked my way around to top but no submission
• Garrett (blue) - Garret was on fire last week and got a sub on me which got in my head a little. He used to by my one peer that I couldn't beat more often than not but he has been too busy with work lately to train consistently so I expect to hold top most of the time and take occasional submissions. Last night I succeeded in subbing him to my expectation. I don't recall what it was but I think it was a kimura.
• Professor Ranch (Black) - No subs exchanged which is nice. He is great at reguarding on me but he always shoots triangles which are a free pass for me most of the time. By the third one he was trying hard to lock it in but is just at a huge strength disadvantage against me and when you're a black belt, I don't hold back on strength or weight. As played, I would have won on points. However, if we were counting points, I'm sure he would have played differently
• Ben (white) - flower sweep right our of the gate, which I don't think I have ever landed in a roll. I ended up in mount and and subbed him. We reset and I forget how he got into an arm triangle, I think I gave him a free pass and he just jumped onto the submission. Doing as many arm triangles as I do, I'm also reasonably knowledgable at how to survive them and he could tell I was chillin'. I used him over correcting to sweep him but he tried to hold the arm triangle and it was shockingly easy to turn it into my arm triangle so I subbed him again. We then spent the rest of the round trying to fix his arm triangle
• Dan (brown) - Dan has been one of the those jiujitsu wizards for so long. We're both bigger dudes who can just muscle smaller opponents. We're both older so we tend to keep our game slow. We both play a lot of halfguard. Lately I'd call our rolls more of a draw. We started neutral. I think I tried something and ended up on bottom but in halfguard, so I'm happy. He, like me, sits tall and perpendicular in someone else's halfguard. I don't get to experience this a lot. It makes it super easy to harry his far leg. So I'm messing with his base them popping up to try and attack his positions, he bulls me over, I mess with his leg, so on. Eventually I get the sweep and time runs out
• Wrestler Alex (Blue) - quick, well balanced, but small, I enjoy rolls with Alex and try to not rely on my weight too much. He is one of the best at kicking out of my half guard but he could not find this escape last night. It seems like nothing he did was freeing his leg. Eventually he over committed and I read it let him go at the right time and he fell flat and I took top. No submission though. very rarely submit Alex
• Leon (Brown) - Leon and I have a mutual fear of one another. We're the two biggest guys in the room. I fear his very hard set submissions. He fears the embarrassment of this big blue belt beating him. We start out rolling and he is immediately attacking elbow locks hard I had a genuine concern that if I didn't get out of there he would hurt me. I freed myself to half guard, which he hates me in. He's trying to bury me under him and I'm messing with his postion and he just locks up around my jaw and cranks it to the side with all of his force. I tap. It's a variant of a move know as The Twister, which is illegal in almost any competition or friendly setting. It hurt like a mother-- and it genuinely can screw up you neck or jaw. It kind of ticked me off. That said, I guess I know it's there now. We went again. i don't recall the details, I had to just play it a little safer and I don't think that we went anywhere with it. 
• Alex again (blue) - This roll lead to my favorite moment of the night. We're rolling, Alex ends up on bottom and he wraps both arms around my chest but don't have a great grip on his own hands. I realize he has no grip but could try to use this to off balance me. I inhale as deep as I can and flex my lats and feel his hands pop apart. I felt like a cartoon super hero, able to expand my chest so wide someone couldn't hold me. I did eventually catch a kimura from side control 
• Wrestler Alex again (blue)  The night was winding down and more and more people were just sitting on the wall so I had to take a second round but this time we've taking our gi tops off so it's faster, with fewer grips. Same as before, I caught him in my half guard. I waited for him to over commit then swept him. I climbed to his back while he was in turtle. He tried to sit out and roll but I wrestled too so I follow. He tried again but I had hooked his leg in turtle so he doesn't get away and I get the pass. Time ran out before much more happened.

I probably missed one, that nine. I kept hunting for couple of specifically hard rolls and they kept ducking me. 

 

Food

Tuesdays are weird I train so much on a Tuesday and have very little downtime so I undershoot my calories need by a lot. Not a complain. If I could live my life with two or three different workouts a day and enough time for a light meal between each, I'd by living the best life I can imagine.

 

 

Today's bodyweight was 235.8. I'll probably rebound a little on Friday since Thursday night is a coworker's wine tasting and dinner out night. But 236 is the top of my weight class in a week an a half so, if I'm disciplined next week, I should come in a couple pounds under without effort. I think I'm still going to do the basic salt and water cut to see how my body handles it for future use. I'll fill in those details next week.