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Monthly Archives: October 2015

Jits Notes – 10/13/2015

14 Wednesday Oct 2015

Posted by Obsession Engine in Exercise, Fitness, Grappling, Jits Notes, Judo

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Exercise, Fitness, Jits Notes, Jiu Jitsu, Judo

Drank some Gatorade before class. Got heartburn. Damn, I’m old. On with the notes!

Takedown class – Started with Osoto Gari goodness. Arm movements, then arms, hips, feet & grapevine the leg, then step through takedown. Focus on maintaining upright head position and maintaining grips. Hit knee on belly then armbar after the takedown. the closer the knee is to the armpit the greater the control for the armbar, so hit the floating ribs then shift it up.

We then worked Uchi Mata off a failed Osoto – opponent shifts leg back to prevent the Osoto, so turn elbow skyward and crank gripped sleeve to the rear, looking in that direction. Raise leg and dump.

Worked drill where opponent shifts to prevent Uchi Mata and we hopped in circles. Kicking leg high and pulling in the direction of throw while looking that direction makes throw happen. Finish with knee on belly and transition to the arm bar.

I think I need more warm up time before the takedown class. I’m feeling muscles complain about being strained trying to take people down or twist to avoid same.

Grip fighting to finish.

Ground class – Standard warmup, then the cardio stuff. Apparently I’ve been doing shrimping wrong, too – I’ve been bringing both feet to my butt, not leaving one out flat and bringing the other up. Forward shrimping still looks like an epileptic white kid trying to break dance…

Drills – From mount, take control position and cross face with one arm. Opposite arm posts. Keep the shoulder of the arm that is posting at level or below that of opposite shoulder unless you’d like to be rolled. Grapevine legs or keep knees wide for base. Wide knees= more weight on opponent.

First, we resisted being rolled. The grapevine leg prevented a roll toward opposite the posted arm. The posted arm, of course, acts as an outrigger against a roll to that side. Our first attack from mount is for an Americana lock. Take the posted arm and palm strike the bottom man’s near arm to the mat. Take the crossfacing arm and hook it. Use the thumbs over grip and either cup or keep the arms straight -use the palm, not the fingers, to control the trapped arm. Snake the free arm under the bottom’s trapped arm. Palm up usually worms underneath more easily. Grab the wrist of the hand still clamping the trapped arm. again, thumbless grip and hook works best. Bring crossfacing arm out and around opponent’s head, place tricep in neck, shove offline. Crank both hands toward the ground and bring trapped limb toward feet to get the tap.

2nd move – Ezekiel choke off a missed Americana. Opponent thrusts arm out, negating Americana attempt. Place elbow of free arm forward of bottom’s escaped arm. Draw elbow down toward ribs, scooping bottom’s arm and trapping it. Use crossfacing hand to hook sleeve of free arm, then snake free arm into neck of bottom man. Make a fist. Do a pushup.

Its a sneaky-assed choke. I like it!

3rd move – arm triangle. Mount and crossface as above. Opponent frames and pushes forearm against top’s neck. Top presses down, then releases pressure and pushes arm to the side and traps it with head pressure. Crossfacing arm hooks opposite bicep with monkey grip.

3a: Place free arm on side of head while pressuring with head. Squeeze elbows together.

3b: Place free hand on opponent’s forehead if there’s not enough space to bring it to own forehead. Squeeze.

3c: Can’t secure choke from mount for some reason. Abandon mount – free arm turns palm up. Gable grip with crossfacing arm. Secure hold. Hop off mount. Same side leg as crossfacing arm presses up against bottom’s ribs. Leg of free side arm is straight and posted about even with ear. Crank elbow of free arm toward stomach – take up slack in choke. Head moves toward mat and posted leg slides out.

Rolls:

1st roll: Problems with guard pass. Also, triangled opponent but couldn’t finish – maybe swiveled to wrong side? He definitely postured up to get out, so maybe a little help from Stephan Kesting is in order. Tried a cross-collar choke and couldn’t get the tap, either. At least I was on the offensive for a change!

2nd roll: Mounted but had no finish. Tried to apply class lessons and got rolled. Had problems with the mount escape – probably didn’t block the leg with the elbow before top man advanced too high. I probably should try to buck, too…when the guy’s sitting high in base, its hard to hook that leg with my far leg. Walking the leg out like Emily does in the video might be worth a shot, too.

I jostled around until top dude made a mistake, so I locked down his arm, upa-ed and rolled him, coming back to guard.

Overall, felt good. Had to quit as face was bleeding from a nail rake and didn’t want to bleed all over other people.

Booze, Glorious Booze: Apple Cider

14 Wednesday Oct 2015

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Tis the season!

Friday Fundamentals (Segment 3) Properly gripping an autoloading pistol

10 Saturday Oct 2015

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Fantastic stuff from my friend and instructor Claude Werner. I wish I had such clear instructions when I began shooting.

tacticalprofessor

As my colleague Wayne Dobbs of Hardwired Tactical Shooting says, there are three fundamentals of handgun shooting that can make you or break you in a defensive situation; grip, sights, and trigger [manipulation]. I would also add followthrough, as a student who came back today from the elite Rogers Shooting School called to mention to me.

For this segment, let’s look at the autoloading pistol grip discussion contained in The Tactical Professor’s Pistol Practice Program.

0 Cover gripThe proper grip for any handgun should accomplish several objectives:

  1. Maximize our hand friction on the handgun. The way we prevent the handgun from moving around in our hand(s) is simply via friction. Therefore, the more hand surface we have in contact with the gun, the more friction we can achieve.
  2. Minimize the gun’s motion during recoil by stabilizing the supporting joints, principally the wrists, when the gun fires.
  3. Reduce the distance between the…

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Jits Notes 10/8 – What a drag it is getting old

09 Friday Oct 2015

Posted by Obsession Engine in Exercise, Fitness, Jits Notes, Judo

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Exercise, Fitness, Jits Notes, Jiu Jitsu, Judo

Ate some tomato meat sauce over rice at about 4. Neck and upper back was stiff from the last class, so I popped 2 Ibuprofen before heading out to class. That’d haunt me.

During the first few takedowns I had 2 or 3 vertebrae go “pop!” in my back and 1 in my neck. I actually think those were good pops as my back now feels pretty normal again. Victory was short-lived, however, as I felt something complain just above the left knee on the outside when I got Osoto garied and my sciatic nerve has been talking to me ever since. Gassed pretty quickly, as usual, and got heartburn – no more tomato sauce before class, apparently! This cardio issue is really starting to get me down, too. I’m pretty useless halfway through a roll and I don’t have much game to begin with. Enough bitching – here are the notes!

Takedown class – started with pummeling drills and got yanked around by the big blue belt. Worked pulling with the underhook, 3 pummels then shoot for underhooks, then 3 pummels and step to the t position for the bodylock takedown (that’s where the pops came in). Worked Osoto in phases – the hands, then the hands and twist and leg grapevine, then the takedown, then we did the hop-in drill up the mat and down, then the snapdown series with an osoto gari. Last was several rounds of gripfighting. Messed around with overhooks – I should watch that Rob Koll video for some tips on how to make them work. I keep brainfarting and not using the right grip brakes on the lapel – one hand pushes inside of grabber’s wrist while opposite hand grips gi and pushes along with a body twist.

Ground class – Worked with one guy that I couldn’t even get my legs around for closed guard – that was interesting.

Kick sweep series and roll to knee on belly, mount escape flow drill, closed guard to spider guard transition, then closed to spider guard with the sweep. Spider guard sweep with the leg reaping the downed knee demonstrated, and a new drill, the spider guard sweep against a posted leg was shown. Details: perform spider guard transition and go for gas pedal sweep, but top man posts the leg rather than leaving knee on the mat. Bottom hooks leg with instep and hip escapes, dumping top man onto the opposite side of the hooked leg.

Spider guard demo by Larry showing ease of access to triangles, omo platas and sweeps with the spider guard.

Rolls

1st – tried mount escape with limited success – top man often just hit S mount. Did get it to work but then got stuck under the top man trying to roll him. Stephan Kesting’s sweep might have been good to try here. There are some good half guard tips here(Kesting again!), particularly for a position I get stuck in all the time – he uses a butterfly hook to pop someone up to recover guard when they’ve crossfaced and flattened the bottom man.

Tried the Kurt Osiander move against knee on belly and got armbarred instead of getting the single. I see I probably should have went for his second escape, as the guy already had the position on me. I was reaching up while mounted, too. Got head and arm guillotined as well from a kneeling position. This defense might be worth a go.

2nd roll – Tried kesagetame escape and was stymied by a turn to side control and a posted arm. Got my gi bottom gripped and couldn’t break out. Got rear mounted. Have no real game plan when starting.

Attempt to address issues in order:
Kesting’s Kesagetame escapes

Beyond Grappling kesagetame escape

Grip fighting upon entries I’m diddling around too much with the initial grip fighting, but I think that’s largely because I have no real goal or passing game.

Haven’t watched this one all the way through yet, but it looks promising.

I tried working this against the rear mount but didn’t get too far and don’t think I did it properly at all. Then got tired, got stupid, and got choked.

A Couple of Judo Sources

08 Thursday Oct 2015

Posted by Obsession Engine in Grappling, Judo

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Judo

I found these while looking for Osoto Gari pages to link to in my last Jits Notes post. Both look quite good.

The Difficult Way: Fundamentals of Judo

The second is the Judo Mat Lab, which I found in a post on the Difficult Way blog. They only have a few videos up and I hope they continue. Here’s their Uchi Mata analysis.

Attack of the Spider Mokey! Jits Notes – Tues, 10/6

08 Thursday Oct 2015

Posted by Obsession Engine in Exercise, Fitness, Jits Notes

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Exercise, Fitness, Jits Notes, Jiu Jitsu, Judo

Takedown class – pummeling warmup, pummeling drill for underhooks, pummeling for underhooks then takedown to mount. Next was our intro to Osoto Gari both stationary and with a skipping entry. We worked grapevining the leg and stepping through the opponent as well as the kick out that’s commonly shown in judo instructionals. We drilled the skip in by chasing our partner as he backpeddled. A counter to Osoto was keeping the near side leg out of reach, so Uchi Mata was demonstrated as a counter to that counter. If uchi gets countered, seoi nage was offered as still being possible.

Here’s a cool page with some Osoto Gari variations. I’m liking the look of this entry for it as well: Yamashita demonstrating o uchi gari/o soto gari. This one’s pretty trippy, too. Trippy! Get it? Oh, well.

Now that I think about it, I’ve seen uchi mata from a whizzer before when I took a Greco lesson from Paul Sharp of MDOC. This particular clip from the University of Judo demonstrates it. There are a lot of cool tricks to pull with the whizzer, and that Rob Koll video I linked to looks like solid gold material.

We wrapped up with some pummeling and grip fighting.

Ground class: After the basic warmups, we worked a flow series. Start in guard, open legs and move to open guard, feet on hips with sleeve grips, kick leg sweep like in the last few classes followed by rolling the top man to our shins then rolling to knee and belly. Take side control and be sure to isolate the far side arm, as we’re going to mount. Cut the knee and shin across the belly and pull the knee up toward to clear the foot from entanglement, then sink hooks on the legs.

The bottom man then works mount defense: cross one arm across the top man’s waist to keep him from moving his mount higher on the torso. keep the other arm bent, elbow against the top man’s knee. Drop the leg opposite of the crossing arm flat on the ground and draw the other up to the buttocks. Turn to a 45 toward the side of the leg that is down. Snake the foot of the bent leg over the top man’s ankle and wheedle it over your downed leg then lock it down. Slide the formerly trapped leg out from under the top man’s hooked leg, lock your half guard down, and roll him over.

You’re now on bottom in half guard, so snake the closest arm across the back and grab the belt, attempting to take the back. It actually goes a lot like this video from Emily Kwok and Stephan Kesting, but we left one hand up near the collar to defend while keeping the elbow tight pressed against the Top man’s knee close to the floor. Top man overhooks the reaching arm to defend against the back attack, so bottom grabs his far leg and drives forward, taking him down and seizing side control. Here’s Stephan Kesting again, showing the sweep after the arm gets overhooked. Bottom man now recomposes guard. Drill begins anew.

Spider guard – Start in closed guard. Open as with the last few drills – both sleeves gripped, plant one leg on the floor and keep top man controlled with other leg behind back. Hip escape and bring leg from floor to 45 degree across torso for control and pull with grips on sleeves while pushing with knee. Bring foot from behind and place on hip. Windshield wiper legs open and keep outward leg pressure on arms as well as pulling with grips and pushing with feet. Roll one grip over like throttling a motorcycle. Kick the same leg skyward and punch the hand while rolling to the opposite hip, then slip foot back and place on bicep. Push leg out while pulling and keep on the opposite hip, then bring the elbow inside the leg and pull with both grip and instep. Transfer other foot to other bicep. Push and pull with opposing pressure to keep opponent stretched. Take one foot off his bicep and place on his same side hip. Push the other high, bringing his base up, then using the arm that’s on the same side of the foot that’s on his hip, pull that arm up while pressing his knee out (I’ve heard some people call this, “the gas pedal.”). Roll him to the compromised side and take mount.

This video is similar. I’ll keep looking for one closer to what we practiced. What is nice is that he emphasizes compromising balance with the hip movement, as well as foot placement on the bicep – mine was often too close to the shoulder. Without lifting him up and pulling, that knee doesn’t want to move.

Rolling – 4 rolls, all against white belts. Worked defense. Kept getting caught in side control & kesa getame and didn’t have good answers, so that’s homework I need to work on. I managed to catch someone in kesa getame but got rolled – still more homework. Speaking of homework, here are some cool drills for Spider Guard work. This seems pretty relevant, too. I think I’ll be giving Stephan Kesting some of my money in the near future.

More Stephan Kesting, since I got stuck in rear mount:

Rear Mount Escape
Since I keep getting flattened in side control, I think I’ll give this a shot. Side control escape.
Here’s Kurt Osiander with some good tips. “Boom! You fucked up a long time ago!” He’s right!

I’ve seen some of Henry Akin’s stuff before. I think I need to watch more of it. He’s explaining things well and I see how I’m making the mistakes he’s talking about. Escape from tight side control.

Kesa Getame stuff:

Kurt Osiander’s version: “I may be tired, and pinned, and trapped.” Sounds like my typical rolling experience! I tried the bridge and roll without success last class, though. Hmmm.

Here’s Kesting’s and Ritchie Yip’s version. The pin looks closer to what I was stuck under in class than what was going on in the Osiander clip.

Here’s a mount escape from Kurt Osiander that looks fun. I’ll see if I can give it a shot. And a high mount escape because, well, I screw up a lot.

And knee on belly defense because, yet again, I screw up a lot.

Jits Notes – 10/1 Skipped class due to fatigue

02 Friday Oct 2015

Posted by Obsession Engine in Exercise, Fitness, Jits Notes

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Exercise, Fitness, Jiu Jitsu, jiujitsu

Was in bed by 9, so no class for me!

I think allergies are romping and stomping on my immune system. My lovely bride, the Obsession Engine’s better half, feels even worse. I finally gave in and ordered the Bioforce HRV so that should help me make better decisions about which workouts I should taper back on and which to emphasize in future – trying to balance cardio, lifting, jits and life in general is sometimes difficult. Adding a heart rate monitor to my cardio workouts a few years ago was a major game changer and really helped me calibrate my kinesthetic awareness as well as track improvements (or the opposite!) in my endurance, so I’m hoping this will be of similar benefit. When I have more time in with the HRV, I’ll post about my experience.

On the plus side, this gave me more time to reread The Essential Guard, a book recommended to me by a mentor a long time ago, and found some tips that might help me out. I found some articles and videos from Ritchie Yip that are helping me frame things properly as well. Check ’em out.

Improving Crummy Factory Sights For Pennies

02 Friday Oct 2015

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Again, its not just for firearms. If you’re looking into the whole “parlor shooting” thing like I am, you’ll want good sights to work with.

As an aside, numerous folks have wondered if a lot of the reason point shooting was so well-received was because of the really bad sights found on older semiautomatic pistols. They were “low profile” and the front sight frequently occludes the entire rear notch when you try to aim. I’m not saying that some kind of “point shooting” technique isn’t of potential value at extremely close ranges, just that, with the sights on those pistols, you frequently wouldn’t have had another option!

Growing Up Guns

The factory sights that come on most pistols (especially little guns) are pretty difficult to see. They’re usually small and black and acquiring the front sight during the presentation can be difficult. You also might be vetting a new pistol purchase, and before dropping $70-$150 on a set of new sights you can cheaply get easier to see sights.

$6 gets you fluorescent hobby paint and tiny brushes at a hobby store. I also purchased some white Nail polish at the dollar store.

This can also be accomplished with florescent tape with clear coat nail polish on the edges to keep it from peeling.

Reapply as needed.

$6 for enough supplies to paint all of your guns, all your friend’s guns, and your future grandchildren’s guns..

Put down a few layers of white nail polish.

Dab some hobby paint on the front sight. It took two or three coats.

The…

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Friday Fundamentals (Segment 2)

02 Friday Oct 2015

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Reblogging this, and many of these drills aren’t just for firearms but will work with airsoft or pellet guns as well.

The basement & garage are getting cleaned this weekend and we’ll see if we can bring “parlor shooting” back here at Obsession Engine HQ!

tacticalprofessor

We’re continuing on with the series of ‘Friday Fundamentals’. I’ve written about Sight misalignment, speed, and accuracy  before. It’s a key fundamental to increasing your speed while still maintaining an acceptable degree of accuracy. This drill is part of the second session of my Pistol Practice Program.

Required equipment:

  • Any silhouette target; B-27, B-21, Q, IDPA, IPSC, etc. Put a 2-3 inch aiming point on the silhouette in about the center of the target.
  • Masking tape (preferred) or magic marker to mark the target.
  • Pistol, 24 rounds of ammunition
  • Eye and ear protection

Overview

This drill consists of three (3) Sequences of 8 shots each. You are going to deliberately misalign your sights so you can see the effect of this at increasing distances. The drill is to fire the pistol with the front sight on a spot on the target but with the rear notch deliberately misaligned…

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