BJJ update

do you still play cards?
whats your weight in kgs?

yea, have played maybe 40k hands this year. have been taking it mostly easy.

im 6'0 180, so 183cm 81kg

Watched the video with the bullied kid. Can def see the usefulness of something like bjj for the rest of your life esp if u start young. Was kinda sad though that no one stopped the attacker in the first 5 seconds.

Also what big red asked. How do u hitt and squats on the same.e day?

i wish i could answer that question. my body certainly doesnt recover fast enough. i plan on doing 0 HIIT outside of jiu jitsu. just too much for me. maybe its impossible for everyone? i dont really know what other people's strength and conditioning entails. but i also cant do 4 hours of BJJ a day every day so i dunno.

since im 29 and have lower testosterone than a 22 year old world class athlete, that type of training regime is too much for me. so what im aiming for is 3 lifts a week: chest/triceps, back/biceps, shoulders/legs with 10 minutes of good stretching before and after each lift. and going to try to put in roughly 5-6 total training sessions a week. dont think i can handle much more than that.

I thought this was almost a myth and that testosterone levels didn't start to seriously decline until well later than this? Maybe I'm misremembering that tho.

diet wise im working pretty hard to maximize my testosterone. i try to have 2 protein shakes a day (16 oz almond milk, 8oz frozen berries, 1 banana, some frozen broccoli, coconut butter, flaxseed, chia powder, whey protein and once per day 1 teaspoon creatine). in the morning i try to eat a 2 egg sandwich on wheat toast (cholesterol is good for testosterone levels). during the day i vary between whole foods meals like herb roasted turkey+sweet potato+corn or grilled salmon+green beans+pasta, sushi, korean chicken+spinach. and then on sunday nights i cheat a bit with some fatty food truck sliders and ice cream. probably about 3000 calories a day. may have to increase if i train harder than i have been.

I'm starting to feel like I need to do something like this too lol

I eat pretty healthy, but after having spent the past 8~9 months training 4-5 hours a day, 5 days a week, my body is starting to feel a bit tired.

in the past i read that testosterone starts to rapidly decline at 30, but i think its much earlier than that. quite simply, if you dont feel as much energy or have as high a sexual drive as you once did then your testosterone has already begun to decline. i think i have ok testosterone levels, but id like them to be higher so my recovery and energy levels are higher naturally. taking TRT makes your body stop producing it.

some tips for increasing testosterone:
-try to sleep well. getting enough sleep is really important, aim for 8 hours. this is a tough one for me because i wake up after about 6 hours but i try to add a 2 hour nap every day.
-cholesterol and saturated fats are good for you. eat nuts, eggs, lean meats, fish, etc
-lift heavy weights and have protein afterwards
-do high intensity stuff, like interval training or sprinting or a sport
-be active, try not to sit around all day, make sure you get in a walk or some jumping jacks every few hours
-eat more broccoli and cabbage, these flush estrogen out of your system and indirectly raise testosterone
-get sunlight, vitamin D is good for testosterone production. not too much, but dont be a cave dweller
-make sure you get enough zinc: this is found mostly in fish, can take it as a supplement though
-have more sex
-avoid eating high amounts of sugar: even in fruit. for instance, there is something in orange juice which binds to testosterone and renders it inert. i consume about a pound of berries and 2 bananas a day on average which is pretty high in sugar, but i need it pre and post workout. dont overdo the sugars.

if you feel like you have low energy, low sex drive, you are getting fatter, etc then try to improve a few things on that list and you will see improvements.

Congrats on the blue!

A few thoughts on competing.

- If you don't work much on DLR, reverse DLR, 50-50, or single leg X-guard, find someone that does and roll with them a lot. It's the current meta so you'll likely see a bunch of it.
-Weight cutting is one of those things that people pretend doesn't matter but it really does. If the upper limit of your division is 181 you should probably try to be at least 188 a week before, even then you'll likely be one of the smaller guys in your division. My first competition as a white belt in NAGA I was in the 169 division and got silver. Guy that got bronze cut from 190, guy that got gold cut from 180.
-Don't underestimate how gassed the tournament atmosphere will make you. It's like a god damned voodoo curse how draining a match could be compared to rolling at the gym.

Really envious of you being in OC to train, Vegas has some nice gyms but we're definitely much more of an mma town. What's your game on the mats? More of a well rounded adapting style game or do you focus in on a few specific systems you like to work?

i work a lot on DLR. not much reverse DLR, to be honest it scares me. terrence chan told me on twitter "I was at a @ryanhallbjj seminar once & he thought there was more danger in knee injuries from increased use of rDLR than leg reaps" dont do much 50/50 because it doesnt seem to really start until the high level purples. ended up in it against a brown on monday and nearly gave up my back trying to avoid a footlock so im pretty green at it, but ill work it more later on. we do some x-guard, dont focus on it, but you end up there a bunch rolling and have to work your balance and getting your leg free.

NAGA seems a bit more wrestling oriented, i assume they cut more weight than in ibjjf. its also hard to cut weight with same day weigh in and having to weigh in using the gi. in the gi im about 183-184 right now, so id be average sized. my friends that competed at pan ams were all in the 168 division and said they weighed in about 162 in the gi and didnt give up much size or strength.

yea i fully suspect to be mega gassed, gonna do a few small practice tourneys beforehand just to get myself in the mindset. one of my friends with great cardio gassed hard in his 3rd match and one of our instructors gassed in his 2nd. but then my head instructor who used to fight MMA didnt gas at all. some of it seems like strategy. for instance my purple belt buddy was up 8-0 in his 2nd match and was going hard for side control chokes and gassed himself a bit. really no need for that when you have to win 3 more matches after to win the tourney. just relax and flow when you can.


i try to be well rounded but im obviously better at certain things than other areas. for instance my full guard and DLR are both really nice because i have very long legs for my height, but im not as comfortable in half guard, feel like i get smashed a lot and have trouble using deep half effectively.

im ok from other people's guards and half guard cause i can keep pretty good pressure and have good balance but my passing from open guard isnt great cause im not super quick, i dont have tree trunk legs from squatting so the leg drags are tough for me and i lose grip battles cause my grips are shitty. i have pretty good balance there so i dont get swept a lot anymore but i basically end up diving into full guard or half guard and then try to pass instead of passing from open.

sweeps wise, im pretty solid from the guard and also pretty good at taking the back. but not so great with sweeps from open guard, basically just really good at preventing them from passing, getting back to full guard, or finding a way to set up a triangle.

submission wise, im pretty bad at gi chokes cause of the lack of strong grips, but i have a really nice triangle that i set up from full guard, open guard, and mount. and from them i often switch to armbars or omoplatas cause theyre right there. other than that i basically only hit keylocks from mount, the occasional north south on some lighter guys and once in a while an RNC. basically never go for ezekials, baseball chokes, cross chokes, etc. occasionally a bow and arrow but thats not really comparable.

whats your game like?

Can't you just take testosterone pills? I have a few friends on a college baseball team that basically take it every summer to workout

no. you start taking artificial testosterone and your body stops producing it naturally. once you go on TRT for an extended period of time you probably need to go on it for life. i dont want anything to do with TRT. want to improve my body so it produces more of it, not artificially add testosterone to my system.

Oh same day weigh ins, yeah ignore the comment about weight cutting. NAGA is night before and weighing in without the gi so much more emphasis on maximizing your size/strength advantage.

My game has changed basically according to what injuries I've been dealing with at the time. Guard game is very sweep oriented with butterfly's and single leg X (NAGA is the biggest tourney in Vegas and in no-gi anything goes so it adds a lot of power to single leg x-guard being able to reap the knee as compared to other guard systems). I'm also pretty solid isolating an arm for an armbar/armdrag/flower sweep depending on how the other guy reacts. I'll attack triangles and kimuras if I can get a strong grip (shoulder pin, bicep ride, downward wrist grip, etc.) and if I'm unable to finish the sub I'll usually follow up with more sweeps.

I think my half guard game in no-gi is better than my guard game, especially if all leg locks are allowed, I catch a lot of people in heel hooks from half guard. I'm really trying to develop a good deep half game because I think it'll complement my style very well but right now I'm pretty bad at it. I play around with DLR/reverse DLR a bit but I'm not very confident in it, it's fairly down my priority list on things I want to improve on though.

Top game is very similar to yours. I tend to have very good posture and good balance so it can be difficult to sweep or submit me but I lack the speed and explosiveness to have a very dynamic passing game. If I can get double unders, navy ride, knee slice, etc. I can usually pressure through and pass but I struggle a lot with leg drags and torreando's against anyone with decent hip movement. My guard breaking is also down right atrocious.

Side control and mount is very control oriented. I'm not a headhunter at all which I think really hurts my overall top game, I think even just developing a solid baseball choke would really help to open people up so I can get more finishes. As it is, I usually go for the trinity of far side armlocks along with the occasional farside and near side armbar. Very rarely I'll rotate half way and look for a rat or a north south. I'll also go knee on belly and pretend like I'm looking for a baseball choke by opening up their collar, really I just hope they get lazy with their arms.

Back mount I land more armbars than anything else combined and more bow & arrows than RNCs. Control is otherwise solid and I pretty much never lose back mount against someone my skill level without at least coming close to one sub or another. I am very bad at going from back mount into mount, bad timing on when to bail on the position I guess.

All in all, I lose a lot if I'm not able to fully attack the legs. I'm hoping by the fall tournaments I'll have developed into more of a head hunter as I think it's sorely missing from my top game; specifically baseball chokes, guillotines and loop chokes, and papercutter chokes. I also need to develop a good deep half game to round out my bottom game, I think I'm most of the way there as I have a good feel for getting under someone from half guard, just need to play around with it a lot. Finally, I gotta work on my standup grappling.

I know you come to vegas quite a bit, if you do send me a msg and we can train at my gym. Also hoping to try out pan ams next year myself, if a few guys from my gym end up going I'll probably end up going as well.

Hell yea! Congrats. It's hard for most people who don't train to understand how hard and tough a road it is just to get to blue belt. Especially at a legit gym like the one you train at.

On March 19 2014 15:55 KeanuReaver wrote: Oh same day weigh ins, yeah ignore the comment about weight cutting. NAGA is night before and weighing in without the gi so much more emphasis on maximizing your size/strength advantage. My game has changed basically according to what injuries I've been dealing with at the time. Guard game is very sweep oriented with butterfly's and single leg X (NAGA is the biggest tourney in Vegas and in no-gi anything goes so it adds a lot of power to single leg x-guard being able to reap the knee as compared to other guard systems). I'm also pretty solid isolating an arm for an armbar/armdrag/flower sweep depending on how the other guy reacts. I'll attack triangles and kimuras if I can get a strong grip (shoulder pin, bicep ride, downward wrist grip, etc.) and if I'm unable to finish the sub I'll usually follow up with more sweeps. I think my half guard game in no-gi is better than my guard game, especially if all leg locks are allowed, I catch a lot of people in heel hooks from half guard. I'm really trying to develop a good deep half game because I think it'll complement my style very well but right now I'm pretty bad at it. I play around with DLR/reverse DLR a bit but I'm not very confident in it, it's fairly down my priority list on things I want to improve on though. Top game is very similar to yours. I tend to have very good posture and good balance so it can be difficult to sweep or submit me but I lack the speed and explosiveness to have a very dynamic passing game. If I can get double unders, navy ride, knee slice, etc. I can usually pressure through and pass but I struggle a lot with leg drags and torreando's against anyone with decent hip movement. My guard breaking is also down right atrocious. Side control and mount is very control oriented. I'm not a headhunter at all which I think really hurts my overall top game, I think even just developing a solid baseball choke would really help to open people up so I can get more finishes. As it is, I usually go for the trinity of far side armlocks along with the occasional farside and near side armbar. Very rarely I'll rotate half way and look for a rat or a north south. I'll also go knee on belly and pretend like I'm looking for a baseball choke by opening up their collar, really I just hope they get lazy with their arms. Back mount I land more armbars than anything else combined and more bow & arrows than RNCs. Control is otherwise solid and I pretty much never lose back mount against someone my skill level without at least coming close to one sub or another. I am very bad at going from back mount into mount, bad timing on when to bail on the position I guess. All in all, I lose a lot if I'm not able to fully attack the legs. I'm hoping by the fall tournaments I'll have developed into more of a head hunter as I think it's sorely missing from my top game; specifically baseball chokes, guillotines and loop chokes, and papercutter chokes. I also need to develop a good deep half game to round out my bottom game, I think I'm most of the way there as I have a good feel for getting under someone from half guard, just need to play around with it a lot. Finally, I gotta work on my standup grappling. I know you come to vegas quite a bit, if you do send me a msg and we can train at my gym. Also hoping to try out pan ams next year myself, if a few guys from my gym end up going I'll probably end up going as well.

sounds like a very vegas oriented game. since theres so much MMA there, your no gi game sounds really on point. also sounds very similar to all the black belt matches i watch. nobody ever passes anyones guard and the guy who wins is generally the person who pulls guard and then sweeps first or if the guy on top can just hold the position and get a few advantages gets. there is some taking the back from half guard, some sweeps from berimbolo or deep half but basically never anyone passing guard.

i basically never roll no gi, but my game is somewhat oriented towards it since i do basic armlocks and head and arm chokes as my finishes and my grips are garbage anyway. i havent done much with leglocks at this point, roll for the occasional kneebar cause its always tempting and sometimes ill go for a straight footlock, but i dont want to bother with it much at this point. gonna start working on getting berimbolo into my game since i love DLR so much and then ill start worrying more about the footlock game.

hey daut, i'd love a ama, really curious about your phd experiences. i'm potentially considering one myself

On March 19 2014 18:18 Stim_Abuser wrote: Hell yea! Congrats. It's hard for most people who don't train to understand how hard and tough a road it is just to get to blue belt. Especially at a legit gym like the one you train at.

thanks, it really is a long road of getting your ass kicked every day, feeling like you know nothing, and going through minor injuries. getting a blue in bjj is probably about the equivalent of getting a black belt in TKD

On March 19 2014 22:52 mnj wrote: hey daut, i'd love a ama, really curious about your phd experiences. i'm potentially considering one myself

ask away. i was only in grad school/phd program for a year and basically didnt do anything the 2nd semester but i know the process fairly well

On March 19 2014 22:53 Daut wrote: Show nested quote + On March 19 2014 18:18 Stim_Abuser wrote: Hell yea! Congrats. It's hard for most people who don't train to understand how hard and tough a road it is just to get to blue belt. Especially at a legit gym like the one you train at. thanks, it really is a long road of getting your ass kicked every day, feeling like you know nothing, and going through minor injuries. getting a blue in bjj is probably about the equivalent of getting a black belt in TKD

Semi-on this topic, I found out from one of the guys I train with, that here in Korea (which is a Judo power house), it's standard to get a black belt in 3~ years or so. Kinda surprised me, but I guess it's just because black belt in judo means something different from black belt in BJJ.

On March 19 2014 22:51 Daut wrote: Show nested quote + On March 19 2014 15:55 KeanuReaver wrote: Oh same day weigh ins, yeah ignore the comment about weight cutting. NAGA is night before and weighing in without the gi so much more emphasis on maximizing your size/strength advantage. My game has changed basically according to what injuries I've been dealing with at the time. Guard game is very sweep oriented with butterfly's and single leg X (NAGA is the biggest tourney in Vegas and in no-gi anything goes so it adds a lot of power to single leg x-guard being able to reap the knee as compared to other guard systems). I'm also pretty solid isolating an arm for an armbar/armdrag/flower sweep depending on how the other guy reacts. I'll attack triangles and kimuras if I can get a strong grip (shoulder pin, bicep ride, downward wrist grip, etc.) and if I'm unable to finish the sub I'll usually follow up with more sweeps. I think my half guard game in no-gi is better than my guard game, especially if all leg locks are allowed, I catch a lot of people in heel hooks from half guard. I'm really trying to develop a good deep half game because I think it'll complement my style very well but right now I'm pretty bad at it. I play around with DLR/reverse DLR a bit but I'm not very confident in it, it's fairly down my priority list on things I want to improve on though. Top game is very similar to yours. I tend to have very good posture and good balance so it can be difficult to sweep or submit me but I lack the speed and explosiveness to have a very dynamic passing game. If I can get double unders, navy ride, knee slice, etc. I can usually pressure through and pass but I struggle a lot with leg drags and torreando's against anyone with decent hip movement. My guard breaking is also down right atrocious. Side control and mount is very control oriented. I'm not a headhunter at all which I think really hurts my overall top game, I think even just developing a solid baseball choke would really help to open people up so I can get more finishes. As it is, I usually go for the trinity of far side armlocks along with the occasional farside and near side armbar. Very rarely I'll rotate half way and look for a rat or a north south. I'll also go knee on belly and pretend like I'm looking for a baseball choke by opening up their collar, really I just hope they get lazy with their arms. Back mount I land more armbars than anything else combined and more bow & arrows than RNCs. Control is otherwise solid and I pretty much never lose back mount against someone my skill level without at least coming close to one sub or another. I am very bad at going from back mount into mount, bad timing on when to bail on the position I guess. All in all, I lose a lot if I'm not able to fully attack the legs. I'm hoping by the fall tournaments I'll have developed into more of a head hunter as I think it's sorely missing from my top game; specifically baseball chokes, guillotines and loop chokes, and papercutter chokes. I also need to develop a good deep half game to round out my bottom game, I think I'm most of the way there as I have a good feel for getting under someone from half guard, just need to play around with it a lot. Finally, I gotta work on my standup grappling. I know you come to vegas quite a bit, if you do send me a msg and we can train at my gym. Also hoping to try out pan ams next year myself, if a few guys from my gym end up going I'll probably end up going as well. sounds like a very vegas oriented game. since theres so much MMA there, your no gi game sounds really on point. also sounds very similar to all the black belt matches i watch. nobody ever passes anyones guard and the guy who wins is generally the person who pulls guard and then sweeps first or if the guy on top can just hold the position and get a few advantages gets. there is some taking the back from half guard, some sweeps from berimbolo or deep half but basically never anyone passing guard. i basically never roll no gi, but my game is somewhat oriented towards it since i do basic armlocks and head and arm chokes as my finishes and my grips are garbage anyway. i havent done much with leglocks at this point, roll for the occasional kneebar cause its always tempting and sometimes ill go for a straight footlock, but i dont want to bother with it much at this point. gonna start working on getting berimbolo into my game since i love DLR so much and then ill start worrying more about the footlock game.

Vegas oriented is pretty much the perfect way to describe it, there's a handful of people at my gym at most that can effectively use DLR. First time I saw it in competition (against a very good blue belt from brazil) I was dumbfounded, before promptly getting tossed on my head and swept. Even now I think I've landed one berimbolo total and the waiter sweep is about all I can effectively attack.

Watching black belts roll is very humbling. I was talking to my coach a while back about picking out the individual important concepts when learning a new technique and how it's second nature to black belts. One that really struck me was the concept of "finding work", the technique at the time was defending when someone has taken your back. He was saying how people will keep the choking arm wrapped up even after they've gotten their chest off line, gotten the choking arm on top, and even gotten the top of their head on the ground. A position where you're pretty much impossible to choke, yet even good purples and browns will still keep their hands around the choking arm where they're effectively useless. Knowing when a specific problem is sufficiently dealt with and moving onto the next is the difference between the other guy coming up for mount or you going out the back door when he swings the leg over and potentially taking his back. He was saying how when you reach a black belt level, you don't even need to think of those things, you just know when something is a problem or not and you know what problems to tackle and when.

Having done no-gi much longer than I've done gi, going from gi to no-gi is much much easier. The grips make a whole lot more sense and it's so much more forgiving if you struggle with grip fighting. It's a lot of fun. As for training leg locks, just make sure you trust the guy you're with, heel hooks have a nasty habit of being almost impossible to tell where the breaking point is.