On then to the subject matter for this blog. I have once again been given the opportunity to trained under the Legendary Head of the Worldwide Checkmat organisation, Leo Vieira at the Bristol Combat Legion, LA Gym in Bristol. Leo is an amazing guy and a brilliant and very thorough teacher. It never ceases to amaze me how much of a down to earth dude he is too. Before the seminar started I had a quick chat with him about the recent Metamoris event and his opinions on it. He thought it was a very well staged event and great for Bjj as a whole. When I asked him if he would ever fight in one if asked he replied that he was asked to do the first one, in a match up with Jean Jacques Machado, but unfortunately he was already committed to training Demian Maia for his recent UFC fight. He said it may well go ahead for a second event as there is already noise that the event will return in the future. Great stuff!!
Anyway, on to the matter at hand. The format for Leo's seminar this time around was an hour and a half MMA grappling and an hour and a half Bjj in the gi. Now I have to confess that I am definitely no MMA competitor and some of the MMA stuff I found little use for in application to my Bjj game as a lot of it was involving clinching against the cage fence/wall and pummelling for position, then going to back or getting the takedown. All very good stuff and all very well taught but as there is a complete lack of wall on a Bjj comp mat there is no practical application for it in my game. I'm pushing on in years now and, although I'm a big fan of MMA, I think any possibility I had of going into it to compete or even just train as a hobby is well behind me now.
That being said, Leo did add a ground technique at the end where you're on the ground with the opponent in your closed guard and you've managed to achieve double overhooks on both his arms, but wrapped your arms underneath to lock them together using a double forearm grip. You should have your opponent trapped close to you, posture broken down, with his arms both bent so he is leaning on his forearms. From here a quick open of the guard and a shift of the hips with allow you to make enough space to get your hooks in for a very close in Butterfly Guard. Leo seems to like this double overhook butterfly guard position as he based a lot of a previous No-Gi seminar around it. To finish this move you just need to choose which way you are going to sweep and use your double underhook to push the guy in that direction while kicking up with the leg (i.e if you're pushing him over to your left you will kick out with your right foot). This is quite an easy sweep to perform if you've managed to get everything in place. The one thing you need to watch out for is if the guy bases out with his leg to defend against the sweep. If he does this though you just use the non sweeping hook to kick that leg out of the way and the guy goes over even easier. Cool move.
I was training this with Chris Cook from our Weston club. It's worth mentioning that Chris had some trouble making space for getting the hooks in with this technique. Guys with longer legs have to shift the hips out a bit more to make the space.
Leo managed to overrun the MMA section of the seminar by nearly an hour so it actually closer to 2 and a half hours.
The gi portion of the seminar had some very useful techniques. Leo concentrated on escapes, the first couple being from the mount.
The first was a pretty cool move where you push the right leg of the opponent down (I'll explain it how I learnt it) using both your hands while shrimping your butt out to your own right so you can bring your left leg up and inside (as for the first part of the standard double shrimp escape) but you keep the knee inside and pressing against the guy's right inside leg/groin to make enough space so you can bring your right leg up and over the outside of his left to press against your knee. You will be left in a position where the guy's leg almost looks like you have it reaped. From this position there are a couple of good sweeps available or an ankle lock, toe hold or even a good transition to knee bar. Of course in a No Holds Barred situation you would have the Heel Hook right there from the off. A good escape from mount which I'd never seen before.
The second was the standard Upa escape which I really don't need to explain again.
Next up was an escape from side control which was also new on me. The opponent has a strong control position on you and you can't get a full shrimp to recover guard. In this situation you use a shimmy move where you first escape your lower body out a bit, then your upper body by shimmying out your shoulders, all the while holding him off with your arm at the hips. You will probably need to repeat this a couple or few times to get the required amount of space but when you do have it you can bring your nearside knee up inside against his torso and use that to make additional space. Now from here there were a few options. The obvious one is to do a standard recovery to butterfly or closed guard but that's a bit unadventurous. Another was to then use your free arm to push against the side of his face/neck to force him away to the point where he's far enough for you to switch on your legs and stand. The third, and always my favourite, is to trap the guy's arm that is nearer to your lower body using your free arm, then swing your outside leg up over and around his head to secure a pretty special arm bar. Very nice move.
Moving on Leo showed us a good escape from if the guy has started to transition to Knee on Belly. He's got his side control and he's put the knee up on your gut but is still crouched in low on you. From here you grab the ankle of the leg he's KOB'd you with, with your nearside arm and pull it toward you, then you can push the knee on your belly away taking away the good base the opponent has for his KOB. You can now turn the guy over the top of you to sweep him over to his back using a combination of your shoulder and torso movement. Not entirely sure I got the explanation of that one right but that's what I remember.
Keeping the side control theme, Leo showed us an escape from when the guy is making a transition to North South from side. The crucial part to this one is that you have to reach your free (outside) arm down and through the gap in the crook of his arm to grip his triceps. This means that when he transitions around you to get to North South you will already be in the process of pushing him away from you. By the time he's in North South you can push him off and either recover guard, push off to stand or go in for the single leg and take him down to his back. Another good alternative to the usual moves I use. One I will try and get in to my game I think.
That is, I'm afraid, as much as my crap memory and even crapper notes will allow me to remember of this seminar. I'm very sure I missed out loads but as I mentioned earlier, I've been so busy with family stuff at the moment I didn't get the chance to type this up straight away. Now I've still got a Chico class from Tuesday to type up. Preferably before Saturday as we have the pleasure of hosting a Chico Mendes seminar down at Sweat FA Weston Super Mare before going out on the piss after. I will really need to write good notes for that one. :oD
Oh yeah, as an additional bonus, Raj Bista was awarded his purple belt at the end of this seminar so we all got to beat him thoroughly about the shoulders with our belts in the name of camaraderie. Fun stuff.
¬m/
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