For this week's class our instructor, Ian Rossiter, is off on a family holiday enjoying the wonders of Egypt so I was fortunate enough to be given the reins for the session. The fact that I am trusted enough by Ian to run a class occasionally is a great boost of confidence for me, even more so for the fact that anyone bothers to turn up. As it was we had a decent turn out too so that shows some good club loyalty.
Venue: Sweat FA, Weston Super Mare, UK
Instructor: Me :o) - Martin Eyre (Blue Belt, Checkmat DV8)
Warm Up:
Started off with some laps of the mat with arm windmilling, knee ups, butt kicks, and side steps facing in and out.
We then went on to do stretching of upper and lower body.
To cap it all off we did some lengths of that mat doing different techniques.
These were:
2 x lengths of forward roll breakfalls
2x lengths of backward roll breakfalls
2 x lengths of hip escapes
2 x lengths of spiderman (gator/croc whatever you want to call them) crawls
Techniques:
(As usual I will describe techniques from the side I initially learnt (taught) them).
To kick things off I showed a technique for break open an opponent's closed guard. I often see a lot of guys at our club struggling with the same old guard break, trying to open their opponent's legs when that guy knows exactly what technique is coming and what he needs to do to counter it. So I decided to show them a guard break that's quite different from the usual one they use. Starting in your opponent's closed guard with you on your knees postured up you take a good strong grip of your opponent's belt with both hands and ensure that your arms are fully straightened. You then move both your knees back about a foot and a half so you're body is stretched out and it nearly seems like you are planking on your knees and hands (which are pressed into his waist). Now to break the guard you just need to sit your bum back on your heels while keeping your arms fully extended. This should neatly pop the closed guard hold open giving you the opportunity to pass. I was teaching the technique with a follow up knee inside to combat stance (using my right knee) to ensure the guy can't reclose the guard. A lot of the guys were enjoying this method of breaking closed guard as they're bigger stronger blokes with the ability to power out quite well.
Moving on from there I went on to a single leg stacking smash pass. Starting with the guard break so they could get really used to it, landing in my right leg forward combat stance I then reached under the opponent's right leg with my left arm, going nice and low down the leg to avoid getting triangled. I then reach up with the left hand and take a grip of the guy's left lapel, using a pull on that to help assist me in pushing the opponent's leg down, crushing it in to him. Now with my right hand I reach under the guy and take a grab of either his belt or the lower panel of his jacket and use this to stack him right up, lifting his ass fully off the ground and removing pretty much all of his hip movement. You can now carry on leaning all your weight against the guy's right, really crushing it in to him with the stack as you pass around the outside to his right. It was even mentioned at this point that it's possible to tap someone out using the pressure of the stack alone although this is quite unlikely against anyone whose been training for a reasonable length of time. What will definitely happen however, is the opponent, to release the discomfort of the crushing, will be trying to push his right leg away whilst in this stacked position. You will feel this happening and just allow him to push his leg forward while you are pushing it down so you'll end up slipping over the leg and coming over to side control, the opponent will most likely have had to turn over on to his side away from you by this point too. It's your decision from there as to whether you'd just prefer to flatten him out for the full side control or if you'd rather take the slightly riskier yet still very attainable transition to back mount.
Next up was one that I rarely use but have recently been trying to push into my game for the control it allows on the pass. Once again using the initial closed guard break, this time, instead of coming up into a combat stance, I went with the double underhooks. Bringing both arms underneath the opponent's legs and then gripping hands just near the guy's waist area, you can now lean your body weight into the back of the guys legs, stacking him up quite effectively. You now just need to decide which side you are passing and lean your weight into the leg on that side, really pressing down hard and passing on the outside. As you are just coming to the end of the pass and getting to side control it is preferable for you release your gripped together hands but take a grip of the guy's pant legs to ensure that extra bit of control for as long as possible. A quick and flexible opponent will be able to bring a leg up and around to block off your full pass if your don't keep the legs controlled for as long as you can, trust me, I do it all the time. Try to resist sloppy guard passing.
The last technique of the night was little nod to Ian's old penchant for including a disco move in all lessons. Using the guard break (they really drilled the hell out of that thing) and underhook movement from the above technique, this time instead of gripping my hands together in front of the waistline I grabbed the guy's belt at the front and then moved my hands out to his sides a bit (still gripping the belt). You can now stand up quickly and pull the guy's hips right up off the ground by his belt, leaving his head and shoulders pointing down to the floor. Using this move (recommended to be done quite fast) you can flip your opponent over backwards so he lands in the turtle. You now need to come down heavily across his shoulders/upper back so you appear to be in back side mount. I demo'd the move with my lower body coming down to his right, my upper body coming over to his left. You then reach under his left arm using your left and take a grip of his wrist, holding that arm in place. You then just need to force your right foot inbetween his right arm and head and then wrap that leg around his right arm, closing the hold up with your left leg in a triangle style. You now hand the guy in a crucifix hold, you just need to use your left foot to kick off, pushing your body weight over the opponent's back (but not so you loose that triangle style clamp on the right leg) and forward roll, pushing the guy's arm across in front of him as you go so he can't base out on it. As you roll over onto your back your leg grip on his right arm pulls him over with you and you can pull his left arm out with your left arm so he's fully crucifixed and ready to be finished. From there it's easy to just reach around behind his head with your right hand to grab his left collar quite deep. You then just pull on the collar and abgle your arm up so the forearm finishes the choke.
I. Fucking. Love. This. Move. I've already hit it a few times and I've only been using it for the last month. It's cool as hell and works really well. It's worth mentioning that some of the guys were finding it hard to initially get the courage up to forward roll with the guy locked up. Some were using their hands to help them push off, but in such a cautious position that it was actually hindering them from completing the move. Once we'd eventually drilled it in to them that they just needed to duck their heads down and roll forward everyone was landing it well.
Rolling:
For sparring this week I went against Tom Hill, Rich Presley (who was training hard for competition), Dan Foster and Jay Curtis. Can't remember many details. I got a few subs and didn't get subbed but that is about as much as I can recall. All rounds were pretty damn hard rolling which is just the way I'm liking it lately.
It was great to be allowed the honour of teaching people once again and it is definitely what I wish to do in the future. I'd like to thank all the guys who attended the lesson and hope they take a little bit of what I taught them away and find good use for it in the future. ¬m/
No comments:
Post a Comment