Always Heading West

[modena1983]

Wow an Ath sighting.

 

[eastNYgoon138]

Catch wrestling is definitely a style I want to embrace more as I develop my grappling game. I like how unconventional and brutish it is. Kind of the opposite of the BJJ game that I hate---Sporty, flashy, inverted bullshit that you would never do in a fight. I like my jiu-jitsu to be tough, practical and painful. ​

Ditto! Catch is appealing to me for the same reasons. Before I stopped grappling for good I would say most of the stuff I was teaching myself was catch. I like the practicality of it. High percentage, extremely violent/painful submissions. I never did like the complicated competition style subs. I'm not going to be fighting off my back or doing flying subs in a parking lot.

 

[TheJewBear]

Ditto! Catch is appealing to me for the same reasons. Before I stopped grappling for good I would say most of the stuff I was teaching myself was catch. I like the practicality of it. High percentage, extremely violent/painful submissions. I never did like the complicated competition style subs. I'm not going to be fighting off my back or doing flying subs in a parking lot.

Bro...Yeah, that last line pretty much sums up my philosophy on Jiu-jitsu. Having my own class is cool because I can show the guys some practical shit and feel like the stuff I show them could save their lives.

Remember a couple of white belts asking me about arm bar grip breaks the other week. I showed them my preferred way, which is basically a bicep crush to open the grip. It works 99% of the time and their first response was, "but isn't that illegal at white belt?"

You get on the mat recently?

 

[TheJewBear]

Yeah my internet presence is much diminished, and I've been crazy busy until just recently. I got a pipeline patrol job, went to the DR for my sisters wedding, then after four months of flying pipe I got offered a job with an awesome charter company. That offer came right before I went to Vegas for a week to get married, and caused some drama with me leaving the pipeline place. I also got back from getting married just to turn right back around,get on another plane to Atlanta where I did King Air 300 school for two weeks. Since I got back though I have hardly been flying. I actually have been sitting at home on call and not flying for the past 10 days.

That's awesome about the teaching gig. I can only imagine how bad you would roll me up at this point.

Meeting lots of loose ladies in Tucson? I've only been there once but I remember lots of hippies. .

Damn you are one busy motherfucker. That sounds great man...Good career moves, comin up and up. Sounds like a good life to me.

Tucson is what you would expect. Very so-caly, lots of people from the west coast and Mexicans. The ladies have been friendly to me yes The U of A is down the road from my pad. Lots of hippies and hipsters, yeah...

What's your BJJ/MMA situation been like? We've both been in and out over the years you know how that goes.

 

[TheJewBear]

Casual update..

Been doing single-hour classes this AM since work schedule has me on nights to work the F-16 night flying traffic. I'm still on ground control here but am past my minimum hours and 100% ready to move on and work on tower certification. Not to sound pompous but it's very, very easy here compared to New York. Already planning my next move in a few years...

Jiu-jitsu, strength training and diet has been mostly good. Ate too much last night but rolling has been great. Had a dead even match with a black belt yesterday. Granted, he has only ONE HAND and is smaller than me. Also rolled with a man in his 70's or 80's, not sure how old but by far the oldest guy I've ever rolled with. I was kind of hesitant but he had that old man strength so I rolled like I would almost anyone else. He made a lot of verbal moans and groans which made me nervous. He wore compression shorts and had smooth legs. It was kind of weird.

The other night I hit a nice Erik Paulson head and shoulder choke from kesa gatame. Once I get those DVD's in the mail it's going to be Catch Wrestling Central over here.

And biggest of all...Next weekend fucking DEAN LISTER is doing a 2hr no-gi seminar here! for FREE. If you asked me to pick one person to teach a seminar right now, I would have picked him so this is very exciting.

As far as leg locks go, I've been having trouble with people spinning out of my leg attacks sometimes. I think I need to work on controlling the other hip better and not use the traditional BJJ two-on-one leg control like when you fall to the outside. This allows them a lot of hip/leg mobility and Lister says in his DVD he always has his free foot hooking their other hip.

Ok off to class.

 

[TheAth-ah-lete]

Damn you are one busy motherfucker. That sounds great man...Good career moves, comin up and up. Sounds like a good life to me.

Tucson is what you would expect. Very so-caly, lots of people from the west coast and Mexicans. The ladies have been friendly to me yes The U of A is down the road from my pad. Lots of hippies and hipsters, yeah...

What's your BJJ/MMA situation been like? We've both been in and out over the years you know how that goes.

Yeah it's fun. Actually been "working" more, spent four days in South Dakota freezing my balls off last week. I run, bike, workout but haven't done bjj or mma since my last fight in 2012. Still fat too.

Dean Lister should be awesome but as far as catch guys go I would love to go to a Josh Barnett seminar.

 

[TheAth-ah-lete]

So I have an ATC question for you, basically just wondering who the jerk is. I was taking off out of an uncontrolled field in a B350 and called up Ftw Center to pick up our IFR home. Since we're in a KA and had a flight plan on file I said, "Center King Air xxxx just off of SWI climbing out of 1 thousand whatever looking to pick up IFR to Blank International."

He responds, "VFR traffic, flight following unavailable due to workload." He's got some noticeable attitude.

"Actually we're looking to open our IFR flight plan."

"VFR traffic standby!"

We wait and wait and finally call again, this time he completely ignores us, then the same a minute or two later. They were busy, but nothing near as crazy as it was earlier in the day when we did a short hop over to DAL out of the same airport. Finally, I am frustrated and a little confused at the situation, look up another frequency and we maintain VFR until we can get our clearance. After that on every handoff we got thanked for our help and didn't have any other problems. In fact I have never had an issue like that, and as little communication as I had with that controller I was pretty hot about his attitude which made the situation seem like a bigger deal than it does now in print.

I'm just wondering about your opinions from the other side. And were we just "VFR traffic" that he didn't have to deal with if he didn't want to because we were trying to get our clearance in the air rather than calling flight service? I know we were technically VFR but because we had a flight plan on file I thought he would work with us.

 

[ThinkGreen]

Hope the Lister seminar goes well! He's an awesome instructor and a cool guy to listen to. He has a million stories about everything it seems.

 

[TheJewBear]

So I have an ATC question for you, basically just wondering who the jerk is. I was taking off out of an uncontrolled field in a B350 and called up Ftw Center to pick up our IFR home. Since we're in a KA and had a flight plan on file I said, "Center King Air xxxx just off of SWI climbing out of 1 thousand whatever looking to pick up IFR to Blank International."

He responds, "VFR traffic, flight following unavailable due to workload." He's got some noticeable attitude.

"Actually we're looking to open our IFR flight plan."

"VFR traffic standby!"

We wait and wait and finally call again, this time he completely ignores us, then the same a minute or two later. They were busy, but nothing near as crazy as it was earlier in the day when we did a short hop over to DAL out of the same airport. Finally, I am frustrated and a little confused at the situation, look up another frequency and we maintain VFR until we can get our clearance. After that on every handoff we got thanked for our help and didn't have any other problems. In fact I have never had an issue like that, and as little communication as I had with that controller I was pretty hot about his attitude which made the situation seem like a bigger deal than it does now in print.

I'm just wondering about your opinions from the other side. And were we just "VFR traffic" that he didn't have to deal with if he didn't want to because we were trying to get our clearance in the air rather than calling flight service? I know we were technically VFR but because we had a flight plan on file I thought he would work with us.

Yo Ath, here's my take.

The only case I can imagine the controller being unable to issue your IFR clearance is if he is really, really getting his ass kicked with traffic. You should he have heard him breathlessly issuing climbs and turns and traffic calls.

The fact that he didn't seem to understand your multiple requests and flat out ignored you, well that is really weird and unprofessional. I've never heard of a controller doing that, even at New York.

The reason that's really fucked up in my mind though, is that a VFR requesting IFR clearance in the air is not something to ignore. What if you flew into some clouds or got lost, and couldn't maintain VFR? Granted your clearance would be a priority behind control instructions etc but it's something he should have gotten to within a couple of minutes in my opinion. Again, not knowing all the facts.

 

[TheAth-ah-lete]

Yo Ath, here's my take.

The only case I can imagine the controller being unable to issue your IFR clearance is if he is really, really getting his ass kicked with traffic. You should he have heard him breathlessly issuing climbs and turns and traffic calls.

The fact that he didn't seem to understand your multiple requests and flat out ignored you, well that is really weird and unprofessional. I've never heard of a controller doing that, even at New York.

The reason that's really fucked up in my mind though, is that a VFR requesting IFR clearance in the air is not something to ignore. What if you flew into some clouds or got lost, and couldn't maintain VFR? Granted your clearance would be a priority behind control instructions etc but it's something he should have gotten to within a couple of minutes in my opinion. Again, not knowing all the facts.

Thanks, I kind of expected your response but it's nice to hear. It's funny I was just telling the other pilot this morning how helpful ATC is when you ask nicely, and if they refuse my request I always reply even friendlier and a lot of the time they come back and work with me. Last week I was flying out of Houston with the same guy and asked the controller, "Would it be too much to hope for direct?" Dude was obviously busy but said in a friendly tone, "Well you can always hope, standby." Came back and gave us direct.

I also read from ATC guys on another forum that it's usually easier for them to give us a clearance from an uncontrolled field in the air rather than on the ground and block off that airspace for whatever amount of time. To be fair to this guy it was clear and a million, there was no danger of us flying into IMC VFR. Still it drove home my impression of the guy after every other controller was more than helpful and friendly with us.

 

[TheJewBear]

Had the Dean Lister seminar today. Holy fuuuuuck...

Three hours of instruction. Took about a dozen pages of notes, badly scribbled and need to be transcribed/cleaned up into a word file.

 

[TheJewBear]

Update

Been doing privates with one of the gym manager's 8-year old boy. Dude competes a lottt and they're traveling to California to compete on Saturday. We're doing 3x/week. This is new to me for both doing private instruction and also teaching a kid. In some ways it's not too challenging because he already has a very good base of jiu-jitsu but because our bodies are so insanely different---He is 60 effing pounds, small for eight--It's hard to demonstrate things on him and instead I have to instruct him through moves on me. I also don't know relative to other kids how fast/strong he is reference pressure, tightness etc so I'm just erring on the side of caution. Always tighter, faster, closer, etc.

Other than that I've also been teaching the Saturday no-gi classes. We started doing comp team training after that class on Saturdays, but last week I was grappling with our coach and when going for an arm bar, out of no where somehow my shin against his side combined with an old injury and a hard turn outside from him broke his 7th rib. The other black belt in our gym is now calling me Ribs. The injury wasn't my fault but I still feel bad.

Haven't been logging strength or conditioning because it's kind of a hassle and redundant. Weights are slowwwwwwly moving up and I'm in cut mode regarding weight. It's all mental. I know how to eat/what to eat but self-control is the only issue. Considering working with a nutritionist for more accountability and guidance.

That's it!

 

[SexyMahnaz]

Nice mix of BJJ, strength & personal development in here.

 

[TheJewBear]

Nice mix of BJJ, strength & personal development in here.

I hadn't thought of it like that. Damn you're right!

 

[TheJewBear]

I think I'd better start logging again. Logging seems to help diet/training compliance...NAGA on Feb 28th and my weight is too high, and way too out of shape! Gotta start working hard.

AM Weight 177lbs

Conditioning
12 minutes interval running

 

[TheJewBear]

AM Weight 176.4lbs


Squat
285x5x5

Calf Raises
300x12x5

Conditioning
4 minute tabata treadmill sprints

 

[TheJewBear]

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

30 minutes technique
Worked on head-tapping aggressively from the feet to set up distractions, expectations and openings for blast doubles. From the guard, worked over hook collar choke distraction to arm bar after they defend. Transition to omoplata/triangle if they pull the attacked arm out.

30 minutes rolling
Five minute rounds; went with a couple of white belts, a black belt and 4-stripe purple. Coach had me go with one of the newer white belts and use no hands. Interesting.

Conditioning

Tabata Incline Treadmill, 8.0% incline, 8.9mph
4 minutes
5 minutes cooldown @ 3.5mph

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (no-gi)

30 minutes technique
Our best blue belt filled in while our main coach is away. Looked at knee slice pass from butterfly, open guard, and into a neat spinning arm bar option I'd never seen before. Dude said he got it while he was at Marcelo's.

30 minutes rolling
Rolled with a few white belts and a very good 10th planet guy. Got tapped twice by him, with a triangle and omoplata-variation. Tapped him once with a kimura from the top. Should have grabbed more higher belts to train with. Knee is hurting for some reason.



​

 

[TheJewBear]

After feeling lost the past few weeks, I realized that I made the most progress and was in the best shape when I was doing a few things:

-Logging on Sherdog consistently
-Doing conditioning several times per week, HIIT tabata sprints
-Reverse Pyramid Training
-Have a tournament registered for, on the calendar.

So back in business. Logging like it's my job helps to stay accountable.

In other news, got my first stripe on the purple belt a couple of weeks ago. Coach here in Arizona does not promote easily at all so I feel very proud of earning a stripe from him.

Going to visit Philly/NJ in a couple of weeks and train at one of our affiliate HQ gyms, my original BJJ gym, and also attend a Henry Akins seminar. GOLD.

More training tonight.

 

[TheJewBear]

Bench
245x3
205x5

Inc DB Bench
80'sx8
70'sx9

DB Curlz
35'sx10
35'sx9

Rope Pushdowns
???x10
???x10

Notes

-None

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu no-gi and gi

10 minutes technique
Showed up late for no-gi but got right into working knee bar attack from top DLR and defense to knee bar by turning the knee UP and away from his hips, using free leg to anchor/kick out.

30 minutes rolling
Had a HELL of a time with a couple of heavy/super heavyweight white belts. Barely survived. Phew.

30 minutes technique
Stayed for gi class. Went over a sort of wrestler's seo-nage that I forget the actual name of. You sort of spin under their arm and roll them over. Combo into spinning arm bar when they try to reclaim guard or whatever.

10 minutes rolling
Went with a 10th planet guy and our BB instructor before having to dip. First time tapping this particular black belt with a deep, threatening cross choke set up into an arm bar from guard. He got me like 6 times in 5 minutes.

So out of shape!​

 

[Gfreak]

Hey whatsup man, just checking in here. Haven't stopped by in a long time haha. Sounds like you're still making good progress! And teaching privates now? Awesome haha.