Venue: Sweat FA
Instructor: Ian Rossiter. (SJJA)
The warm up was pretty much as expected with me feeling totally shagged and out of breath after the initial run (damn you stamina) but I managed to recover quickly during the squats, push ups and sit ups. Something to build off I suppose. I have to get back down the gym daily during the week and get on that cross trainer. I know I said previously that I'd be doing that this week but I've been really busy at work and eating chocolate. You know, important stuff.
The numbers at class last night were brilliant, no new faces just lots of guys returning for a fresh new year start. It would be great if it stays like that for a while and we get a good, strong, consistently attended class going. The better they get, the better I can get through sparring with them. And that prospect makes me happy.
Warm Up: Laps of the mat, including ass kicks, knee ups, facing inward for a lap, facing out for a lap. Neck, Arm and Shoulder stretching. Push ups 10 x 4, Squats 10x 4, Crunches 10 x 4, then a round of seated knee tucks X 5 per person (14 guys) and then some leg stretching.
For the first technique of the year Ian decided to take us right back to basics in posturing in your opponents guard. Ian showed us the basic premise, in opponents guard. They try various different ways of sweeping you and you just grip their gi front and keep your arms in and posture up with your back strength. Ensure you are comfortable with how you have your legs based out and you can effectively maintain the position for a while with your opponent trying all sorts of sweeps and you just posturing and resisting them. We drilled this for a few minutes with opponents of different sizes and then moved on.
Next Ian showed us a decent defence for if the guy has you in his guard and tries a cross collar choke. He's reached and taken your collars and is in the process of attempting the choke on you. You then reach down and grab his lapel (if you use your left hand, grab his right collar or vice versa) with quite a low grip. Your hand should be positioned with thumb down and in a monkey grip style so you can then push the collar into your opponents throat, raise your leg (the leg on the opposite side to the arm you're using), push down on his hip with the other arm and postured up while push down on his throat. The opponent will let go very quickly unless he's stupid. It's very doubtful you'd get a tap from this but stranger things have happened. Once again we drilled this a few times, changing partners during that time.
Ian moved us swiftly on from here with a the standard knee up ass guard pass. Ensuring you have downward pressure on the opponents hips, push your knee into his ass and put the other leg out and behind you slightly with the foot flat on the floor and shift your weight backwards so your hips move back to your rear leg. This action should drive your knee into him (not literally you sick people) while the rest of your bodyweight rips open his guard. You then, using the hand that was holding his arm down, reach back behind the leg on that side and scoop the leg up, then reach up to his opposite shoulder and push your weight down on the leg and slide across making sure to clear your head. Then just bump his leg down so you land in side control. We carried on the drilling and swapping partners to get a full variety of opponent sizes and styles.
Ian finished the session off with the variation where you haven't maintained enough downward pressure on the hips. The opponent has ridden up your leg when you thrust your knee forward, consequentially the closed guard didn't break. From here you bring your outside leg back and hold it tight against the side of the opponents leg. Then use the leg that was applying the pressure to the opponents butt to stand whilst grabbing the pant legs of your opponent at the knees. From there you force the knee back up against the guys rear end and by that point the closed guard is usually broken. If your opponent has ridiculously long limbs or is a monkey or something then all you need do is step back with the free leg and guard breaks open easily. At this point you push down on the opponents knee that is on the same side as your forward leg (left to right, right to left), pressing it to the ground whilst still holding the other leg off to avoid triangle attempts. Here you can use your forward leg to press up against the inside of the opponents knee to help keep that leg pressured to the ground while you reach back with your opposite hand to go under the other leg and pass in the same way as before. I really like this pass as in the heat of the moment your opponent often finds an opportunity to ride up the leg on the seated version. The standing variation is an easy and effective way to open up someone who has a very strong closed guard game. One to remember.
We were a bit down to the wire toward the end so only had limited time for sparring. We had some quick rounds, swapping opponents four times. I managed to use a little bit of the butterfly guard stuff I've been learning in my new Marcelo Garcia - X Guard manual, pulling off a butterfly double underhook sweep and a decent arm drag to take the back and finish with a bow and arrow choke. I spent most of my sparring time with guys in my guard using mostly butterfly guard or feet on hips though I also inverted a couple of times against big Steve. I had to give myself a big mental slap every time I was trying to revert to closed guard and it seemed to work. I've gotta find decent ways to push the bigger guys off though as they have a habit of pancaking you to the mat to try and take a rest and gain control (hence the feet on hips). I was trying for all sorts of arm bars, omoplatas and even a gogoplata at one point against Steve but didn't manage to land any of that.Next week I'll be back on my game hopefully and next weekend (Sunday 15/1/12) there's a Chico Mendes seminar up at Trojan Cheltenham which I intend to go to. Apparently Chico's bringing 4 other black belts along with him so there's going to be a wealth of experience to draw knowledge from.
Can't friggin' wait \m/
BJJ = Life.
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