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.
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