DV8 Bjj 14/11/13

Second week training at the new Warriors Gym, Weston Super Mare, and once again it was the only training I got in that week. NOT HAPPY!! It's a problem I have since resolved thankfully but it was a sparse and miserable two weeks for me.

Still, on the up side it really made me appreciate when Ian's Thursday night class came around. Reasonably good numbers turned out at the class with a couple of old faces coming back and a new guy too. Good stuff.

Ian started us off with a double leg shoot takedown. The usual drive in left knee first, arms reach around legs with your head out to the right and push your head to the left to 'turn the corner' taking the opponent down to the floor with you jumping straight to side control. Nice and easy for the first one.



The next technique me and Marcus affectionate named the 'Mutha Fucker Choke'. The opponent has just tried to shoot in for the double but you've managed to sprawl to defend it. From there you reach under the guys arm on the right (his left) and take a fingers in grip on his collar. With your other hand you take a thumb in grip at the back of his neck. To finish you just need to bring the left arm over his head to the right (his left) side and try to push the your elbow toward your other wrist. This will tighten off the choke. You can finish this technique from the side or pull the guy into your guard for more control.



Next up was the Sprawl to Anaconda Roll. Once again you've sprawled against the takedown. This time you pass your arm through the gap between his head and shoulder (obviously using the arm on the side where his head is sticking out) and under his opposite side arm to grab the back of his arm and pull it in.You now bring your other arm down on the outside until you can post your underarm hand into the crook of the outside arm. Now, using the outer arm to clamp inward, you knock the opponent's arm in to avoid any basing and roll yourself and your opponent over to that side and then curl in toward him to finish the choke.


Moving to a different tact Ian changed to the Overhook Guard. First up was a cross choke. The opponent is in your guard postured up with his hands posting up on your waist/lower abdomen. Grab the opponent's cuff of his right wrist with your left hand using a pocket style grip (turn the cuff inside out on itself). With you reaching under his wrist you pull up with both hands whilst drawing up with your knees to break his posture down and stretch the arm out long in front of you.Switching grips to use the right hand to keep his arm stretched in place you bring your left arm inside then wrap it over the top of the outstretched arm and then back under to grab at the opponent's opposite collar. You can then let go with the right hand and tighten up the Overhook Guard position. To finish off the cross collar choke you just grab his right shoulder with your right hand and drive your elbow towards the wrist of your other hand for the choke.


The second submission from Overhook Guard was the Rickson Armbar. If you try to go for the gi choke but the opponent postures himself up slightly and drops his head down to the side and uses his free arm he can block out the choke. From here you open your guard and escape your hips out to the side, then put your far side foot on the nearside hip of your opponent and use the knee of that leg to press against the back of your overhooking arm putting immense pressure on the opponents trapped arm at the elbow. I've always loved this technique even though I haven't hit it a lot in free rolling. I think I'm going to try and incorporate the overhook guard and some of it's techniques into my game a bit more. I'll add it to an aim sheet.

That's the end of another uneventful week of Bjj in my life. Fortunately I know (because I've already lived it) that next week picks up a bit. ¬m/

DV8 Bjj 7/11/13

I've severely missed out on training this last week as our usual lunch time venue at Sweat FA, Weston, has been compromised (hopefully only temporarily) due to the dojo side of the operation moving to new residence. This left me with my only output for Bjj being watching fight vids, doing drills in my living room (hip escapes, throwing up triangles, upa bridges, shoulder rolling) and the occasional forced grapple on my Wife so I could practice a couple of transitions.

So when Thursday came around for Ian's new class at the brand new Warrior Gym in Worle, (nr Weston Super Mare) Uk, I was chomping at the bit. I ventured down to the new venue, a fully matted out warehouse with a boxing ring in one corner, which is conveniently just 300 metres or so down the road from my house, for at first lesson in our new home.

For this week however, Ian wasn't feeling at his best so although he was present, Glenn Cutter enthusiastically took over the class.


After the standard beastly Glenn warm up, he ran us through some Knee on Belly Escapes. The first was where you grab the foot of the opponent's KOB leg with your nearside hand and grab the arm or collar with the other hand. Escape your hips a bit so your legs are off at an angle to him then pull your legs in towards you and kick out hard while pulling on the leg and pushing on the upper body so you can sit upright, dropping the opponent down on his back so you can come up into side control.


The second escape is where you reach under the shin of the opponent's KOB leg and then thread the arm through the gap at the crock of the leg and reach inside to his knee. If you find it difficult to put your arm fully through you may need to escape hips to get yourself at such an angle to do so. Put your other hand on this knee also and kick forward once again to take him over to side control. With this one you need ensure you bring your arm out quickly after or you can be caught in a nasty arm lock or bicep crush. Neither would be entirely legal in comp but would rely on the ref seeing the infraction.



The last one was a tasty little recovery to half guard. The guys has knee on belly so you push your nearside hand against his offside leg and your offside hand reaches inside and grabs his KOB foot. You then bring your feet in tight to your butt and bump up (as if doing an upa) to bump the pressure from his KOB, giving you time to push his leg in between your legs for the half guard recovery. Nifty little move and definitely the simplest of the three.

Changing tack completely, Glenn then demo'd a couple of takedowns. The first one was a drag takedown. You take a grip of the opponent's right sleeve with your left hand and a grip of his right collar with your right hand. You furl the collar up in your hand so your arm is pointing directly upwards and your elbow is driving into him. Then simultaneously you pull on the arm whilst driving forward with the elbow/collar grip combo and turning left away to drag the guy round and down. A cool little move that will earn you 2 points in Bjj but sod all in Judo apparently. Fair play. Good technique though.


The next variation on it is basically exactly the same but the opponent is letting themselves be dragged so you turn into it then put your right leg out (bent) behind you for the trip takedown. Great skills.

So that was it for another week. Gotta find somewhere a bit stable for us to train on the week days now but that's talk for another time. ¬m/

DV8 Bjj 24/10/13

*I'm writing this about a week late so it'll probably be a bit rushed as I have another to write too.


Another brilliant week of training with my buddies Marcus and Chris during lunchtimes. Got a good amount covered and plenty of sparring in too. I really need to start writing some of the stuff we do down as a lot of it slips my mind after a couple of weeks.

Here is a quick recap of what we covered on Thursday  (24th) at Ian's class.

First off was a Knee Slide Transition to Mount. Fairly basic. Start from a side control where your left (head side) arm is bracing down the opponent's left side while your right hand is down at his right hip to keep his hips in place. You're laying very heavy on him to minimise his ability to move. From there you bring your right knee up to his lower torso while your upper body flattens out his upper body. You gradually slide you knee across his stomach until it gets to the floor the other side of him (his left). Once the knee's in position you need to quickly bend in the lower leg and turn it outward to reach the mount.


Next up Ian showed a Transition from Mount to Side Control the details of which escape me as we didn't spend much time on it.


Ian finished off the transition-fest with 2 Transitions from Side Control to Mount Pressuring the Leg. In basic side control again. This time your opponent is savvy enough to raise the near leg, putting his foot on the thigh/knee of the other leg, to block a potential pass from an opponent. In this case you turn your lower body to face toward the opponent's legs and use your near arm to push his legs down away from you toward the mat. You then pressure the legs into the ground with your near leg and slide through, similar to the method in the first transition.

The next one was if the guy raises his leg high to stop the pass. To counter this you bring your near leg up and hook it over his flat (offside) leg and push his near leg so it goes over your knee. You can then use this leverage to crush his leg into the mat and once again knee slide over the leg to mount. A few nice reliable transitions to mount there.


Ian finished off the lesson with a Standing Rear Waist Lock Counter to Rolling Kimura. The opponent has a standing rear waist lock on you. To break this you need to select his top hand and either; use two hands to grip his one (top) wrist and push down as hard as you can, OR you can drive a knuckle into the back of his hand until he releases his grip. Once the grip is broken you quickly switch to the figure four wrist grip of the kimura, turn toward the guy then fall/sit backward and kick out with your leg with foot hooked at his inside thigh. He will flip right over the top of you onto his back and then you can roll on top of him in side control and hit the kimura finish. Lovely move. One pitfall I noticed was that you can sometimes try rolling straight over in to it and mess it up. You need him to land on his back first then you can roll over on top.

That's it for this write up. I've got more to type out now though so, once again, I'm sorry for the hasty blog and finish but rest assured, I'm spending a lot more time training these days than I am writing about it which is probably the way it should be.

¬m/