Learning the basics and moving class.

In my first year of training Jiu Jitsu (traditional at the time) I was very pleased with the thorough approach my instructors, Ian and Gary, took to imparting their knowledge on to their students. Their method of teaching was that you need to learn to walk before you can run. Basics. The lessons we were taught down at the King Alfred Sports Hall, Burnham on Sea over a two hour lesson (yeah I know, 2 hours, virtually unheard of these days), nearly always featured some sort of takedown/throw (something I find lacking in most BJJ classes) and some kind of submission finish, but also usually featured some escapes, sweeps or survival techniques from basic positions. I've been to classes and seminars previously where some of the people in attendance don't even know basic mount or side control escapes and yet they were being taught sweeps from half guard and spider guard. Sometimes the basics are necessary. We all like to drill a bit of De La Riva guard or a disco sub occasionally to chuck into our rolling as a bit of a surprise but it's the bread and butter basics that we use every time we roll that need to be ingrained into our muscle memory to become second nature.

During my time down at the Burnham class I learned the fundamental ways to escape mount, back control or side control and how to block or survive kimura's, americana's and chokes. These are the lessons the newbie should be learning. I've rolled against guys who can throw down a mean Butterfly Guard but didn't have a single answer when his back was taken. Basic stuff.

Ian was always very good at drilling the fundamentals into us, so much so that when sparring at the end of lessons I nearly never felt I was in a position that I didn't have the knowledge to get out of. What did let me down however was my joke of a fitness level. I was so out of shape back then that sometimes I didn't have the strength left to try an escape. Usually when I left the class and was driving home my head would be spinning like crazy from the exertion I'd just been put through to the point where I actually felt like I was inebriated. How I made that 11 mile journey home safely every week I do not know.

So when Ian announced that he was going to be moving his class from Burnham to Weston Super Mare I was very happy. The new location Ian had selected for his Thursday night class was Sweat FA gym on Winterstoke Road in Weston (where it still is today) and this was great for me as it was only about two miles from my front door. I was sad to leave Burnham, a lot of the class stayed there training under Big Matt and I miss the friendships I'd gained from the club venue. But it is so much easier for me to train in my home town and I was staying with Ian, who has trained me since day one and whose instruction and class atmosphere I respect beyond any other. I still get to see some of the Burnham (now Wellington, as the rest of the class moved)  lot at the occasional event or competition. A load of us went up to see UFC 120 back in October 2010 which was a fantastic club night out.

Me and some of the guys at UFC 120.

The other great part about moving club with Ian was the fact that he was hanging up his Black Belt 4th Dan in Traditional Jiu Jitsu and teaching the new class wearing a Brown Belt as he decided to dedicate the new class to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, which was the martial art I originally wanted to do in the first place. Everything worked out well. We had a swank brand new gym to train in with mats permanently down. No more laying out mats at the beginning of class and packing them away at the end (always a ball ache). And we got good numbers for attendance most of the time, with loads of new faces mixed with a couple of the old bunch from Burnham. The camaraderie in the class is as good as it ever was.

To be cont. \m/ 

The first few weeks - natural assets.

From the third lesson on I was starting to make some good friends in the class and as there were some other new guys who all joined over the following few weeks I was already feeling like I wasn't the total newbie of the class (even though I was by far the unfittest person there) and I was actually finding that due to certain characteristics about my body, I have few natural abilties that could enhance my Jiu Jitsu game.

Firstly, I'm a shortass. I don't love this feature about me, in fact growing up it was always pretty annoying always feeling like "the short one" with your mates towering over you. I remember at an Almighty gig in Poole one time when I was young, me and my mate Steve were right at the front, and Floyd London, the bassist for The Almighty reached out with a plectrum to pass it to a lucky fan in the crowd. I was easily the closest to it but due to my previously mentioned shortass-ishness and the fact that my mate Steve was a rangy six footer, his arms reached out Inspector Gadget like and grabbed the guitar strumming device from the surprised band members hand. Anyway, with regards to Bjj my stumpyness is an advantage as my low centre of gravity makes me a very hard little nugget to sweep and I generally have the advantage when standing face to face with an opponent trying for a takedown. I have always had a pretty good base which tends to frustrate any rolling partners.

Second, I'm naturally flexible as hell. My legs especially. Remember when you were back at school and there was always one kid who could put his legs behind his head. That kid was me. It was kind of like a weird party trick that everyone used to ask me to do when we were getting pissed. Another act of insane flexibility related athleticism that I regularly perform was to hurdle ridiculously high things. You name it, I'd hurdle it. The big gate at our school, the railings down our local town, a picnic bench, tennis net. A couple of times during the height of my attention seeking ways I hurdled a Badminton Net. I know how totally unbelievable that sounds but I did it on more than one occasion. With witnesses. So, my flexibility is also a great natural asset to my Bjj game because often I can use the flexibility in my legs as an escape from mount. Sometimes when an opponent is sitting on me in mount and sitting up just slightly too much I can hook him off with one or both legs, most often landing in their guard but occasionally coming out sideways in the scramble and going straight into side control.  Other handy uses of having flexible legs are that I've never been tapped using any kind of leg lock.

My third handy attribute at that time was that by the time I got to rolling I was sweating like a pretty boy in a prison riot. This was a great help because opponents found it difficult to get a decent grip on me. I have recently been on the other end of this and it is very frustrating. About 5 weeks ago at my Bristol class I was rolling against a newbie who reminded me a lot of myself when I first started, bar the good looks (yeah right). He's a bit out of shape being on the wrong side of 15 stone, wasn't wearing a gi, and was absolutely soaking. I made the mistake of pulling guard on him to let him have top as he was new but then I couldn't get a grip on him he was so wet. In the end I only just managed to sweep him using a bastardized version of the rubber guard before time was called. I now realise just how frustrating the sweaty no-gi newbie can be.

Although not totally unbeatable characteristics to have, they certainly proved helpful  to my early development whilst sparring as I tapped out a lot less than I would have had I not possessed said attributes. Couple that with the fact that we had a good 7 or 8 new guys that started all at the same time and I was occasionally finding luck at a very early point in my Bjj journey, often tapping people out with the Americana, my one good technique.

Until next time \m/

Second lesson and pain.

So Thursday came around again and I'd stopped aching by about Tuesday so I was ready for my second Jiu Jitsu class. I made the quick trip down the M5 to junction 22, Burnham, to King Alfred's Sport Centre nice and early to help get the mats out. Ian's assistant instructor, Gary, was also there nice and early and we were having a good chat and a laugh. Gary asked me whether I'd ached on the weekend after my first session to which (for reasons I will never work out) I lied and said I'd ached a bit on the Friday but was fine all weekend. That one little white lie was possibly the stupidest lie I've ever told as not only did Gary not believe me but he decided that the sessions warm up and pre lesson drills would be extra special, just for me.

There were many laps of the mats, sprints, press ups, sit ups, squats, two man back to back stand ups, break falls and the lessons novelty drill, which was first shrimping up and down the mats, then shoot drills up and down the mats and finally Jacare style crawling up and down. After all this my unfit 15 stone fat turd of a body was well and truly knackered. I was literally sweating out of every pore in my body. I could barely open my eyes for the sweat pouring down my forehead, stinging my eyes.

Taking a looooonngggg drink of water while everyone paired off, I was left to pair off with a fairly short, italian looking dude whose name I cannot remember. Now I had not seen him the week before and from the reaction Ian gave him when he'd come in the guy was not a regular but he was a former student at the club. He was not wearing a gi or anything so I was unsure of how much training he'd had (not that a gi would've been much of a tell tale sign anyway) so I asked him straight out how much he'd done. He said he used to come a year before for a few months but never got a gi or a belt or anything. We did the first few training exercises, me with a total lack of skill which gave him to confidence to try and "show me" how. Then we did some ground work which he also "helped" me with. By the end of our technique training I had in no uncertain terms proved to him that I was as clueless about ground techniques as nearly anyone he was like to meet, where as he had done his best to attempt to prove to me that he was a long lost Gracie, with knowledge that I would probably never obtain.

So when I got up to get a drink before the rolling I figured he would do as everyone I had rolled against the previous week had done and just lightly roll against me whilst trying to actually teach me some stuff. How wrong could I be? Not this little dude. No. He proceeded to use every single technique in his arsenal to tap me out issuing a master class in pain like I have never received since that day. He was cranking on some armbars, squeezing my head off with a particularly tight rear naked (I didn't even know what that was at the time), nearly choking me unconcious with an arm triangle and his pièce de résistance, an americana cranked on so hard my shoulder nearly popped out. 6 times he tapped me out in 3 minutes, all the while saying things like "I'm just seeing how much I can remember" and "see if this works as I remember it" and "oh sorry I'm just trying to get the technique right".

In my previous post I said that I'd never ached more than after my first JJ lesson but that isn't entirely true. It was after my second lesson with Gary's monster warm up and the little idiots Americana cranking demonstration that I truly ached like never before. I could barely move come Saturday morning and come Sunday I was trying to remove four shrub stumps from my garden in total agony. I still to this day feel weary about the shoulder that the little prick nearly popped out on that session. I related the story to Gary the next week and he said he'd have a word with the guy but we never saw him again. And all the pain still didn't put me off.

To be continued.

Introduce myself.

Hi Guys. I say that confidently like I know people will be reading this even though I kind of doubt it. This is the first and introductory blog that I will be writing on my favourite sport and pastime, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.


First I'll explain a little about how I got into BJJ. I have to admit to having a bit of a stereotypical reason for originally finding the the Martial Art Form of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu interesting. Back in about 1999 I borrowed a video (yes, video) off of my mate Dave (yes we've all got one). This video was the about the second Vale Tudo Tournament, an eight fighter elimination tournament focusing in part on the time leading up to the tournament of one Mr Rickson Gracie. Now although impressive of physique he was no where near the largest person with regards to stature standing in the ring during that competition introduction. And yet the video was promoting Rickson as the winner of the last tournament, back to defend his title. Looking at some of the other competitors, and coming from a lifetime of believing that the Heavyweight boxing champion of the World was the best fighter in the world (yeah I know, I was stupid), I thought this was gonna be one of those stories where the guy loses of something.

How wrong could I be? Through the video it also showed scenes of a young American Kickboxer called Todd Hayes who obviously, mainly through the hype of his mouthpiece manager, was regarded as a serious contender to stop Rickson gaining the title for a second year in a row. I ashamedly admit that I thought this guy was going to demolish all in his path. Rickson Gracie tore through his opponents, controlling them, then submitting them easily without getting a mark on him. The little guy, Yuki Nakai, who Rickson fought in the final looked like a blood splattered scene from a horror film with one eye swollen up so he could barely see out of it. And Rickson was unmarked. Both had fought 2 fighters before this. Only Rickson had dominated his opponents, Nakai had recieved much damage a won with last ditch submission efforts.

Seeing Rickson dominate his opponents on the ground and submit them all, my first introduction to submissions outside of the laughable "sleeper" attempts and such the like employed in Wrestling, I wanted to learn more. Unfortunately, back then the internet was only just taking of its training wheels and I wasn't one of the people blessed with a connection so all I could do was ask around and check the yellow pages to find there were no BJJ or even TJJ classes local to where I grew up. Dream crushed.

It wasn't until I had moved, got married, had a kid, gone through six jobs and 3 cars that I finally got in a profession where I had free time in the evenings and was in a place where I could do something. It was also around this time that I'd rekindled my yearning for BJJ after finally managing to find a Sky channel that showed MMA matches. So in early 2008 I checked the information highway for any local Jiu Jitsu classes and found one on a Thursday down in Burnham on Sea just a few miles away from where I live. A quick email to the instructor and I was on my journey. It should be worth explaining at this point that I was a brutally out of shape 15 stone 4 ex chef who hadn't done any serious cardiovascular activity for many many years.

March 2008 I had my first Traditional Jiu Jitsu class in King Alfred Sport Centre, Burnham on Sea with the Somerset Jiu Jitsu Alliance under instructor Ian Rossiter and his ever present assistant instructor Gary Davies. They were/are both Black Belts in Traditional JJ with Ian being a fourth dan and Gary a second, but their lessons tended to lean away from traditional standards and veer more towards BJJ lessons. Ian and Gary were both, at that time, Purple Belts in BJJ and their affection had been leaning toward the ground elements of the Brazilian art form which was reflected in their methods of teaching. Classes always began with the traditional warm up, stretches and break fall practice, usually including some sort of novelty warm exercise too, and then started with some kind of stand up technique with a throw or takedown or two and then we went on to the ground techniques. We usually covered about 3 or 4 ground techniques with repeated drilling and then we rolled. Now coming back to my first lesson I remember when Ian told everyone to get a drink and get ready for rolling I had no idea what he was talking about. When I asked he explained that everyone takes part in the sparring at the end to which my ass nearly fell out. I said "what? this is only my first lesson". To which someone told me not to worry as no one would come in too hard on a new guy. True to their word everybody I rolled with that day was really easy on me and generally just tried to show me some techniques and ways of getting out of them in lieu of any real sparring.

I left that day feeling totally exhausted, aching like crazy and craving more as if it was the best new drug on the market. My body has never hurt so much as it did the three days after that lesson. It was nearly a deal killer. My body was regretting it, my wife was telling me I was crazy to do it again if it made me hurt so much and it drove home just how completely unfit I was. In fact thinking back to it I'm surprised I ever went back. But I did cause I loved it.

Continued next time.