Dv8 Bjj 23/5/13

Good numbers again. Things seem to be picking up at our little club which is exciting stuff. The more the merrier in my opinion. Now if I can convince a few of them to start competing we could have the beginnings of a decent comp team.

Venue: Sweat FA, Weston Super Mare, Uk
Instructor: Ian Rossiter (Black belt, Checkmat)

(As usual I will describe each technique from the side I initially learnt it)

First move we hit this sesh was the Arm Drag to back control. You're sat down as if in Butterfly Guard but the opponent has secured a grip of your ankles (or gi pants near the ankles) and stepped back as if to start a pass. What you have to remember here is that your legs are (nearly) always going to be stronger than his arms. All you have to do is step your right leg out to the side, taking his left arm with it, whilst quickly gripping his left arm at the triceps with your left and taking a grip of his gi jacket on the left arm at the triceps or wrist with your right. With this newly acquired grip you then lean back hard using the strength of your back to yank the opponent's grip free and pull him off to your left hand side (all this is done really quickly as it's a move that really telegraphs itself if you do it slowly). Once the guy is dragged off to your left you can then go round to his back and secure his left leg with you legs wrapped around it. Leaning you hips into him helps maintain him in a turtle position.


From the above it's just a simple matter of passing your left arm over his left shoulder and your right arm under his right arm and gripping your hands together to form a seat belt style control of his upper body. You can now step your right leg over near to his right hip in preparation for the back take. From here you just need to lean out hard to your left, rolling over to your back and swinging your opponent over also. This movement also opens the gap wide between his right elbow and knee so you can neatly slot in your second hook and wrap up a very tidy back control. Marcelo Garcia himself would be proud of you.


After that with did a simple flow drill of Arm Bar from guard, countered, to Omoplata, to triangle. This was the same as was covered a few months ago so I won't rehash.


I was quite on fire this week rolling. I got all my opponents but most noticeably, I managed to get Tom Hill with and omoplata and a kimura. It's been ages since I got anything on Tom so either I was on a rich vein of form or Tom was on an off day.

Today (the day I type this) is the Chico Mendes Seminar down at Sweat FA. I'm really pumped for this. I cannot feckin wait.!!! I'll give you a full write up on it this week. ¬m/

DV8 Bjj

It's been a busy week for me, what with the awesome weather we've been having here in England. As a highways inspector, I am required to drive around the county of North Somerset during the snowy weather and find the worst hit areas and arrange for them to either be gritted or closed off for safety. Consequentially I've been pretty damn busy these last few days so I've only just got round to putting this entry in.

Venue: Sweat FA, Weston Super Mare, Uk
Instructor: Ian Rossiter ( Black belt Checkmat)

Last Thursday down at Sweat Fa, Weston, we once again started the session with stretches then an awesome circuit.

The circuit featured 20 seconds of;

Sprints
Burpees
Vaults
Crunches
Skipping Rope
Kettlebell raises
Sky divers
Tricep dips
Kettle bell around the world
Elevated Push ups
Step ups
Squats
V sits

I'm really loving these circuits.


Techniques:
(For simplicity, I always explain techniques from the side and using the grips that I initially learned them)

Ian started us off with an arm drag from butterfly guard. In your seated butterfly position the opponent has his hands gripping your legs at the ankles. You reach down and grab the cuff of his left sleeve with your right hand and grab at the elbow/triceps of that left arm with your left arm. You then step your right leg outside of his left and lay back and to the left whilst pulling on his left arm. His upper body should shoot to your left side with you now able to come up to your knees behind him and pressure your weight against him to keep him in a turtled position.




Moving it on we went to Rear Mount. You've got the guy to turtle, still with your left hook in between his legs. You reach over his back with your right hand and then under him to grab a grip of his left lapel (this can be quite low). Grabbing a hold of his left arm to stop him basing out you can now drop yourself to the floor on his left side while using the right hand grip to pull him over you to a seated rear mount position. As he's coming over he will (usually) open up the space between his right arm and leg for you to handily slip your right hook in. This should land you in a fantastic seated rear mount with both hooks in and you already have 1 lapel grip. Good going.



The first finish we did from this position was the Half Nelson choke we did last week. Check back if you don't know how it's done.




Next up was another choking finish but one I hadn't seen before and am not entirely sure I am remembering correctly. from the seated rear mount you reach over his right shoulder with your right hand and take a grip of his left collar. You then pass your left arm under his left arm and under your right forearm, then press your fist into his throat. Increase pressure by leaning back and pulling against the collar so your right forearm crushes the fist into his windpipe for the Collar and Fist choke finish.That's how I remember it anyway. If Ian corrects me on that then I'll do an edit.



Another attack was the old faithful rear mounted Arm bar finish. Once again, I've written this move up a few times so no real need to do so again. Just look back through my blog if you want.



We finished off with a rear mount escape. Starting with your opponent having your back in seated rear mount with both hooks in. You defend your neck with both your hands and plant both feet flat on the ground to push yourself back into your opponent, flattening his back to the floor. You then shift your hips out to the right, moving your back out also, to get it to the floor. During this movement, the weight of your lower body should press against the opponent's right inside leg, knocking the hook out and leaving you the opportunity to reach under his left leg with your right arm. If you then reach that right hand to grab something high on him like his left arm or his gi jacket, you will be supported enough to drive the leg up high and pass through to side control. A great move if you can pull it off. Any time I've used that escape though in sparring, I've generally ended up in half guard top or bottom as it's pretty easy for anyone but a rookie to see the pass coming and close up shop. Still, either half guard top or bottom is preferable to having your back attacked.



Rolling.

For rolling this week I've pretty much forgotten everything that happened. I know I rolled with Dan first and had a pretty good time of it. Can't remember specifics though.


I also rolled against Ash, Ian and Sean E. Don't remember any details about them either. Ah well. Great sesh.


I've been pretty ill since Thursday and had to miss out on the Tuesday session as I didn't want to infect anyone with my lurgy. Hopefully I'll make Thursday's class and get in a double next week with some weekday lunch time training too to make up for it.

2 Man Training

I have been fortunate enough to have the week off this week to spend time with the wife and kids. I have also managed to get some additional mat time in on the Monday and Tuesday afternoons. In a stroke of genius last week I checked the training schedule times for over Easter at my local gym, Sweat FA - Weston Super Mare, and found that there were some pretty huge gaps in the mat usage times which I could exploit. So I grabbed my trusty training compatriot, Marcus Hedley, and ventured down for some 2 man training.

And may I just say that although you are not getting the tuition aspect of a full class, I cannot recommend this format enough for an occasional session of additional training to help you polish up your skill set and maybe work on things that you've not had the time or space to try in class.

Monday was a bit impromptu as I didn't know whether we'd actually get to train so neither of us planned anything and we basically did everything on an as we think of it basis. Stuff we covered includes practising triangles, omoplatas, some judo throws, and an absoluute shit load of rolling.

On Tuesday however, we each managed to plan a bit the night before. I took reference from my good friend (yeah right) Marcelo Garcia, via his new book Advanced Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Techniques. From there we worked on his Arm Drag section practising and drilling a load of Arm Drags starting from the seated guard position with a few variations and then working on standing Arm Drags, also with a few variations. Marcelo is so thorough on this subject in his book that he even show a few variations where things don't go right for you initially and how to bring it back to your advantage. We spent a decent amount of time on this and by the end of it we both came away amazed at how much we didn't know about arm dragging and how many different ways you can actually initiate and arm drag and go straight to back. The guy really is a "Jiu Jitsu Genius".

Marcus went away with the Ed Beneville and Joe Moreira : The Guard manual. From there we did some guard techniques, sweeps and subs. We also tried a couple of Butterfly Guard sweeps from Marcelo's X-Guard Book.

It was really good learning these techniques that under usual circumstances, we wouldn't get the opportunity to try. We even found ourselves chucking a few of them in during the heavy rolling sessions we had at the end. It's good to apply the stuff you've learnt so when you hit something you've been trying out it makes it all feel worthwhile.

I truly cannot recommend enough getting in a bit of one on one training and experimentation time with your techniques for anyone who is semi-serious about learning Bjj. Roll on Thursday for Ian's class. I love this martial art!

\m/