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/