DV8 22/11/12

Went to Ian's class on the Thursday (22/11/12). Attendance was pretty good as usual.

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

Techniques:
(As usual, I will explain the movements of each technique from how I first learnt them)
After a brief warm up Ian took us straight into some techniques from side control. The first was a Gi choke from side. Laying across your opponent with your left arm around under his head and your right elbow pressed against his right hip to brace him into place. Using your left hand you take a grip of his gi collar on the right side of his head. Maintaining heavy bodyweight pressure on him, you pass you right arm down to the left side of the opponent, taking a grip of his gi at the under arm. You can now finish the move by opening your left arm out (whilst maintaining that grip of the collar) so your arm passes over the head and you can bring the forearm down onto the throat of the opponent, pushing up into the neck to apply the pressure.
This is a good technique that is fairly usable against anyone as long as you get the technique right. I very nearly tapped someone out with this in my first ever competition. I was also tapped out with this by Matt Sellars just recently.


The second technique of the night was from the same starting position but this time you don't grip the collar as far over to the right, more like at the back of the neck. You then turn your lower body left, so it's facing up toward his head. Now, keeping your left hand grip on the collar, pass your left leg up over the guys head and wrap it around. Leaning forward you now push back with your legs whilst keeping your tight grip with your hand, cutting off the flow blood for the choke out.
It's worth noting that this move can be quite hard to pull off on certain types of people. I was training this move with Tom Hill and Luke Brown. Meand Tom found it particularly difficult to hit this move on Luke. To finish him with it I found I really had to wrap my leg around his neck and drive down. The more blade-like I could make my arm with the collar grip seemed to make a difference too.


Ian then brought us on to Side Control Transition to North South then to arm bar. Laying across the opponent with his head to your left, you secure his left arm so it is to the right side of your head. Now, dropping to your right hip so your lower body is facing upward toward his head, you can step his head with your left leg to attain the North South position, using your right shoulder to push against the secured arm to keep it in position. Ensure you are keeping good downward pressure on the opponent's upper body so he can't easily tilt in one direction to escape. Pushing up against his secured arm as if to push it across his body, this will make the guy angle up on to his right side slightly giving you the opportunity to bring your right leg up and press it into his left side. Taking a double hand grip of his arm at this point, you can now lean forward to bring the right leg up over his upper body as you sit back with the secure arm for the very tight arm bar. Clenching your legs together at this point helps apply the pressure.



Ian had us do that technique first so we were already fluid in controlling from the North South position. For the next technique you do the above as far as the North South then grip the wrist of the guy's left arm you have secured with your right hand. Now, passing your left hand underneath his left arm at the elbow you can grip your own right wrist. Using this "figure 4" grip gives you the all important strength advantage so you can pull upward bringing the guy up onto his right side, so his left side is upright and you can tighten your legs around his head and upper chest to keep him in that position. To finish the Kimura lock, you bring the guy's upper arm up at a 90 degree angle to his body and then, using the superior strength of both of your arms, you turn his lower arm left. Very painful. Most of the time though, the guy will know this is coming by the time you've started adjusting your grips in the North South and they will generally grab a hold of their gi or their belt. All you have to do is lean into the grip and use your body strength to rip it away from what it is gripping. Always be sure to rip away from not into the grip.

For the last move Ian showed an alternate for if the guy is too strong for you to break his grip for the Kimura. Instead you just bring your left knee up and press it into his back, then as before with the first arm bar, lean forward, bring your right leg up to position and then sit back so your right leg is over his face/upper body. You should have loads of methods for breaking his grip at this point to fall back for the arm bar so I'll leave it there.



Rolling:

For my first roll of the night I was against Tom Hill. For me it was mostly top control. i managed to pass his guard a couple of times but he recovered very well. The highlight of the roll was Tom's awesome escape from turtle choke attempt to recover guard. He basically folded himself in half to recover guard while I was trying to choke him. Great stuff.



Next up was a very game Cameron Rothery. I tapped Cam very quickly to an Arm Bar from guard once again. I will continue doing it until he stops extending the arm to try and almost push his way out of guard. I also got him with a Bow and Arrow but that was while I was playing about with position and managed to transition to his back so I just thought I'd test him with it.


Third was against Glenn. I was chuffed once again cause I managed to get the first takedown and was close to hitting an arm bar but he rolled out. Glenn then got second takedown and transitioned to North South which is somewhat of a resting position for him. As I don't generally feel overly threatened in North South I just wait for a movement for my opportunity to escape. On this occasion though, Glenn seemed happy to stay in his commanding position so it ended there.


For my last roll of the night I was against Chris Whiting. After a brief scramble I took top control then secured a leg and dropped back for the Achilles lock. The rest of the round I just played a bit of guard until time.

At the end Ian called us all round so he could award some stripes to some of the white belts. Justin Thomas was well deservedly notched up to his third stripe, Rob (Morris?), Chris Whiting and Chris Cook were all made up to 2 stripes and Cameron and Luke were given 1 each.

Good session all around. Now I've only got the one more lesson before my big competition on Sunday 2nd December. The Hereford Open. Can't friggin' wait!!!

¬m/

Checkmat - Bristol 8-5-12

I took a full car up to the LA Gym in Bristol for the Tuesday night Bjj session at Checkmat - Bristol Combat Legion. The usual faces of me, Ian and Marcus were joined by Dan Foster and Justin Thomas, regulars of Ian's Thursday night class down Sweat FA Weston. So the banter in the car was good instead of the usual - me talking at Ian and Marcus for 20 odd miles.

Venue: LA Gym, Bristol, Uk.
Instructor: Ian Rossiter - Checkmat.


Warm Up:

Laps of the mat, including, ass kicks, knee ups, facing inward for a lap, facing out for a lap and arm windmilling for a couple of laps. Neck, Arm and Shoulder stretching. Push ups 10x8, Squats 10x 8,  Crunches 10 x 7 (Stupid big classes :o|), then some leg stretching.



Techniques:

First technique of the night was how to force the opponent to give up the arm for an Arm Bar from Mount. Starting with the mount on your opponent, with one of your hands, reach over and cross grab the guys non opposing shoulder (so if using your right hand you'd grab his right shoulder) and crush your forearm down across his throat. This move is never going to get a tap from anyone as the block for it is instinctive. The opponent reaches over with his opposite side hand and pulls on the crushing arm at the elbow to relieve that pressure on his neck. In doing so he exposes a lot of his arm and lifts his shoulder partially off the ground. Now you can secure his blocking arm by releasing the neck crush  and reaching through the gap to the high arm/shoulder and turning your body in toward his shoulder to stop the opponent from pulling his arm away. Whilst doing this you also switch your far side leg (the leg on the far side of his body when you turn) to point up towards his head. Now you change the arm you have securing his arm over (you should now have your arm nearer his head threaded into his endangered arm elbow crook), and use the newly freed arm to either grab his gi pants at the near side knee or post out behind you. To finish this move you just need to bring the other leg over his head and lean back, clutching the opponents arm tight to your chest so you can use the power of your whole body to extend his arm. Clench your knees together tight so you only need to lightly pull down on the arm to finish. If your legs are too lose you have to pull right back on the arm and over extend your hips to get the tap.
This move has been a staple of my Bjj repertoire for years and I cannot even begin to remember how many guys I've tapped with this exact technique. I drilled this move with Marcus.


Moving on from there, the standard defence against the above arm bar is to clutch the endangered arm with the other arm. The next set of three mini techniques were some tips Ian gave us for breaking the opponents arms apart when he uses this method to block the arm bar.
The first was a simple wrist lock. The opponent is holding on to the secured arm with his other arm for dear life, trying to puzzle out a way to escape the imminent danger. All you need do is grab the hand of the secure arm and pull it down, bending it at the wrist, as if you're trying to get his hand to touch his elbow crook. With the elbow of that arm firmly against your stomach there is nowhere for him to move to relieve the pressure. A submission is imminent. This move is sometimes known as a goose neck wristlock.
The second method to break the grip is to just swim your free arm inside the opponents clenched arm ensemble and then back away, leaning in that direction too (still clenching the arm to you) to snap the grip apart.
The third method Ian demonstrated (on me, the bastard) was to bring his arm right into the crook of the opponents secured elbow and use his other arm to crush that arm together (so the wrist pushes toward the shoulder) closing the elbow so the arm left inside expands the elbow joint for lots of pain.
Three good techniques for the arm bar clutch break. I drilled these techniques with Rich Long. I found the first two fairly easy but the third took a bit of exploring arm positioning to get the most effective hold on.


Ian showed us one more technique to combat someone blocking the arm bar attempt. This time, you've got to the arm bar set up where the arm is secure (but clenched to defend) and both your legs are over the opponent to prevent his easy escape. Sometimes people have a tendency to try and push on the far side arm at the bicep with their far side (leg side) foot. This technique works when the guys shakes your foot off leaving both your legs positioned above (closer to his head) the far side arm. You can now move your near side leg (the one over his head) out at roughly a 45 degree angle to his head, then reach behind his head with your near side arm to grab the your other leg at the ankle and pull that leg partially around the opponents head, keeping your arm very tight to the back of his head. Some guys might tap at this point to the arm and leg triangle but the real choke comes when you wrap your other leg around the choking leg to form the traditional triangle figure four for the tight choke. If you're still having problems finishing it from there you can move your ass away from the opponent, increasing the pressure on the neck.
Me and Rich both found this move easy to get to grips with and very effective.


Next up was a Kimura from Half Guard top. In your opponent's Half Guard, you have managed to isolate his arm (the off side arm so you are leant right across his body, with him flattened out) off to one side. You secure it for the Kimura using the traditional overwrap figure four arm hold and pull the arm in close to your body. You then pull the opponent up a bit so you can roll over on your shoulder and head to come up on the side bringing the opponent forward slightly so you can finish the Kimura behind his back. Ian suggests crossing your legs as you go over so the guy can't push forward to roll you over and escape the hold. Marcus and his drilling partner, Shabba, also discovered that if you bring your knee up once you've gone over the opponent stops dead in his tracks and the Kimura almost finishes itself.


Ian's final technique of the evening was a Kimura reversal. From a Half Guard bottom Kimura, the opponent has your arm locked up on the other side of your body to the trapped leg. To block the hold you need to grab your gi pants to give you some time to reach under inside and grab the secured arm by the wrist. Now you can lean in close to the opponent while you pull the secured arm up, so the opponent's figure fouring arm get pulled up uncomfortably until he's forced to tap.
Me and Rich both initially had the problem that we were just pulling the arm up with out leaning in. The opponent can easily slip the hold in that situation.


Rolling:

First roll was against Rich Long. And I have to say, Rich has improved A LOT over the last few months. Dedication has done his game the world of good. I started off by push him backwards and attacking his guard. I managed to pass briefly to side control but Rich recovered well back to half guard. While I tried to pass his half guard I think I over commited as Rich managed to sweep me over to mount, although I Upa'd out of it in super quick time and finished the round trying to pass his guard again.

Second roll was against Shabba. It was a back and forth affair with some sweeps and passes for each of us. I threatened an Americana at one point, shabba threatened a triangle at one point. Other than that it was fairly even.

Third roll was against a guy whose name I can't remember. I attacked straight off and passed his guard to side control. I broke off then and pulled guard instead to work on my bottom game. While we were struggling in this position I came up against a floor to ceiling speedball half garrotting my neck. We could of moved but I figured the obstruction could one day represent a table leg or other obstruction so I  should try and work my way around it. Unfortunately it allowed his to pass to side control and my best method of escape actually required me to remove my head from my shoulders. Consequentially he trapped me in a head and arm triangle which I was able to "answer the phone" to block. I was just working on a hip twist escape when time was called.

I wasn't very impressed with my own performance that session. I was, however, very impressed with Big Justin's progress. He went up to a class where there's a considerably higher level of grappler and managed to come away without getting tapped. That's a very good step up in game for him.

That's it for me for Bjj for the week :o( My next session will be with Marcus on Monday. I wish I could train more \m/

Weston Bjj - 3/5/12

Thursday night at Sweat FA was a particularly brilliant lesson. Only a few of the usual faces but a couple of new guys turned up and a few returning guys who've only attended a couple of sessions so are "as good as new". Still, a good buzz about the class going in, everyone was nice and chatty during the warm up. Good to have a friendly class where everyone's comfortable talking about non Jiu Jitsu related stuff together. Makes things seem a bit closer knit.

Venue: Sweat FA, Weston Super Mare, UK.
Instructor: Ian Rossiter.


Warm Up:

Laps of the mat, including, ass kicks, knee ups, facing inward for a lap, facing out for a lap and arm windmilling for a couple of laps. Neck, Arm and Shoulder stretching. Push ups 20x3, Squats 20x 3,  Crunches 20 x 3 (Ian was on one), then some leg stretching.






Techniques:


The first couple of techniques Ian gave us were from a Rear Mount back controlling position. You are sat up with the opponent sat with his back to you between your legs. You have both hooks in (your legs are around his waist with the feet "hooked" in behind his knees on the inside of his legs). You have your arms under-hooking him (underneath his arms) with your hands gripping his lapels. This is the starting position for most of the lessons techniques.


The first sub shown involved you pulling the lapel out on one side (same side) with the underhook and bringing your other arm out from underhooking to overhooking (passing the arm around over his arm) so you can grab the opposite side lapel quite deep at the collar and pull it taught against the opponents neck. Now with the other arm you reach up and pass the hand behind the opponent's head (as it's an underhook you should still have the opponents arm trapped in there). To apply the pressure here you just need to lean back while pushing forward with the arm behind his head for the nice tight Arm in Gi Choke from Rear Mount.

Ian showed us the second sub in the same demo so we could drill the two at the same time. The second technique was a straight forward Rear Naked Choke. From the start up position, bring one of your under hooked arms out and over hook to wrap around the opponents so the hand is coming up near the opponents opposite shoulder. Then you get your other arm out and put the hand of the choking arm on the bicep of the tightening arm and then close the tightening arm and pass that hand around the back the guys head. To finish the move, tighten the choking arm around the neck while clamping it down against his chest and leaning forward into the move to push pressure on at the back of his head. This move is one of the most commonly used submissions from Back Control and is a firm favourite for MMAers.

I was drilling the nights stuff with Marcus. We both had these techniques down already so we just drilled a bit and talked crap.


For the next technique, Ian split the class up and dealt with the new guys for a bit and let me show the Bow and Arrow choke to the more seasoned side of the class. From the start up position you present one lapel and remove the other under hook to bring it back over the that shoulder and get a grip on the opposite presented lapel (doesn't have to be particularly deep). You then lean out to the side where you haven't got the overhook lapel grip and grab the opponents under knee or gi pants on that side and pass your leg on the other side over the opponents shoulder to stretch the choke taught. This is my favourite rear mount choke technique. I love it and usually try for it when ever I have someone's back. It is a choke you have to be careful with though as a lot of guys have tried to fight it for too long and gone under. You need to be aware of your sparring partners consciousness when applying that choke.

Me and Marcus have drilled the hell out of this technique over the last couple of years so we were happy to try different ways of blocking or countering it. One that I found quite successful was to pull down on the lapel from underneath where the choker has his grip, which takes a lot of the pressure off, giving you the opportunity to scoot your but down a fraction and reach up with your other arm to push it against his elbow and release the head. This makes the whole sub fall apart and puts you in a good position to attack. I also found an interesting kimura variation from that escape that I couldn't even begin to describe without doing it again. We also drilled arm bar counters on the escape.


For the next sub Ian showed us the simple yet very effective Rear Mount to Arm Bar. A move I am very familiar with being as that it was my go to move from Rear Mount for ages. Until everyone started realising this and blocking the arm bar meaning I'd just given up my highly controlling position and ended up with my opponent in my guard. Anyway, from the start up position, your opponent is blocking out any collar control or your ability to cross his neck. With one of your under hook arms, reach up and grab the guy's shoulder (effectively securing his arm). You then lean out to that side, pushing on the side of his head with your other arm, and then bring your far leg out and over the top of his head and lean back, pulling the secured arm out straight for the arm bar. Brilliant technique, simple yet effective if you get it on an unsuspecting opponent. As I said before though, fail and you've lost position and may well look a bit of a pillock.


The last technique was a real peach. Ian's disco move of the day was a Rear Triangle/Armbar option from Rear Mount (with kick out). From the start up, you reach up to the shoulder as for the Rear Mount Arm Bar and the opponent decides to hit the ill-advised MMA escape where you drive back on his legs to flatten you on the floor. To counter this, you remove your foot hooks and put your feet under his legs in the crooks of his knees and kick out firing the guy back forward to the seated position with the additional bonus of his underhooked arm pulled right up toward you. Now you just need to wrap your leg (the one on the other side to his raised arm) over the shoulder and past his head and raised arm. You then escape you hip slightly to the other side and use the leg on that side to wrap around your first leg forming the triangle. If you've done this right but you're having trouble hitting the triangle the arm bar is right there too. In fact both are so easy to attain you actually find yourself accidentally hitting one when you're trying to drill the other.
Two very effective techniques and definitely my favourite techniques of the night. Me and Marcus drilled the hell out of these, I just hope I manage to retain the knowledge for when the adrenaline is pumping. I'd love to hit that move.


Rolling:

We didn't have loads of time at the end of the class for rolling but we still got a few in. I managed to roll with the more experienced guys in the class which is good. I don't mind showing the newer guys stuff but if feels good to let loose with some full sparring.

Rolled against Marcus first which was a back and forth affair starting with me in guard, then hit a sweep on him, passed to side, went to North South, Marcus pulled a pretty wicked escape out of the hat and swept me and we finished the round shortly after.

Next up was Dan Foster. Dan is a really good challenge for me and I'm loving rolling against him regularly as we are of comparable weight and level. I attacked straight from the start and managed to pull Dan's leg out and push him back forcing his to assume guard. I then attacked his guard managing to pass it ever so briefly to side control before he recovered. Eventually Dan got a sweep on me jumping on to mount, also very briefly, before I escaped to half guard. I was in the process of hitting a Half Guard sweep when the round ended. A good furious paced roll there. I look forward to our next.

After Dan I was up against Big Justin. What Justin gives up in technique he manages to make up for in pure power. I went straight into open guard and tried to set up various arm bar or omoplata attacks. I very nearly had a gogoplata on him (which would have been a first) but he muscled out of it. I was very pleased that Justin was attacking a lot too, trying to pass my guard constantly with out even trying his old tactic of trying to choke me from within my guard (it's never worked). Justin's game is improving loads and he was really trying some well thought out passes, all the while defending my sub attempts. I eventually hit a sweep on him to side control which he powered out of to get guard. I was then attacking his guard as the round played out.

Now my final roll of the night was against Ian and I was insistent on not getting tapped this time. Jumping straight to guard I first fought off some of Ian's pass attempts before I managed a hook sweep on him. As he went down he tried to get a cheeky little Achilles Ankle Lock on me but I leant forward to take the pressure off the hold and pulled out. I then tried to pass his guard with a few different passes without much joy before trying a feeble effort at my own Achilles. Ian easily broke out of this and nearly hit me with a scissor sweep before I was able to base out at the last second. We then went in to a kind of 50/50 position but with me standing. I could feel Ian reaching down for my leg to go for another Achilles attempt or a sweep of some kind and I had his leg secure so I decided to slap on an old school Toe Hold Ankle Lock (Ian is a Brown Belt after all so it's not really cheating). Ian tapped to this, making that the first time I've ever tapped Ian (or any Brown Belt) out. Result. I think I'll go in to hiding for a few weeks now until all this has blown over :o)

Anyway, as I said, brilliant lesson. A couple of great moves. Got to teach a move. Got a cheeky tap. And I went home and had a Caribbean Curry after (it was ok). What more can I guy ask for.

An image of purely coincidental relevance and importance.

 

\m/

Thursday 22-3-12

I had a great time at last nights Bjj session under the tutelage of Ian Rossiter (Brown Belt). The numbers were down a bit from last week which always seems to be the case after a grading unfortunately, but sometimes it's better having a smaller class as it feels a bit more personal and you get a bit more face time with the instructor.

This week we have also been aware that Rich Presley (2.0) is going to be entering the Hereford Open 12 this week in the 88.3 Kg category which is usually one of the most heavily contested weight classes in the competition so we've been trying to help him drill stuff that would be useful for his effort. I hope that he's done enough, Rich certainly has been improving massively in the last year that I've known him and he's been training like a total demon with sessions at least 3 times a week (lucky bastard). Using the ever evolving guard game he's been exhibiting recently and with some good fortune maybe Rich can come home with something shiny for his cupboard. Good Luck Dude.


Venue: Sweat FA, Weston Super Mare, Uk.
Instructor: Ian Rossiter.


Warm Up:

Laps of the mat, including, ass kicks, knee ups, facing inward for a lap, facing out for a lap and arm windmilling for a couple of laps. Neck, Arm and Shoulder stretching. Push ups 10 x 3, Squats 10x 3, Crunches 10 x 3, then some leg stretching and the weird torso twist stretch.


Techniques:

Ian started us off by drilling the basic armbar from the guard. Opponent sits in your guard and grabs both lapels quite high. You then grip their sleeve cuffs, one in each hand, open your guard and put your feet to the guys hips, then shift your own hips out to one side and fire your leg on that side up and over the top of the guys arms and past his head. Then return to the closed guard start position and do the same for the opposite side.

Each guy drilled this 10 times. I was drilling with Dan the blue belt for this but we quickly got switched around by Ian so the more experienced guys were each with a newer guy. I got paired off with Chris Whiting. Chris is experiencing some difficulty with his hip manoeuvrability and took a while to get the gist of the drill and how to get in the correct position to apply the pressure. We worked on it for a bit and I think he understood where he was going wrong in the end.

For the next drill we went through the basic omoplata from guard. Opponent sits in your guard and grabs both lapels quite high. You then grip their sleeve cuffs, one in each hand (same as before). You then pull one of the hands up and across a bit to stretch the guy and using the leg of that side of the body, you open your guard and bring the leg up and over the shoulder and down under his chin. Whilst doing that you can swivel your body outside (so you've gone out at a angle on the same side the leg is over the shoulder) and then triangle the other leg over the first so it's nice and secure. Now, securing the guy by the belt or the leg, use your legs to push him down to the mat, keeping the arm secured between your legs. From there you can finish the omoplata however you usually would, be it with the for leg extended, bringing both legs round to the side or keeping them triangled and leaning forward. Always ensure you've got the downward pressure on his back though or he'll roll out and you've lost the position. DO NOT secure him by wrapping your nearside arm around his nearside leg or he can roll over and reverse the hold putting you in the omoplata.
We were back to original partners here so I was drilling with Dan again. During the drilling of this technique Dan stated that he has never been tapped out by an omoplata in sparring. I think that's definitely worth noting for a future challenge.


Moving us on from there Ian showed us a method of hitting the omoplata from the feet on hips guard. Start by gripping each of the opponents sleeve cuffs with your hands and with your feet on the opponents hips. Pushing the guy away with your feet to make space, move one of your legs outside the opponents same side arm then over the top and back inside, using your foot to hook up under the arm pit to form a position called the leg lasso. Now release the grip on the non lasso'd sleeve cuff and transfer it to the lasso'd sleeve cuff so you can use the hand that was securing that cuff to reach outside the leg lasso and grip the opponents arm or sleeve at the triceps. Then you just push the leg that's forming the lasso through further and move it up and over the top of the shoulder and back down under the guys chin (whilst using this movement to shift your body out at an angle) to start the  omoplata. Very nifty technique.


While we were playing about with this one, Marcus remembered a move that Italo Ferreira taught him when he was the head Bjj instructor at Trojan Bristol. From the same leg lasso set up but you need to ensure there is lots of space so you ensure you push yourself away quite far before you get the leg lasso in. You then put the other leg through the hole underneath the leg lasso and roll under on your shoulders. When you come up on the other side you are already in the omoplata position. Nice move. I'll need a lot more time to really nail it though. I only got 3 tries and only really hit it once. The two times I got it wrong I think was down to not putting the leg under far enough.


Rolling:

To help Rich in his training efforts we started off with some situational rolling. First was from side control. It was side controlling escaping. Guy on top just had to maintain side control while the guy at the bottom had to try and recover guard. I paired off with Rich first and let him have both turns on the bottom (mainly because we stupidly misheard the instructions). Rich has developed a really good bridge out and managed to recover guard a couple of times. On some of the times he didn't though, he had a tendency to brutally expose his back. Something for him to work on there.

Next up I paired off with Dan. We only had enough time for me to go on the bottom, I managed to recover guard a couple of times after a bit of a struggle. Dan's good at shifting up to North South and stalling there.

Next situational was guard passing. Guy on the floor closes his guard while the guy in guard tries to break guard and pass. Dan tried to pass first and I had a pretty good time of it. I managed to sweep him twice and maintained guard through the rest of it, though I had to invert at one point to keep guard.
During my stint trying to pass I used the knee in and push leg away guard break to good effect and managed to pass from there when he attempted an omoplata. On the next try Dan went to try an arm bar to which I blocked so he tried and triangle to which I moved out around the outside leaving him to roll up into turtle stopping me from passing.

After that we managed to get in a few rounds of proper rolling. I went with Dan first and after the initial grip fighting effort I pulled guard. From Guard I tried to hit various subs while Dan furiously tried to pass. It went like that for pretty much the entire 3 minutes except I managed to hit a triangle on him right at the end. Just as the 30 second warning had gone he stood to pass and I managed to get a leg around his head. I used the reach up and grab the leg with my hand on the other side of his head method to secure the leg in place then wrapped the other leg around for the triangle. When I had the position I knew that it was tight, I just squeezed with my legs, not even bothering with pulling down the head. I think Dan was going to try and wait the thirty seconds but after I tensed my legs he quickly tapped.

My second roll was against Rich so I didn't want to beast the shit out of him ahead of his match, instead I just tried to get him in tricky positions and let him struggle to get out of them. I got to side control and, as mentioned earlier, Rich used his impressive bridge to try and burst out. Knowing this was coming though I just held on tight using my elbows and knees and eventually he bridge to far exposing his back. I took his back and got both hooks in and was content to let him try to escape while I tried to hold on and to his credit he managed to escape to half guard top in the dying seconds of the roll. Well done on the rear mount escape Rich but you've gotta stop giving up your back from side control. Good luck for Sunday \m/.

My last roll of the night was against Big Justin. Justin looked absolutely shagged going in so I tried my hand at seeing if I could take him down. Justin's got about 3 stone on me and is as strong as an ox so it didn't take me long to realise that pulling guard was the better option. Justin's been struggling with his guard passing so I decided that I'd just close my guard up and throw little threats at him like arm bars, triangles and gi chokes, whilst giving him the opportunity to try and pass my guard. To his credit I didn't get a sub on him, came very close with an arm bar but he seems to have them fairly well scouted now so he pulled the elbow out just enough to lose the threat. Unfortunately he still did next to nothing toward passing the guard. As time dwindled out I could see him getting very frustrated and trying stupid things with his arms outstretched. After our roll I gave him some advice on guard passing and suggested maybe he got himself the Ed Beneville Guard Passing book (I'm not related to Ed Beneville or anything, I just really like his book and suggest it to everyone).

Another session over and I've now got my sights set on the Welsh Open next month and the British Open the month after. Some good times ahead \m/.

Sjja 2-2-12

In Bjj, some nights you have it, where you're on fire and no one can touch you (well, get position on you or threaten with a sub) and some nights you should of just stayed at home. You find yourself stepping back into your early learning phase and dropping clangers all over the place. In particular, leaving arms where they should not be left. More on this later.

Thursday nights class at Sweat FA had good numbers again and we had the bonus of having Gary Davies in attendance which is always a treat. It was pleasantly warm in the martial art room given that the rest of the gym is usually freezing during the day and the temperature outside was a chilly -2C.

Venue: Sweat FA

Instructor: Ian Rossiter.  (SJJA)

Warm Up: Laps of the mat, including, ass kicks, knee ups, facing inward for 2 laps, facing out for 2 lap. Neck, Arm and Shoulder stretching. Push ups 10 x 4, Squats 10x 4, Crunches 10 x 3, and then some leg stretching.

For the first technique, Ian quickly ran us all through the Triangle from Guard we did last week. You've got the opponent in your guard, you get a tight grip on his sleeves, open your guard and put one foot on the opponents opposite hip (left for right, right for left). Then with the strong sleeve grip, push the guys arm that's not on the side with the foot on hip into his stomach whilst pulling the other arm up towards you. Now fire your other leg up in the air then down across his shoulders (you may need a hip shift and rotation of the your body out to the side to accomplish this) and lock your other leg over the first to form a figure four around the guys head and forward arm. I drilled these moves with the ever improving (and ever slimming) Rich Presley. As there were odd numbers we were also joined by Gary which was a treat. Gary always imparts a few of his additional little golden nuggets of Bjj knowledge on the people he's drilling with which help immensely towards tightening up the technique.

 

Quickly after that we went on to the first Triangle defence from last week.  As the opponent is going for the triangle you have to lift your head up a bit so he can't get it lock properly and his leg forms into what Nathan calls a diamond. Also, ensure the arm that is through the triangle hole is braced against the opponents hips, using your other hand reached around the outside of his leg and pressing down on the through arm for additional strength on the brace. Making sure your head is back as far as it will go (even going as far as to roll eyes back to emphasize the upward head motion) and the hips are braced down, you can then come up onto your knees (the triangle will break here if the guys got little legs and you have big shoulders) and then further up to your feet. From here the hold should break easily. After a short drilling of this we moved on.

 

From there, Ian and Gary showed us a different escape from the triangle attempt. You start off the same as before so you have your head and back postured up and arms bracing the hips. From here you bring your leg that is on the same side as your trapped arm, around to press against the opponents side and push it in hard as you turn your head away in the opposite direction. The pressure here should be from your knee on his side and the tightness of it being wrapped around the upper leg pushing it inwards while your head kind of pushes the lower leg out. The legs should come open, but you have to be wary at this point because if you follow your instincts and start to pull out and away in the direction your head is facing at that point you set yourself up to be omoplata'd. Instead you can either turn back in and bring your outside arm back in so you're are back in the guys guard to start the passing attempts again, or you can keep pressure on the opponents bottom leg (the one not over your shoulder) with your free arm and bring your previously trapped arm out and around the outside of the guys leg, then pass using the smash method of leaning all your weight on his leg from your shoulder, pushing it to the side until you can slide right by. While we were drilling, Gary picked me up on the fact that I was trying to just throw the leg over for the pass which give the guy on the bottom valuable space to reclaim guard. 

Ian moved us on from here to a fairly tasty sweep. Starting from the feet on hips, hands gripping opponents sleeves, escape your hips slightly to one side. From there, pass the foot on the side you escaped to, over the opponents arm then put the foot on to his ribs (so you kind of have his arm grapevined with your leg). Now, bring your other foot up and bring your leg horizontally across his torso, hooking on the outside ( at the same side your other leg is). From here your opponents natural instinct is to pass to the side where both your legs aren't. When he does this you can grab the material of his gi pants on the non passing side and pull it up kicking up and over with your legs to sweep the guy over. When you come up, the arm that you originally had trapped with your leg is in a dangerous bicep crush position. If you put your weight on that it will  really hurt the opponent but this is an illegal move in Bjj competition and would get you instantly disqualified. You need to allow space for the guy to retract his arm whilst also making sure you've got enough pressure on his upper body to ensure he can't break position and recover guard. 

 

We drilled this move for a while and whilst we were going through the motions Gary showed us how to switch this in to a "cheeky armbar". Same set up as before up until the opponent starts to pass. From there you bring the horizontal leg out and over his far side arm and past his face. With your other leg out on the under side of both his arms you can get a nifty armbar with both his arms in.

Gary then felt a little bit disco and showed us an inverted triangle from the feet on hips, sleeve control position. With this one you don't wrap the leg round the arm instead keeping it inside positioned vertically up against his chest/torso on the his opposing side. The other leg still goes horizontal across though and from this position you push away with your knees while pull in with the sleeve control. The opponent will try to react by pulling away at which point you bring the vertical leg out and up over the guys non opposite shoulder (your right leg goes over his right shoulder or left for left) and start putting downward pressure whilst keeping both your shoulders flat on the mat - I had problems with this cause I kept turning on my sides for this- and curling your leg around his back. From there you fire your other leg underneath and out behind you then wrap it round the top leg to make the inverted triangle. Very flash. Only got a couple of tries on this before we realised we'd left a tragically short amount of time for rolling. 

Now the rolling was where my previously mentioned problem occurred. First I rolled with Rich who, as I said before, is an ever improving White Belt who has been training quite heavily lately (3 times a week, lucky bastard). I had a good roll with Rich, his guard game has improved massively and he tends to jump straight into guard rather than try to grapple from the knees. He seems to be favouring spider guard a lot lately and was very close to sweeping me with the high foot in elbow crook sweep (obviously not it's official name). Now I used to get a lot of subs on Rich but recently that has not been the case and this time I managed to pass his guard a couple of times to side but didn't even threaten a any kind of sub so his game is definitely improving no end.

I next rolled against Gary. Now Gary has been off for a couple of weeks due to a new tattoo but rather than come back rusty (that's not Gary's style), Gary beasted the shit out me. I had one of those rolls where nothing went right and I felt like a total amateur. I was falling into obvious traps and not even keeping my limbs in tight. Because of this, Gary managed to capitalise on a couple of  rookie mistakes and catch me in two nice tight armbars. And Gary can finish an armbar well. My 50% armbar escape rule definitely doesn't apply with Gary. 

After that roll I was busy fluffing my crestfallen pride while every other guy was picking another opponent. Because of this I lucked out and was left with rolling against Ian. Ian's been rolling with a renewed vigour recently and I definitely felt the brunt of it. As soon as we touched hands for the start he jumped straight into an aggressive guard and tried for several different sweeps. I managed to stop a couple and get a pass into half guard where he threatened a kimura. Whilst the kimura was on and I was stopping it with a very flimsy gi pant grip, I managed to pass to side control and then escaped the kimura attempt by passing into mount. I tried to threaten a few subs from here but Ian had absolutely non of it and I was quickly back into his half guard then guard. I don't remember what happened after that (heat of the moment and all that) but Ian ended up hitting me with yet another armbar (3 armbars in the night!!!) which I'm pretty sure wasn't straight off from his guard.

After time was called on that roll Ian was about to call time. Me and a few others were quick in asking for more and Ian gave in and said we could have one more roll. I went against long time training partner Marcus. Now it's worth me mentioning here that in all the times we've rolled, Marcus has never tapped me out. Not to take anything away from Marcus though as I outweigh him by about 2 and a half stone and have been training for about a year longer than him. Tonight though, as I said, wasn't my night. Ok, I managed to get Marcus early with a Kimura from side control but after the reset I pulled guard and Marcus managed to pass to half guard. I worked on one of the sweeps I've been practising lately, making use of the framing technique I spoke of in my last log to escape the hips to the side (at this point it's worth mentioning that the 30 second warning had gone off). From that position I pulled his basing arm in and bridged for the sweep, turning him over onto his back though Marcus, as usual, exhibited his speed off his back and quickly reclaimed guard (this is one the strongest parts of Marcus' game). Marcus quickly crossed gripped my collar and I made a very stupid mistake here. I settled myself to pull on one of Marcus' hands at my collar to relieve pressure knowing that there was only seconds left (stupid and poor training practice). Time was called and I can recall thinking "I survived that one" but unfortunately my body did not want to move and then my vision swam. I can remember rocking back and forth thinking "I'll stand up in a sec" and Marcus saying "Martin, are you all right?" and then I was back in the room. 

 

I got up and laughed it off with Marcus saying that he nearly had me but after we'd closed out the class and were getting changed I thought to myself that at the end of the day, if time hadn't been called, I would've been unconscious. Marcus got me. I shouldn't take that away from him, I should help him celebrate the fact as a  milestone in his Bjj progress. I went over to Marcus and told him outright that he basically choked me out. We laughed about it as we left the gym. I'm very glad Marcus is improving that much and hope to have many challenging sparring sessions with him in the future. 

Walking away from that session though I felt a little hollow as I've been making a lot of rookie errors recently. My last two classes my sub ratio has been pretty poor and a lot of guys are training 2 or 3 + times a week and are getting noticeably better while I feel I'm starting to stagnate. To combat this I think I desperately need to find a way to get additional training in. I've been tossing about a few ideas and discussing some things with Marcus and hopefully we can maybe start getting some extra mat time in soon. Even if it's just drilling techniques we know or have seen in a book with a healthy dose of rolling. Just need to get this together. Need to improve my game. Don't like the bad days.

\m/

By the way, hopefully next time I'm at Ian's class I'll have my Video Camera fully charged to coincide with the lesson (idiot) and can film some or all of the techniques so I can post the vids here and you won't need to interpret my descriptions so much. Can't wait for that.