Sunday, we worked on transitioning from Knee on Belly to what we'll call Knee on Face. I also learned a slick head/arm choke from side control that Jeremy taught me.
The positional drills we did focused on starting in side control, controlling by gripping under my opponent's head with a thumb inside the lapel. This is a good grip to keep my opponent from turning into me. If he tries to turn in, I simply straighten out my arm. My other arm grabs down by his leg. From here, I bring both knees up tight to his body, then pop up into knee on belly.
Once I'm in a good position, I'll work to control his arm. My goal in this drill was to eventually take the armbar. So, I'll work to pull his arm up high. A common reaction to having someone put all their weight on your gut is to try and turn in. As my opponent does this, I'll keep both of my grips (on his sleeve and on his pant leg), turn and put my other knee on his jaw, the idea being to turn his face away from me. At this point, I can move back to Knee on Belly, or often take the arm as he focuses more on the pressure on his head then on protecting the arm from an armbar.
The choke Jeremy showed me is one I can definitely use. It works like this, starting in side control (my right arm is head side and my left is hip side):
Bring my right knee up, isolating his left arm on top of my thigh. I might need to sit out into a scarf hold position, and then up into side control in order to do this. Getting this arm high on my thigh is critical to the choke.
Move my arms to the other side of his body. I need to stay tight, clamping him down with my elbows on one side and my knees on the other. Jeremy recommended camping out here for a few moments, waiting until my opponent decides to stop struggling.
With my right arm, reach back under his body aiming for in between my own legs. I want my bicep as tight against his neck as possible.
Drop my hips all the way to the mat. I need to get them all the way down or that arm I isolated will sneak back inside and I'll lose the submission.
Reach under with my left arm, securing either a gable or "S" grip.
And finish by bringing my head to the mat next to my left arm, moving my legs toward the north/south direction.
This choke gets really tight, and as long as each position is clamped down, it's a very methodical technique.
Part of being healthy is eating well. Part of being alive in the world right now is having less time to prepare meals. Stupid world.
As I mentioned in my first installment of Steve Cooks, I'm looking for good, healthy alternatives to store bought protein bars. I started with a reasonably good recipe, but wasn't happy with the taste. It was too sweet for me, and a little bland. Not bad, by any means, but not great. So, I'm working on other recipes.
This go around, I started with a recipe from the UK. A very nice lady named Lou who trains in Kung Fu and more recently MMA posted her recipe for flapjacks. Now, here's the funny part. Brits don't speak English either. Turns out, if you've spent any amount of time corresponding with Brits, they talk funny, and any comments they make about Americans butchering the Queen's English must be made tongue firmly in cheek. Case in point, flapjack. Any American understands that a flapjack is a big pancake. Seriously. EVERYBODY knows this. Sheesh! Turns out, in the UK, a flapjack is like a big cookie bar or something.
Here's her original recipe:
125g butter 300g oats 3 tbsps honey 50g raisins/sultanas 140g brown sugar 50g sesame seeds 50g sunflower seeds flax seeds (I sprinkle them on top)
Heat the butter,sugar and honey in a pan. When melted,add the other ingredients and place in a baking tray.Cook at 180C for about 15 minutes.
The first difficulty I ran into was conversion. I don't speak metric. So, imagine my surprise when I started converting the recipe above into a scale that I understand. Holy moly! We're talking over a stick of butter. Dayum!
I made a batch of these and I have to say, they're DELICIOUS. But, they don't do the job if I'm trying to put together a protein bar. If you look, there's very little protein in this recipe at all. They tasted awesome, and if the intent is to have something that will stick to the ribs, the oats in this will do that job well.
Here's what I did. Using Lou's recipe as a base, I made some substitutions for ingredients that I have on hand, are better suited for a lower carb/higher protein bar or I just like better. After doing some conversions, and some substitutions for ingredients that I prefer, I ended up with something like this:
Oatmeal Flapjacks a la Steve
1 Cup natural applesauce (substitute for the shortening/butter) 1 Cup applejuice (to add a little more liquid to the mix) 3 Cups rolled oats 1/4 Cup dried cherries 1/2 Cup packed brown sugar 2 tbs flax seeds (ground) 4 scoops chocolate protein mix 3 tbs agave nectar
I mixed the dry ingredients up in one bowl and the wet in another, then mixed them all together and baked them in a 9x13 pan at 325F for 40 minutes.
I ended up with 12 bars. According to my math, they have about 211 calories each, 22g carbs and 12g protein per bar. Not too bad, although I'd like to reverse the carbs to protein. I substituted Natural Applesauce for the Butter in the original recipe. I also switched cherries for the raisins, just because I had them on hand.
The other main substitution was to use Agave Nectar in lieu of honey. Agave Nectar is delicious and can be used as a substitute for any kind of sugar, honey or other sweetener. I heard about it from a friend who is a vegan. I guess vegans love it because it's good and isn't an animal derivative like honey. All I know is that it's good in just about anything, including oatmeal.
I added some of the protein mix, as well, to provide some needed protein to the recipe.
The bars are delicious, in my opinion. They're thin, almost like an oatmeal cookie, crunchy on the outside and chewy inside. They're also quite sweet, but it's not the maple syrup sweetness of my last bars. These are, again, more like a cookie. Still, they could be less sweet and just as tasty.
I really like this recipe and plan to tweak it. I want to bump up the protein content in the cookie, and reduce some of the carbs. As I said, if I could get 15 grams of Protein and around 10 or so grams of Carbs per bar, I'd be happy. I'm not too worried about these carbs as they are mostly derived from the Rolled Oats, but it's the carbs from the brown sugar, agave nectar and other sugars that I'd like to minimize.
So, next time I make this, I'm going to add some protein from whey concentrate, reduce the amount of brown sugar to 1/4 cup, and back off of the agave nectar a little as well. I'm also going to use dried cranberries instead of cherries. This will help reduce the sugar amount, as well, but still provide a little texture.
Finally, the plate shot with the garnish is for Linda. My kids read your comments on my last recipe and gave me all sorts of hell for not considering presentation. My daughter said (I kid you not), "You know, Dad. Presentation is half the meal."
Ratings (out of 5 stars):
Texture: ***** Flavor: **** Ease of Prep: **** Nutrition: ***
Overall: ****
If you give these a try or have any other suggestions, leave me a comment and let me know what you think.
Welcome to a new feature on my training blog: Steve Cooks. I enjoy cooking. I'm a much better cook than baker, though. I've been told that it's because I tend to make things up as I go. I have no problem adding more of things I like and less of things I don't. I also watch way too much Food Network for my own good.
My criteria for a good recipe is simple. It must be easy, delicious and relatively good for me (and the family). Right now, I'm working on finding a good protein/breakfast bar recipe. I eat at least one every day, sometimes two. After class if I'm hungry, in the morning between breakfast and lunch... second breakfast or elevensies, if you will. I try to avoid any unnecessary sugars and if you've looked at all at the breakfast/protein bar selection, you know that this isn't so easy to do. Most protein bars are little better than a snickers bar. Both are covered in chocolate and both satisfy.
I kind of like the Organic Food Bars, specifically the Omega and the Active Greens. What I like about these bars is that everything in them is recognizable as food: fruits, nuts and oils. What I don't like is that they're about $2.50 per bar.
My first foray into the protein bar world is a simple recipe I found through Google. I said, "Google. How do I make my own protein bar?" Then I pressed the "I feel lucky" button and VOILA!
I made a few changes from the website instructions.
3 1/2 Cups Oats (the recipe calls for quick oats, but I hate those. I used regular rolled oats)
1 1/2 Cups powdered non-fat milk
4 scoops low carb chocolate protein powder (I used Designer Whey: Double Chocolate Flavor)
1 Cup pure Maple Syrup
2 Egg Whites, beaten
1/4 cup Orange Juice (I used pulp free)
1 tspn Vanilla Extract
1/4 Cup natural Applesauce.
I mixed the dry ingredients in one bowl and the wet ingredients in another, then added the wet to the dry and baked them at 325F for about 30 minutes, til they passed the toothpick test.
After letting them cool in the pan and then cutting them up, I ended up with something that looks like this:
Overall, these weren't bad, but are actually on the sweet side for me. I don't have a real sweet tooth, but these were pretty tasty. You can really taste the syrup. If I were to make this again, I'd try a vanilla protein mix, rather than the chocolate.
In this picture, I think you can get a better sense of the texture. I liked this part of it. It wasn't gooey or slimy. The texture was firm, not too sticky and kind of like a very dense biscuit.
Overall, I would call this a successful recipe. I'm not sure if I would make it again, because it's a little sweet for my taste. I'm going to be on the look out for something less sugary for my next installment.
A few days ago, Hazmat over at White Collar Jiu-Jitsu posted briefly suggesting that we all have a Training Partner Appreciation Day. As usual, things percolate in my head for a while (sometimes weeks, months or even years to my wife's continuing frustration). Two days ago, I said to my wife, "I think we should sign up for Netflix. We keep missing movies in the theaters and it's only going to get worse when the baby comes." Of course, she's been saying that for over a year now. :) Hazmat seems to be a thoughtful guy and I'm happy it only took me a week to realize that this Appreciation Day is a pretty darned good idea.
A large part of training is internally motivated. We motivate ourselves to improve. We study and drill outside of class, workout, eat right and generally take responsibility for our own training. However, in BJJ, and I'm guessing any style of martial art, there's only so much we can do without good training partners. It is, after all, like trying to learn the tango alone, or the proverbial one-handed clap. You can practice the motions, but without an equally determined partner, there's only so much you can do. A good training partner doesn't let you stop until you're completely out of gas.
On Martial Arts Planet, an all styles MA forum, a guy asked about his new BJJ school in a thread called "Lack of safty." I can't comment on what actually happened or whether he's accurately describing what's going on there. I could comment on the word "safty" but... I think I'll resist the tangent. I bring this up to comment on and highlight how lucky I feel to train at such a good school with supportive training partners who really do want to see everyone get better. True or not, what Captain-Kick describes would be a training nightmare for me.
My only comment on that thread so far, and I do believe this to be true, is that being a good martial artist is a different skillset from being a good teacher, or a good leader.
So, with that said, I want to thank all of my training partners at Foster BJJ. Specifically, in yesterday's class, Mike for drilling technique with me, and all the guys who rolled with me during sparring, including Josh and Jeff B who both managed to simulataneously kick my ass but not so badly I gave up, to Rick for only using 240 lbs instead of all 290, and to the other three guys I paired up with who pushed the pace until I felt like I was going to puke. Thanks, guys. I hope I can return the favor.
Since I switched from my old school, a more traditional form of karate, I haven't done any striking. Truth is, I wasn't very good at it in spite of my ever changing belt color... part of the reason I left. So, with a little trepidation, I showed up yesterday for MMA.
Our school has three "MMA" classes each week. Two are run primarily by Jeff Hougland, a fighter with a professional record who is a purple belt in BJJ and never, ever gets tired. Jeff Bourgeois, also a purple belt with several amateur MMA fights is an assistant coach. He also... never, ever gets tired. They're good guys in BJJ class because they push you to be technical. You get away with nothing when working with them and they see every mistake or hole in your game.
Saturday is "MMA Basics" and is run by Bill Jensen, a nice guy... for a cop. Seriously, though, I've been thinking more and more about trying this class out over the last few months. I've still got 10 lbs to lose and I guess my 37 year old body has grown fond of it. This last bit of pudge is the first pudge I got. It's a sentimental attachment to my dwindling spare tire. My diet isn't militant, but quite frankly, I have no desire to live like that. I want to eat healthy food, but not beat myself up for drinking a beer or eating a piece of lemon meringue pie (Mmmmmm.... lemon meringue pie). Still, I eat well, think about nutrition and have managed to stay under 185 lbs for over a year (down from let's say well over 200 lbs when I started).
I've read and been advised by many people more knowledgeable about sports nutrition and health than I that the body acclimates to a workout routine over time and will stabilize. So, shaking up my workout is what's needed. With this in mind, I'm still going to try and make at least three BJJ classes each week, but think I've found the remedy. First is this MMA Basics class on Saturdays, and second is a 45 minute workout Thursday mornings at my gym. I'm not really sure what the Thursday workout will entail. It's labeled "boot camp" on the schedule, but it fits my schedule, and I can't imagine that it's any worse than some of Bill's "warm-ups." So, we'll see. Hopefully, the addition of these two variations in my routine will kick start my metabolism.
MMA Basics class started with a relatively standard warm-up. Abs/neck and then stretching:
x60 leg lifts
x60 frog kicks
x60 oblique crunches (each side)
x60 elbow to knee crunches (each side)
x60 closed guard crunches
x60 Yes neck exercises
x60 No
x60 Maybes
x10 circles (each way)
After this, Bill set up two guys with Thai pads, 3 heavy bags and three ground bags. We did 6 rounds on these. Lim worked with me on a basic 1, 2, 3 combination on the Thai pads first, which gave me something to work with on the heavy bags.
Some details on the 1, 2, 3 combination (Jab, Cross, Hook). This is relatively foreign to me, so I'm sure I'm missing a lot. If anyone has any pointers, feel free to comment.
On the Jab, I'm right handed, so I'm going to set up with my left leg in front of my right. Bill said later in the class that everyone's stance is a little different. We'll figure out pretty quickly what works for us. Thinking about it, how far out I lead that leg is going to depend on how well I can defend a take down, among other things. The main point is that, as a righty, my jab will come with my left hand.
To get power from my jab, I need to step into the jab, keeping my right hand up to protect myself. That's easier said than done. It's easy to keep my right hand up when I'm just doing a jab, but when I add the cross into the mix, I tend to drop my right hand. This was particularly apparent when I was trying this on the heavy bag and attempting to add some power to the techniques.
So, I lead with my left jab. I'll follow with a right cross. The thing here is to remember to bring my left hand right back to guard again.
Finish with a left hook. It was really easy to allow myself to reach a little with my hook. I guess the idea with the hook is to keep it relatively close to your body, swinging more with the hips and legs than with the arm. Well, that's going to take some practice.
So, there you go: jab, cross, hook.
After the rounds on the bags, we worked some on the sprawl, starting with sprawls on the bag and then with a partner shooting for a single or a double. I worked with Keoni, who is always a good partner. The focus in this drill was on ending with our hips low, keeping our opponent's head centered in our body to help prevent a sitout, and getting at least one underhook.
From here, we went to drilling both the Anaconda and the D'arce chokes from this position.
Here's a terrific explanation of the Anaconda from this exact position:
The only additional detail Bill provided is on the finish. This would be if for whatever reason my opponent doesn't tap or go to sleep as I walk my legs around to finish. If this happens, I can walk all the way around, hooking his leg with my own and then using that to shoot my hips in.
The D'arce (or Brabo) choke is very similar to the Anaconda choke. The big difference is that on the Anaconda, I'm going to get my arm deep against his neck, reaching my own bicep outside of his shoulder. If I slide it the other way, grabbing my bicep right next to his neck, it's a D'arce or Brabo.
Here's a video showing a basic D'arce choke from turtle, as we learned it yesterday:
Another point that Bill made yesterday with both of these chokes is to concentrate when finishing the the technique to bring elbows in and pull my opponent toward my chest.
Finishing up the class, we did some sparring for takedown only. I've found that my shots are actually getting better. Which is to say that they still stink, but not quite as bad as when I started. I need to concentrate on finishing. If I get stuffed, I need to drive up and over. I'm getting pretty deep on the shot, but then I get stuffed.
Today I get to go to BJJ. My arms are pretty sore. If I was looking for a different workout, I think I've found it. MMA is a completely different kind of cardio and my shoulders in particular are feeling it today.
Lim got promoted to blue belt Thursday morning. Congrats to Lim. He's been training for a long time and it's well deserved.
I had a good class. Felt pretty good, but I shouldn't have eaten that bowl of Lucky Charms. Ugh! We had a pretty good ab workout during warmups. We jogged to get warm, and then did some stretching.
The ab workout went like this: x50 leg lifts x50 side crunches (per side) x50 hip ups x50 V ups
Then more stretching.
Sparring was fun. Among others, I got to roll with Big Matt and Crusher. The highlight was reversing Matt. He was pretty surprised, which made me feel really good. Other highlights were getting back to half guard at one point and using the technique we just learned from under a loose mount to sneak out the back and reset.
Things didn't go quite as well with Crusher. He basically moved from position to position, as I would try to get out from under side control, he'd move into north/south. From there to knee on belly, then to mount, then to... basically wherever he wanted.
Today, I'm going to try out the basic MMA class with Bill. I haven't done any striking since joining Foster BJJ, and I sucked at it when I did it. So, this is going to be an adventure. I'm still trying to shake out of this weight plateau I've been on for months, and drop this last 10 lbs. Hopefully, varying my workout to include striking drills will coax my metabolism into letting go of this last bit of flab.
I'm also going to bake some protein bars. I eat an Organic Food Bar every morning. My day usually goes like this:
7am oatmeal for breakfast 10am bar for snack, 1pm lunch, 4pm snack before class (sometimes another bar, but usually a bowl of Cheerios or a piece of wheat toast with Peanut Butter) 7pm dinner.
The bars are spendy, and truth be told, I don't really like the bars I eat. I eat them because they're not full of sugar. They do have sugars, but the ingredients list for the Organic Food Bars is made up of foods that I recognize as... well, food.
Anyway, I have two recipes that I'm going to try today. I intend to make a pan of each, freeze them and then eat them in lieu of the store bought bars over the next few weeks. I'll post the recipes and a review in a few weeks, and let you know how it goes.
Also, if anyone reading has any suggestions, recipes or just tips about making these, let me know.
Finally back to class. When last I posted on BJJ, I was pretty roughed up, but I took a couple of weeks off from class to find my mojo. Yesterday was terrific. I brought my daughter down for her kids' class, and then I stayed for the adult class.
My daughter did awesome in her class. I couldn't be prouder of her. She was sparring with a boy who is about her size... a little bigger maybe. It was his 3rd class, I think, so he clearly doesn't have a lot of technique yet. As a result, it was a good chance for my daughter to work technique and she really impressed me. She pushed her partner down and slid around into side control, and for a girl who weighs 56 lbs, she has terrific shoulder pressure. She kept her knee up tight to his hip, established control and then moved into mount. She established position, and when he stuck his arms up to push her off, she swung around into a very technical armbar.
I'm not saying she's the next Felicia Oh, but... you never know! :D I think over the next few minutes, she got a keylock, too. So, I suggested she pull guard, and she immediately started working for a cross collar choke. I asked her later why she was so hard on the new guy. She answered right away, "Dad, he might want to compete some day, and if he does and I'm not pushing him to get better, he won't know what to expect. I want to be a good partner." What a tiger.
In the adult class, we worked on escapes from mount. The first was more of a small shift in technique and the second a follow up technique for when your opponent shifts to a half-mount position.
A very basic escape from under mount is the hip escape. Your in a bad position, with an opponent sitting on you, probably trying to choke you or take your arm if it's a BJJ match, or punching you in the noggin if it's not a BJJ match. The basic escape goes like this:
Guard your neck/face, keeping your elbows in tight.
Bring your feet up as close to your butt as you can.
Simultaneously move your hands down to his hips as you
Bridge up as strongly as you can.
Before allowing your hips to drop, drive your hips out to one side in a basic hip escape or shrimping motion.
Often, this doesn't work in one shot. You have to bridge up strong to drive your opponent over and off balance, and then shrimp out, shrimp out again and keep blocking his hips so he doesn't just slide back up into mount again. The detail that we drilled yesterday involved pushing his hips at an angle in the opposite direction I'm going to drive my hips to. In other words, if I'm on my back and intend to drive my hips out to my right side, I'm going to push his hips out to my left. It's a small detail, but makes a big difference. The second technique we drilled follows the first. What will happen against a savvy opponent is he won't just hang out waiting for you to shrimp out. Instead, he might shift his weight, sliding up into a kind of half-mount position looking for S-mount. If he does this, I'll find myself on my side facing away from him, and he's got one foot on the mat probably trying to work it under my arms, and the other knee is down, likely up tight against the back of my head.
The counter we learned here goes like this:
First protect my arm from an armbar by keeping my elbow in tight.
Use my "bottom" arm to protect my neck.
Counter by reaching deep under his leg (there should be room if his foot is on the mat)
Reach back with this arm, driving him forward and me back, while simultaneously
Turning quickly to my knees by using my legs in a scissor motion.
Interestingly enough, I had several opportunities to put this technique to use in sparring, a few times with both Josh and Matt. It worked well overall, although I will definitely need to keep working on it to get it down.
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