On Sunday I was fortunate enough to attend another Checkmat seminar at Trojan Freefighters Gym in Cheltenham. As is the norm with these Grading seminars that our instructor, Chico Mendes puts on, we were spoiled with the talent that was brought to us, to impart on us some of their Jiu Jitsu knowledge. Attending the seminar alongside Chico (Black Belt Grade two), were Valmyr Neto (Black Belt Grade two), Marco Canha (Black Belt Grade 1) and Luiz Ribiero (Black Belt). We were also graced with the presence of Walter "Broca" Pinto da Silva Jr (Black Belt Grade 3). The Bjj coach of none other than former UFC Light Heavyweight world champion, Lyoto Machida. That's a whole lot of Black Belt on the mats for us right there.
All photos supplied from Chico's Facebook album, shot by Paul Benjiman- paul@Strikingshots.com
The event was exceptionally well attended by Checkmat students from all over the Uk with guys travelling from London, Kent, The Midlands and even from as far north as South Shields. This was great for the Checkmat organisation in England as a whole, not so good for the guys that got graded. Hehe.We were first treated to something a little different with a Wrestling for Bjj seminar by Marc "Suplex" Allen. Marc showed us a lot of tricks and some pretty slick takedowns to compliment the standing start part of our games for use in competition. The move that I was particularly chuffed with in that segment was a single leg lift up-fall back takedown. About as close as you could probably get to a suplex in a proper Bjj comp. Real great move that I think I will cover in another entry along with a few of the other things Marc taught us.
For drilling all of these techniques I paired off with a nice guy called Jamie Berry from Checkmat South Shields (near Newcastle). I have to say I am very impressed with how far these guys travelled for this seminar. That's commitment for you.
Techniques: No- Gi
(I will describe this moves from the position I initially learned them).
The first technique of the day was demo'd by Valmyr Neto and was a Triangle from Butterfly Guard. You have your opponent in your Butterfly guard (seated with underhooks). The idea of this move is to force a reaction from your opponent by leaning him over toward his left side. To do this you need to release your right underhook use that hand to base out a little behind you while pushing him left (your right) using your left underhook. This should force the guy to put his left hand out to stop the sweep at which point you can push away from him a bit with your legs while keeping him pressured with your left arm. Now you can push yourself away further using your feet on his hips then bring your right leg out (keeping the left in place at his hip) and use it to overwrap around his left shoulder/behind his head and bring the left leg up to lock it up for the tight triangle. Neto added some little bits to tighten the triangle or to turn it into and arm bar but it was all pretty obvious stuff from there. The magic is in getting there and that is a move I could definitely get on board with.
He also showed us a variation on that move that got to a really slick shoulder lock too (like an upright omoplata). When you reach behind and force the opponent over to his left so he extends the hand, keep a tight grip on the left underhook and bring your left knee up over his shoulder and lay yourself forwards on the floor. If done correctly you should be able to roll further over on your left side to increase pressure to the lock.
Both of these were pretty goochy moves that came quite natural with just a little bit of drilling.
A great variation on what was already my favourite half guard sweep.
If for whatever reason it's not coming on, a slight adjustment turns it into a painful toe hold.
Techniques: Gi
The first gi technique was almost like an old friend to me as it was the Flower Sweep from closed guard as demo'd by Luiz Ribiero. Luiz did show it with a couple of obvious differences to how I usually do it. From closed guard you grab the opponent's left gi sleeve at the cuff and pull it in towards you, whilst at the same time you reach down a grab his left pant leg as low as possible. Now opening your guard, your drop your left leg low to his side whilst kicking up high into his shoulder with your right leg and at the same time pulling up on the left pant leg. At this point though was the main difference between how I usually do it and how Luiz taught it. Luiz had us pull the leg as high up towards our heads as possible to totally destroy the opponent's balance and easily tip him over into side control. Very effective but at the time I was thinking there wasn't much difference between it and the method I usually use.
However. After playing around with that for a while, Luiz showed a counter for if the opponent manages to block the sweep (usually by bringing their left arm across to act as a large ditch base out). This is where having the opponent's left leg held high comes in. With your strong grip on the leg you turn your right elbow underneath the leg so you can turn the arm fully under that leg and have it tightly secured at your shoulder. You can now bring yourself back to a seated position and close the guard with the slight difference that you have his leg trapped rather uncomfortably (for him) up at your shoulder.
Now for the first move from here (you've still got his right sleeve gripped right?) you can just shift your hips out to your left a little and swing your left leg up and over for quite a tight arm bar.
The second move from here you keep the arm grip and swing you leg up and roll over on your right (taking him with you). He instinctively bases out with his left hand leaving you perfectly set up to pull on his right arm using your lower body as a fulcrum for one of the tightest arm bars you can get on a guy.
If all this looks like failing you can switch your left hand grip of his right sleeve over to pull on his left sleeve and you can sweep him over the other way coming up into mount as you would have for the original sweep.
Exceptionally cool options from the flower sweep using that leg pulled high.
Next up was Valmyr Neto showing us a cool pass for Butterfly guard. The opponent has done everything right with his butterfly guard, he's sat up with full double underhook control and both hooks in. You are on your knees postured up. From here you reach over the opponent's shoulder with your left hand to grab at the guys belt or gi at the lower back. Next you use your right hand to reach inside the opponent's left leg at the knee crook and bend your hand back to hook out around the leg. Now you just kick backwards with your right leg and use your belt control and leg control to tilt and turn the guy so you land neatly in side control. As a little addition, Neto landed in side with you shoulder crushing into the opponent's face quite heavily, leaving the opponent no choice but to attempt to relieve pressure on his face by bringing his arms up then eventually bridging up, by which time you have all the space in the world to transition to mount.
Another very slick, very easy to learn move.
Some nice parts to the move and I might have lost a couple of details here as this was one of those techniques where the demo was very long and descriptive. Works well though.
Rolling:
We all had a little roll at the end. I rolled with Jamie, who I had trained with all day, first. I basically just played around with my guard for this one. Trying to submit off my back and moving him a round a little. Jamie managed to pass my guard handily at one point but I was able to recover it quite well. That's about as much of it as I remember to be frank. He seemed to have some good movement and held me quite tight, not leaving much space. For a white belt he had a pretty damn good game and I can't imagine that he's too far off his blue belt.
Next up was my annual thrashing from Paul Severn, although I was pleased to see that I was holding my own a bit better this time. We played with some good guard work back and forth before he cleverly passed my guard to side control. I managed to escape his side control using the Lucas Leite set up to the inverted Anaconda but turned his lower body toward me before I could try and tighen it fully and recovered guard. From there he managed to cinch on a nice tight arm bar which "convinced" me to tap after a brief struggle. Can't remember the rest of it except for that I played it quite safe after that.
My last roll was where I made a massive mistake. I was against quite a big heavy guy called Wayne. We started with a little knee to knee grapple where he got such a tight hold on both my lapels that I had to struggle to loosen it or risk going out. From there I pushed him over and got in his closed guard with him working the collar still and me bringing the knee in for the pass. At this point we clashed with another pair on the mat and in my Herculean stupidity I tried to move Wayne across using the pull him across by the gi jacket method that you can generally get away with when grappling a guy of similar or smaller size. Oh my god did something go in my back at that point. I carried on the roll with some twinges of pain there, passed his guard and attempted a bow and arrow from top but I really couldn't focus on anything other than the pain. I welcomed the end of that roll and was actually glad when it was over. I also sat out the rest of the rolling to stretch out my back. It has healed over the last few days but the Sunday night at home was sheer agony.
Grading:
On to the final part of the event. And what a climax it was. Chico started off the proceedings by issuing the Blue Belts out. Notable among them were Bristol Class regulars, Andy "Ginge" Bremerkamp (he didn't know that was his nickname and evidently neither did Chico when he was reading the names on the belts out :oD) and Martin (Late show) Rose, and DV8 and Bristol regular Tom Hill. There were a few other guys who scooped Blues as well. Good stuff all of them. It's a great feeling getting your first awarded belt as it's a long journey with few stops along the way.
Next up were the Purple Belt guys and this was quite a big moment for the South West Branch of the Checkmat family as, up until now the highest rankers were all Blue Belts, except for a very light smattering of Brown Belts that have been training for ages and landed in Checkmat recently. Notable amongst the Purples were Ronan Fleming of the Bristol Club and Paul Severn of the Cheltenham and Worcester Clubs, as these guys have been training for a fair old while and it was universally felt that their promotions were a necessity by this time. Other guys I've rolled with who scooped their purples were Stuart Austin and Antanas Jazbutis. Both very worthy guys. Well done the lot of them. They've done theirselves and their team-mates proud.
The last and most special award of the day to be given out was a big moment for Checkmat Uk as a whole and for our little DV8 club in particular, as my Instructor, Ian Rossiter, was presented with the monumental honour of being the first home grown Checkmat Black Belt in the West of England. And a very emotional time for him it was too. It truly was priceless to see Ian's jaw drop and to have him stand up in front of the gathering getting his pristine new Black Belt tied around his waist and giving his speech, whilst choking back his Tears of joy. I can honestly say that, looking at Ian come the journeys end, the final big step makes all the hard work, the training and learning, the niggling little injuries, the long distances travelled and the hardships endured all seem worthwhile for that one moment of elation when you get exactly what you've worked these long years for. Congratulations Boss. You thoroughly deserve it.
¬m/
No comments:
Post a Comment