DV8 Academia de Jiu Jitsu - 26/7/12

We were lucky enough this week to have a mini Judo seminar on down at Sweat FA this week with ex England Judo squad member, Dominique Beach. Now this couldn't come at a better time for me as I'm currently in training for the Uk Premier Bjj open (aka the Bristol Open) and a bit of Judo tutelage will go down an absolute treat.

Unfortunately, the numbers for our class were considerably down from recent weeks. Probably due to a combination of the amazing weather we're having at the moment and the fact that it's officially the first week of the summer hols. Regardless, we were a bit thin on the ground but to be honest that didn't really matter because it allowed Dominique to focus a bit more individually (handy for me anyway).

A couple of Dominique's students also came up for the occasion, which was very cool of them and we definitely appreciated their assistance. A young lad called Joe, who was a Judo blue belt, and young girl who was a green belt with a couple of stripes whose name sadly eludes me (I think it was Cathryn or Carolyn or Christina) so I will just refer to her here as Judo Girl (I mean no offence by this).

Venue: Sweat FA, Weston Super Mare, Uk.

Instructor: Dominque Beach.

Warm Up:

Laps of the mat, including, ass kicks, knee ups, facing inward for a lap, facing out for a lap and arm windmilling for a couple of laps. Neck, Arm and Shoulder stretching. Push ups 10x4, Squats 10x 4,  Crunches 10 x 4, then some leg stretching and some back stretching exercises.
 

Techniques:

To start us off, Dominique had us do this strange drill that was equal part amusing and humiliating. Essentially you start off doing this weird side to side dance with your training partner. You grip your partner at collar and elbow and side step together in time down the mat. I was totally pants at this as my dance timing is generally pretty shoddy anyway. The idea was for you to get the timing right so you can sweep your partner's trailing leg out as he's stepping it toward the forward leg. To do this you have to get the timing right and use the flat of your foot. Dominique explained that you should use the flat and not the side of your foot or it would prove painful and damn me she was right. You don't use the side of your foot more than a couple of times :o(
I was drilling all the techniques with long time training buddy Marcus and even his usual skill and good timing was sorely tested when faced with a lumbering clodhopper like me. I sort of got it in the end though



For the second drill/technique we did another dance drill back and forth into a sweep. Another collar and elbow tie up start, for this explain where my hands and legs were for the move. With my right hand gripping Marcus' collar and the left at his elbow, what we did was step forward and back with one leg together (my left leg and Marcus' right). You do this step about three times to get the timing right and as Marcus' is stepping forward on the last one I had to use my right leg (the flat of it again) to sweep his right toward me while pushing on his collar and pulling at his elbow. This action fairly reliably dropped him down to the mat.
I found this technique a lot easier.



For the third technique we started from a collar and elbow tie up once again. This time though you make as if attacking for a Seoi Nage shoulder throw. Keeping the opponent's right arm pulled out straight by using your left hands tight grip on his arm, you release your right hand grip on the opponent's collar and bring that arm inside and up under his right arm pit whilst turning in toward him. This is the standard set up for the Seoi Nage shoulder throw where you'd push your backside into his hips and pull him over your shoulder. On this occasion however, instead of turning your backside right into him, you step in with your right leg going between his legs and snaking around the opponent's right leg. With your right arm you reach down and grab the opponent at the knee. Now all your weight and leverage is geared toward taking out their entire right side and it's easy to pull that away and drop the opponent on their ass. The unfortunate part of this technique when applied to Bjj is that you can give up your back quite spectacularly so for the purposes of Bjj, me and Marcus found that as soon as the opponent's base is taken out and they are toppling it's best to sprawl to land in top control.


Next up we did a bit of grip fight practice. Your partner grabs your collar with one hand as hard as they can and you grab that arm at the gi cuff with both hands and push away hard to break the grip. Good method of gaining separation.


This lead us neatly on to what Dominique referred to as a suicide roll sweep. The whole technique begins with a collar grip break (opponent had gripped you with his right hand at your left collar and you used the above technique), allowing you to push the grip-broken hand away so you can hold that arm off with your right arm whilst reaching around to their back with your left. Bring your right leg up under their left leg so the shin is pressing against their inner thigh and jump to the right and fall back keeping your leg out straight. If done correctly the opponent should get uprooted and topple backward
with you neatly landing on him in side control.
This is a cool stand up sweep that is fairly reminiscent of a butterfly sweep. Works well but it takes courage to go for it because if you fail you could have your opponent with side control on you.


Ian also showed me and Marcus how to turn this on into a triangle if they resist. When you're raising your leg to underhook their leg, if the opponent step away out of range you can put your foot on their hip and fall back on the floor bending them toward you so you can easily wrap the right leg over the shoulder and around the neck and close the left leg around it on the other side. Very ninja. Nice move.



We were then run through a traditional Seoi nage throw drill. Basically you follow the picture below, stepping in, bringing your arm up under the arm pit, driving your backside into their hips and raising them up by bending forward. You then let guy back down and step out, rinse and repeat for ten goes each.

This lead neatly on to an awesome Seoi nage set up suicide throw. You start as for the picture above getting to the second picture, then instead of pushing your backside in you drop to the floor at the opponent's feet pulling him down then over the top of you so he lands out on his back with you coming up into side control.
This one for me was the technique of the day. I really liked the method of it and the fact that it requires next to zero effort to get your opponent down to the ground. Once again though, as the name suggests, if you don't land the move you'll be left in a whole world of trouble.



Dominique finished up with a nifty little gi choke from a blocked Seoi nage. The opponent has attempted the Seoi nage throw with your right hand still gripping their collar. When he's turned in you you've managed to lean on him to drive him to his knees. As you've still got his collar at this point, all you need to do is step past him on his right side with your left leg to a seated position and use your left arm to push into the side of his neck. This should tighten the collar choke for a quick and easy tap.
Nice move, but I think I'd be more tempted to hit the Bow and Arrow from that position.


Sparring:

As a change we did stand up sparring in the fashion of Judo, where the objective is to trip, sweep, throw or otherwise takedown the opponent. For variation we were all mixed up so we sparred against guys we weren't drilling with.

I went against both of the guys that came from Dominique's Judo class in Street, Judo Girl and Joe. I managed to take both of them down a few times with neither taking me down. Joe came very close with a throw (might even be counted in Judo I don't know) but I landed in a position to take his back with hooks in so I didn't really count it as a loss.

I also went against Chris Hardaway, who I thought would probably tool me as he's a Copper, is ridiculously athletic and is usually really good at this sort of stuff. I actually managed to trip him down and land in top control twice though so I was pretty chuffed with that.


My last round was against Ed (don't know his surname). Ed's quite an old boy but he's very game and he attacked me straight from the off. I managed to get a trip on Ed once but on his second visit to the floor he'd tried to sweep me, landing on his bum so I could just step over and land in top control. Doubt I would've got any points for it in a Bjj match or in Judo (haven't got a clue how these things work in Judo) but at least I resisted and won position.

That was the end of a fantastic Judo for Bjj lesson and I have to say I was very impressed with the stuff Dominique had shown us. I hope she'll be willing to come up for another some time and Ian has already said he'll be going down there to give her class a Bjj for Judo lesson some time. I think I'll tag along for that one and see what new techniques I can pick up.

Think I've got a decent week of training coming up as Marcus finishes his job on Sunday so we can train a bit next week ahead of my competition on Sunday. I can't effing wait for that. Even if I do totally shit I will be chuffed just for entering and particularly for entering at Medium Heavyweight 88.3 Kg. I am pretty well on target for hitting that weight easily on the day (as long as they haven't got Mickey Mouse scales or something) and hope to have a fun day out with some of the other guys from Checkmat Bristol attending. I'll be taking a camera and video camera to capture some of the action and have some stuff for a decent log entry.

Can't wait ¬m/

Two Man Training 23-7-12

I have registered myself in for the Uk Premier Bjj competition in Bristol on the 5th August and am happy for as much training as I can get. I managed to get down to the mats at Sweat FA, Weston Super Mare, for a practice session and loads of rolling with my good buddy, Marcus Hedley, on Monday Lunchtime. Given the subject matter we'd covered with Chico on Tuesday last week - De La Riva Guard - we thought it'd be pretty cool to crack out some more De La Riva stuff here.

Fortunately for me, the stuff we had referenced was all off of Youtube so there are some videos to demonstrate the items we covered. Meaning minimal typing for me, Yay!


The first technique we covered was this pretty slick effort from Robson Moura, courtesy of Bjj Weekly. Robson manages to sweep his opponent from a reverse De La Riva and finish up with a cool collar choke. Very tasty.

Another De La Riva technique we tried was this next vid fromthe man himself, Ricardo De La Riva, once again courtesy off Bjj Weekly. With this one we first got the sweep right then modified the movement to come up into an arm bar. Very good although the circumstances would have to be perfect for me to hit it in a live action situation.

Next up was another Ricardo De La Riva technique,  once again courtesy of Bjj Weekly, although I have to say I was less impressed with this. It works well but it wasn't a favourite of mine. I'll still try it again some time but I don't ever see it making an appearance in my repertoire.

We also did a pretty cool Omoplata from De La Riva Guard that I couldn't find a video for so I'll explain from the point of view I trained it from. I have the De La Riva Guard setup, my left leg DLR hooked around Marcus' right leg and my right pressed against his left hip. Both cuffs are secured in my hands to begin with. To start this move I release the cuff in my right hand and pass the cuff in my left hand over to my right hand. Now with the left, I reach down and grab his right leg at the ankle. I can now remove my right foot from it's position and, tilting myself onto my left shoulder, I can press that foot on Marcus' right shoulder. Now with a quick motion I can push/pull myself out to the side (so I'm next to him, in an inverted position), release my De La Riva Hook, then kick up hard and lean forward. Now if done correctly you should end up in the omoplata position at that point and finish should be obvious to you. Very slick move reminiscent of the Andre Galvao omoplata I waffle on about occasionally.

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The last one we drilled was this little effort by Flavios (?) of Indianapolis Bjj, uploaded by Marcello C Monteiro. The is a De La Riva sweep that I found a lot more palatable and could easily see myself using more often.

After drilling these techniques for a bit we had a very good 45 minutes of rolling at the end. Totally brutalised each other and got some good moves in there.

We were meant to train Tuesday (today) lunchtime too but Marcus had a last minute work thing that was unavoidable. Shame really cause I'd could've used the training and Marcus is only in Weston for a couple more weeks then he's migrating south to Portmouth. Gutted. Good training partners are hard to find and Marcus is definitely one of the best.

S'pose I'll just have to wait for Thursdays lesson down Sweat FA for my next Jiu Jitsu fix.


HOLY SHIT!? I managed to get this far through this entry without mentioning my fuckin' awesome new Gi. I've invested in a spanking new Vulkan Pro Light in white and I have to say, it's fuckin' amazing. The sheer lightness of it is brilliant. The Zero G from Tatami was supposed to be light but it's got nothing on the Pro Light. The thing make feel more dexterous just rolling in it. I was amazed. Definitely worth the money I spent on it.

¬m/

Checkmat 17/7/12

After the mammoth write up to the Lucas Leite seminar that I put on last night, I need some spare time to get my non-blogging stuff together. Consequentially, even though me and Marcus did two lunchtime sessions Monday and Tuesday, I'm not going to bother writing them up as the Monday was just me showing Marcus everything from the seminar (he was not fortunate enough to attend) and Tuesday was just a No Gi version of everything we learned last week on the X Guard.


So basically I'm firing straight ahead to Tuesday evenings class under the amazing tutelage of Chico Mendes.

Venue: Bristol Combat Legion, LA Gym, Bristol, Uk.
Instructor: Chico Mendes (2nd Degree Black Belt, Checkmat)


Warm Up:
For the warm up Chico had us do laps of the mat with butt kicks, knee ups, arm stretches, arm windmills and side steps. We then did some lengths of the mat of hip escapes, forward rolls and backward rolls.

Chico then had us do a stand up grappling drill where you collar and elbow grip your opponent and with quick motion, raise the arm you have the elbow grip on and drop to your knees whilst circling to the opponent's side where the arm was raised. When you do this you grab hold of his leg and hold it on the outside of your body (not in between your legs) and press your head high against the front side of this leg. You can now stand with the single leg to shake your opponent's balance and kick his leg away to get to land him on his back with you coming down into side control.
We drilled this for a bit as a continuation of our warm up. I was with my regular training partner and good buddy, Marcus Hedley.


Techniques:

Chico soon moved us on to techniques and for the first we started in closed guard so Chico could emphasize the fact that a guy who closes his guard well but doesn't do anything from there is not really helping himself. Chico then showed us what he calls a transitional stage where you control the opponent's sleeve cuffs (as if for spider guard) and open your guard to bring your knees up and put them up against the opponent's elbow crooks. From there, Chico showed us two moves to omoplata but unfortunately I can only remember one.

From the above mentioned start position, release the left hand cuff grip and reach over to the opponent's left arm and pull his elbow up and over your right knee. You can then shoot your leg through, up and over his shoulder the come round under his head. With this movement you should move your body out at an angle so you are nearly perpendicular to his left side so you can use your left leg to close around the end of your right leg to keep the position. You must grab the opponents legs or back or gi to stop him from rolling out of the hold, but don't wrap your arm around his near leg or he can still roll and reverse the hold on you. To finish the hold you shift your body weight forward so the opponent is forced down flat on his front, with his arm bent up between you legs and off to your right side. Apply the pressure by leaning forward until he taps.


The next move was moving us on to the De La Riva Guard. From the above mentioned transitional position, your opponent raises one leg in a combat stance (let's say his right leg for the purpose of this description). You then bring your left leg out of it's previous position and around and thread it underneath his raised leg so your foot hooks upwards across his inside thigh. Your other foot can push against his hip. This is the basic De La Riva Guard position though there are lots of variations on where you put your hands and legs, this is a good place to start. To ensure a tight DLR hook, make sure your foot is solidly hooked up and your are pressuring his leg as if trying to extend yours, to stop him from turning his leg out and easily bucking your hook.
Chico showed us two techniques starting from here.
The first was a kick away sweep. The guy is in your De La Riva Guard with his back leg left) pulling away slightly. As he's trying to pull his weight away from you, his left leg is angled in toward you. If you kick this with your right leg at about the knee, the opponent will fall back with you using his weight to pull you up into mount.
The second was where you push his left leg back with your right foot to off balance him a little, then sit forward and pass control of his right arm from your left to your right, so you can then pass if under his leg back to your left hand. You can now lean right forward on this hold, to a sitting position with both your legs around his front (right) leg. You now make to stand up drawing your right leg back as you do, to take out his trapped leg and remove his base, effectively putting the opponent on his ass. You can get either side control of mount in the scramble. If you're unlucky you'll end in half guard.


Another exceptionally cool sweep Chico showed us was an overhead sweep from De La Riva. You get to the De La Riva Guard position, both arms secured at the cuffs, your right foot (non De La Riva hook) is firmly planted in the opponent's hip. What you do here is push the opponent away with your feet (whilst keeping the cuff grips secured close) and when he tries to push back to resist you pull him hard towards you with the cuff grip and flip him over your head and onto his back using your hold on him to roll over with him. to come up in mount. I love this technique and will be trying to hit it occasionally against a resisting opponent in sparring to see if I can get used to using it fully.


Rolling:

I rolled against Rich Long, Tom Hill, Ian Rossiter and Andy Bremerkamp. I tapped Rich (omo), Tom (darce) and Andy (achilles). Ian got me with a pretty cool inverted arm bar.


Sorry about the rushed ending to this but it's now Sunday and I have a whole week of Bjj to plan out (and a monster hangover). ¬m/

Lucas Leite Seminar 15/7/12

On Sunday morning, I was fortunate enough to attend a seminar with Checkmat's highly decorated Brazilian Jiu Jitsu world champion, Lucas Leite. The seminar took place at the brilliantly kitted out Trojan Free Fighters HQ in Cheltenham, Gloucester, and was attended by a large contingent of Chico Mendes Bjj students from his various classes across the West Country of the Uk.

It's always good to attend these big seminar occasions that Chico arranges for us, not only for the wicked techniques we learn but also for the fact that Chico is bringing over internationally famous, World Championship calibre Bjj players for us to meet and learn under. Honestly, it's a Bjj geek fan boy's dream.

Photos courtesy of Chicopics ;o)

After a very brief warm up of some laps and stretching, Lucas went straight into the Techniques. Apart from the first technique that he showed with Chico, he demonstrated all of his Gi techniques on the two Brown Belts, Ian Rossiter and Matt Sellars. For ease of explanation I will describe these moves from the sides that I have learned them.

Gi

The first technique was a very nice transition to back from Half Spider Guard. It started from the full guard position and then you switch to a transitional open guard position where you have grips on the opponent's sleeve cuffs and are pulling the arm in close to you with your knees being pushed into the elbow crooks to hold the guy in place. Drop the right leg down and putting it through the opponents legs to wrap around his right leg whilst pulling his right arm closer so your left knee can be pressed against the right side of his upper chest. Now use a slight extending of your left leg to push the opponent's body slightly left whilst lifting his arm out of the way so you can use your left arm (you've just released his sleeve cuff) to quickly and forcefully go under the arm to wrap around his back and take a grip of his gi pants. You now use your left leg to hook over his right leg and pull it off to the side so part of his base is gone and you can shrug right under his right arm and get to his back. At that point, if you reach down and take a grab of the gi pants at either the inside hip or the knee on the left side of the guy, you can roll back down to seated position, pulling him with you and easily getting your left hook in (remember your right hook was already in thanks to the half spider) all ready for the seated rear mount attack. 

I paired off with Glenn Cutter for all of the techniques for this seminar and we had a great laugh as well as learning a great deal of cool new techniques.

Next move was a pretty cool Half Guard Sweep that starts from a position I have often found myself in. No one likes being in half guard bottom when you've unfortunately given the guy on top enough time to flatten you out and lay across you. This one is a cool technique to help you out there. So you've got the opponent's left leg trapped but he has laid diagonally across you with his left arm wrapped around your head and grabbed by the other arm on the other side, for control. Now you bring your arms up - the right hand grabs the material below his left arm pit, with the left you grab the material at his left shoulder (so your hands are grabbing his gi above and below his left shoulder) with your left forearm pressing into his throat. Interestingly, I found your left arm can come over or under his right arm for this bit. With both arms in place you push up and get first your head under, into his chest, then you can make enough space to bring you left knee up into the mix and get lots of space for the half guard. From there, as before, you can grab around the back again to the gi pants and pull the leg out using your left leg. This time however, he's stopping you from going to back (maybe he's grabbed the back of your gi, maybe he's got a whizzer) you bring your body upright a bit, so your pushing against him - tip for doing this, instead of trying to push yourself up using main strength on your right hand, bring your right elbow in close to your stomach and push up using more of your arm and shoulder - until you can draw your right leg out a bit and rest on that. You can now reach under the opponent's left leg a fall/pull back and roll over on your left shoulder to flip the opponent up over you head and onto his back. Your free leg (right) would most likely have been used to plant on the mat to push off, can now be brought up and you can knee slide across the opponents body to land in mount (have to do that last bit fast though or I'm pretty sure a wily opponent will manage to at least recover to half guard in the scramble).

The third technique of the session Lucas showed, offered us a pretty cool escape from side control bottom. You are on you back and your opponent is laying across you in a side control position (I was practising this mainly with Glenn's legs on my right side with him laying across so his head is to my left) with your head secured. You reach down with you left hand to his right leg (this bit can be quite tight but if you work for it you'll get there in the end) and push it down so your left leg can bend in and hook it and pull it off down and then to the left into an uncomfortable position. From there you can either: a/ pull the opponent's right arm in tight with your left while your right hand reaches down and under his left leg. Then using your right (free) leg as a plant you can bridge over flipping the opponent over and coming up in side control top. Or b/ reach around with the underhooking left hand to the back of the opponent's gi pants and bring your free leg up through a bit so you have space to base up and you're back in the original strong Half Guard position to take back. Two very good options from the one disadvantageous position.

The last part of this first set of techniques Lucas demonstrated was once again from the Half Guard with the opponent's trapped right leg hooked off by your left leg and you with the left arm under hook reach around (oo-er) to gi pants at back. You have the strong half guard position basically. This time though, instead of going meekly to your impending doom the opponent has over hooked your left arm into a whizzer and is blocking your attempts to take his back or overhead sweep him. This time, you can sit up as in the second technique so you're both pushing weight against each other, then you reach your right hand over and pull on his left leg at the knee whilst continuing to push your weight forward. The result is (or should be) that your opponent topples to his back with you able to push forward past his right leg into side control.

We then messed about with all four of those techniques, mix and matching the lot so you eventually work out that have just learnt an option for just about every counter he can think of when you're trying to sweep him from your strong half guard.


Moving us away from the Half Guard, Lucas' next technique was attacking the opponent's turtle (so you have rear side mount on him basically). The opponent is turtled up with both hands blocking his collar so you can't get an easy lapel grip for a super quick finish. For this I was at Glenn's right side. Whilst putting your weight against his back (so he cannot easily move out of his turtle) you reach over his back and around under his arm on his left side to grab his right lapel at about the bottom of his chest. Now you position your right knee into his side at the space where he is connecting his left elbow and knee together. If you now fall backward while pushing out with your leg the opponent will come over with you, neatly giving you space to slot first your right hook in, then your left hook in. You now have a perfect seated rear mount. With the left hand that is on his right lapel, hold out the lapel so you can grab it with your right hand to hold it open and slide your left hand up to take a very deep grip at his right collar. Now your right hand can cross over and grab his left lapel low and you can lean back for the very tight choke. This would almost definitely finish a sparring round or a competition match by itself but Lucas also added in your right leg releasing from it's hooking position and going over his shoulder to be used to pull the guy's right arm away. This choke is pretty sick. great stuff.



Another move when you're attacking an opponent's turtle was started by pulling the guy down on his side with you next to him in a combat stance with your right leg flat on the floor with knee in back (he has his back to you at this point). There was two variations to this move: The first had you reaching your right arm under the guys head to make a play for his arm, reacting to this he attempts to turn back down and turtle again. To stop this you grab your right hand with your left. Your right forearm is underneath his face at that moment so you can easily pull the arm, painfully crossfacing your opponent and forcing him back over. The magic of this move though, is that when you're pulling him back with your crossface, you have created enough space to slip your left hook in and you are pulling him over with enough momentum to end up laying over on you other (left) side and you can slip the right hook in nice and easy too. You have now beautifully taken the opponent's back and can slap a decent rear naked choke on or whatever your poison.
The second variation to this move was if the guy on his side didn't turtle back up so you are able to grab his wrist with your right hand (remember it was going under his head) and under hook his left arm with your left, reaching up through to take your own wrist (like for a kimura). You now use the additional strength of this two armed grip to bring the guy over to the left where you slip you right arm over his head (still maintaining the grip on his wrist) and drive that forearm up against the side of his head/neck. This makes space for you to bring your right hook up and around over the top of the face to finish with and arm bar.


The last move in the gi session was a cool Ezekiel to back. You have got both hooks in but the opponent has laid over on his right side. You drive your left arm up underneath his left arm so it pops out at the opponent's right shoulder. You then use that hand to grab in the sleeve of your right arm and bring the blade of the right arm down across his neck, going under the chin with your right hand. Push outwards with both arms to finish. Very tasty. Works well.


As a really cool touch then, Lucas ran through all the techniques again and got us to do the all a few times each once more. This really helped with my ability to remember specific points about the techniques which is pretty cool. To be honest I only had a little bit of difficulty remembering the moves for the gi portion of the seminar which is unusual for me as I suffer from severely crap memory syndrome most of the time. Oh, plus I wrote a lot of notes ;o)

No - Gi

After a very brief drinks break and change in to shorts and rash guard, we were quickly brought back on the mats for the No-Gi portion of the seminar. And this too did not disappoint. 

Lucas said straight off the bat that for Gi seminars he has a tendency to work a lot of control and positional stuff, where as when doing a No-Gi seminar, he very much likes it to be submission heavy. So lots of cool finishes were the order of the day here. (Big smiles all round).

The first move he showed was a where you are seated on the floor with an opponent standing in front of you. (For the sakes of my training and so for this description) The opponents left leg is slightly forward in a sort of wrestler's stance. You pull yourself right in to his legs using a butt scoot, so you are nearly in between his leg. Pass your right leg in between his legs then snake it out and around the opponent's left leg whilst pressing your left foot into his hip. Ensure that your hips are raised off the ground for this for manoeuvrability in case the guy tries to move around you for a pass. From here you can just grab the back of his left ankle and pull on it whilst pushing forward with your legs to drop him down to the floor on his butt. From there you reach over and then under the secured left leg at the ankle  (so your forearm is pressed against his achilles tendon) with your right arm and gable grip that hand with your other hand for pressure. To finish (and this is an awesome tip), pull the leg a little under you and then lean back and tense on it to apply the pain. It really is a great finish and I've always been a fan of the achilles lock. This little tip has really added to my application of this technique. I've used it twice already since the seminar.

For the second technique we were offered a little bit of the forbidden. You don't often get taught heel hooks and for very good reason as they are an extremely dangerous move that can essentially put someone out of action for up to six months due to severe ligament damage in the legs. You really need to guy lightly with this move if practising it and it's probably a good idea to have a confident trust in anyone who is practising the move on you.

From a standing position with the opponent on the floor with legs up (as if you're readying to pass his open guard), offer your left leg for his de la Riva hook and while he's taking that bait with his right leg, (he should also have his left leg up) reach over his left leg as if to secure the achilles and drop backward to the floor. The move was shown to us as if the achilles lock was unattainable for whatever reason so instead you use your left leg to push his right leg to the side, so you can pass your right leg over the top over his left and have enough space to tuck it underneath your left leg so you have a triangle around his leg. With this motion however, you will also have reaped his knee inward so his foot is tucked up at your armpit with his heel out to the side, while his knee is pointing inward toward his other leg. From there you just need to tuck your right forearm underneath his heel (you can use your hands to pull it up to get the position with little worry of loosing it from here) and then gable grip your hands together and raised your right elbow to apply the pressure. REMEMBER, do this very lightly so your opponent only just feels it. It you ram this on you risk seriously damaging your training partner. Every class I have ever been too does not allow this move in open sparring. There is a reason.

The third move in the No-Gi was from the same set up as the first. Seated on floor, opponent standing as if to pass guard, you pull close in between his legs and snake right leg out and around his left. This time however, you pass your right leg over the top of his left and under your own left to form the triangle. You can now reap (turn inward) the guy's left leg to take him down and leave you already perfectly set up for the Heel Hook. In some cases the opponent may try to power his leg straight moving the angle away from you but a simple twist of your body inward toward his leg while you bend back a little bring the position back. You essentially hold all the cards in that position. Lucas also showed that if the opponent attempts to roll away from the move you just roll with him and when you land back straight, it's still easily applied. Simple and exceptionally dangerous.

Moving away from leg locks, Lucas moved on to a Guillotine from Half Guard top. The guy has the strong half guard position on you but you have reached your right arm over his left and back inside to stop the back take. From here you bring your left arm around the guy's head (the head is off to the side of you) and under his chin (across his throat, use the blade of the forearm for maximum effect) and gable grip it with your other hand. To finish this, pull you left arm up into his throat with your right arm. Another fantastic little tip Lucas showed was that if you bring the left elbow in to your side and lean that way a little it piles on the pressure, taking away most peoples resolve to fight the choke. 

He also showed another finished from there though. You get all the way to the guillotine but can't be arsed with the possible gassing out of your arms, instead, you roll over forward to land on you back, with the opponent facing up in the air, fully secured in your grip with his arm in. Now, using your right elbow you can push the guy's left arm out of the way and the release your gable grip and fully push your left arm over, so you can wrap your right arm around it. You are now in the position for the Anaconda choke. You just need to walk your body around toward him to apply the finishing pressure. Brilliant. 

Next was from Side Control Top. I was working on this as if I was laying across my opponent with his head to my left. Your opponent is working hard to escape your side control so you offer up your right leg as if you're going for a lazy transition to knee on belly. The opponent sits up a little and grabs around the leg with his left arm as if for a single leg transition. The space between his arm and torso lends itself perfectly for going for the Darce Choke. Drive your right arm in between that gap, past his head (at about the chin) and out the other side. You can now wrap your other (left) arm around the first, on the other side of his head. You can clench this tight here but will rarely get the tap just like that. Lucas showed us three ways to finish this hold:

The first was to roll forward (almost like the Anaconda, but you don't need to move you body round after that) and clench the arms in tight. This finished the move well but was a questionable risk because if the opponent does manage to buck the move you're in a really bad position.

The second was to lean froward into the opponent (as if to sprawl) and kick out of the single leg grip he has, then lower your hip close to the floor to apply the pressure.
The third was to curl him into you as if you're pulling guard.
All three methods work well. Awesomely in fact :oD

The next technique was my personal favourite for the No-Gi portion of the seminar as it forms part of an amazing Escape from Side Control. Your opponent is laying across you, your head is to his left. To initiate this move you may need to pummel your hands it the correct positions a bit which may take some effort but it is thoroughly worth it. You need to have your right arm down below, against his right side, and your left arm should be across his throat with hand passing his left shoulder. Use this position to bump up to make space as usual for a side control escape, but use your arm positions along with the strength of your legs, to rotate underneath him, moving you in a sort of North South bottom position. The difference being though, that your right arm should have moved his right arm up (from his perspective) and out of the way, and your left arm would have shot over and wrapped around his head, moving into position to be over wrapped by your right arm for a very beautiful Inverted Anaconda Choke. That move is priceless. Me and Glenn were both raving about this move. Couldn't practice it enough.

The last set of moves Lucas demonstrated to us were from a double leg takedown defence position. They were all pretty simple and obvious though, being a transition to Guilltine, a Darce Choke and an Anaconda Choke. I won't write these up as they were fairly straight forward anyway.

The same as with the Gi, Lucas ended by running us through ALL the techniques again and then had us drill them all in succession a couple more times each. Good trick that.

So that was it. Some brilliant techniques learned. Lucas was a class guy and a fantastic teacher through out the entire seminar. Very friendly, very chatty, extremely helpful. And, such as is always the case with Checkmat instructors as I've found, he was constantly watching his students and picking people up where their technique had gone awry, making sure they we had the moves perfectly. It really was a pleasure to learn under this guy, even if just for a day. Who knows? Maybe one day he'll come back again. One can only hope. ¬m/

Checkmat Bjj 10-7-12

Due to the fact the it's been my birthday this week (35 years young) and other general busyness I am typing this log of Chico's Tuesday class out on Saturday morning. So I may have some of the details a bit fuzzy as my notes always sound weird in my own head a couple of days after writing them. Also, I'm awake early on a Saturday morning writing this with a pounding headache caused by a ridiculous excess of vodka last night and my little daughter Jolie is hassling me. Not ideal blogging conditions I must say.
Once again, after a couple of lunchtime sessions with Marcus I was pretty knackered but I was feeling a little bit better going in than I had previous weeks. Maybe I'm getting fitter, maybe I didn't work as hard, maybe it wasn't as hot. Who know's? I felt a little bit more comfortable though. It's also worth noting that I've taken to wearing my rash guard under my gi which is helping me cool off. Strange how that works as I'd always thought extra layers would make me hotter but I read somewhere that wearing a rash guard helps your body relieve itself of the excess sweat and by jove it seemed to work. I've also stopped wearing antiperspirant when I train allowing my body to sweat more to cool itself off. All this time I thought I was trying to be nice to my training partners by restricting the amount I sweat on them a little and it turns out I was stunting my own auto cooling system.

Venue: Bristol Combat Legion, LA Gym, Bristol, Uk.
Instructor: Chico Mendes (2nd Degree Black Belt, Checkmat)


Warm Up:

Chico had Josh Kersey run us through the warm up. He did laps of the mat with butt kicks and knee ups and side steps. We then did lengths of the mat doing front rolls, back rolls, frog leaps, gator crawls (or Spiderman crawls as Josh awesomely calls them) and perhaps something else but I can't remember what, - 2 lengths for each exercise. We then did some stretching.

For this week Chico took us back to the Spider Gward techniques they've been doing for the last few weeks. To start we had to use some of the sweeps we've been doing over the past few weeks in a light back and forth drill which was a fun way to help us remember what we'd been doing. I was drilling with Marcus who still looked fresh a daisy, regardless of the two lunchtime training sessions. Git.



The first technique Chico showed us was another sweep from Spider Guard. You have your opponent in your Spider Guard and you lasso one of the arms. The guy tries to step away with the non lasso side leg so you hook him close with your free foot behind that leg. You then shift your angle out slightly to the side where you have his arm secure and change the cuff grip to your other hand so you can reach under his leg with your same side hand. You can now either sweep him by leaning into his leg and swiping the other leg out, or, pulling yourself underneath him and flipping him over the top of you.


Next up was a Spider Guard to single leg. From Spider Guard the opponent tries to pull away. You kick his far leg out further to off balance then bring your other leg down and around his near leg and draw it in toward you, then pass the secured arm to the other hand and use the first hand to secure that arm around the back of the leg. You can then stand, hooking the secure leg between your legs to either through off balance and arrive at a commanding position or have him standing in front of you teetering on one leg waiting for the trip or takedown to come. Cool move and very controlling. There was a particularly hilarious moment I witnessed whilst drilling this technique when I turned to see Ronan "Man-Giant" Fleming with a wry amused look of patience on his face as his training partner attempted to secure the single leg on him. It looked like a dwarf trying to hug a tree. Muchos amusing.




Chico then demo'd different ways to get to the above. First, if the guy tugs his arm away hard enough he'll be pulling right back anyway so you won't need to kick his leg, just jump in for the single leg.
Second, if they're trying for the push legs in then jump back Spider Guard break, you can anticipate this and roll forward as they jump away and take their leg the same way.

Chico also stopped us all to stress this point. Make sure when taking the single leg that your head is on the inside of the leg and is very tight to him or he can push you away and attack the collar by taking a collar grip and rolling forward for whatever easy finish he wants. Me and Marcus briefly tried this and were pretty amazed at the cool tight gi collar chokes you can get from that set up.


The last technique of the session was a continuation of the single leg attack. Instead of meekly going to his impending single leg doom, the opponent sprawls forward landing in a precarious half guard top position. Precarious because he's mostly off to one side and your half guard leg grip is in the perfect position to do the following. All you need do is ram your top leg into the back of his trapped leg whilst your arms escort him forward. He should shoot past you with you able to neatly come up over the top to take his back. Genius.


Situational Rolling:

This was a pretty funny session of situational rolling as Chico said it was two minute on the top, two minutes on the bottom. Spider Guard drilling. Guy on bottom has to sweep or submit. Guy on top has to pass. To make it interesting Chico said if anyone passes guard the entire class do 20 push ups. Amazingly no one in the entire class passed guard that session, now who would've believed it? I was with Marcus for this and we swept each other excellently for our respective two minutes. :oD

 

Rolling:

We then went on to some proper rolling (I suspect Chico realised people weren't taking the other thing seriously) and I was feeling a little bit (only a little bit) more energetic than I have been the past few sessions in Chico's class by this time. I first rolled with Tom Hill's cousin whose name I can't remember. He's been coming on and off for quite a while now but never really fully committed as much as Tom. I went fairly light on him but still tapped him twice with the arm bars from the guard to demonstrate why he shouldn't be extending his arms to push me away while in my guard. At one point I managed to get an X Guard sweep on him too which I was particularly chuffed with, until Marcus told me later that he'd managed to hit an X Guard Triangle on Tom. I think I got a triangle on him too toward the end of the round.


My second roll was with Cameron, a guy that came up with us from our Weston class. Cameron is fairly new but strong, athletic and keen. A very good combination. He's still at the stage where I just let him work at stuff and give him a few pointers though. I did get him with an arm bar from the guard at one point to show him that he can't do the arm extend thing (same as with Tom's cousin) but mostly just let him work some guard breaks and mount escapes on me.


My last roll was with Rich Long. I was a little sapped for this but still more game than I had been at this time on the last couple of Chico sessions. I managed to tap him quite quickly with an achilles lock. After that we had a terrific back and forth roll with Rich passing my guard a couple of times. At one point I was pretty weary and couldn't be bothered to try an escape from side control (my side control escapes are pretty shit and lack lustre when I'm worn out) so I gave up the mount. Believe it or not I have a much higher success rate for escaping mount. Not a good tactic for competition though. Whilst in mount, Rich manoeuvred around for an arm bar set up but lent forward to far on it so I turned my body throwing him off of me. At one point I managed to pass his guard to side then get to mount and moved to S mount so I could use the gift wrap transition to take his back. At that moment I got a really good shot at a bow and arrow choke on him and had it locked in quite tight but Rich showed fantastic tenacity and level headedness by holding his collar tight to relieve pressure, waiting for my arms to gas then turning toward me and shifting his hips out to come up in my guard. Great escape. I later saw the exact same escape demonstrated by Nick Brooks in issue 8 of Jiu Jitsu Style Magazine.

Another great week of Jiu Jitsu done and now I've just got to wait for the Lucas Leite seminar on Sunday (hey that's tomorrow now :oD). Cool.

2 Man Gi Training - 9th and 10th July 2012

Me and Marcus decided to do two gi sessions at lunchtimes this week. Well not pre-decided but after we were blown away with our Monday session we wanted to carry it on on Tuesday. With neither of us really planning anything it strangely turned out to be two of the most productive sessions going due to the subject matter we ended up drilling.

Monday:

We started off with a cool over head sweep from Spider Guard. You're in the Spider Guard position with both of the opponents cuffs gripped and feet at the elbow crooks pushing out for control. From there you lasso one of the arms by passing the securing leg on that side outside, over the top and then back inside.

From this position you bring the non lasso leg inside and up between the legs so the top of your foot is hooking under the backside of the opponent (making sure you keep the sleeve grip on the side where you just removed the leg). Now bring the guy's non lasso'd arm in toward the lasso'd arm and kick the hooking leg up and over your head sending the guy over you to roll over on his back with you back rolling or rotating yourself around to a commanding top position. The first time we tried this move I landed rather uncomfortably on my shoulder as you have no free arm to break your fall. It was very painful and still hurts a bit now two days after but I persevered. Soldier that I am.


The second technique was a method of taking the back from Spider Guard which is handily shown in this video.

I loved this technique, any quick way to the back is in my eyes awesome but the belt control and kick out reminds me of my favourite De La Riva sweep. Brilliant. After that we were at a little bit of a loss as to what to do but fortunately I had Marcelo Garcia's X-Guard book on me. Up until now I've just used that book for it's amazing sections on the Butterfly Guard but as we had the best part of a session to kill we decided to put ourselves in the hands of "The Jiu Jitsu Genius" and try some of his trademark guard out.

Now initially looking at the first method of establishing the X Guard that we chose to try you kind of take a step back and think "wow that seems pretty complex". The thing is Marcelo has used A LOT of pictures to demonstrate every single little detail. So when you actually come to do the move it's literally about 2 to 3 seconds of movement (if done a full speed). From a seated position with your opponent standing off in a kneeling combat stance, grab the opponent's collar on the other side to his forward leg whilst grabbing his gi sleeve on the leg side. From there you pull back a bit and use both of your feet to underhook on his raised leg and then pull the leg up and duck under it to secure the leg on your shoulder, letting go of the wrist. All you need to do from there is bring off side leg inside and push the shin of that leg on the guys inner thigh. Now with the other leg you bring it in resting that shin just above the other leg. Your feet will be either side of the leg holding it in place like a pliers grip. That is the basic X Guard position. The guys leg extended over your shoulder, both hands pulling down on it to hold it in place,  with your legs plier gripping his other leg in place leaving him fairly off balance and you with a surprisingly large amount of attacks.

Photo borrowed from Google images.

We were massively surprised at how fluid and natural the movement became and once we had this one method of establishing X Guard we got straight on with some techniques. We basically learnt all sweeps on Monday from this Collar and Sleeve Control to X Guard. From the basic X Guard position your opponent is off balance so bases out with his hand out to the side. For the first sweep you just need to grab that arm low down near the wrist and pull in up toward your face thus taking away his base. You can then just lean to the side where his base is gone and kick your legs out to flip him over coming up neatly into side control. Easy sweep once the positioning is there. The move virtually carries itself out once you've pulled his arm in.

 X

The next one was basically the same move but to a standing opponent. When you've initiate the X Guard your opponent doesn't go meekly to his knee but instead powers up to stand up right as in the picture above. You just need to gain a sleeve grip on his far side arm and pull it in toward your head, then kick out with your feet whilst pulling on that arm. The guy will topple over and roll to his back with you neatly coming up into side control. Once again an easy transition to a commanding position and once again, as with most of these X Guard moves, once all the pieces are in place the movement works itself.

X

 

Another sweep (called the Near Sleeve Control Switch Sweep) starts with your opponent in your X Guard on his knee and requires you to grab the opponent's near arm at the cuff and pull it toward you. Now this technique assumes that the opponent will pull his arm away from your grip. To respond to this you reach over for his other arm as if to carry out the first sweep. He reacts by yanking this arm away, thus leaving the other arm back near and himself over balanced. Now you can pull the arm near stretching it out, then push it down under him and kick your legs up, flipping the opponent over onto his back with you coming up neatly into top control. This sweep works just as well if he doesn't manage to pull the arm away to begin with. I think Marcelo was just trying to demonstrate how you can dummy and bluff the opponent into giving up his arms.  Once again the last technique can also be done to a standing opponent to equal effect.

X

 

The last sweep we did Monday was the Near Sleeve and Arm Pit Control Sweep. Beginning from the X Guard with opponent on his knee you pull his near arm toward you. The opponent reaches back with his other arm and attempts to pull away to which you can sit up to keep control. You now have space to release your offside leg hook and cross it under the opponent's stretched secured leg to push your foot into his arm pit. Extending your leg whilst keeping the leg and wrist control on your opponent, you can now start twisting over on your side to roll the guy over toward his face side. Once he's rolled over on to his other side you use your legs to push him further over on to his back and you come up into top control.

X

 

We were totally blown away by these new moves and had a good sparring session to see if we could hit any which was pretty hilarious as we both rushed to jump guard and hit the X Guard.During the course of the roll I managed to get the X Guard position a couple of times and sort of nearly hit one of the sweeps but it's pretty difficult when you've only just learnt it and the other guy blatantly knows it's coming!

X

We loved this X Guard session so much we decided to do Gi again the next day.

X

 

Tuesday:

For Tuesdays sesh we went straight in to the X Guard, with Marcus dying to do some techniques he viewed on T'internet, starting with a transition to a single leg takedown. From the X Guard position you grab the opponent's near arm by the sleeve and push him away with your legs so you can sit up with his leg still secured at your shoulder. From there you can stand up with the leg secured tight, either still on your shoulder or moved down to your side. You can do this technique with the opponent kneeling or standing. Great technique to change the tide of a match.

X

The second technique was one Marcus had found on YouTube which makes things easier on the amount of typing I have to do.

Vid courtesy of TheSourceMMAJordan on YouTube. Many thanks.

This technique really shows how great an option the X Guard can be, giving variations that can sweep the opponent to his back and at least one possible method of going straight to back! Love it.

X

 

After that we went back to the book to continue with sweeps from X Guard, only to find the next one along in the book was the Single Leg Takedown effort that Marcus had found. Next though, was a scissor sweep to a standing opponent. The opponent is standing in your X Guard and you grab his near arm at the sleeve and pass it over his leg to your outside hand (the one behind him as opposed to the one in front) and keep it secured down near his knee along with your leg grip. Now you push out with your low hook in the back of his knee (of the unsecured leg) and use your high hook to pull him down at the hip. He should easily topple over onto his back with you coming up over the leg already half past his guard. Admittedly this one was not as good as some of the others as you still have the job of passing guard but it's still an option.

X

 

Of course training a new guard style is never going to be complete with out working out how to tap someone out from it. And there are some options here too. The first we tried was an Omoplata with the set up being the same as the Sleeve and Armpit Control Sweep. From X Guard, grab the opponent's near arm sleeve and pull it toward you, then sitting up to raise his leg some, bring your offside leg (the one that is behind him) out of it's X Guard position and put that foot into his armpit. Now still pulling tight on his secured arm you can turn on your ass and raise your leg above his armpit, then slot the leg through and pull the arm tight over the top of it, sitting up and leaning forward to finish the Omoplata. We were blown away by that move. Very cool.

X

 

Next one was a Triangle from X Guard. From X Guard, with the near arm secured and pulled toward you again, sit up to off balance the opponent, then bring the X Guard hooks in to your butt and kick up over his shoulders and finish the triangle as usual. Fairly obvious once you try it. And awesome, let's not forget awesome.

X

 

The last sub we did (we didn't bother with leg locks for the time being) was an Inverted Arm Bar. This is best done if you have a lot of control over his near arm or if he's trying to nullify your X Guard by pulling on your collar. All you do is pull the arm in so the guys wrist is against your neck on his offside. You can then grab his arm with both of your arms at the elbow and hugs into you whilst trying to sit yourself up. If this doesn't get an immediate tap you can turn sideways on to increase the pressure. Great finish but obviously the less aesthetically pleasing of the three.

X

 

After all that we decided to look at new entries for establishing X Guard. First from seated Butterfly Guard you get elbow control on your opponent (grip both his arms at the elbows) then pull him back toward you and fire one leg out straight to move the opponent's leg on that side out. Now you can shift your hips and reach under that leg and pull it up to your shoulder. With the one Butterfly hook in place you now only need to move the other leg into place and you have your X Guard.

X

 

You can also do basically exactly the same thing with double underhook Butterfly Guard, only difference being when the opponent has been pulled up above you and you've raised your leg to isolate his, you need to push him away with your hand under his armpit so you can reach down to his leg. Other than that it's the same set up.

X

 

We did a closed guard set up as well which I wasn't too keen on, but ended the session with a Half Guard setup. The guy has his leg trapped in your half guard but is laying across you with an arm wrapped around your head. You need to bring that arm to the other side of your head so he's laying totally across you (almost side control but with the half guard leg still through). Once you've past that arm over your head you can reach down under his nearside leg and pull it up toward you. Now you open your guard extending your legs in the air then use them as a pendulum, first swinging them away from the guys head so you can use the backswing momentum to throw them back toward his head direction pushing the opponent further across you and setting you up with your shoulder near his leg. Securing this as for standard X Guard (across shoulder) it's a simple switch out of the hips and an alteration of your leg positioning to get the full X Guard. Another cool set up to end an excellent two days of lunchtime training.

X

 

I am amazed by the stuff I've learned from this book, although I don't believe I've instantly taken it all in, I have been able to remember a lot of key parts and great entries. I guarantee that I will be drilling and trying to use some of this stuff in the coming weeks. I will keep you updated with how I am doing.

Now I've gotta type up Chico's Tuesday class. I love this shit! ¬m/

DV8 - 5/6/12

There were loads of us waiting outside the Martial Arts Studio of Sweat FA this week having a chat and a laugh before the session. It's this sort of camaraderie that really brings us together as a class. Good team spirit. Everybody standing around talking about their week, or what gi they're gonna get, or have already got. It's what sets the Martial Arts apart in the sporting world really. No where else do you have a good laugh with your buddy one minute, then try and choke him to the verge of unconsciousness the next. Marvellous.

Venue: Sweat FA, Weston Super Mare, Uk.

Instructor: Ian Rossiter

Warm Up:

Laps of the mat, including, ass kicks, knee ups, facing inward for a lap, facing out for a lap and arm windmilling for a couple of laps. Neck, Arm and Shoulder stretching. Push ups 10x5, Squats 10x 5,  Crunches 10 x 5, then some leg stretching and some back stretching exercises.
 

Techniques:

Ian kicked us off the week with the Standard escape from seated rear mount. You are in what is considered to be the worst possible position you can be in in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. You are seated upright with your opponent behind you, with his legs wrapped around your body and his feet in between your legs (or "Hooks In"). He is now free to attack you mercilessly with his arms, looking for gi chokes, rear naked chokes or even arm bars and rear mounted triangles. Not a good position. For a basic defence you need to be sure your arms are pulled tight in to your sides and your hands are up defending near your throat and gi lapel (T-Rexing as it's known). While the guy is working on passing his hands through your arm defence you can scoot yourself down by putting your heels to the ground and pulling your butt toward them, thus moving your body down within in rear mount. Sometimes you might need to do this a couple of times to get down the required distant. From that position your danger has lessened considerably as even if the opponent does get his arm around your neck now, he will not be able to finish the choke. Now you can bring your heel to your butt again so the opponents hooks are up quite close to you, then pick a side and quickly drop the leg on that side so the opponent's hook pops out. It's usually good at this point to use the same side elbow to help the hook pop out. Once the hook is out you quickly shrimp your butt out to that side, twisting your body around the hook that was still in so you can hug that leg. This is the part that usually ends in a mad scramble. In an ideal world you would have a tight hug on the leg with your own legs keeping it in place so you can push it to the ground and then hurriedly kick your trailing leg out and over and end in side control. In the real world you will probably end up in half guard if the opponent is savvy enough to see that he's lost the position and to try for damage control rather than a quick regain of position. What I found is that the harder the guy tries to keep his controlling position once you've shrimped those hips out, the worse off he will end up (usually).

I drilled this and all moves tonight with Rich Presley. We had a good bit of banter and kept straying off the beaten track with techniques we were trying.


Second technique of the night was an alternative escape from rear mount. What this one entailed was for you to use your legs to push yourself backward into your opponent and off to one side. The aim is to get your back flat to the ground but you may have to fight for this against a determined opponent. Once there your danger has mostly subsided and you can make good your escape by shrimping out and coming up on top. It's worth noting though that a quick opponent might try to mount you if you take all your weight off his leg whilst escaping. Rich did this to me before I realised what I was missing.




Ian moved us on from there to a fairly basic Gi Choke. This time the focus is on the guy who has the rear mount. All you do is select a side and pulled the guy's gi lapel away from his body to make space. You can then bring the other hand over his arm and under his jaw to grab very deep into his collar using the thumb in grip. You now use the other hand (that was originally pulling the first lapel out) to take a low grip of the other lapel. You finish the move by leaning your body backwards. Easy finish. easy move. Tight as hell though.
Me and Rich also played around with a Gi choke where you put your foot in the opponents jacket to apply pressure and one where you use your own lapel to wrap around the opponent from behind  and then finish it like a bow and arrow.


The next move was an arm bar from the rear mount which was formally one of my most favouritest moves. Basically you force an arm into his T-Rex defence and grab your gi pants so you can use this as leverage to pull the arm away from the his side. You then use the other arm to push against the side of the guys head (the same side as where the rest of the action is happening) and lean your body out on that side passing your other side leg over and around his head and falling back to the floor, taking the trapped arm with you to finish the arm bar. Remember to clench your legs together tight to minimise the possibility of the guy escaping the hold.



Next up was three good little tricks to help you defend when an opponent has got your back.
The first one was a very slick inverted arm bar. The guy has you rear mounted and has managed to pass and arm under your chin for the rear naked choke. He's about to fold the other arm over the hand of the first. This would be disastrous and must be stopped at all costs. What you do at this point is use both of your arms to grab the arm that's about to wrap over the choking arm and pull it down, using your shoulder as a fulcrum to finish the inverted arm bar. It's so simple yet it's not a move you'll instantly think of when being threatened in that position.  
Second one was the good old crossed feet crusher. Your opponent has your back and commits the cardinal sin of crossing his feet to keep the hold, rather than getting his hooks in. All you need do is pass one of your legs of the top of his crossed ankles and use your other leg to triangle it. Pushing down on this now puts an immense and very painful amount of pressure on the guy's ankle. I have never known this to fail when executed correctly.
The last one was a body lock break. The guy has your back and is blessed with legs long enough to wrap one around your body fully, using the other leg to triangle it in place for a really tight lock. What Ian showed was you lean your body weight toward the triangled foot so you and your opponent are over on your sides. You then bring the your leg that is closest to the crossed feet up to press against them and use your off side arm to push against his inside leg just above the knee, while your nearside arm pushes against the mess of ankles you got on the other side to put pressure on his ankles for an ankle lock tap. Nice move.



Rolling:

First roll of the night was with Rich. I mostly played about with guard but fell into my usual routine of using crazy legs to block his passes while trying to hit the occasional sub. This is a habit I must break out of because it's not gonna take me anywhere in the long run. I got to remember to go for the sweeps from the outset.


Next was Glenn Cutter, who used his his usual ferocity and pace to good effect. I initially went for an arm drag to get to his back but Glenn's judo skills helped him resist this to good effect and brought him out on top. I working from guard I threw up an arm bar attempt and tried to push my leg through for an omoplata but didn't get anything. Then Glenn broke my closed guard and after a while managed to pass my open guard and come round to North South, though he strangely just rested on that for a while, not trying to threaten anything. I was just waiting for him to move one way or the other to make my escape and when he eventually did I managed to quick pull back to half guard. That was where the roll ended.


Next up was Jay. A new guy who didn't have a gi. I asked him what kind of experience he had to which he replied " this is only my second session". I was about to help him out and run him through some basics but he basically bull rushed me and tried to hit me with an achilles leg lock, but with both his legs crossed over mine and trying to yank on it for all he was worth. I just stepped into it to take any pressure off then turned towards his ankles and isolated one, then slapped and achilles lock of my own on which got the tap. I then explained to him about the whole illegality of the method he used for the lock for Bjj purposes (he was reaping the knee) and started again. He charged straight in again going full pace and trying to bulldoze me over so I explained to him about not extending the arms to push against an opponent while slapping a light arm bar on him.


Last roll of the night was with Chris Whiting who is definitely showing improvement. He's not using all his strength to just try and push me down and crush my neck from in my guard any more, in fact there were definitely some signs of guard pass attempts. I did get him with and arm bar from the guard at one point but this time I really had to work for it whereas previously he used to just basically give up his arm with one of his throat crushing endeavours.

After rolling we all had some photies taken. This is by far the best one though :oD

Great session all round really. Everyone seems happy with the club at moment and we have a great new influx of guys who have been attending regularly and show some strong commitment. Some athletic types too who could make a decent run of it at competitions if they stick at it. I see great times ahead for this new little club.

Now I've gotta remember to prep some stuff for this weekend just in case me and Marcus get to train Monday and Tuesday lunchtime. ¬m/