Checkmat Bristol 10-1-12

Got to go up to Checkmat Bristol tonight and train and spar with the guys there. They're a great bunch at Checkmat Bristol, some really class characters and the numbers are always impressive too. Tonights class was taken by the outstanding Rafael Heck (Black Belt under Leo Vieira) who, when I first met him on the 17 Sept 2011(Blue Belt day), could barely speak a word of English. Now he has absolutely no problem communicating with a whole class of English speaking people. Fair play to him, according to many linguists, English is one of the hardest languages to pick up.

Venue: LA Gym, Bristol
Instructor: Rafael Heck


Warm Up :
Me, Ian and Marcus arrived a touch late to the class so they were into the warm up by the time we were changed (a fact of which my neck is now reminding me), but they did some stretches and and star jumps and the like. Then on to the jogging round the mats, a couple of laps facing in, couple of laps facing out (it was at this point I join in - half a job Eyre), couple of laps running backwards, then a couple of laps doing this weird stagger step thing which managed to make everyone in the class look like they were born defective. After that we were on the floor, first doing standard crunches then to push ups, next were lateral crunches on one side, push ups, lat crunches on other side, push ups, then seated cross collar style crunches, then push ups and lastly standard crunches again. Finally we did a healthy round of hip escapes. Hmmmm.... Maybe Raf thought we were all still carrying a bit too much Christmas weight.

First Technique of the night was halting someone trying to pass your Butterfly Guard. Opponent has wrapped his arms around your legs at the knees and squeezed them together. He then steps over attempting to pass with his head to one side of you whilst his body goes the other to take side control. To stop this you just push the guys head by the face (not comfortable) back to the same side as his body is passing and you can easily hip escape out of the knee grip. As an alternative you can also pull his head over using a crossface forearm style grip which is also very unpleasant for the recipient. We just drill the blocking of the pass first. I was training with Marcus tonight which is always a pleasure as he is not prone to bouts of spazzing out or trying to hard when you're just drilling but he will correct you on sloppy technique.

Raf moved us on from there to the actual escape from the pass. The guy's tried to pass, you've pushed his head back over the other side. Now he gave us two options here. First if you hip escape and pull the bottom leg out you can rest your body weight on the guys back and come into rear side mount. The second one was if you hip escape and pull the top leg out make sure you push on his head (keeping him to the ground), stand and yank your other leg out and climb on top to take the back (yippee ki yay). While me and Marcus drilled this one we found that another amazing way to go would be if during the escape you pull the bottom leg out and you're side ways on to the opponent, you can duck your head between the legs and forward roll into the dream omoplata (see the last part of this to fully appreciate the dynamic, death defying, dream omoplata). We had fun with this then Raf moved us on.

Next, we started doing some Butterfly sweeps which were freakin' awesome. Especially given that I've been reading the phenomenal X-Guard manual by Marcelo Garcia, which heavily features the Butterfly Guard. This meant I could practice a lot of the stuff I'd been reading about without having to totally change what I was supposed to be drilling. Great stuff.

First Butterfly sweep, Raf held his opponent (it's worth mentioning at this point that Raf demonstrated everything tonight against Ronan Fleming, a mountain of a man and probably the heaviest and strongest guy in the class) with a standard collar and elbow tie-up, then pull in his arm that has the elbow secured, thus trapping the opponents arm, then fell back and to the side (side with trapped arm) and kicked up and over using the off side butterfly hook. The opponent flips over onto their back and you can fellow them over into many different positions depending on your size, speed and the luck of the scramble. I most frequently land in Kesa Gatame side control but got the occasional knee of belly or mount. Mind you, Marcus managed to claim half guard on more than one occasion too.

The next sweep was very similar but if your opponent resists the easy flip you can lean back onto you shoulder (the one on the side you intend to sweep to) whilst having your knee of your opposite leg stuck up at a right angle to knock the opponent off of their balance, then you can flip them over fairly easily. It would be prudent for me to mention at this point though, that you need to exaggerate the hooks you have in at the opponents legs (with your feet) otherwise the guy finds it kind of easy to just step over your leg and the whole position is lost and you're in side control bottom (as Marcus demonstrated to me a few times :o| ).

To further emphasize how much it felt like tonight's class was aimed at me, we then went on to Butterfly Guard arm drags which was amazing because the arm drag was one of the other things I have been pining after learning and drilling recently. From Butterfly guard, secure the opponents wrist at the gi with the near side hand then reach across with other hand and grab opponent around the tricep from the inside of his arm space. Then use both arms to yank the guy over toward the off side, you can then reach over the back of the guy, using the hand that had previously been securing his wrist, and grab his belt. From here you simultaneously pull down on the arm, pull over on the belt, fall backwards and kick up with your off side hook, neatly flipping the guys over onto his back. I found the opponent was flipping with such force on this that they were virtually giving up their backs once swept. A little bit of pummelling and you could quite easily get the seat belt grip on their back and then it's just waiting for opportunities to get the hooks in.


Sparring:

We started off with situational sparring. Start in Closed Guard, guy on the bottom has to sweep or submit, guys on top has to pass (or submit but that's very unlikely from that position). 2 minutes each then change partner. I situation-ally sparred with Marcus, then Jason Brookbanks -a lightweight Blue Belt who is truly one of the nicest guys I've ever met- and finally Mark Acton - an experienced Blue Belt who has trained for years, used to be a Brown Belt in Traditional JJ under Ian before he gave it up for Bjj. I had some very good sparring sessions with these guys and was very pleased that my guard was not passed a single time. I had to invert a few times and do a very quick hip escape to recover guard against Mark but my guard remained in tact. Also, I managed to pass Marcus and Mark's guards which was a bonus. Jason fought like a demon tonight and wouldn't let a bead of sweat pass his guard let alone a fully grown (and possibly still sporting a bit of Christmas weight) man.

After this we had a proper face to face roll. 5 minute rounds. Rolled against 3 opponents. Got a couple of subs. A particular highlight was locking in a tasty Triangle Choke from Spider Guard against Marcus. Also got Jason with a straight Achilles leg lock, which was pleasing as he was going for the same thing on me at the time too.

In summary that was a great lesson to come back to at Checkmat and I wait to roll with those guys for the rest of the year. \m/