[FIGHT] Strapple: Lessons 6-15 [Part 2]
Tales from the Mat
My highlight of the late summer was putting two guillotines in a row on Yagihashi, a reasonably advanced white belt. Unbelievably, the first one I got happened with both of us on our knees. He also had one arm in but I still managed to secure a nice, compact hold. I had such little expectation for that guillotine that I didn't hear or feel him tapping for a few seconds. The second guillotine came a couple of minutes later and he had no arms in. I tried to pull him into guard but he passed one leg on the way down. But I had the other leg (my left) high up on Yagihashi's back and the guillotine was pretty tight (under my right armpit) so he tapped. I suppose that when I settled for the beer paunch, the Creator gave me thin forearms as compensation. Masada-sensei seemed to enjoy the second choke, remarking, "I didn't know you knew that kind of technique."
I think that it was during the same session that I dominated Nihei. Even though I could not get him to submit, I found myself either in mount or on his back with hooks in all day long. Afterward Nihei asked, "Did you get fatter? From eating too much ramen?" No, Nihei, I weigh the same as I did last month, and the month before that. It's just that I am still better and stronger than you are. I realize that, the first time we sparred, I tried all kinds of stupid shit from the guard and got tapped in the last minute for my troubles, but just think of that as a gift. And practically all of our rolls since then have followed the same pattern.
Then my back went screwy. I guess it all started sometime in early September when I sparred Mizuno-san, a blue belt and also a very experienced judo practitioner, so he likes the rough stuff and is strong as hell. (By the way, it didn't help that he is considering going pro.) Among several things he tapped me with in our two minutes of rolling, he caught me in an omoplata (from our knees!) so fast that I didn't have time to tap before I felt that bad twinging, the one that accompanies that high-pitched crescendo in the brain. At the time, I thought just my shoulder was messed up from that so I iced it, but only long after sucking it up and staying at practice for another two hours. That evening turned out OK but I started to develop an increasingly worsening upper back pain, right down the middle of the top half of my spine, like between my shoulder blades. The Kawasaki Witch Doctor called it at around "D-4," if I recall correctly.
The pain peaked over the first succeeding weekend but subsided enough that I thought I could go to no-gi practice on September the 13th [dum-Dum-DUM]. That turned out to be a bit of a mistake. My back already felt a nagging little pain during stretching, but that quickly changed into the pulsing, sharp kind, especially since we sparred starting from our feet for a while, and my tackle defense sucks ass. Pretty soon I had zero power. Couldn't bridge, couldn't get off my back, couldn't do pretty much jack. Even got tapped by a beginner. That pissed me off royally, but in my back's condition I couldn't do much about it. (What's worse, I thought I had a kata-gatame on pretty tight, but the dude is a famous non-tapper. I'll get you next time, kiddo.)
The only joy from that painful no-gi session was that I triangled a much more experienced guy after getting tapped by that beginner. But to be honest, I must have just surprised him with it, since he probably couldn't imagine that I could pull it off. After all, in the first 3 minutes of our roll, I was essentially showing him that I had nothing because of my crippled ass.
My highlight of the late summer was putting two guillotines in a row on Yagihashi, a reasonably advanced white belt. Unbelievably, the first one I got happened with both of us on our knees. He also had one arm in but I still managed to secure a nice, compact hold. I had such little expectation for that guillotine that I didn't hear or feel him tapping for a few seconds. The second guillotine came a couple of minutes later and he had no arms in. I tried to pull him into guard but he passed one leg on the way down. But I had the other leg (my left) high up on Yagihashi's back and the guillotine was pretty tight (under my right armpit) so he tapped. I suppose that when I settled for the beer paunch, the Creator gave me thin forearms as compensation. Masada-sensei seemed to enjoy the second choke, remarking, "I didn't know you knew that kind of technique."
I think that it was during the same session that I dominated Nihei. Even though I could not get him to submit, I found myself either in mount or on his back with hooks in all day long. Afterward Nihei asked, "Did you get fatter? From eating too much ramen?" No, Nihei, I weigh the same as I did last month, and the month before that. It's just that I am still better and stronger than you are. I realize that, the first time we sparred, I tried all kinds of stupid shit from the guard and got tapped in the last minute for my troubles, but just think of that as a gift. And practically all of our rolls since then have followed the same pattern.
Then my back went screwy. I guess it all started sometime in early September when I sparred Mizuno-san, a blue belt and also a very experienced judo practitioner, so he likes the rough stuff and is strong as hell. (By the way, it didn't help that he is considering going pro.) Among several things he tapped me with in our two minutes of rolling, he caught me in an omoplata (from our knees!) so fast that I didn't have time to tap before I felt that bad twinging, the one that accompanies that high-pitched crescendo in the brain. At the time, I thought just my shoulder was messed up from that so I iced it, but only long after sucking it up and staying at practice for another two hours. That evening turned out OK but I started to develop an increasingly worsening upper back pain, right down the middle of the top half of my spine, like between my shoulder blades. The Kawasaki Witch Doctor called it at around "D-4," if I recall correctly.
The pain peaked over the first succeeding weekend but subsided enough that I thought I could go to no-gi practice on September the 13th [dum-Dum-DUM]. That turned out to be a bit of a mistake. My back already felt a nagging little pain during stretching, but that quickly changed into the pulsing, sharp kind, especially since we sparred starting from our feet for a while, and my tackle defense sucks ass. Pretty soon I had zero power. Couldn't bridge, couldn't get off my back, couldn't do pretty much jack. Even got tapped by a beginner. That pissed me off royally, but in my back's condition I couldn't do much about it. (What's worse, I thought I had a kata-gatame on pretty tight, but the dude is a famous non-tapper. I'll get you next time, kiddo.)
The only joy from that painful no-gi session was that I triangled a much more experienced guy after getting tapped by that beginner. But to be honest, I must have just surprised him with it, since he probably couldn't imagine that I could pull it off. After all, in the first 3 minutes of our roll, I was essentially showing him that I had nothing because of my crippled ass.
posted by hamu86 at 2:50 PM
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