Venue: DV8 Bjj, Sweat FA, Weston Super Mare, Uk.
Instructor: Me :oD (Blue belt - Checkmat).
Warm up:
As has been the norm for the last few weeks I started us off with some Neck, Arm and shoulder stretching.
We then went on to a circuit. This time though, as an experiment, I included loads of new exercises that were more Bjj related rather than intensely cardiovascular. The exercises I used were:
Gator Crawls.
Mounted Arm bar drill on heavy bag.
Sprawls.
The turtle hurdle.
Upa Bridges.
Seated thrusts.
Hip escapes (shrimping).
Seated alternate toe touching (with only your butt on the floor).
Back manoeuvrability. (lying on the floor with your feet either side of a cone and moving from left to right).
Leg swings. (Only you ass or pelvis should be touching the floor as you swing your legs out and around starting from seated around to on your front then back to seated).
We then finished it off with some leg stretching.
This format received mixed reactions. Some liked the exercises, some felt there wasn't enough cardio. Looks like we're going to have to work toward switching it up a little to strike a happy medium between cardio and technical related exercises.
Techniques:
I based my lesson on a conclusion I came to after a facebook discussion we had the other day. Basically, if you're more comfortable in your ability to escape from certain danger situations you'll be more comfortable trying out new stuff as you're not worried about where you'll end up.
At the end of the day, if you're only rolling your A game because you're afraid of being caught in side control or mount, you're not really trying out or learning anything new unless it comes by accident. This is where my rolling with Marcus (Hedley) used to come in so handy because we'd seldom be relying on the same stuff from one session to the next. Instead trying out new things and seeing how they work out and consequentially getting ourselves into all sorts of tough situations to try and escape from.
Anyway, I digress, what I'm actually trying to say in a preachy kind of way is that a guy needs to be comfortable in his ability to escape stuff before he'll really let himself go with the experimentation side of Bjj. So with this in mind I thought I'd run through some basic escapes and also a couple of not so basic escapes.
Starting in your opponent's side control I first showed the basic hip escape that should be a part of everyone's arsenal. This is generally most guys go-to escape from side control and rightly so as it is well proven as a winning technique of escape. Basically, you got the guy lying across you in side control with his head to your left side. You should have your right leg raised in some way so as to stop the guy easily transitioning to mount while you work up for your escape. What I like to do is get my right forearm jammed into his hips and grab his left shoulder with my left hand so my left forearm can be used to put pressure into his neck or "bug the neck" as I've heard it called. I've seen the left arm part of this technique done in lots of different ways by lots of different people but this is just my personal favourite. The reason being that occasionally, if you dig it in there nice and deep, the forearm can distract the controller enough to aid you in your escape. From here you bring both of your feet to the mat quite close to your butt and then bridge up and turn toward the guy, pushing away with your forearms. This should be done in one motion so a/. you can use the momentum of the whole move for maximum acquisition of space and b/. the guy has minimal amount of time to attempt a quick jump to mount. While the guy is pushed away as far as he'll go you shrimp your hips out to your left side and bring your right knee up to your right arm so you can tuck that leg in at his inside leg to form a butterfly hook. Using that hook you can adjust yourself back to straight on pushing the guy away enough to pop the left butterfly in. If you are one of the many guys who feels more comfortable going all the way back to full guard you can just kick out with both legs then close the guard around him.
This has been a stalwart part of my side control escape game since the early days of my training.
For the second escape from side control I showed I used a spin out escape I found on the Roy Dean Blue Belt Requirements DVD a while back. It's a lovely little number that starts from a very similar position as before. You got the right forearm at his waist, the left bugging his neck. This time though you haven't been able to make the amount of space required for the above escape. Maybe you're knackered or the guy you're against is stronger or heavier that you. As long as you can get enough room to switch the position of your right arm to an underhook all is well. Do this by making the meagre space you can manage and turning the arm inward under the guys gut to come out on the right side of him holding at his hip. You can now extend your legs and swing then over to the right , then swing them like a pendulum over to your left, whilst at the same time pushing up with your right arm and down with your left, almost like you're making a steering motion. You should be able to use this motion to duck under the opponent's chest and pop out the other side using the continuing motion to spin fully around to come back into guard. It is best to have a little an amount of your body touching the mat at the point you are spinning as you possibly can to maximum how far you can spin. I find when I'm doing it, I'm on just my left butt cheek and a bit of my lower back. I can recover to full guard quite easily from there.
Moving on to mount escapes we quickly drilled the Upa escape from mount. We've all done it often in our class. It's a bit of a favourite, but as we're on escapes I thought I'd make sure everyone know the stuff they're supposed to know really well. I won't write this one up as everyone knows it and I think I wrote it up recently anyway.
I moved us on quickly from there to the Double hip escape from mount. Now this is a move that has always been quite a common favourite in our club, back since the days of us being SJJA, as it was quite a favourite of Gary Davies. The opponent has you in full mount, what you need to do is make a bit of space so you can turn ever so slightly to your left (so he's not got you flat to the mat) and then drop your left leg flat and hip escape to the right so you can use both hands to push his right knee out away from you, down past your knee. You can then bring the left knee up inside so you have a half butterfly guard. Hip escaping out to the left now and pushing the guys left knee using the same motion will allow you to bring yourself to full butterfly. Once again a quick kick out from there will allow you to recover full guard.
This move is definitely easier for us with shorter legs. A little flexibility is a help as well.
Rolling:
First roll of the night was against the ever game Ash, who I guarantee one day will be very good. After the usual game of patty cake while we look for position to takedown I decided to dispense with it and pulled guard. I then used a technique I've been seeing in a lot of books lately where you turn toward an arm that he is using to grip your collar with quite high, as if you're not threatening an arm bar in anyway. Consequentially he kept his collar grip while I pretended to try a hip sweep of some sort. As predicted he blocked it easily but had his balance apportioned perfectly for me to spin back around an kick my leg up over an catch him with the arm bar. Thanks Dave Camarillo (whose book Submit Everyone is where I saw it most recently). After that i thought I'd help him out with a bit of his game talking him through how to move all the way from guard through to mount then choke me out. I was pleased to note that I didn't need to talk very much as he had most of the transitions done well.
My next roll was against Luke Brown. Can't remember much at this point except for that I got him definitely once with an arm bar, maybe twice. Can't remember it perfectly.
Next up was a good roll with Rich. Very technical. Good back an forth play with no obvious advantage being held for long. Good flowing rolling.
After that was a good roll with a much improving Chris Whiting. Chris has always had a damn good strength level to his rolling but he seems to be trying stuff more now and relaxing a bit more which is for the better. We ended in a straight leg lock war. With Chris having me trapped up quite well but I tried first his right leg, which didn't work well, then his left which I eventually got the tap from. That is still one of my favourite techniques. I'm pretty chuffed that I had the presence of mind to ensure I didn't reap on either side too.
Last roll was with Sean Errock. It was a good hard round. Most of it concentrating on trying for the takedown. I didn't get him with anything either which is good.
So that was it. My first proper, full lesson taught. I've taught a few techniques before and a run the warm ups on occasion but to be allowed to teach the lesson was a real honour. I love this martial art and hope one day that I'll be in a position to pass my knowledge on to an eager learning class. ¬m/
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