Checkmat Bjj - 9/10/12

With Chico away in Greece for the week, Ian Rossiter was left to do the Tuesday Checkmat Bjj Gi session for Bristol Combat Legion at La Gym Bristol.

Venue: LA Gym, Bristol, Uk.
Instructor: Ian Rossiter (Black Belt - Checkmat)

Warm up:

Laps of the mat with knee ups, ass kicks, face in for a lap then out for a lap. Then we did lengths of the mat doing Forward rolls, backward rolls and leap frogs (2 lengths each). After that we did some stretching and then paired up to do 30 Push ups off your partners back, then 20 Closed Guard situps.



Techniques:

Ian decided to start by doing some of the self defence aspect of Bjj for this lesson, starting with the defence against a headlock. This is where an opponent has wrapped one of his arms around your neck and has secured that arm in place by gripping hands together. However, the inexperienced opponent has absolutely no body control on you so you are able to move to his side as in this image;

From here, you use both of your hands to secured his outside arm to his side (stunting his ability to punch you in the face),and then extend your left leg behind the opponent. All you need do then is sit down and the guy should fall back and go over onto his side. If he's persistent and keeps the head lock you can now drive your forearm down into his neck using your other arm to brace it and add to the power load. Start at the base of the neck and use a scooping sort of motion, pushing up the neck, for maximum pain. This is legal in Bjj competition but at the end of the day you're unlikely to get a tap from it as all it's really for is to get the guy to let go of your neck. Once he releases you can grip the arm that was around your neck (his right), bring your right knee up and push it against his rib high on the nearside, then drop backwards, passing your left leg over his chest/face as you go, finishing with the arm bar.
This has always been a favourite of mine. I can't tell you the number of beered up tussles I've had where a guy's grabbed me in a headlock like this. If only I knew then what I know now ;o)
I was training all of the nights techniques with Tom Hill.



The next technique is a defence against someone pushing against your upper body with one hand.For this example they are using their right hand to push against your left shoulder. Using your left hand you first strike their arm away by knocking it across them so it has passed your body. Then you bring your right arm up under that arm and pass it over their left shoulder, wrapping it around their neck, securing it in place by gable gripping your hands together(their right arm at this point should be discomforting them as it's crushed up between your shoulder and their face). It's possible to finish from this position by just pulling the choking arm as if you're trying to get it toward your chest. However, you can also use this position to easily take your opponent down by stepping your right foot behind his right and tripping him while pulling him off balance with the hold. He'll go down onto his back with you coming down with the head and arm choke side control. To finish the choke tight, you put the hand of the choking arm in to the elbow crook of the bracing arm, closing that arm around it. Then with that hand you just reach for your ear and try to lay you body flat to the floor.  This should put severe pressure on the neck for the head and arm triangle choke.
Sometimes if you haven't got the opponent's trapped arm at the correct angle across their neck it will take some time for you to get the tap.




Ian's next technique was just a basic Rear Naked Choke putting emphasis on Ian's favourite little detail, the clenching down with the elbow into the opponent's chest. In seated rear mount  you bring your right arm around the opponents neck and ensure you bring that elbow down hard into his chest. You put the hand of that choking arm into the elbow crook of your left arm and then close that arm and pass the forearm behind the head and pressure the head forward. Most guys will tap at this point if you have the technique in tight but if not you just need to lean back while bending forward.




We then repeated both of the rear mount escapes from Ronan's class last friday.


Next up was the Half Nelson choke into Armbar. From the seated rear mount you have the seat belt grip (left arm under, right over). You pass you right arm across his neck and put it in the crook of the left arm, then close the left arm and pass that arm behind his head as you would for a normal rear naked. As you had the underhook though, the opponent's left arm is brought up with it. This in itself is a finishing technique called the Half Nelson Choke. Often though, the guy will bring the left shoulder down making space and preventing the choke from being successfully applied. For this situation you can secure his left arm with your left, then remove your right arm and bring it around to the left side of his face to push the face in the opposite direction. When doing this you can quickly release you right leg hook, pass your left leg hook fully across his body and then bring the right leg around and over his head, leaning back to finish with an arm bar. An old favourite of mine which I haven't hit in absolutely years. Hmmmmm I think I'm gonna have to make that a mini aim soon.



The last technique is a personal favourite. Ian's disco move of the day was a Rear Triangle/Armbar option from Rear Mount (with kick out). From the start up, you reach up to the shoulder as for the Rear Mount Arm Bar and the opponent tries to escape using the drive back method from Ronan's lesson. To counter this, you remove your foot hooks and put your feet under his legs in the crooks of his knees and kick out firing the guy back forward to the seated position with the additional bonus of his underhooked arm pulled right up toward you. Now you just need to wrap your leg (the one on the other side to his raised arm) over the shoulder and past his head and raised arm. You then escape your hip slightly to the other side and use the leg on that side to wrap around your first leg forming the triangle. Finish the technique by dragging yourself backward on your butt. Great move.




Rolling:


We didn't have a lot of time at all for rolling so it was just 2 x 3 minute rounds.

I rolled against Tom first. It was a good round. Tom's guard is very tight as usual, I managed to pass it once but he recovered. That was pretty much the highlight of a round that was over much to quickly.


Next up was the first time I'd properly rolled with Josh Kersey in a long time. It was a fast paced effort tight effort with not a lot of ground gained from either side. I managed a pass at one point which was easily recovered by Josh. He played with a lot of high guard and showed a much improved flexibility from the last times I've rolled with him. Josh threatened a triangle at one point but I had it well scouted and broke out (something I've been working on). Other than that it was just a "try to find an opening" type of roll with neither of us getting very far. Once again the 3 minutes went far too quickly and time was called.

So it was another great session up at Bristol Combat Legion. I'm really enjoying the hard sparring and good work ethic they've got up there.  Now unfortunately I've got no Bjj until next Thursday :o(  Apart from a No-Gi session with Matt Martin down Sweat FA Friday lunchtime. Oh well. Competition time will come soon enough.

¬m/