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.