Thursday 10 November 2011

SJJA 10th Nov 2011

Back to training tonight. Enthusiasm was at an all time high and I had a few moves banging around in my head that I wanted to try out in training and maybe even rolling situations. The class numbers had picked up again and everyone seemed to be in jovial and all around good moods.


 
Venue: Sweat FA
Instructor: Ian Rossiter.  (SJJA)
 
Warm up: Laps of the mat, including ass kicks, knee ups, facing inward for a lap, facing out for a lap. Neck, Arm and Shoulder stretching. Push ups 15 x 2, Squats 15 x 2, Crunches 15 x 2. Leg Stretches.
Quickly in to the first few techniques. Ian said he was briefly recapping some stuff from last weeks lesson to which I was chuffed as I missed last week. 

 
From Closed Guard.

Sitting with your guard closed around opponent. Take deep grip into his collar, make as if to grab opposite collar to which opponent blocks. Quickly grab their sleeve and pull their arm across you, open guard and put foot on guys hips (the foot on the side that his arm has been pulled from), escape hips to make space then take foot off of the guys hips and put it on his back. Then using your free hand, reach up and push forearm against the side of his neck. Choke-tastic. I was drilling this technique with Gary (Master Roshi) Davies which was fun as he has a wealth of experience and can give you little tips on just about everything. The sub came fairly well and I felt it was a nice easy start.


Next was the Armbar for Guard, starting with hand deep in opponents collar (cross grip). Secure the guys arm that is on the same side as the collar grip using your other hand. Open your guard, feet on his hips to help you hip escape, outside leg (opposite side to collar grip) rests over high on his back, other leg comes up and rests on his head, release the collar and use both hands to secure his arm to your chest, thrust your hips out for the easy tap. An oldie but a goodie as they say.
 
The last technique from this position was the same up until you've got the leg high on his back, then he pushes foward so you struggle to get the other leg over. For this all you need to do is grab his nearside shoulder pressing the side of your arm/wrist against his throat and, keeping your arms tight to you body, pull down. The pressure put across the throat produces a pleasant eye bulgy tap. When done correctly. To begin with I was putting the arm across the side of Gary's neck and pulling with the gi cross and pushing my arm into his throat effectively trying to crush his throat side ways on with sheer strength. A move which would probably work after a while but basically wastes strength and is overall poor technique. Fortunately Master Roshi (loving that new nickname) was on hand to point out what I was doing wrong and corrected it. Technique done properly and everything was fine.
From side Control (Top)

Ian then went on to do the forearm choke from side control. Laying on your opponent in a nice strong controlling position, hand at the head side takes a grab of his collar from behind his head. Other hand, while keeping all your weight on him, reaches down to grab his gi jacket underarm from the near side. You then whip your arm out from under his head and over the top, placing pressure on his neck for the tap. We had swapped partners this time and I was drilling this with Marcus Hedley, my long time training partner. I found that I was doing the technique ok but I noticed the amount of pressure he was putting on was amazing. Closer examination revealed once he had the arm over the top of my head he was kind of locking his elbow in close to his body and using all of his body weight down on my throat. A handy tip. That'll be why I never tapped the guy out in the welsh open with it. 

In between drilling this move and being shown the next I had a bit of time to practice some of the moves I mentioned from yesterdays post. I was practising the two escapes from side control which were coming very easily and naturally, then I turned to Gary who was drilling with Rich Presley and found him trying the highly touted Tornado Sweep to Kimura. Gary then let me have a go to which I managed the sweep but forgot to secure the arm to come up for the Kimura. Then Rich let me have a go on him, to which I just about got the sweep although it was a struggle (Rich is a fairly big bloke mind) and by the time he was over the Kimura was nowhere to be seen, I might just about have managed an arm bar or a weird americana from above. Marcus let me have a go on him then and the move went perfectly, the flip over with the arm secured and straight into Kimura. Definitely not likely to be a go to move in rolling or competition any time soon but fun all the same.

Anyway back to the class. The second move from side control was where you go for the same start, grabbing the collar of the gi etc... but the opponent keeps his head pressed down so you can't pass the arm. What we were shown then was to twist your legs as if to be going to a close approximation of a Kesa Gatame (scarf hold), step you foot over to the other side of his head, then lean forward keeping your arm straight and a slack grip. The pressure goes on nice and tight for a lovely (dare I say cheeky) little choke. Problems faced were, when we first started we were gripping the collar to far out of the other side of his head so when we were leaning it was becoming more of a crank. Ian corrected us on this and everything was groovy.



Rolling:
 
Ian had us once again using the 3 man rolling system as explained on the Oct 27th class post. I was rolling in the big guys group (it's gonna be a long time before I shake that image) with Rich and a fairly huge guy called Justin Thomas. The other two went first then after the first minute I took Justin's (he was in the dominant position) back and worked from there. Managed to get a good bow and arrow on him. Continued, then time went and Rich dived on my back. Continued round like that for a bit, got a few more back related taps on Justin and later hit an armbar from mount on him. I know, I said I wouldn't go for it but it was there for the taking and instinct took over. I very nearly hit a mounted triangle on Rich which was a highlight of my session but he had it really well scouted. I did manage to perfectly pull off the spin out escape from side control though.

All in all a great session of rolling. And a great class. Good to be back.

Til next time \m/

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