DV8 Academia de Jiu Jitsu 20-9-12

It was quite a small turn out this week at Sweat FA, Weston Super Mare. Didn't matter much though as we still had a good session with some frantic rolling at the end which is pretty much what you want out of a session really.

Venue: Sweat FA, Weston Super Mare, Uk
Instructor: Ian Rossiter (Black Belt - Checkmat).


Warm Up:

Laps of the mat with arm windmills, butt kicks, knee ups and side steps. Shoulder, arm and neck stretching. 15 x 2 Squats, 15 x 2 Press ups and 15 x 2 Sit ups followed by 10 x 7 Reverse crunches. Finished off with some leg stretching.


Techniques:
(For ease of description I will explain a technique using the sides (left/right) whichI initially learned them from)


The theme for this lesson was a bit of an amusing coincidence as, just before the lesson, I had chatted with Dan Foster about incorporating more combinations into my game. This is where you try for a sub or a sweep and the opponent blocks it, but you then alter the attack for a different sub or sweep attempt. So when Ian announced his plan to feature a string of techniques I was pleasantly surprised and a bit smug.



The combination string, starting from closed guard, was a Kimura from closed guard, then a guillotine from closed guard, then to hip bump sweep, to kimura from top and then take the back to finish with the rear naked choke.  So a nice long string with a good bit of variation.


We started with the basic Kimura from the guard. Due to the joys of Youtube  I will not have to explain some of the easier moves. (Great Stuff)

This clip comes courtesy of ExpertVillage

So we drilled the move first to finish. I was partnered with Chris Whiting first off. I also ran Chris through a bit of the old "Kimuras from anywhere" stuff from the Jason Scully clips.

Next up we acted as though the guys blocks the initial Kimura attempt by wrapping his arm around your back and grabbing a handful of gi. This brought us neatly into a Guilottine attempt from guard. And another Youtube clip for you.

Vid uploaded by StevenPourciau

We drilled this one for a bit then carried it on as if the guy had managed to get a hand in to block the choke and put his free hand out as if to block being immediately turned over. This brings us neatly on to the Hip Bump Sweep from closed guard.

 

 Video courtesy of GGBJJ

We drilled this going all the way through from the beginning with the Kimura attempt, to getting the Hip Bump Sweep and coming over into Mount. From there, Ian took it on to the Kimura from top control, first demonstrating why it's not easy to get a Kimura from mount, then taking us through to the Kimura from top control which essentially has you giving up mount for side control.

This vid was uploaded by sirzig

The final part of this string occurs when the opponent grabs his belt or gi to block the kimura attempt. Releasing the opponent's wrist, but keeping hold of your own wrist so he's still trapped on your arms, you step your leg back from his head, then bring your elbow out so you can wrap it under the guys head. Then you can step your right leg (the one that is closer to his lower body) in between his legs to put the first hook in place and pull the guy up toward you and roll over onto your right side, bringing the second hook in as you go. You can then finish this with a nice Rear Naked Choke or whatever rear mount technique is your favourite.

A nice string of techniques with alternates there to give you options.



Sparring:

For the sparring we seperated in to threes and did the 2 grapple for a minute then the third guy jumps on the guy with the commanding position and then it carrys on in that order. I was with Dan Foster and Justin Thomas. This set up is pretty intense and you can't shake the feeling that you're getting mugged when the new guy jumps in on you. It went Justin jumps in on Dan, Me on Justin, then Dan on Me. And it pretty much went as the game dictates. I got a Bow and Arrow Choke on Justin, Justin hit Dan with a Kimura from top and Dan got me with a Triangle from guard. Other than those subs the pace was fairly frantic and all around a pretty good roll. Of particular note to me was that Justin's game has vastly improved (to tap Dan is a big achievement in itself) with him showing some great skill to complement his giants strength. I managed to hit a cool half guard sweep on Dan, although it resulted in me getting to confident in a pass attempt to get tapped out via the above mentioned Triangle from Guard. Dan has a pretty shit hot guard game that I really need to remember when I roll against him. Every time I forget that he ends up tapping me.



We've got some good stuff coming up soon. Leo Vieira's back at the end of October for a seminar and Chico's doing a seminar down in Weston. Cool stuff to look forward too. I also need to polish up my game for my next competitive outing at the Hereford Open in December.

Lot's of Bjj loveliness to look forward to. ¬m/

2 Man Training 18/9/12

As mentioned last week, I have managed to get a session of lunch time grappling training in with one of the regulars down the gym (Sweat FA, Weston Super Mare).

Tom is a brown belt in Judo and is soon to go pro as a boxer. He also works full time as a doorman up in Bristol, so often has to use his Judo training to eject troublesome patrons or break up incidents.

It is Tom's knowledge of Judo that I am trying to leech upon during these sessions (not really overly bothered with Boxing) and it really is helping my stand up improve no end. We've generally just been drilling a couple of throws each week, then stand up sparring for about 10 to 15 minutes.

Previous weeks we've done the old faithful Seoi Nage shoulder throw, the O soto Otoshi hard trip and the O goshi hip throw (Glenn Cutter will be elated that I have actually bothered to learn those names :o).  This week we worked on a trip where you do a little skip step forward and take out the guy's opposite leg.
I have found out that this technique is called Ko Uchi Gari and thanks to the joys of Youtube, I'll never have to write up a lengthy Judo description. Yay.

Video courtesy of Matt Brink, Youtube.

We drilled this both sides and then threw in a variation where you don't hit the first trip so you switch the position of your leg and trip his second leg instead. Very cool move.

We then did about 10 minutes of stand up sparring during which time he managed to take me down about a half dozen times. I managed to get in three myself which was an improvement over the total bitching he gave me last week.

For the portion of the session where I taught him, I showed some simple chokes from guard that can also be adjusted to use from standing. The Loop Choke that we did in Ian's class a couple of Thursdays ago was one and the Cross Choke using the Fist on one side was the other. 

After that we hit the mats for a bit of ground sparring which went pretty much the way you'd expect it to although his escaping techniques are improving and I can definitely see him attempting some of the moves I've taught him. I'll just need to drill with him more so he can get to the subs more naturally with out tipping me off way in advance as to what he's going for. 

To make matters even better, a boxing trainer named Matt, who has been training a lot of young guys in boxing while I've been there grappling in recent months has asked me if I fancy doing a bit of No Gi training with him on a day or two a week. Could be good. Well all mat time is good really.  

¬m/

DV8 Academia de Jiu Jitsu - 13/9/12

This blog is a land mark for me in my Bjj Obsession for 2 reasons. Firstly, it's my one hundredth blog entry, which is pretty special in it's own right. Secondly, and more importantly in my eyes, it's the first opportunity I've had to teach this martial art that I love so much. Yes, that's right, I am chuffed to fuck because I was allowed by my long time instructor, Ian Rossiter, to instruct part of this nights class in his absence. I say part of as I shared the instruction privilege with Glenn Cutter, who for half of the class, ran us through some very handy throwing techniques.

Wahooo, I finally found a program that will make transparent backgrounds for my pictures :o)

 

Venue: Sweat FA, Weston Super Mare, Uk.
Instructors: Martin Eyre (Blue Belt, Hey that's me :oD), Glenn Cutter (Blue Belt).


Warm Up:
 I started the warm up with the usual laps of the mat with arms windmilling, then butt kicks, then knee ups, side steps facing in, side step facing out. We then stopped for some arm stretching and neck stretching. Then some leg stretching. Then, at the request of Rich Presley before the class, we changed it up a bit and paired off for some no handed guard passing/sweeping, then some guard pulling (10 each). We then did some break falling up the mat. First forward rolls. Then forward rolls into backward rolls. Then another which I can't remember (d'oh). Everybody was breathing fairly heavy after all that.




Techniques:
(I will explain the movements from the perspective that I first learned them for ease of description)

For the techniques this week, Glenn Cutter took the first half of the class and showed us some pretty excellent takedowns. He demonstrated techniques that lent themselves well to Bjj stand up, particularly against a resisting opponent.



 First up was a pretty cool method of getting a trip takedown against an opponent's guard pull attempt. So your facing off against the opponent, both collar and elbow grappling for position to initiate a throw, with your right hand on his collar and left at his elbow. The opponent decides to pull guard and you are quick enough to see this happening. As he's raised his right leg up and started to wrap it around you, you twist your grip on his lapel about a quarter turn clockwise whilst pushing that fist against him to bring him off balance. You then step forward to bring your right leg behind his left and then pull back with it whilst simultaneously pushing forward with your clenched right fist. The guy should go flat (and quite hard) down on his back with you following him down to land with your right knee across his left inside thigh - to close it down from any counter attacking or defensive movement - and a large part of the rest of your body weight leaning against his other leg. The pass should come very easy from there.
I drilled this and all other moves with Rich. We both enjoyed this move and indeed the whole takedown segment of this class.



Next up we did the same but without the guard pull attempt. So basically, you push him away with your clenched fist grip, then step in and try for the trip. This version, as Glenn pointed out, can be a lot scrappier and no where near as clean, as you go into a kind of locked legs struggle, but as long as you persevere you can get the guy down eventually by waiting for him to try and turn his weight against you then just taking him down the opposite way.



The third takedown of the night was one I really enjoyed. Taking a grip of the opponent's right sleeve cuff with left hand and a grip of his collar (either side) with your right, step away from the opponent to the opposite side from which of his hands you have - in my case I had his right so I stand away from him to his left . You then quickly turn away (turning left) from him whilst pulling him around in that direction rapidly as if to swing him over. Consequentially, his body moves at a much faster rate than his legs can carry him and he goes over on to his back with the arm you had originally secured presenting itself neatly for the arm bar finish.

While doing this move I commented to Rich about how friggin awesome it would be to pull the whole lot of it off in a competition. The swing takedown into arm bar. The would be up there with flying arm bars for silky smooth finishes.



For the last move Glenn demonstrated a step in for O Soto Gari, then turning it into a Seio Nage. You're standing facing your opponent with left hand grip on his right cuff, and a right hand grip of his right collar. You then step your left leg out slightly left so you can bring your right leg forward to the outside of his right leg. This is where you'd usually go for the O Soto Gari. That's exactly what the opponent will be expecting too so for this move, Glenn showed us a slick way to turn it into a Seio Nage. By then swinging your left leg back and around in a sweeping motion, so you have essentially turned you back on him, you can extend your right left straight and flip the guy over your shoulder, hard to the mat and end neatly in side control.
I found this move difficult at first because I kept bending the right leg right at the end taking away my power to throw him over the shoulder and basically turning it into a trip. Got it ok in the end though.

Some great moves there from Glenn and a lot of the guys commented that we could maybe do a a regular half class of takedowns, maybe on a monthly basis. I'll have to put that to Ian and see what he says.


The second half of the class was taught by me. It was a real land mark in my Jiu Jitsu progress that I was allowed to take this and I was really chuffed. So I decided to do the segment on my old personal nemesis, The Half Guard. I used to find the half guard a real problem when i first started Jiu Jitsu, seeing it as more of a position I was trapped in and must escape from, rather than a position where I could easily transition to rear mount, sweep or submit an opponent. The key thing I have found is to make the space to get off you back  so you are turned onto your side facing in to your opponent, preferably with an underhook in too.

With this in mind, the first technique I demonstrated was a method of breaking free from the flattened out half guard bottom, to get to the attacking half guard on you side. Starting with my opponent laying flat on top of me with his right leg trapped in my half guard (his left leg basing off to my right side), lying diagonally across me so his left arm has wrapped around under my head and his right arm is under hooking my left and reached up to grip his other hand to the left of my head. He's rather fiendishly using this position to stall, maybe because he's short of breath, maybe the times nearly up and he's ahead on points. What you need to do first is make some space for yourself. You do this by reaching up with your right hand to take a grip of gi underneath his left arm pit, and reach up over the top of his right arm with your left, sliding the arm under his face/neck, to grab a handful of his gi  at the top of his left shoulder (your hands should be framing his shoulder, one above, one below). You can now bridge up using your legs to assist you, pushing out with your hands to make enough space to get your head in under his head/upper chest. Once it's in there you can quickly swing your left hand down then up to go under his right arm and reach around to take a grip of his gi or belt as far as you can reach around. You can now bring your right elbow in close to your lower stomach, until you can get it under you. You can now use the combined strength of your arm, shoulder and body, to move yourself into a more upright position. This is now a much more attacking Half Guard position, giving you a good set up for a transition to rear mount or some good sweeps.
I had the class just practise getting themselves out of the troubling flattened position first.


Moving on from there I added a sweep to it. You've got yourself to the attacking Half Guard set up position above. To pre-empt any attempted moves to back, the opponent quickly gets the whizzer on your deep under hooking left arm. From here you start to push your weight into him, sitting up very slightly as you go. When the guy inevitably starts to push his weight back against you, you quickly reach down to grip his gi pants at the left knee with your right hand, then quickly fall/turn backwards while pulling him over with your deep left under hook and then pushing him over with the pant knee grip. If executed correctly you should be able to easily sweep even a much heavier opponent to his back and come up in side control.
I seemed to get a fairly good reaction for this sweep which was good.



The last move i demonstrated was the Half Guard Twist Sweep. You've managed to get slightly upright on to your side with your half guard ( the guys right leg is trapped) but he's clapped pushing your left arm at the bicep to stop you from getting the under hook. You must ensure at this point, that you are trapping his right leg using your right leg wrapped over it so your right foot ends up on the outside of his right leg. You must position your right knee so it is pressed against his inside right thigh and then quickly move your left foot to press against the outside of his right knee. From here you use your left hand to ensure he can't base out and stop the move with his right arm, by gripping it in close. Then twisting your lower body left, you push your right knee against his inside right leg, which pushes him over your left foot, sweeping him over onto his back with you coming up neatly into side control. The move is easier if you get it set up and then wait for your opponent to push forward, then use their momentum to help you, but it's a very doable sweep even with out the additional help.
This is easily one of my favourite half guard sweeps.



Sparring:

For the sparring this session I had a fairly mediocre night. I got a couple of subs but nothing that will set the world alight.

I rolled with Rich, Glenn'son, Sean Errock, 'Big' Justin Thomas and Tommy Hill.


That was it for the week for training. I was hoping to get a session in with my mate Tom Gifford but unfortunately it didn't happen. I shall try and coax him into some for next week. Gotta get the mat time in :o)

DV8 Academia de Jiu Jitsu 6/9/12

During the course of this week I have managed to get some training in with a new guy from our Gym (Sweat FA, Weston). A few weeks ago, after I'd had a lunchtime training session with Marcus Hedley, I was approached by a big lad called Tom, who asked what kind of stuff I'd been doing? He said he used to do a bit of Judo when he lived in France and had got to Brown Belt, but gave it up when he moved back to England. Tom asked if I would ever be interested in doing a bit of a cross training thing. He'd show me some stand up and I'd show him some ground grappling.

Having just lost my regular week day training partner (Marcus) I was all over this idea. I've now had 3 lunchtime sessions with Tom and I've gotta say, it's well cool having a regular lunch time training partner again. We've been teaching each other some stuff starting pretty basic. Tom's been showing me some cool trips and over shoulder throws - I was already reasonably educated in some of it but Tom's really help me get the techniques nailed down and we're doing tons of sparring to help with my Bjj standing starts. For my part of the bargain I've been starting him off fairly basic too, showing how to get himself out of tough situations to begin. A basic flower sweep from closed guard, and Upa escape from being mounted and the bridge and shrimp to guard recovery from side control bottom. I also chucked in a couple of basic finishes, Americana, Kimura, Arm bar.

In all it's really been helping me with both my standing game - which has needed a bit of work lately - and my ability to teach and transfer techniques to other people. This will prove invaluable to me for the future as I have every intention of teaching classes one day. I will start to once again blog my "Two Man Training", maybe under a different name, I haven't decided yet.

As for this week at Ian's class, the numbers were a little lower than previous weeks but there's still the regular faces coming in which is good.

Venue: Sweat FA, Weston Super Mare, Uk
Instructor: Ian Rossiter (Checkmat Black Belt)


Warm Up:
The usual laps of the mat with arm wind milling, knee ups, butt kicks and side steps. Then on to arm, neck and shoulder stretching, Squat (3 x 10), push ups (3 x 10) and sit ups (3 x 10). We finished up with some leg stretching and the weird torso twisty thing where you sit down and turn you legs one way and twist your bother 'tother.




Techniques:
(I will describe the techniques from the side I initially learnt them on for ease of description).

This week  Ian started us off with the Loop Choke from Closed Guard. With the opponent in your closed guard attempting to posture up and break your guard, you reach up to grab deep inside his right collar with your right hand. You then pull him in close to you (your legs can help with this) and wrap your left arm over his shoulder and around his back, tucking the hand into the crook of your other arm. Ensure that the wrist of the hand holding his collar is taught rather than limp and turn the whole hold anti clockwise as if it was like a steering wheel and you were turning left.
I drilled this and all other techniques with Rich Presley. We've found with this move, that the hold when applied right comes on very strong but even if it doesn't come on you can fall back with using it to sweep your opponent over so you can gain a top control position. I have used this in sparring many times before.




Next up was another method of breaking down a postured opponent in your guard (someone might get a bit suspicious that these moves were geared at his recent disappointment in competition). Once again the guy's in your closed guard and again your get the right cross collar grip. This time though you fall out to the left side, pulling the opponent with you and using your legs to escort him down also. From there you just need to cross grab him at the left shoulder with your free left hand (going over the top of your other arm) and finish as for a standard cross choke, pulling your arms in tight to you body and letting the angle that is formed with your arms as they go around your ribs bring the pressure on.
A handy variation on the cross choke there and a good way to break that posture.


Next up we re-did the Rickson Arm Bar from last week. Handy. Means less typing.


After that we were shown a Figure Four Arm Lock from Guard. We started off by drilling the way to get the Figure Four Arm Lock from standing. Your opponent places a hand on your shoulder (Rich's right on my left shoulder) to which you overwrap it with your left arm by sweeping your arm inside, up, over the top of his arm and then around and back under, clasping the arm tight to your side. Your forearm needs to be quite high up and his arm. With your right hand you press it against his right shoulder, then grab the wrist of that arm with your left hand (to form the figure four shape with your arms). To apply pressure you push on his shoulder while extending that arm  and leaning your body slightly back to hyper extend the trapped arm. Unpleasant.
This is basically exactly the same as from the guard. As long as you manage to get an overwrap on the arm, with your forearm sufficiently far enough up the arm, the move finishes itself.


A little bonus for the lesson that Ian showed me and Rich, was a cool little way to apply a kind of "Elbow Hook" move from a blocked triangle choke attempt. You've basically got the guy in an amazing triangle set up (with your right leg over his shoulder and your left closed over it for the pressure. His right arm is inside). From here, the guy has blocked it by wrapping his arm down and around your left leg. However, this leaves his elbow sticking out and exposed. All you need to do is use your left arm to wrap around the end of the exposed elbow (from under side to above), securing it with a gable grip at the top. You then turn your arm outward (similar to how you would for a heel hook) to put on a shite load of pain and finish the move.
We were both pretty blown away and chuffed with this technique and I can image it will come in handy in the future.


Sparring:

This week I sparred with Rich, Chris Whiting, Old Rob and Chris Cook. Surprisingly, the only one of them I didn't tap out was Old Rob who showed some amazing defence, first from being mounted, then from being rear mounted. Very impressive.

So that's it for another very good week of training. Next week, I have been asked by Ian to take part of the class in his absence (he's on holiday) which should be pretty cool as it's the first time I've instructed a class of people. I very much look forward to it.

¬m/