Geezer's Long March Toward the Elite Sneaking Up On the Finish Line

[RobCor]

Her "fend off" technique is supposed to be (assuming grabbed from behind) kicking the knee out or doing something resembling the "technique" from Miss Congeniality, then running. I'll use your example.

Also, thought you might find this interesting

[Mark E. Hurling]

Let me begin this with an apology for my churlishness in not thanking you yesterday for you kind words RobCor. It was remiss of me and I can only attribute my bad manners to single focus geekery on the issue you brought up. As for your Lady Fair's technique for that grab from behind, it's a pretty good escape technique and nearly identical to the one we teach for that particular attack. Shin, Instep, Nose, Groin or as Gracy called it the SING technique.

That video clip is interesting but I'm not sure if you and I agree why. I see that and think it is like watching a game of chess as they manuver around the mat and each other's anatomy trying for a hold or an advantage. I used to do this on the ground in judo in college. Mat technique is frequently overlooked in favor of the big spectacular standing throws that make the floor oscillate from the crash. Our team used this overlooked stuff to clean the clocks of our opponents again and again until a few got smart and caught up. The main thing I saw though was a fixation on the part of both of them with grappling to the exclusion of other forms of seperation, escape, and striking. I mean come on, they had those cool looking MMA half fingered gloves on to protect their hands fo strikes. Neither of them used knees or elbows to any effect either. That's part of my knock on MMA and other sport martial arts. Either they are limited by their rules (and with some reason, to prevent severe injury or death) or the boundaries of the art they practice. Can't use strikes in judo for instance. A friend of mine who is a 6th degree black belt in Hapkido used to do the paintball thing years ago when I still carried a gun as part of my duties as did he. It was fun as hell in both the outdoor and indoor version and I discovered my ninja abilities to trail, stalk, and back shoot unwary opponents. We decided to stop because we could see it was affecting our perceptions and behaviors toward use of the real thing through either reckless conduct or some other undesirable stuff because you actually die in paintball. Haven't touched it in over 20 years now. Same with the whole MMA thing it might just breed some bad or wrong responses to a real attack without benefit of a referee.

The kid's jujitsu was a real rodeo. The other adults got the flu and there was only Master Bellman and I to contain 30 kids who seemed sugared up to the eyeballs last night. I had to grab one kid by the collar and transport him, feet dangling, to the opposite corner of the mat to keep him from screwing around with another kid. Lots of promotions at the end of class so I was busy putting stripes on their belts. The blue belts got another stripe and these kids are so diligent and so good as they came back to the line up I did a kneeling bow and did an "Ooohsaa!" at them. The girl asked me why I did that, and I told her it was a traditional Japanese sign of respect for achievement that they had both earned. The boy never talks, not once. His dad is the same way, so I think it's a family trait. Great kid though, it's so rewarding to contribute to the teaching of folk like them.

The adult class had me paired with a 5' 5" 115 lb. woman who needed to be convinced it was OK to hit me harder, that I wouldn't cry. It's getting women and girls over the nice girl enculturation and wake up some ferocity that can be difficult. Our teaming was no accident because she has never worked with anyone my size before and needed to discover how different it was to have to deal with someone the size of a likely attacker. She warmed up to it after a few "No hit me in the sternum harder than that!" prompts. I also had to reinforce letting go of me when she threw me so as not to get pulled down by the force of my fall. After 3 unsuccessful prompts I held on to her gi as I went down and rolled sideways. It pulled her down and whirled her around me and onto the mat with a resounding thud. Then I put my forearm lightly across her throat and said, "This is why you want to let go and not get pulled down." She picked it up right away then and didn't repeat the error. A green belt got promoted to the next rank in that color and I told him after class that by tradition he can start wearing black gi bottoms now.

[RobCor]

Interesting analysis of the video. BJJ is something that I'd be interested in, but I only have time for one athletic pursuit at this point.

I don't know how you handle all of those kids, by the way. Physically as well as mentally. When I was 12 or so I took a "karate class" and one of the instructors was teaching a strike against the shoulder and accidentally broke the kid's collarbone.

[Mark E. Hurling]

The collar bone is pretty easy to break even on an adult. It sits right on the surface, it is not padded with much muscle, it's relatively fragile, and has no real solid internal support backing it up.

As for kids and control. I get the Joe Slick glowering resentment or the too cool for the room vibe now and again on the mat helping teach the kid’s class in jujitsu. It helps to be 5’11″ 210 lbs. and able to pick them up one handed by the collar of their gi and bring them up to eye level for closer discernment. Direct stares in that mode trigger all manner of primate hardwiring that scream for panic and a desire to escape. The onlooking parents often have a wistful gleam of if only in their eyes when they witness this. For whatever reason, it is clear that they are not up to the task of getting their offspring’s attention by grabbing them by their stacking swivel.

[Mark E. Hurling]

Woke up woozy and with the winged insects fluttering around the innards. Must be time for the migration of the endangered El Segundo Blue Mariposa again. Man I wish this damn flu would just exit my body and leave me in peace! But off to the gym.

5 minute warmup on the bike.

Overhead Press: 170 x 5 x 3 + 115 x 10. (heavy) This is odd because the sets become marginally less hard as I proceed. Counterintuitive sez I, arrgh.

Bench Press: 155 x 8 x 3 + 10. (light) I stole a leaf from one of Oldster's recent posts in his log and tried these as speed sets. It turns out the most difficult thing to resist is the tendency to ballistically bounce the bar off the chest to increase the speed. I managed to mostly contain that urge and knocked out the reps about 1 per second +/-

Front Squat: 135 x 3 x 6. (light) I got 3 last time I did these and hauled out 6 despite some dodginess in my lower back. All went well though.

Foam roller and stretching to decompress at the end.

RobCor, if or when you chance on getting around to taking up a martial art, I'd recommend one with an approach more balanced than BJJ. Pick something that has equal emphasis if not slightly more on striking and of course with some joint locks, grappling, and throwing in the mix. I don't know enough about specific dojos on the East Coast in general or NYC in particular but here's something to consider. I'm not a huge fan of the Korean martial arts because of TKD's foot heavy influence. But, hapkido and hwa rang do both have a mixed approach such as I described above already. Even so, you would be well advised to study the dojang (Korean for dojo) and the instructors being wary of belt mills and creeping TKD influence. Good luck on this as you get the chance.

[Oldster]

Overhead Press: 170 x 5 x 3 + 115 x 10. (heavy) This is odd because the sets become marginally less hard as I proceed. Counterintuitive sez I, arrgh.

Heh. I was expecting this at some point. A little sooner than I thought, but expected. Pretty cool, huh? Now you are starting to get into pressing shape.

Bench Press: 155 x 8 x 3 + 10. (light) I stole a leaf from one of Oldster's recent posts in his log and tried these as speed sets. It turns out the most difficult thing to resist is the tendency to ballistically bounce the bar off the chest to increase the speed. I managed to mostly contain that urge and knocked out the reps about 1 per second +/-

It takes practice. The key is to work at pulling the bar down. It may sound odd, but when you learn to pull the bar down hard because of complete control you are getting it. It should never bounce off your chest however. Just a touch and if you were strong enough to pull it downward you'll be strong enough to push it up with the same speed. But never accelerate to lockout. Slow down before locking it out.

To many tend to work at speed by letting the bar freefall to their chest and then try and gain control and then explode upward. It doesn't work well that way and will lead to injury. Instead think of the explosion being two part, downward AND upward.

Trust me, once you practice it and get it down you'll understand. Next light day or on light warmups practice a bit but don't over do it. You probably won't get it down for a few weeks.

[Greg C]

As for kids and control. I get the Joe Slick glowering resentment or the too cool for the room vibe now and again on the mat helping teach the kid’s class in jujitsu. It helps to be 5’11″ 210 lbs. and able to pick them up one handed by the collar of their gi and bring them up to eye level for closer discernment. Direct stares in that mode trigger all manner of primate hardwiring that scream for panic and a desire to escape. The onlooking parents often have a wistful gleam of if only in their eyes when they witness this. For whatever reason, it is clear that they are not up to the task of getting their offspring’s attention by grabbing them by their stacking swivel.

Isn't it a shame more of this isn't "legal" - we had a school teacher when I was a kid - relatively little guy around 5'10" 180#, but strong. Picked a 10th grader up out of his chair pretty much just like this. No more issues in his class. If that happened in a classroom today, there'd be a lawsuit.

[Mark E. Hurling]

Yeah it is cool Oldster, and thanks for the tips on speed work.

Too true Greg. Heh. My senior year in high school I got into a fight that ended up ranging in an occupied study hall. The janitor, "Moose" Manny picked each of us up that way. At the time, I was already 5'11" and 230 lbs. It was football season. Ole Moose was about 6'3" with a huge gut and I would guess at least 270. This was the only time it ever happened and it left a truly lasting impression on me. My Dad's technique was something less taxing and more efficient. He would just grab an ear and lift or pull. You stopped what you were doing immediately and moved anywhere he wanted to take you. He never had to do it after age 10 on me. Operant conditioning works. Tempted as I have been to do this on the mat, I figure sticking to grabbing clothing is less likely to get me in trouble.

[Mark E. Hurling]

No jujitsu today, black belts only class. So I did a GXP and discovered at the new and improved weight of 210 that I will need to up the intensity level a couple clicks on the cross country ski elliptical I use. The Tanita bodyfat scale has me hovering at 13% so I am well content. Despite the flu and weight loss there are no signs so far of having lost strength.

[Mark E. Hurling]

I woke up rarin' to go and get at it. Despite the woozies the flu left me with, I am sleeping better and seem to need less of it now. I think this may another side effect of the weight loss and undiagnosed sleep apnea.

5 minute warmup on the bike.

Bench Press: 230 x 5 x 3. Between rep 1 and rep 2 of the last set I suddenly remembered that I hadn't done any pause work. Crap! Could I pull this off and get all my reps in? So I gambled and did a 3 second pause on the last rep and got it! So happy faces all around. During this I saw a guy on the next bench over doing bench presses with his feet on the bench. I did something I have done very seldom in all my years, I transformed into the exercise police. I suggested that this might be an unstable foot position which could make things unrecoverable if his shoulders got wobbly on the concentric part of the move. Not mentioning to him that was exactly what had happened on his last set. He said he was trying to strengthen his hip and core so that's why. Now that was a new one, but I said OK and carried on. Good luck to him because he'll need it.

Squat: 250 x 3. I incorporated the info on pelvic tilt from Rip' new article and it made a big difference in how solid my low back felt. It still feels a little dodgy from letting the female blue belt throw me a lot on Wednesday last week, but I didn't have to bail and felt no sense of impending doom coming up from the hole. My left inner thigh sprang a huge bruise this morning as the result of a demonstration of kicking out the leg from the Wednesday night kid's class. Master Bellman did a cross foot kick to the inside thigh about 6 inches below my boys. It doesn't quite knock the leg out from underneath you but it really disturbs your balance and stability. And it hurts. A lot. The adjacent ballage gets rattled pretty good too which is never a good thing. That's why I wear river shorts with mesh liners underneath my gi pants. It's not as solid a house for the boys, but it does keep them from reacting badly to the worst seismic aftershocks. Also, I found that I could hitch up my belt another notch when I put it on for the last couple of sets.

Another great day. I can't thank you enough for this Oldster, and you too, JM3. Without the one-two punch you both hit me with, I would have never tried this kind of routine, because it just doesn't seem logical to me. It makes me think of The Untouchables with Ness sitting across from Sean Connery who says to him in that wonderful brogue of his "Thush, endeth the lesshon." Of course I got way more to learn even as an old dog.