Checkmat Bristol 27-3-12

I went up to Chico's class on Tuesday night up at LA Gym in Bristol. It was a great turn out and a very exerting class. Now that was the problem for me as I've (in an effort to get a bit of a beach body for the summer) been taking creatine to assist with my physique. For those that don't know, creatine works by taking the water content in your body and filling your muscles with it to help increase your size. This leaves your body dehydrated requiring you to drink a lot of water whilst using it. Whilst exerting yourself in a combat/grappling sport such as Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, you find yourself dehydrating MUCH quicker and this leads to you becoming weaker, exhausted quicker and you experience muscle cramps.

Now I managed to drain my 1 litre bottle of water in about 20 minutes on Tuesday leaving me to become extremely dehydrated. I managed to experience all of the other side effects listed above also. I couldn't use explosive power, I was totally drained after about 40 minutes of drilling and I got a leg cramp at one point. Also, due to the lack of energy, I started to lose concentration/awareness which knocked me off of the technical aspect of my game and prevented me from taking much of the lesson in. Which is why I find myself hardly able to remember any of the lesson. Which is why I'll not be taking creatine again. Bloody stuff.

Venue; LA Gym, Bristol, Uk.
Instructor: Chico Mendes (Grade 2 Black Belt).

Warm Up:
We were getting changed when the warm up started but I can remember doing some neck and arm limbering, some running and some sit ups and press ups. The Chico had us do lengths of the mat doing some less orthodox stuff. First was some frog jumps. Then one legged frog jumps (a length for either leg). Then we did these weird things where you fire your leg out one way then reset to a frog position, then the other way and reset, all the way down the mat (I was mega shit at these).

Drills:
To start off we were paired up and told to aggressively drill passing the guard from standing. The guy on the floor is on his back with his legs tucked up and he has to try and get a half guard or closed guard on his opponent. The standing guy just has to try and pass to side or mount or back.

I paired up with Marcus Hedley first off and then went with Mark Acton (long time Blue Belt). Can't remember how well I did. That's pretty much going to be a theme for this write up as I'm finding it difficult to remember anything.

Chico then showed us a couple of techniques that can help in our ability to pass from standing. First he said it's most important to squat down in a combat stance so you're on the same level as your opponent. Standing guys are easier to sweep or pull into your guard. Another tip was to find which is you opponent's strong side, that being the side he leads with and finds more comfortable to attack for sweeps with. For this you see which leg the guy is leading toward you with. More often than not this will be his strong side. Chico is a firm advocate of trying to get the guy attacking you with his weak side. To do this you need to ensure that your lead leg in your squat stance in on the other side to your opponents favoured lead leg (meaning if he starts coming forward with his right leg then you lead with your own right leg so he has to switch to his left leg if he wants to attack your closest point) thus leaving him attacking with his weaker side.

We were then shown some techniques to pass the guard. You're standing up in your attacking posture, your opponent is sat up, leant forward with one leg out (preferably his weaker side leg). You can forcefully lift his near leg in the air and then come forward so your weight is pushing into his raised leg (kind of like a half stack) with both legs clenched around that leg leaving him in quite an uncomfortable position. You can then easily swim past the leg into side control.


For the second, same start as the first with the opponent leant forward with one leg out (preferably his weaker side leg). You come forward toward him and push on his forward presented knee with the same side hand (his right knee your left hand) and with your other hand press on his same side hip to keep him away from you. From there you can press the knee out and down pushing him onto that side of his body and walk your legs out and around that flattened out leg  so your body is extended out but you have a lot of your body weight pressed against him. From there you can either attack straight into the pass but give the guy a chance to recover in the scramble or you can wait for him to move and pass when his leg is moving in the wrong direction to get a fine pass into side control. Also, if the guys forgoes moving the leg and instead tries to sit up into you, you can push your head into his upper body to keep him from getting anywhere.

Next up was an attack against the opponent who has both legs forward or even raised in the arm slightly while leaning back (bad position that, even though some think it's good). The standing guy just needs to pull them up and toward him and then push them apart so the opponent is going into a quite painful split. As a result of this the opponent will either try to alleviate the pressure or try to attack, either way they'll bend one of their legs at which point you can push both legs in the direction of the non-bent leg and attack the bent leg in the style of the first pass.

Three good passes. Chico then pitted us against each other in situational rolling. Guy on bottom had to try and get a secured guard or a sweep on his standing opponent (or a sub but that wasn't very likely). The guy standing had to try and pass the guard. I was really blowing out of my ass by this time and can barely remember who I rolled with or how successful I was (I imagine not very).

Rolling:

We finished up with a bit of sparring. I really was good for nothing by this time and rolled against Andy (Judo Guy). After a brief struggle for the takedown I tried to be too flashy (idiot when I was that knackered) and tried to hit an armbar when Andy was over balanced. Unfortunately Andy has a pretty amazing base and managed to power me down on my back and then proceeded to crush me in side control/north south for about 4 and a half minutes with me feeling pretty feeble in my attempts to get out. He attacked once with and Americana attempt and a few times with Kimuras and chokes. I eventually managed to get out and turn him over so I was in his guard and then had about 30 seconds to do anything by which time the horn (Chico's phone) sounded and it was over. Pretty poor show from me really.

Next roll was against Tom Hill, a regular to Chico's class and Ian's Weston Class. Tom was fresh off a win at the latest instalment of the Hereford Open where he took the Gold medal in the under 64 Kg category at white belt. Well done for that Tom, it's a really good achievement. So I rolled with Tom, which pretty much featured me trying to pass his guard for most of it. I eventually did but didn't get to do much from there before he reclaimed guard. Pretty uneventful roll really.

I sat out the final roll as I was totalled by this time. Just to reiterate this, I WILL NOT BE TAKING CREATINE AGAIN. Bloody stuff ruined my Bjj game for the night.

After class Chico told us that he is going home to Brazil for a month to see his daughter and family and train with some of his old friends back home. He did leave us with a good bit of news though. Raphael Heck managed to get a new visa and is on his way back to take the classes in his absence (if all goes to plan). Great news.

Once again to anyone who reads this, I apologise for the lack of detail and can't emphasize enough how shagged I was during that class. Really wasn't operating on full. Promise you I won't do that again.

Til next time \m/.

Thursday 22-3-12

I had a great time at last nights Bjj session under the tutelage of Ian Rossiter (Brown Belt). The numbers were down a bit from last week which always seems to be the case after a grading unfortunately, but sometimes it's better having a smaller class as it feels a bit more personal and you get a bit more face time with the instructor.

This week we have also been aware that Rich Presley (2.0) is going to be entering the Hereford Open 12 this week in the 88.3 Kg category which is usually one of the most heavily contested weight classes in the competition so we've been trying to help him drill stuff that would be useful for his effort. I hope that he's done enough, Rich certainly has been improving massively in the last year that I've known him and he's been training like a total demon with sessions at least 3 times a week (lucky bastard). Using the ever evolving guard game he's been exhibiting recently and with some good fortune maybe Rich can come home with something shiny for his cupboard. Good Luck Dude.


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 10 x 3, Squats 10x 3, Crunches 10 x 3, then some leg stretching and the weird torso twist stretch.


Techniques:

Ian started us off by drilling the basic armbar from the guard. Opponent sits in your guard and grabs both lapels quite high. You then grip their sleeve cuffs, one in each hand, open your guard and put your feet to the guys hips, then shift your own hips out to one side and fire your leg on that side up and over the top of the guys arms and past his head. Then return to the closed guard start position and do the same for the opposite side.

Each guy drilled this 10 times. I was drilling with Dan the blue belt for this but we quickly got switched around by Ian so the more experienced guys were each with a newer guy. I got paired off with Chris Whiting. Chris is experiencing some difficulty with his hip manoeuvrability and took a while to get the gist of the drill and how to get in the correct position to apply the pressure. We worked on it for a bit and I think he understood where he was going wrong in the end.

For the next drill we went through the basic omoplata from guard. Opponent sits in your guard and grabs both lapels quite high. You then grip their sleeve cuffs, one in each hand (same as before). You then pull one of the hands up and across a bit to stretch the guy and using the leg of that side of the body, you open your guard and bring the leg up and over the shoulder and down under his chin. Whilst doing that you can swivel your body outside (so you've gone out at a angle on the same side the leg is over the shoulder) and then triangle the other leg over the first so it's nice and secure. Now, securing the guy by the belt or the leg, use your legs to push him down to the mat, keeping the arm secured between your legs. From there you can finish the omoplata however you usually would, be it with the for leg extended, bringing both legs round to the side or keeping them triangled and leaning forward. Always ensure you've got the downward pressure on his back though or he'll roll out and you've lost the position. DO NOT secure him by wrapping your nearside arm around his nearside leg or he can roll over and reverse the hold putting you in the omoplata.
We were back to original partners here so I was drilling with Dan again. During the drilling of this technique Dan stated that he has never been tapped out by an omoplata in sparring. I think that's definitely worth noting for a future challenge.


Moving us on from there Ian showed us a method of hitting the omoplata from the feet on hips guard. Start by gripping each of the opponents sleeve cuffs with your hands and with your feet on the opponents hips. Pushing the guy away with your feet to make space, move one of your legs outside the opponents same side arm then over the top and back inside, using your foot to hook up under the arm pit to form a position called the leg lasso. Now release the grip on the non lasso'd sleeve cuff and transfer it to the lasso'd sleeve cuff so you can use the hand that was securing that cuff to reach outside the leg lasso and grip the opponents arm or sleeve at the triceps. Then you just push the leg that's forming the lasso through further and move it up and over the top of the shoulder and back down under the guys chin (whilst using this movement to shift your body out at an angle) to start the  omoplata. Very nifty technique.


While we were playing about with this one, Marcus remembered a move that Italo Ferreira taught him when he was the head Bjj instructor at Trojan Bristol. From the same leg lasso set up but you need to ensure there is lots of space so you ensure you push yourself away quite far before you get the leg lasso in. You then put the other leg through the hole underneath the leg lasso and roll under on your shoulders. When you come up on the other side you are already in the omoplata position. Nice move. I'll need a lot more time to really nail it though. I only got 3 tries and only really hit it once. The two times I got it wrong I think was down to not putting the leg under far enough.


Rolling:

To help Rich in his training efforts we started off with some situational rolling. First was from side control. It was side controlling escaping. Guy on top just had to maintain side control while the guy at the bottom had to try and recover guard. I paired off with Rich first and let him have both turns on the bottom (mainly because we stupidly misheard the instructions). Rich has developed a really good bridge out and managed to recover guard a couple of times. On some of the times he didn't though, he had a tendency to brutally expose his back. Something for him to work on there.

Next up I paired off with Dan. We only had enough time for me to go on the bottom, I managed to recover guard a couple of times after a bit of a struggle. Dan's good at shifting up to North South and stalling there.

Next situational was guard passing. Guy on the floor closes his guard while the guy in guard tries to break guard and pass. Dan tried to pass first and I had a pretty good time of it. I managed to sweep him twice and maintained guard through the rest of it, though I had to invert at one point to keep guard.
During my stint trying to pass I used the knee in and push leg away guard break to good effect and managed to pass from there when he attempted an omoplata. On the next try Dan went to try an arm bar to which I blocked so he tried and triangle to which I moved out around the outside leaving him to roll up into turtle stopping me from passing.

After that we managed to get in a few rounds of proper rolling. I went with Dan first and after the initial grip fighting effort I pulled guard. From Guard I tried to hit various subs while Dan furiously tried to pass. It went like that for pretty much the entire 3 minutes except I managed to hit a triangle on him right at the end. Just as the 30 second warning had gone he stood to pass and I managed to get a leg around his head. I used the reach up and grab the leg with my hand on the other side of his head method to secure the leg in place then wrapped the other leg around for the triangle. When I had the position I knew that it was tight, I just squeezed with my legs, not even bothering with pulling down the head. I think Dan was going to try and wait the thirty seconds but after I tensed my legs he quickly tapped.

My second roll was against Rich so I didn't want to beast the shit out of him ahead of his match, instead I just tried to get him in tricky positions and let him struggle to get out of them. I got to side control and, as mentioned earlier, Rich used his impressive bridge to try and burst out. Knowing this was coming though I just held on tight using my elbows and knees and eventually he bridge to far exposing his back. I took his back and got both hooks in and was content to let him try to escape while I tried to hold on and to his credit he managed to escape to half guard top in the dying seconds of the roll. Well done on the rear mount escape Rich but you've gotta stop giving up your back from side control. Good luck for Sunday \m/.

My last roll of the night was against Big Justin. Justin looked absolutely shagged going in so I tried my hand at seeing if I could take him down. Justin's got about 3 stone on me and is as strong as an ox so it didn't take me long to realise that pulling guard was the better option. Justin's been struggling with his guard passing so I decided that I'd just close my guard up and throw little threats at him like arm bars, triangles and gi chokes, whilst giving him the opportunity to try and pass my guard. To his credit I didn't get a sub on him, came very close with an arm bar but he seems to have them fairly well scouted now so he pulled the elbow out just enough to lose the threat. Unfortunately he still did next to nothing toward passing the guard. As time dwindled out I could see him getting very frustrated and trying stupid things with his arms outstretched. After our roll I gave him some advice on guard passing and suggested maybe he got himself the Ed Beneville Guard Passing book (I'm not related to Ed Beneville or anything, I just really like his book and suggest it to everyone).

Another session over and I've now got my sights set on the Welsh Open next month and the British Open the month after. Some good times ahead \m/.

Sjja 15-3-12

It was my first class in Weston for a few weeks as I was attending the Bristol class for the last three weeks waiting to see if Marcus got graded. So the class down at Sweat FA, Weston, this week was a bit of a surprise. I didn't realise Ian was going to be giving out some stripes to his white belts in the class, which was a very nice touch for some of the guys who've been coming for quite a while as it's always nice to have a bit of a progression indicator. The numbers for this weeks class were really good too with lots of old faces and regulars and a new guy (Ed; seems like a nice bloke) in attendance.

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


Warm up:

Laps of the mat, including, ass kicks, knee ups, facing inward for 2 laps, facing out for 2 lap and arm windmilling for a couple of laps. Neck, Arm and Shoulder stretching. Push ups 10 x 4, Squats 10x 4, Crunches 10 x 3. Then a round of the seated leg extension crunches and then some leg stretching.


Techniques:

Ian's first technique of the night was a takedown. He started off by drilling us on the set up which has you standing face to face with your opponent. He goes to grab you by the lapel and you block and circle your arm over the top of his and grab the guys belt at the back. At this point you're in a kind of clinch, with you having the dominant positional advantage. After we'd drilled the set up for a bit Ian showed us the finish to the manoeuvre. You simply lift your leg on the other side of your body from the encircled arm up to the opponents inside leg and hook your foot. You then just sit down and use the hooked leg and overhook belt grip to pull your opponent over and to the side with you rolling over after him to land in a top control position (mount, side control or half guard top depending on how the scramble goes).
I drilled this and all the other techniques with Marcus (Hedley) and his spiffy new Koral blue belt. We both found this move quite fun and a little bit flashy. It was pointed out at one point that we (and everyone else it seemed) was doing the technique a little bit wrong where we were throwing straight back over the shoulders instead of off to one side. Ian corrected us all on this and the rest seemed simple.

The next technique was another takedown, this time from a standing grip battle scenario. You and your opponent have a grip on each others gi at the sleeves. From there you fiercely pull one of your arms away so the guy loses the grip he had on that arm, then quickly bring that arm back in and over his shoulder and around the back of his head/shoulders. Then, turning your ass in towards hips, you pull on the arm that you maintained grip on while twisting your body and using the arm around the head to throw his over your hips onto his back. Due to the rock hard nature of the mats at Sweat FA we weren't smashing the hell out of this move, instead we were taking the guy down quite gently and focusing on control, coming down on one knee beside the guy and immediately dropping your ass onto the mat in kesa gatame side control to avoid the guy being able to use the momentum to roll you over the top.


As a natural progression from that Ian added a finish from that position, using the standard head and arm triangle set up. From the kesa gatame set up, push the guys nearside arm across his face and pass your head to the outside of it to secure it in place. Then place the hand of the arm wrapped around the guys neck into the crook of your other arm to lock the triangle up. From there you need to scissor switch your legs over so your body is facing toward the ground to pile on the pressure.


The next move Ian gave us was from a closed guard set up. The opponent's in your closed guard, has both hands gripped on your gi front. Using both of your hands on one of his sleeve cuffs, yank that arm off your gi and up over your head so the guys body is drawn out long, use your legs while you yank to pull up to add to the momentum of the yank. Then, whilst keeping that arm up there with one hand (the one on the other side of the body to the side the arms pulled up), use the other arm to encircle over the top of the guys arm and then back around underneath to take a grip on the guys lapel. This secures the opponent in quite a tight controlling hold with lots of options. The one Ian demonstrated was the standard shoudler grip cross choke where you use your free hand to take a grip of the opponents gi at the shoulder, then sort of scissor your arm toward the guys neck to apply pressure. This is quite a strong and reliable choke when his right.
Me and Marcus also drilled some Rickson Armbars (as demonstrated in the Saulo Ribiero Jiu Jitsu University book) and some omoplatas, moves that are all pretty easy to hit from that controlling position.

The last technique of the day shown to us was from Nathan Moore-Pointing(as Ian had gone over to the White Belts to put them through their paces for their stripes). From the closed guard again and using the same two arms yanks on one sleeve approach but this time when the arm was extended above the head Nathan passed his nearside arm under then over (all the while maintaining the sleeve grip with the other hand) so your arm is passed over the top then back in to grip the opponents gi at the lapel or far shoulder. At this point the guy is pressed/pulled face down to the floor. From here you edge your hips out to the side and release the sleeve grip you previously had to change to a grip on the opponents gi pants, using this to pull the guy in to you thus gaining his back (easy to get hooks in from here). Also, your arm is already in position for a Rear Naked Choke but for some reason the opponents neck seems left extra specially exposed and it doesn't even take much pressure to slap the choke on. Cool move. It's worth mentioning that the back take all occurs with both guys lying on the mat on theirs sides. Resist the temptation to pull the guy over so you're both sat up as the choke is sitting there waiting and is more effective from the position you are in to begin with.


Rolling:
The sparring for the night was against the guys who were getting striped. I rolled against Big Justin, Rich 2.0 and Large Steve (would've been big but I'd already used it).

Against Justin after a bit of a tussle I pulled guard and tried various different ways to sub him from closed. It's a testament to how far Justin's come along that I didn't get an arm bar on him as he always used to fall for that. Justin's freekishly strong too so he's hard to control at the sleeves.

Against Rich, he pulled guard. After a couple of failed pass attempts and a failed sweep attempt from him I managed to finally pass guard to side control and then passed to s-mount (Rich is partial to shrimping as you pass the leg over so it's hard to get the full mount on him). Fortunately with a grip on his collar I was able to swing over and pull him up to take the back. The rest of the roll was me attacking his back with RNC, collar choke and bow and arrow attempts with Rich clamping his chin down and defending quite admirably.

Against Steve I pulled guard then attempted an arm bar, which I though t I had. Ian was standing nearby and said something which I thought was and indication that Steve had tapped. When I released though Steve carried on and later told me he hadn't tapped. From there, I went into an omoplata attempt and then gained mount and attacked with a couple of arm bar attempts. Steve used the standard double grip both times to stop the hold, one time I tried to turn it into a triangle but had to abort to keep top position. Roll ended with Steve defending a last arm bar attempt.


At the end of the class Ian awarded stripes to some of the guys with Big Justin getting one stripe, Large Steve and Neil (the Turtle King) getting two stripes each and Rich 2.0 Presley getting three stripes. Well done guys.

Good class all round. Gotta love this art. \m/

For those of you who live in the US.

The company behind BJJHQ has released a general gear site call MAS. The site has free shipping and free 365 day returns and a pretty nice selection of jiu jitsu gis including the basics like Fuji to ISAMI, Keiko Raca and coming soon Manto and Tatami Fightwear.
There's also a promo going on for a free fuji belt with any fuji gi purchase. I'm not sure how long it will last, but if you're looking to pick up a fuji gi, definitely give MAS a look.
They also carry Scramble, in case you're looking for some cool no-gi gear.



For those who don't live state side they offer their low prices but add a charge for delivery. Take a look at Martialartssupplies.com

Checkmat Bristol 6-3-12

Hey guys. Yesterday evening at Checkmat Bristol was a special night for 5 guys. The promised grading that we were to attend at the recent Leo Vieira seminar got put back for a few weeks for various reasons so it was last night that we got to see a handful of very chuffed, very honoured guys get promoted to their Blue Belts in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. I was particularly happy about this as my long time training partner and buddy, Marcus Hedley, was one of the lucky (though thoroughly deserving) guys to get his belt. Marcus has been training Bjj since just after Ian Rossiter moved his Sjja class up from Burnham to Sweat FA in Weston Super Mare. That's about two years and Marcus is very committed to his training, doing two nights a week most weeks, occasionally fitting 3 sessions in (Lucky B).

The other guys to be graded were Josh Kersey, Shabba Vaithianathan (yes I did just copy and paste that from Facebook), Richard Long and Mario Saeed. Well done to you all guys. You all looked suitably chuffed and I imagine you've spent the best part of today trying to find out where you can get a new blue belt from and how long it'll take to get to you.


Going in to last nights class I was (and still am) carrying a bit of a brutal injury. My legs, yes both of them, are absolutely killing me. Once again. I spent Monday afternoon in the gym with my buddy Steve and we did a "bit of a leg workout". Or 'Big Legs Monday' as Steve's trying to call it although I'm fairly insistent that it's not going to become a weekly thing. Going through a pretty intense workout of Leg Presses, Squats and Weighted Lunges, I could actually barely walk after the session so I knew the next couple of days were gonna be painful. By yesterday morning I was struggling to walk up and down stairs. By last night I was in tatters. Muppet.

Still, I knew there was a grading on and I had a feeling it might be Marcus' night and I wanted to be there to see it so I struggled on (like a soldier ;op) through the training and rolling. 

Venue - LA Gym, Bristol, UK
Instructor - Chico Mendes.

With all these grading shenanigans going on I almost forgot how good it was to have Chico back teaching us. Since his fight training and his post fight relaxing it seems like ages since I'd actually been taught by Chico. It certainly was brilliant to have Chico back.

Warm Up.
The guys started with laps of the class (I was kind of getting dressed really slow for this bit) with laps doing various different steps. Then we did some sit ups, some cross choke sit ups, some hip escapes and that was about it. I was pretty happy about that as I wasn't quite ready for standing squats or star jumps. Sometimes a quick warm up is good.


For the techniques Chico ran us through some methods of breaking closed guard. For the first one you're in closed guard with a grip on both of the opponents lapel (both hand gripping both lapels-as if holding them together). Then bring one leg up outside of the opponents leg and bring the knee in toward your elbow to put pressure on the guys trapped leg. Now with the other leg you move the leg straight backward and then use it to stand up (it looks like you're doing a lunge) and then use your body to pull backwards breaking the closed guard grip.

For the next technique, you're in the opponents closed guard, you push up under the armpits to keep the guys arms away from you. Then you jump up to your feet in one motion (you release the under armpit grip at this point) and stack the guy using hip pressure. Now with both arms you can attack one leg, pushing down to break the closed guard (quite easily too).

Me and Marcus drilled these techniques. Both felt relatively easy and were pretty similar to the stuff Rafael had been teach the last couple of weeks.

For the next closed guard break method Chico showed his preferred way of securing the opponents arm. In closed guard, you've got a single hand grip on both lapels. With the other hand you grab the cuff of the opponents sleeve on the same side. Grabbing a handful of the sleeve without any fingers or thumbs in is preferable  so the material is gripped in your clenched fist (wankers grip). Now pull the opponents arm down and push it into his abdomen, at the same time moving the knee on that same side up and then pressuring inwards so the knee in closing with your elbow for maximum control. From there you force the secured arm over his body toward the ground while your lower body is pushing the guy almost on his side. From that position you can let go of the lapel double grip and use that arm to push on his free leg to open the guard and then go straight into the knee pass while keep foot hook in (as per a lot of Rafael's recent techniques).


For the last one Chico actually used me to demonstrate the technique. Under normal circumstances that's a cool thing and a bit of an honour but this particular move was started by him showing how most people use the elbows to dig into peoples inside legs to break closed guard. OW the pain. Then Chico showed how he prefers to see the elbows used for breaking guard. First get a good grip of the guys Gi pants just below the drawstring and push down, use both hands for this to keep the guy secure without being able to shrimp in either direction. Then angle one leg out at an angle slightly and use you elbow to push the opponents leg on that side outwards to break the guard. Very easily in my case.



After that we did some situational sparring. Closed guard bottom needs to sweep or submit. Closed guard top needs to pass.
I went with Marcus, Jason, Long Tall Mike, Mario Saeed and Mark Aston. Had an ok time of it given that my legs were murder. Found it trickier to pass the guard than I did to sweep. Didn't get any subs but managed to sweep most guys.

After that Chico did the grading and then we all got to join in for the traditional beating of the newly raised. Some put a bit more vigour into it than others but a good time seemed to be had by all. Shabba and Mario were particularly stupid and elected to go without a gi jacket on. Not clever. Looked really painful. Bet they were laying awkward that night. The rest of the guys took it well and then we all lined up for some snaps.

Chico and Shabba (with Josh lurking)

Chico and Josh

Chico and Rich

Chico and Marcus

Chico and Mario

Once again, well done to all the guys who were graded. \m/

Half Guard Passing

I've been working a lot on my Half Guard recently and finally I'm at a place where I feel comfortable in Half Guard. Previously I would lay there like a mat with not much clue as to what to do and generally just hoping my opponent would pass so at least I'd be in a position I could work from. Not good.

Now though, thanks to a couple of good seminars featuring some Half Guard techniques, a couple of Chico's classes that were Half Guard focused and lots of sparring where I specifically tried to do something from Half Guard, I am happy that I have a decent arsenal of sweeps to go to. My recent favourite has been the Leo Vieira leg trap and hip twist sweep that I have been banging on about a lot on this blog. I have desperately been trying to find a vid of it on YouTube with no joy so I'm gonna have to film it myself to give you a decent idea of the awesomeness and simplicity of this sweep.

Suffice to say, thanks to my near single minded focus on getting better at Half Guard, I now find that I can sweep or recover guard far more frequently than I am passed. Job done then for that aim.

Now the problems I have recently been encountering have been more Half Guard Top focused. Most specifically pass the Half Guard and not allowing my opponent to recover guard. I am comfortable with submissions from the Half Guard Top, regularly trying for Americanas, Kimuras, Head and Arm Triangles, Cross Chokes and Ezekials. But if my opponent is particularly savvy and I can't hit any of these and the Half Guard to back Caio Terra technique I featured previously does not present itself I am a bit stuck. I find myself flailing about, looking to pull my leg out using main strength or just pulling the knee out and doing the semi mount thing without really clearing the leg fully.

So in light of this gap in my game my new goal for the time being is going to be passing Half Guard. The same as for my Half Guard bottom game, I am going to be purposely getting myself into my opponents Half Guard so I can attempt to pass it. The first thing though is to find a selection of decent workable Half Guard passes that I can commit to memory and that can be applied well to my game. With this in mind I have found a couple of good videos on YouTube (more to come but these are a good starter) that show a couple of decent passes to be going on with.

This first vid from ssfgear shows a couple of good passes. I particualrly like the first one where you just kind of stand up in the Half Guard while your head is on the ground for a base. I am in this position a lot where my opponent is flat on his back and I'm in tight near his face. The extending of the legs from there seems like a good touch and once you've done the hip switch, even if the whip out of the leg doesn't work you can then bring the other foot back to press on his knee to assist in the passing of the foot.

This one from Rafael Lovato Jnr shows a couple of move that work under the premise that you've managed to pass the knee but are struggling to get the foot through.

Two good places to start on the Half Guarding passing here. I'll be trawling for more techniques and will post any good ones. I'll also keep you updated on how I do with these. \m/

Rafael Heck - Checkmat 28-2-12

A bit of a sad night for the Bristol class of Checkmat/Trojan Free Fighters last night as it was Rafael Heck's last class there for the foreseeable future. Raf has to go home to Brazil as his visa has expired and he is unsure as to whether or not he'll get another to come back. So potentially, last night was the last time we saw and got to train with Maestre Heck. If all goes well he will be back at the end of next month but that's only if everything goes well.

As for the session, I was up ridiculously early with my daughter Jolie yesterday morning so I found it difficult to focus on any of the techniques (or anything else really) so if I've forgotten details I apologise.

Venue - LA Gym, Bristol, UK
Instructor - Rafael Heck (Checkmat Black Belt)




Warm up.
By Raf's standards it was a relatively lax warm up starting with stretches, then some star jumps and the weird bush whacker on the spot thing he does and then into the running man (a personal favourite).
From there it was down on the floor for sit ups, lateral sit ups (both sides) press ups, cross collar sit ups, press ups, bicycle sit ups, press ups, crunches and ending with superman flies (or sky dives as I think of them).




Light Drills.
Raf had us do some light minimal resistance drilling. With a partner we started with sweeps from guard. Any type of sweep will do. You sweep your opponent then he recovers to guard and sweeps you. I loved this type of drilling, particularly cause it gave us time to brush up on sweeps we're less confident with. I was firing off all kinds of Butterfly and Half Guard Sweeps. I hit the ones we learnt at Leo's last seminar a couple of times, particularly loving that inside leg turn sweep from half guard (not an official name but the best I could come up with).


Next we started from a mount position and lightly hit five subs with minimal resistance and then swapped to let your partner do the same. This was a lot of fun too, I went with the mounted triangle, kimura, cross collar choke, arm bar and ezekial for my first go then found myself struggling to think. Americana, another choke variant and then I tossed in an S mount Bow and Arrow choke from the top.

For the nights techniques Raf took us back to the guard passing from last week. Starting with a closed guard pass, break the guard using the knee in, then thread one arm under the same side leg and do the lock and stack thing. Your opponent then pulls on your arm to block the stack so you push his other leg down and pass your knee over so the foot is still un-passed (the leg brace technique from last week). Now press your weight on the opponents torso, wrap your free arm around the guys neck and buck the other leg out from over your initial securing arm, then bring your other leg through over top. Now make sure your hip is on the floor, then you can bring first leg through and make sure you are tight to the opponents body to ensure he doesn't have room to shrimp a knee inside and ruin your move (Marcus does this ALOT if you let him).

The next technique was a sit up Guard pass. The opponent is sat up facing you with space inbetween the two of you. He's ready to jump into Butterfly at a moments notice if you move forward. You have hold of his legs at the ankle and push his legs in toward him. You then secure his legs by wrapping arms around both parts of legs (so they're folded up)and rest your head on his torso leaning in against him. Sprawl your legs out and push one of the opponents knees down through the gap inbetween your legs and then at this point you can do one of two things. You can either pass the one leg over (so you're in a top half guard situation) and turn on your side to pull the other leg through, OR if you're quick you can pass both legs over keeping tight to his body so he can't escape away. I don't know if it was something to do with me being spaced out due to lack of sleep but I was having a hard time accepting that the second variant would work. Seemed too simple.

The third and fourth passes of the night were shown together. The first was a Butterfly Guard pass. Raf showed us that if you hug the opponents legs together high on the leg (ie above the knee) the guys instinct is to push out with his legs using his butterfly to make space. If he does that though you just keep his legs hugged tight together and rest all your weight down. His legs will flatten under you and as long as you use good knee control and all you weight well, you should be able to pass your legs over to one side, keeping a strong hug on the opponent while you inch up his legs and torso to flatten him out into side control.

The other guard pass was worked as if you'd managed to get double underhooks on his legs (both his legs are around you head with no arms inside). You can then grip the lapel on one side of his jacket using both hands and use it to pull yourself in towards him. You can then use this to shoulder shrug pass around the legs the opposite side to the secured lapel into side control.



Next we did some situational rolling in the form of Guard Passing or Sweeping. The guy in guard has to sweep, the guy on top has to pass. I did pretty well for this portion of the sparring last night as I managed to pass AND sweep 3 of my four opponents. Hit the half guard sweep I talked about earlier twice, so it's good to know it's working in live rolling. The only guy I didn't sweep was Andy (Judo throw guy from last week whose surname eludes me) who I didn't hit a sweep on. None of my opponents managed to pass or sweep me for the situationals either which was a bit of a reassurance for my control techniques.


We closed the class out with some good rolling. Four turns for 5 minutes. Very enjoyable.

First up was Marcus who went straight into guard. I had a hell of a time passing his guard this time however and whenever I did manage it he just escaped back using his wicked hip escapes (very strong part of his game). Really good defensive rolling from Marcus last night and I couldn't get anything on him.

Next up was Jase Brookbank and it was another energy sapping endurance roll. I was in his guard and after some furious grip fighting and sweep blocking I got close to passing so he turtled up and held a really tight hug grip on my leg quite high up. This was horrendously difficult to shake and we were in the position for a good couple of minutes. I eventually broke out of it using the arm underhook technique Leo taught us (using a lot of Leo stuff that night). From there I was really close to taking his back but he managed to keep an arm in to block. That was where the time played out and we were both totally shagged after. While we were gasping for breath and drinking everybody else had paired off and were going again so me and Jase rolled together again.

Next one Jase jumped guard straight away and the roll turned into a guard to half guard, recover back to full guard rinse and repeat effort for ages. Then in the end I got sloppy and was trying to push his upper body for a pass and he caught me with a very neat arm bar. Fuckin tight too, still smarts a bit now. He swang his leg over and I had the arm secure with my other arm and stacked him up. I used the arm bump to pull the arm out and just when I thought I'd got the elbow through he managed to pull the secure arm off and locked the arm bar on. It seemed to be positioned perfectly so his hips could be used as a fulcrum and my arm could invert to either side of the elbow. Ouchie. I'll definitely be bringing the A game for Mr Brookbanks next week.

Last roll was against Andy (Judo Guy) and for this one I was feeling a bit lazy so after an initial grip battle I just pulled spider guard then pulled him into closed guard and tried to look for ways to submit him from there. I didn’t find any but I rest easy in the knowledge that I could’ve swept him a few times if that had been my aim, but I was content to look for subs. His game was tight enough though that he had everything well scouted.

At the end Raf made a little speech and then we all got pictures with him. Unfortunately, due to the exceptionally steamy nature of the room we train in post session, the lense on the camera basically steams up a second after you've wiped it off. 

 If that was to be my last raining session with Rafael Heck then I want to thank him for the instruction he's given us and the laughter and camaraderie he brings to the table with his teaching style and personality. Raf you're one in a million. Cheers dude. \m.