That and I like to drink and eat a decent amount over December. I'm fairly sure I'm way above the 13 st 2lb I was weighing in at a week and a half ago. I can't even count the amount of take-away food I've had since the Hereford Open on one hand. I'm trying to keep a handle on it though. I'm still only eating a healthy breakfast and a chicken salad for lunch so at least I ain't fatting up during the day. Night time is my weakness though. I seem to have this alter-ego called Fat Man. My will power dies once I get home and bask in the lights of my Christmas tree. A beer might come out and the take away menu draw is looming large in my direction. Ah well, I can't diet loads in the new year. I'll be skint enough!! ;o)
Anyway, on to the subject matter. Good numbers at Ian's class last Thursday. Most of the regulars turned up. A damn good sesh too.
Venue: Sweat FA, Weston Super Mare, Uk
Instructor: Ian Rossiter (Checkmat Black Belt)
Glenn Cutter took warm up, which is never fun. It's not like he does much different to what we usually do, it's just the length and intensity he drives us through it. You always feel a bit shagged after a Glenn warm up.
Techniques:
(For simplicity, I always explain techniques from the side and using the grips that I initially learned them)
The first technique was just a quick recap of Ian's favourite method of breaking closed guard. You're in the opponent's closed guard. Using you hands to push his hips down to the ground, drive your right knee into the guy's butt. Now open your left leg out wide to the side and a little behind so the guy can't get a good grab of it without having to move a lot (your left foot should be flat to the floor). From there you just sit back, leaving the knee forward. This should break open your opponent's guard although sometimes you might come up against a guy with a strong guard lock or a guy who just has freakishly long legs. In this case the judicious use of your left elbow on the guy's right inside leg is always a help.
This is an Old Skool Ian technique. Anyone who has trained with him for longer than a couple of months will have this technique ingrained in their DNA. And rightfully so as it's very high percentage as a method of breaking close guard. Ian's point with it on this occasion though was to show how you can counter the guard break.
For this particular demonstration it was countering into a triangle. When the guy is going for the positioning for the above guard break and is readying to sit back, you cross grab his collar with your right hand (grabbing his right collar), grab his right arm sleeve with your left to keep it close to you, open your guard and plant your left foot into his right hip, pushing your self back away from him a bit. Your grips will pull him toward you and give you the time and the space to bring your right leg up and inside of his left arm to pass it over his left shoulder across his back. Releasing the collar grip you had with your right hand, you can reach over his right shoulder to grab the leg that you've passed behind him. Pulling this into position you should be able to fold your left leg over the shin of the right to close the triangle tight. If the guy's a bit bigger or if you've got short legs, you may have to shift your hips out to the right a little to get enough of your right leg over his back to be able to close the hold on him.
Ian moved us on from there to one of my favourite techniques, the Flower Sweep. As I've done a lengthy write up on this move before I think I'll just link that HERE instead. Still love this move and use it all the time.
The next move we did was a variation of the Flower sweep that Chico showed us at his recent Weston seminar. I've also written this one up before but the log is quite long and I doubt anyone reading this will want to trawl through that so I'll just copy and paste it here.
"Next up was a sweep variation for if the guy traps your arm. He's in your closed guard and baited you with the open left leg. You reach under to take it but he's too quick and clamps his leg back down shut again, trapping your right arm in there and cutting off one side of your upper body defence. However this is not the end of the world. In fact after a short while of drilling this move I felt this was an amazing turn of events. All you need to do is ensure he can't move his right hand from your waist at this point then you can sweep him over to your left (his right) side. To do this you open your guard and drop the left foot to the floor and can basically roll him over to his back using a flower sweep style right leg up, kicking him (not proper kicking, it's just a description) at the left under arm to flip him over and come up comfortably in mount. I absolutely LOVE this sweep as a cool variation on the Flower Sweep. I've already hit it a few times in rolling since. Love it!!
You can even just slot your arm inside when he hasn't opened the leg. Works the same way. Amazing sweep."
Saves a lot of typing this does.
Rolling:
First roll of the night was against Rich Presley. It was a nice fast paced roll with lots of positional back and forth stuff. Lots of flow. I managed to get to half guard top on him at one point and choked him out with and Ezekial choke. Soon after in that round I dropped back in his open guard and hit an ankle lock.
Second roll was against Glenn'son, Ash. Ash is only a young kid (about 13 or 14) and a relative newcomer, so I don't like to pounce on him and try and tap him out in seconds. That's a chump move. Instead I had a nice flowing roll, showing him where he makes mistakes and trying to help him polish up his game. He does definitely seem to be getting better too. Could have a good competition future ahead of him if he dedicates himself. I bloody wish I'd got into Bjj at 14 I tell you.
Third roll was against the man himself, Glenn Cutter. Rolling against Glenn is always a fast and furious match up and I frequently feel like I'm on the defensive. Fortunately I feel quite comfortable playing guard and was able to fend off most of Glenn's pass attempts. I think he did pass at one point but I was able to regain guard fairly quickly. Which is much preferable to the other option of getting caught in Glenn's stifling North South :o( . When he was back in my guard though I noticed he had his left arm low so I was able to quickly pass my right leg over it and close off a nice triangle. Glenn tapped pretty quickly after that. Not much else happened in that round.
Last roll was against Tom Hill, who I have not been able to get anything on for quite a while now. It's always a hard tight roll going against Tom with not much transition at all. This was the same. Very much a lock horns and go through a physical chess like struggle, trying to find the grip, pull or push that will advance. Neither of us ended with the upper hand come the end of the round and that was the end of the lesson. I look forward to rolling with Tom some more soon. I hope he goes in for some comps this year too. For his weight class (<64kg)he's like a friggin pit bull. Once he gets hold of you he's bloody hard as fuck to shake off. I reckon he's got more medals in his future. He's already medalled in every comp he's been in.
So that's it for that week. I've been training with Luke Brown on the occasional lunchtime at the moment and he's learning at a wicked pace. I've pretty confident I can train him to do well in a comp come next year. He's already got freaky strength for his weight and as a personal trainer his athleticism is well above average too. Couple that with the quickness with which he picks up techniques and he could be doing well in some of the local tournaments next year.
Due to work commitments and a late night shopping promise I gave my wife, I am unable to pick up a class next week. Hopefully Luke'll put in some lunchtime sesh's to cheer me up.
I'll try and get a log up here about something in the mean time. Get the old Bjj writing juices flowing again.
¬m/
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