Checkmat BCL 10/9/13

I've had a fairly full week of training this week. I've hit the lunch time training with Marcus (Hedley) Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and I also took a trip up to Bristol Combat Legion to Chico Mendes' class on the Tuesday evening.

Training in the week with Marcus was very varied. We did stand up on Tuesday, focusing on Uchi Mata throws, trips and double and single leg takedowns.

On Wednesday we recapped on a load of the X Guard stuff we studied during one of our past sessions. It was pretty awesome going back over that as I'd forgotten a lot of the set ups. Strange that I've remembered the sweeps really well and have hit a couple of them in active sparring but only when I've basically been awarded the X Guard position by fluke as I'd nearly totally forgotten the set ups. Glad we went back over them.

Thursday was a bit of a mix of some gi chokes and a lot of sparring. Good hard session. We were both totally done after.


Highlight of the week though was going up to Bristol Combat Legion in Bristol, to Chico's new Checkmat class up there. And I have to say, the set up they have going on up there is amazing. The matted area is so smooth and all one peace, it's like grappling on a mattress. Brilliant.

Chico ran us through a basic Butterfly Guard Sweep. First solo drilling the fall sideway, kick up motion. Then going on to the live opponent drilling. Oddly, we were only using one hook in (right) while the other leg (left) was folded in and tucked behind the first leg. Grabbing a hold of the opponent's right wrist with your left hand and underhooking the guys left with your right, keeping your head ducked down inside toward the guy's chest, you now pull his right arm in (to stop him basing out) and fall sideways using the underhook to take him with you. As you are falling you kick up with your right hook to turn the guy over onto his side, with you coming over into top control. You can often get side control here but your opponent has a fleeting opportunity to recover guard in the transition.


Chico then ran us through a drill where you hit the sweep, come over into your partner's guard, then lean forward to force him into the ground. He then using both of his forearms to push against your shoulder, pushing you down his body until he can kick out with his legs and recover to Butterfly Guard. At which point he does the same thing over and you both continue on in a flow drill.


After this we did lots of situational butterfly guard rolling which was awesome. The class ended with the 2 in 1 out for a minute rolling (or mugging as I like to call it). Loads of rolling and loads of fun. A brilliant class to attend in a spanking new gym. Now I've got a ton of training to get to for an upcoming interclub on the 29th Sept. ¬m/

Chico Mendes Seminar 3/11/12

I was fortunate enough on Saturday, to be able to attend a fantastic Chico Mendes seminar down at Sweat FA, Weston Super Mare. The first of many to come we hope. The attendance was pretty good. Better than Ian (Rossiter) expected for the first time out, with a lot of our guys and the guys from Bristol attending, along with some of the Wednesday night MMA class guys and some other random Jiu Jitsu enthusiasts.

As usual, Chico's teaching was absolutely first class, striking the right combination of technical instruction, coupled with a good dose of humour to make people feel at home and comfortable. I've never found my attention slipping in a Chico class or seminar.

No Gi Techniques:

We started off with a couple of techniques for passing a seated opponents guard from a standing position. For the first you are to wait back and let the opponent come to you using their legs to drag them forward. As he's come toward you and ready to pull forward again you quickly step forward and pull his leg up high toward you so he goes down on his back. You secure his leg by kneeling into him so your knees are either side of his leg and you fold his leg over your leg nearside leg and "put his foot in your pocket". You should be facing him head on for this not off to the side. With his leg clamped between your legs you have a teasing leg lock finish although that's not what we were being taught. You basically sit there and wait for the guy on bottom to act first (usually by trying to push you away using his leg so he can recover guard) so you can push his leg out of the way and step around and come down into side control.
I was fortunate enough to be Chico's demonstration dummy for this move so got to see if fresh and first hand. One specific thing I remember that Chico showed us as a tip was that when you first grab the leg and pull it up so the guy's back goes flat to the floor, a common thing for the guy on the ground to do is attempt to cross over his free leg to hold you off. However, if you hold the secured leg forward and stand off until you've found your position you can actually use that leg to block the guy from crossing over his free leg to regain some semblance of guard.

All photos come courtesy of Chico's Facebook page.

The second technique along the standing pass line involved finding the seated opponent's stronger side. You do this by stand in front of him, both feet level to give him the option of which side to attack. When he presents himself in a seated combat posture, where one leg is forward and he's leaning his elbow on that leg for base, you know that is his stronger, preferred side (unless he's poker playing, bluffing genius) and you can then switch your stance so your leg that is directly opposite his forward leg is now stepped back whilst your other leg is forward. With this stance he cannot get and easy grab of the preferred leg. From this position you should be stood crouched, with your head in line with your lower body so as to not be easily unbalanced. From here you once again wait for the opponent to make a move forward then drive froward yourself, simultaneously pushing on the inside knee of his forward raised leg with one hand (left hand for right leg or vice versa) and your other hand presses against his waist on the other side of him, using this position to push his leg down to the ground so he turns on his side. Whilst doing this you should be stood fully away from him so he can't recover by getting hold of a leg somehow. You can finish the pass by walking out around the leg that is secured down and then dropping into side control (keeping the legs held away all the while). This is a move that I learned ages ago but have never actually put into good use which is pretty criminal really given the amount of opportunities I've had to do so. Gotta try and use it a bit more.

I was drilling both of the above with Rich Presley.

Moving away from the standing passing but staying with the passing theme, Chico next showed us a Half Guard pass. The first thing about passing half guard that he drilled into us was the importance of getting the knee up. You must bring the knee of the trapped leg off of the ground and preferably out of the leg trap. To do this you can turn to your side and rest on your non trapped leg so you can bring the other leg up. You may also encounter half guard users who love using the leg trapping method (lock down - urgh) in which case you rest your weight forward whilst you use your other leg to push open the trap so you can bring the first leg out and bend it to an untrappable position. You then once again work at popping the knee up through.
Another very important point was that when the opponent on the bottom is using the strong half guard style of laying out to one side of you, always ensure you have the underhook there to stop him from going to your back. If not the underhook then an over-underhook like a whizzer.
We drilled around with these tips to begin with, trying to get the leg out/up, un-trapping where necessary, just so we get well used to the idea of getting that knee up. I drilled this with a young lad called Sean Errock, who trains a bit of gi but is a very talented young No Gi grappler. We drilled quite hard in the end, with the guy on bottom really trying to stop the knee escape or keep the leg trapped. I found it remarkable that when you're not thinking about trying to submit the guy from half guard top, it actually proves quite easy to blast past his half guard.

For an actual half guard pass from here, Chico then ran us through one of his main thoughts from this position. Always use your head! It's like a third limb that you can use for pushing. When the guy has a strong side control position on your and you want to flatten him out, use your head against his shoulder or neck, to push him down so his back's to the floor. From here, to help with your pass and also to assist in bringing the knee up if necessary (if the guy is really persistent or tenacious), your head by his so you can bring your free (outside) arm up behind his head to tak a grab of the material at his shoulder on the other side. With that position correct you can now drive your shoulder forward to painfully push his head to the side, effectively cutting down half the escape possibilities for him (if his head can't turn back toward me, neither can the rest of his body). From this position you can walk your nearside underhooked arm up the mat a bit to bring the opponent's arm up (up the mat not up in the air). you can now bring both of your arms together so your arm passed behind the head can reach to grab the wrist of the one that has walked up the mat. You now have the opponent in a very uncomfortable position with his offside arm trapped above his head so as to not interfere with anything. The opponent will generally want to release your leg at that point just to get out of this position but if he's really stubborn it proves quite easy to flatten your offside to the ground so you can bring the trapped knee up now. Once up and out of the trap it's just a decision at the whether you want to slide the knee over and go to mount or slide it across and come to side control. We drilled the mount version which would usually be a no brainer as it's worth more points, but maybe some people are more confident with their side control or use it better fro MMA. Or they might even be confident that they can then easily pass to mount from side thus getting extra points. Lots of reasons for going to side then. If you go to mount though you've got a nice set up for an arm bar right there too.

After a quick group photo and change to Gi we were quickly into a bit of Closed guard work. The first move was a handy little sweep if your opponent puts his leg forward in your guard. So he's put the left leg forward and has a grip of your left lapel with his right hand. Now this is to good an opportunity to miss. You need to chop his leg out by bringing your right arm underneath it and chopping upward toward you at about the ankle. Make sure to hold on to the leg in the crook of your elbow. Now with your free left hand you grab his right hand to keep it secure near you so he can't base out. To hit the sweep you lean forward pushing the leg forward with you, so he tips to his back on the side where he has no basing arm. As he's tipping you need to open your guard and ensure you straighten out your left leg so when he flattens to the ground you can switch the leg out and come to your knees in the mount. This is a pretty good sweep variation from closed guard that will add another dimension to my game.

Next up was a sweep variation for if the guy traps your arm. He's in your closed guard and baited you with the open left leg. You reach under to take it but he's too quick and clamps his leg back down shut again, trapping your right arm in there and cutting off one side of your upper body defence. However this is not the end of the world. In fact after a short while of drilling this move I felt this was an amazing turn of events. All you need to do is ensure he can't move his right hand from your waist at this point then you can sweep him over to your left (his right) side. To do this you open your guard and drop the left foot to the floor and can basically roll him over to his back using a flower sweep style right leg up, kicking him (not proper kicking, it's just a description) at the left under arm to flip him over and come up comfortably in mount. I absolutely LOVE this sweep as a cool variation on the Flower Sweep. I've already hit it a few times in rolling since. Love it!!
You can even just slot your arm inside when he hasn't opened the leg. Works the same way. Amazing sweep.
I was drilling this one with young Paddy.

A quick alternative to the above sweep was to turn it into an arm bar. You have your right arm trapped under his leg as above. You also have his right arm trapped secured with your left hand. You need a bit more of the arm trapped here though so most of his forearm is on your chest/stomach. From here you shift your hips out left and use the arm under leg hold to shift you position so you can open your guard and bring your left leg up and over his head. You can finish the arm bar here with him sat up but most likely the superior strength of your legs and the hold you have on his leg will push him down to the mat  so he's flat on his back and you have the arm bar like that. This is a very common finish for me and one of my most frequent methods of tapping people out these days.
Alternatively with this, if the guys retracts the elbow just enough that the arm bar doesn't hit, at least with the arm in leg you've swept them to their back and can come up into technical or s-mount.

Chico then ran us through some tips for enhancing your Arm Bar from Guard. From closed guard you have the right arm secured with your right hand. Grip it at the upper forearm or elbow to start, by cupping your hand across the top of the arm and having the cupped hand go under on the other side. You then escape your hips left as standard arm bar practice. Now pull the arm tight inside so the elbow is uncomfortably pulled in at an angle. Reach over with your free left hand and grab his free left arm on the gi material at his upper arm/triceps. You use this grip to help you turn into position and get the leg over the head. When you are finishing, bring your left hand back down to help with the control of the wrist. Whilst extending the hips, if you point your heels down and flex your feet up it adds extra tension to the hold.
The feet pointing up tip was a particular eye opener because you wouldn't suspect it would make much difference but you really feel it when it's on.

The last technique I was in attendance for was an amazing Gi choke. From closed guard you open your opponent's Gi for ease of access. Using your knees to brings him towards you, you drive your right hand fairly deep into his right collar and grip tight. Shift your body around to that side (your left) to create the opening for your other hand. He'll instinctively be trying to pull away at this point so you just need to use your knees again to pull him back and pass your left hand UNDER your right arm to slip into his left collar. Shifting back to head on position you clamp your arms shut around his neck (like a scissor motion) to hold him in place and OPEN your hand grips slightly. Now using the knees to keep him closed you drive the hands ridiculously deep into his collar and then close them. At this point the guys eyes are already watering in anticipation of what is about to come. To painfully finish you just pull your elbows in tight to your ribs and then outwardly flex with your hands. Christ this is painful. Brilliant move.

This was the last move I got to see as I (unfortunately) had to leave a little early to get my kids :o(. Fantastic seminar though. It fact I'd go out on a limb and say it was one of the best I've been to. Chico is an amazing instructor for this sort of setting. Very entertaining and the whole class was entranced throughout. I really hope we get another again real soon.

¬m/

Checkmat Bjj 30/10/12

Went to Chico's Bjj class in Bristol Tuesday 30th Oct. Loads of guys there as usual and a great camaraderie as is always the case with Chico's classes.

Venue: Bristol Combat Legion, LA Gym, Bristol, Uk.
Instructor: Chico Mendes (Grade 2 Black Belt).


Techniques:
(All move descriptions are based on how I first learnt them. I.e left grip, right foot etc..)
Chico started off with some standing techniques. First move started face to face with the opponent getting a quick grip on your right collar with his left hand. You quickly pocket grip (turn the cuff inside out over your hand) the gi cuff of the guys gripping hand with your left hand whilst reaching over the top of the extended arm with your right arm and gripping his left collar. From this position you close your right elbow hard into his extended left arm to cause discomfort and shake the guy's balance. To finish the technique you pull out with your hand gripping his collar to take him over to his left (your right), whilst you quickly drop down to your left on both knees (important that it IS both knees to ensure he can't reverse the move and get points on you) and secure his right leg in the single. I had the added advantage of training with Raj Bista who has some pretty awesome wrestling skills, so was able to show me where I was going wrong with this.


We moved on to a simple Wrist Lock from this starting position. As before, he's reached in and grabbed your right lapel. You take the pocket grip of his cuff with your left, but this time your right hand reaches to the back of his extended left arm at the just above the elbow. You once again close your arm in to force the opponent's arm in at an awkward angle, then advance toward the opponent whilst pulling the arm in toward you to put pressure on the wrist. Chico's tip with this one is Do Not stop walking forward once you have the arm secured as, if you don't get the tap, you'll at least get 2 points for the guy walking off the mat to get out of a submission hold.


Chico then moved us on to some closed guard stuff. You start off in the closed guard position with the opponent postured up with his hands at your waist to resist being moved about. With both of your arms you can attempt to remove one of the opponent's arms from their bracing position. Selecting the guy's right arm, you pass your right hand over his arm, above the elbow, while passing your left hand inside his arm. Once there you can grip your hands together and pry the guy's arm open so you are able to pull him toward you using your knee. With his posture destroyed in this way you can obtain an over-under hook grip on him to secure him close to you by bringing your right arm around over his left shoulder and gripping your hands behind his back. Now with your left arm you pry his right arm open and up  at an angle so you can press it into your shoulder. You finish the move by pressuring the back of the secured arm with your arms forcing the painful straight arm bar.
I was drilling the rest of the techniques with Chris Cook

The last technique Chico showed us for this lesson was how to obtain a nice tight single arm overhook guard and a triangle from there. With the guy in your closed guard, his right hand gripping your lapel, you pocket grip the his sleeve cuff with your right hand whilst passing your left arm underneath his right and grabbing your own right forearm (on the underside). You can then simultaneously pull up with your arms whilst breaking his posture with your knees. You should be able to pull his arm right up and out straight above your head. You can then bring the left arm inside and overwrap the secured arm (you'll need to still be holding the cuff grip to get this to work). To secure your hold on the arm you can get a high grip of your left lapel. There are plenty of finished from here, Chico showed us the triangle. Pushing the opponent's left arm down and to his waist you can now open your guard and pass your right leg over his shoulder, crossing both legs behind his back to form a diamond holding him in place. You can now shift hips to the left and reach up with your right hand to help position your right leg correctly so the left leg can wrap over it to get the tight pressure needed for the triangle. Brilliant technique.


For part of the lesson, Chico ran us through the 3 essentially important Brazilian words that all Bjj competition practitioners should know, and their relevance in a fight.

The first phrase is Combate (pronounced com-ba-tchee ).
This signifies the beginning of a Bjj fight. When you referee says this it's time to bring the thunder (haha).


The second phrase is Parou (pronounced Parow).
You here this when a referee is calling a halt to the action, be it for a positional stoppage, a time out or the end of the match. When this is heard stop everything but be sure to hold your position in case it's only a time out.


The last phrase is Lute (pronounced Lu-tchee).
The command is heard when a combatant is stalling or inactive, the referee calls "Lute" for a 20 second marker to be put on. This first time is a warning. If still inactive after the 20 seconds the command will be heard again and will come with a penalty for the staller and and advantage for the aggressor. After a further 20 seconds the command will be heard and a further penalty will be issued with the aggressor earning 2 points and both combatants being stood up.
Chico says this is a common technique to use if the fight is in it's last minute and one combatant is ahead comfortably.


Rolling:

For this session we didn't have much time left to roll and Chico only had us do situation guard passing/sweeping. I went first with Chris Cook who I passed and swept a couple of times. My second opponent was Big Justin Thomas. Although I was able to pass his guard during my top control turn I couldn't shift him at all during my time on the bottom and it was all I could do to keep my guard. That lad's definitely getting better.

Another damn good session up with Chico and the Bristol boys. After this I was really looking forward to the seminar down in Weston Super Mare on the 3rd Nov.
That write up to come in the next couple of days.

¬m/

Checkmat Bjj - 2/10/12

It's been a while since I've managed to get up to train with the guys at Checkmat Bjj Bristol and I've definitely missed it. They've got a well attended class up there with a few new guys I've not seen before, mixed in with the regular old faces. Great atmosphere with lots of camaraderie but also a good batch of guys who take their training relatively seriously.

Venue: Bristol Combat Legion, LA Gym, Bristol, Uk
Instructor: Chico Mendes (Grade 2 Black Belt, Checkmat Bjj)


Techniques:
(I will describe each technique using the method I originally learned it. ie. left and right grips etc. for ease of description)

Chico started off by running through a couple of the techniques he did last week (which was good for me as I wasn't there last week). Seems last week he was dealing with various methods for breaking the closed guard of which he re-demonstrated 3 quickly and had us run through them quickly a couple of times.

1/. In opponent's closed guard, right hand gripping the lapels of his jacket together, left hand gripping the material of his gi pants right around his pelvis region and pushing your knuckles into said pelvis region in an attempt to keep his hips pinned to the floor. From there you bring your right leg up and forward on the outside, so you can press that shin/knee against the opponent's side. From there you can increase the pressure on his side as if you are turning in towards him (sometimes this can break a guy's guard) or you can stand in this position, increase the pressure on the side and use you left hand to lightly push away his right, easily breaking the guard.

2/. In opponent's closed guard, using your right hand, grab his left and push it hard into his pelvis area to achieve the same sort of pinning as in the first method. With your left hand on his knee you raise your left leg outside of him to apply pressure in his side. The just use your right elbow to push against his left inside leg to achieve the easy guard break.

3/. In opponent's closed guard, both hands gripping the gi pant material at the pelvis and pushing down. With this one you just lean off to your left slightly and use your left elbow to push hard into his right inside left until he eventually lets his guard go just to relieve the pressure.
It's worth noting that this technique is not the same as the one where the guy in guard postures up and deliberately digs his elbows callously into your quad muscles just about halfway up your upper leg. The former technique is a good and legitimate way of passing guard. The latter is a bit of a fuck wits move to callously and intentionally hurt the sparring partner until they let go of their guard in agony and will probably be left with heavy bruising for the next week. Don't be that guy.

I did all my drilling with Tom "Medal Collector" Hill.

Chico then took us through some methods of passing the guard after you have broken it open.

The first passing method was the knee slide. You've just broken the guard open. You now need to press your left leg into the guy's inside leg, pushing it out ward to keep the leg at bay so as to not allow the guy to recover guard. With your right arm you push the guys left leg down to the floor and quickly hop your right leg over it. You then quickly slide your knee over the top of his left leg until gets to the ground one the other side of him. Whilst doing that you also underhook the guys right arm with your left, lay your down either to the mat on the left of him or pressing hard against his chin/neck area, and also overhook his left arm with your right so you can pull that arm behind you to stop him from blocking your pass. Once in this position you can bring yourself further over him and then work to pull your trailing leg through too. Then scissor your legs to switch over into side control.


The second pass demonstrated was basically exactly the same as the last but against the De La Riva guard.


Next up was a variation of the smash pass. You've broke the opponent's guard open and have your left leg pressing against his right inside leg. Your left hand is grabbing his gi pants at the right knee. Your right is gripping his gi front/lapel/belt. You now reach under his left leg with your right arm and then push your arm under as far as it will go so you can grab his right lapel. This enables you to bring the leg right up on your shoulder, leaning your weight against the leg to make it quite uncomfortable for the opponent. You also need to make sure you've kept your left leg in place and brace it there with your left hand. This stops the guy from being able to hit a triangle on you.
From this position we were shown two passes. The basic smash pass and a variation. For the basic smash pass you heavily press your weight up against the guy's left leg until it's basically pushed across his body. When it's forced as far as it'll go you can just turn your upper body slightly (the right shoulder goes forward) so the leg flies right by you and you can pass comfortably into side control.

For the second variation, you're in the smash set up position with the guy's left leg pressured. Instead of trying for the first smash pass, you can use your left hand to wrap around the guy's left leg, then roll left and forward while bringing your right leg up high and over, passing the guy's right leg. If done correctly, when you rolled forward, your knee at his inside leg would've passed over as well leaving only that foot left to pass. Once there you just switch your hips to gain a strong side control position.
I was really impressed with this move. When you drill it repeatedly you can really make it flow. I could easily see it becoming a go to pass of choice.





Situational rolling:

We started off the sparring with some situational stuff. You each get a couple of minutes in guard. Guy on top has to pass. Guy on bottom has to sweep or submit.

I went first against Tom with him going on the bottom first. I managed to pass his guard twice and then swept him once during my guard time.


Next up was Tom Kocur. I have a lot of respect for Tom's guard game. He's definitely a dangerous guard player, so during the course of this session I was very mindful of Tom's ability to whip out some sneaky subs. I did however use his sub hunting skills against his to get passed his guard as I lured him into trying for an arm bar, then turned the arm up so he couldn't hyper-extend it while I just passed around the open side. I was really chuffed with this. Tom is one of those guys that is pretty damn slick, so when i get anything on him it feels like I'm progressing. We restarted back in guard and before long Tom was threatening, first with and arm bar, which I switch out of again, then with an omoplata, which I managed to extend my arm to keep out of. It was during this second escape/block that Tom managed to switch on me getting the sweep. Very slick.
during my guard with the guard, neither of use managed to accomplish anything of noted. I threatened a couple of subs but he easily blocked them. He didn't manage to pass my guard.


Last guy I did the situational against was Mark Acton. Mark is a very wiley opponent who brought it too me straight from the off. He broke my guard using one of the techniques from the beginning of the evening, then after a good struggle and a few well varied attempts, he managed to pass my guard using a Toreando pass. we were both pretty gassed after the struggle mind and basically killed off the rest of my round with stalling play.
My time in Mark's guard was horrendous. I don't know it it was due to me gassing in the round before or what, but I couldn't summon up the strength to break open Mark's guard. I was throwing a lot of stuff at him but he was resisting fantastically. The only plus I take away from that was the fact that Mark didn't manage to sweep me either.


Rolling: 7 Minutes rounds.


For proper rolling I had a go against Rich Long first. Rich's game is ever improving and once again he used some really good techniques to get out of some tricky spots. It was a very back and forth roll with each of us getting a good amount of time on top and on back. I found myself attacking Rich's turtle twice. The first time he executed and immediate escape recovering to half guard. The second time I just marginally missed taking his back. I did manage a pretty cool half guard sweep on him at one point, but then he managed to burst out of a flattened half guard (using the very recognisable Lucas Leite technique) to recover to full guard. During one of my times on the bottom he made the mistake of presenting too much arm while postured up trying to break my guard. I bluffed him by pretending I was going for a gi choke while sneakily pulling myself in to position, where I managed to hit an arm bar on him. All in all it was a great roll. 


My last roll was against a new guy I'd never met before (Chris?) who said he'd only been going 2 months. I went very easy on him and talked him through some escapes from some of the tougher situations. I also tried to talk him through some of the basic mistakes he was making but as is always the case with new guys, no matter what I said I couldn't get him to stop trying to push away using his extended arms whilst in my guard. To his credit though, he had a contingency plan for when I went for the arm bar, using his other arm to block. From there though I threatened the omoplata, making him extend the arm, leaving me in the position where I just had to kneel upright and extend his arm straight to get the tap. It still didn't ram the point home though as he went straight back to arm extending in my guard after the reset. I was just about to hit him with another arm bar when time was called. I guess he's gonna need to be arm barred a few times before he learns. Oh well, we were all beginners once.

That ended a really cool session in Bristol. It was great to be back up there with those guys I hope to get back there really soon. At the end, Chico gave a quick talk about the London Open and European No Gi Championships being held in London at the end of the month, of which Chico himself is entering. Should be good fun but the prices are astronomical so I will not be able to participate myself. Ah well. Stick to training hard and hopefully good things will come. ¬m/

Checkmat 17/7/12

After the mammoth write up to the Lucas Leite seminar that I put on last night, I need some spare time to get my non-blogging stuff together. Consequentially, even though me and Marcus did two lunchtime sessions Monday and Tuesday, I'm not going to bother writing them up as the Monday was just me showing Marcus everything from the seminar (he was not fortunate enough to attend) and Tuesday was just a No Gi version of everything we learned last week on the X Guard.


So basically I'm firing straight ahead to Tuesday evenings class under the amazing tutelage of Chico Mendes.

Venue: Bristol Combat Legion, LA Gym, Bristol, Uk.
Instructor: Chico Mendes (2nd Degree Black Belt, Checkmat)


Warm Up:
For the warm up Chico had us do laps of the mat with butt kicks, knee ups, arm stretches, arm windmills and side steps. We then did some lengths of the mat of hip escapes, forward rolls and backward rolls.

Chico then had us do a stand up grappling drill where you collar and elbow grip your opponent and with quick motion, raise the arm you have the elbow grip on and drop to your knees whilst circling to the opponent's side where the arm was raised. When you do this you grab hold of his leg and hold it on the outside of your body (not in between your legs) and press your head high against the front side of this leg. You can now stand with the single leg to shake your opponent's balance and kick his leg away to get to land him on his back with you coming down into side control.
We drilled this for a bit as a continuation of our warm up. I was with my regular training partner and good buddy, Marcus Hedley.


Techniques:

Chico soon moved us on to techniques and for the first we started in closed guard so Chico could emphasize the fact that a guy who closes his guard well but doesn't do anything from there is not really helping himself. Chico then showed us what he calls a transitional stage where you control the opponent's sleeve cuffs (as if for spider guard) and open your guard to bring your knees up and put them up against the opponent's elbow crooks. From there, Chico showed us two moves to omoplata but unfortunately I can only remember one.

From the above mentioned start position, release the left hand cuff grip and reach over to the opponent's left arm and pull his elbow up and over your right knee. You can then shoot your leg through, up and over his shoulder the come round under his head. With this movement you should move your body out at an angle so you are nearly perpendicular to his left side so you can use your left leg to close around the end of your right leg to keep the position. You must grab the opponents legs or back or gi to stop him from rolling out of the hold, but don't wrap your arm around his near leg or he can still roll and reverse the hold on you. To finish the hold you shift your body weight forward so the opponent is forced down flat on his front, with his arm bent up between you legs and off to your right side. Apply the pressure by leaning forward until he taps.


The next move was moving us on to the De La Riva Guard. From the above mentioned transitional position, your opponent raises one leg in a combat stance (let's say his right leg for the purpose of this description). You then bring your left leg out of it's previous position and around and thread it underneath his raised leg so your foot hooks upwards across his inside thigh. Your other foot can push against his hip. This is the basic De La Riva Guard position though there are lots of variations on where you put your hands and legs, this is a good place to start. To ensure a tight DLR hook, make sure your foot is solidly hooked up and your are pressuring his leg as if trying to extend yours, to stop him from turning his leg out and easily bucking your hook.
Chico showed us two techniques starting from here.
The first was a kick away sweep. The guy is in your De La Riva Guard with his back leg left) pulling away slightly. As he's trying to pull his weight away from you, his left leg is angled in toward you. If you kick this with your right leg at about the knee, the opponent will fall back with you using his weight to pull you up into mount.
The second was where you push his left leg back with your right foot to off balance him a little, then sit forward and pass control of his right arm from your left to your right, so you can then pass if under his leg back to your left hand. You can now lean right forward on this hold, to a sitting position with both your legs around his front (right) leg. You now make to stand up drawing your right leg back as you do, to take out his trapped leg and remove his base, effectively putting the opponent on his ass. You can get either side control of mount in the scramble. If you're unlucky you'll end in half guard.


Another exceptionally cool sweep Chico showed us was an overhead sweep from De La Riva. You get to the De La Riva Guard position, both arms secured at the cuffs, your right foot (non De La Riva hook) is firmly planted in the opponent's hip. What you do here is push the opponent away with your feet (whilst keeping the cuff grips secured close) and when he tries to push back to resist you pull him hard towards you with the cuff grip and flip him over your head and onto his back using your hold on him to roll over with him. to come up in mount. I love this technique and will be trying to hit it occasionally against a resisting opponent in sparring to see if I can get used to using it fully.


Rolling:

I rolled against Rich Long, Tom Hill, Ian Rossiter and Andy Bremerkamp. I tapped Rich (omo), Tom (darce) and Andy (achilles). Ian got me with a pretty cool inverted arm bar.


Sorry about the rushed ending to this but it's now Sunday and I have a whole week of Bjj to plan out (and a monster hangover). ¬m/

Checkmat Bjj 10-7-12

Due to the fact the it's been my birthday this week (35 years young) and other general busyness I am typing this log of Chico's Tuesday class out on Saturday morning. So I may have some of the details a bit fuzzy as my notes always sound weird in my own head a couple of days after writing them. Also, I'm awake early on a Saturday morning writing this with a pounding headache caused by a ridiculous excess of vodka last night and my little daughter Jolie is hassling me. Not ideal blogging conditions I must say.
Once again, after a couple of lunchtime sessions with Marcus I was pretty knackered but I was feeling a little bit better going in than I had previous weeks. Maybe I'm getting fitter, maybe I didn't work as hard, maybe it wasn't as hot. Who know's? I felt a little bit more comfortable though. It's also worth noting that I've taken to wearing my rash guard under my gi which is helping me cool off. Strange how that works as I'd always thought extra layers would make me hotter but I read somewhere that wearing a rash guard helps your body relieve itself of the excess sweat and by jove it seemed to work. I've also stopped wearing antiperspirant when I train allowing my body to sweat more to cool itself off. All this time I thought I was trying to be nice to my training partners by restricting the amount I sweat on them a little and it turns out I was stunting my own auto cooling system.

Venue: Bristol Combat Legion, LA Gym, Bristol, Uk.
Instructor: Chico Mendes (2nd Degree Black Belt, Checkmat)


Warm Up:

Chico had Josh Kersey run us through the warm up. He did laps of the mat with butt kicks and knee ups and side steps. We then did lengths of the mat doing front rolls, back rolls, frog leaps, gator crawls (or Spiderman crawls as Josh awesomely calls them) and perhaps something else but I can't remember what, - 2 lengths for each exercise. We then did some stretching.

For this week Chico took us back to the Spider Gward techniques they've been doing for the last few weeks. To start we had to use some of the sweeps we've been doing over the past few weeks in a light back and forth drill which was a fun way to help us remember what we'd been doing. I was drilling with Marcus who still looked fresh a daisy, regardless of the two lunchtime training sessions. Git.



The first technique Chico showed us was another sweep from Spider Guard. You have your opponent in your Spider Guard and you lasso one of the arms. The guy tries to step away with the non lasso side leg so you hook him close with your free foot behind that leg. You then shift your angle out slightly to the side where you have his arm secure and change the cuff grip to your other hand so you can reach under his leg with your same side hand. You can now either sweep him by leaning into his leg and swiping the other leg out, or, pulling yourself underneath him and flipping him over the top of you.


Next up was a Spider Guard to single leg. From Spider Guard the opponent tries to pull away. You kick his far leg out further to off balance then bring your other leg down and around his near leg and draw it in toward you, then pass the secured arm to the other hand and use the first hand to secure that arm around the back of the leg. You can then stand, hooking the secure leg between your legs to either through off balance and arrive at a commanding position or have him standing in front of you teetering on one leg waiting for the trip or takedown to come. Cool move and very controlling. There was a particularly hilarious moment I witnessed whilst drilling this technique when I turned to see Ronan "Man-Giant" Fleming with a wry amused look of patience on his face as his training partner attempted to secure the single leg on him. It looked like a dwarf trying to hug a tree. Muchos amusing.




Chico then demo'd different ways to get to the above. First, if the guy tugs his arm away hard enough he'll be pulling right back anyway so you won't need to kick his leg, just jump in for the single leg.
Second, if they're trying for the push legs in then jump back Spider Guard break, you can anticipate this and roll forward as they jump away and take their leg the same way.

Chico also stopped us all to stress this point. Make sure when taking the single leg that your head is on the inside of the leg and is very tight to him or he can push you away and attack the collar by taking a collar grip and rolling forward for whatever easy finish he wants. Me and Marcus briefly tried this and were pretty amazed at the cool tight gi collar chokes you can get from that set up.


The last technique of the session was a continuation of the single leg attack. Instead of meekly going to his impending single leg doom, the opponent sprawls forward landing in a precarious half guard top position. Precarious because he's mostly off to one side and your half guard leg grip is in the perfect position to do the following. All you need do is ram your top leg into the back of his trapped leg whilst your arms escort him forward. He should shoot past you with you able to neatly come up over the top to take his back. Genius.


Situational Rolling:

This was a pretty funny session of situational rolling as Chico said it was two minute on the top, two minutes on the bottom. Spider Guard drilling. Guy on bottom has to sweep or submit. Guy on top has to pass. To make it interesting Chico said if anyone passes guard the entire class do 20 push ups. Amazingly no one in the entire class passed guard that session, now who would've believed it? I was with Marcus for this and we swept each other excellently for our respective two minutes. :oD

 

Rolling:

We then went on to some proper rolling (I suspect Chico realised people weren't taking the other thing seriously) and I was feeling a little bit (only a little bit) more energetic than I have been the past few sessions in Chico's class by this time. I first rolled with Tom Hill's cousin whose name I can't remember. He's been coming on and off for quite a while now but never really fully committed as much as Tom. I went fairly light on him but still tapped him twice with the arm bars from the guard to demonstrate why he shouldn't be extending his arms to push me away while in my guard. At one point I managed to get an X Guard sweep on him too which I was particularly chuffed with, until Marcus told me later that he'd managed to hit an X Guard Triangle on Tom. I think I got a triangle on him too toward the end of the round.


My second roll was with Cameron, a guy that came up with us from our Weston class. Cameron is fairly new but strong, athletic and keen. A very good combination. He's still at the stage where I just let him work at stuff and give him a few pointers though. I did get him with an arm bar from the guard at one point to show him that he can't do the arm extend thing (same as with Tom's cousin) but mostly just let him work some guard breaks and mount escapes on me.


My last roll was with Rich Long. I was a little sapped for this but still more game than I had been at this time on the last couple of Chico sessions. I managed to tap him quite quickly with an achilles lock. After that we had a terrific back and forth roll with Rich passing my guard a couple of times. At one point I was pretty weary and couldn't be bothered to try an escape from side control (my side control escapes are pretty shit and lack lustre when I'm worn out) so I gave up the mount. Believe it or not I have a much higher success rate for escaping mount. Not a good tactic for competition though. Whilst in mount, Rich manoeuvred around for an arm bar set up but lent forward to far on it so I turned my body throwing him off of me. At one point I managed to pass his guard to side then get to mount and moved to S mount so I could use the gift wrap transition to take his back. At that moment I got a really good shot at a bow and arrow choke on him and had it locked in quite tight but Rich showed fantastic tenacity and level headedness by holding his collar tight to relieve pressure, waiting for my arms to gas then turning toward me and shifting his hips out to come up in my guard. Great escape. I later saw the exact same escape demonstrated by Nick Brooks in issue 8 of Jiu Jitsu Style Magazine.

Another great week of Jiu Jitsu done and now I've just got to wait for the Lucas Leite seminar on Sunday (hey that's tomorrow now :oD). Cool.

Checkmat - Bristol Combat Legion 26/6/12

I didn't have any lunchtime training sessions with Marcus this week as he's had a virus so I was really looking forward to Tuesday night's class at Bristol Combat Legion. And it was another blazing hot session under Chico Mendes on the top floor of the LA Gym. I'm thinking that my alcohol binge last week has taken a bit out of my cardio and my ability to cool myself down. I kid you not I was sweating my life away during the second half of Tuesday night's class and I felt so weak I think even my dear old Nan could've tapped me out (she throws up a mean triangle choke does Nanny :oD). Even so we worked on something that I haven't really worked much on before so it was still a rockin' experience.

Venue: Bristol Combat Legion, LA Gym, Bristol, Uk
Instructor: Chico Mendes - Checkmat (Grade 2 Black Belt)


Warm Up:
For the Warm up we did laps of the with knee ups, butt kicks, facing in for a couple of laps, facing out for a couple of laps, two steps facing in/two steps facing out for a couple of laps, touching the mat for a couple of laps.

After that Chico had us practice our stand up stances for a Bjj competition match. Chico says it is best to concentrate most of your weight on your back as this with defending takedowns as well as with your manoeuvrability. He also advises that you should use the same side arm as your forward leg for your collar/head/shoulder gripping arm to avoid any disastrous counters from the opponent. So we practised moving about in stance, forward - backward, side to side, all the while offering the correct hands and legs with weight distributed correctly.

Once done with that Chico ran us through some Spider Guard tactics and a couple of sweeps. Chico says the key to a good Spider Guard is to have you feet in the opponents elbow crooks with a good grip on his cuffs. Try no to start or default to legs extended, try to have your legs bent with feet pushing out into the elbow crooks so the opponent is relatively close to you and under your control. When the guy tries to pass to one side, extend you leg on the other side. Don't be to tempted to extend the leg on the side he's trying to pass as he then knows the full extent of your range and can also just pull the leg up and spin past. With the other leg extended you're dragging half his body back to position, you just need to shift your hips and re-angle your body to return to your starting position.

Chico also showed us a few sweeps from Spider Guard. One I remember was where the opponent is trying to pass and you've extended the opposite side leg. You then bring your unextended leg and push it against the opponent's opposite side leg (so you've now got a leg in his elbow crook and a leg on his lower leg, all on the same side) and with your spare hand you reach under his free leg and us a combination of the holds to sweep the opponents over you and over on to his back. This was the sweep that I found the easiest.


Another was where the opponent has raised one leg against your rear to try and make space. You extend your leg that is pushing out the other side of his body and lean forward and grab the back of the leg he has pushed against you. You can then lean forward into him while pulling the leg to tip him over and come up into top control.

There was also another sweep but I cannot remember the details. I've been trawling footage on YouTube but nothing seems to ring any bells.

The next part of the session involved us situationally sparring with a partner from Spider Guard. We were first off just trying out our Spider Guard positioning but were progressed on to sweeping and passing.  I was already pretty hanging by this point in the session.

I rolled this section with many opponents. The ones I can remember are Justin, Kamil, Andy and Sam. We then went on to practising turtle-ing up from from this position. Chico made a rule that if anyone gets their guard passed to side control, the whole class does 20 push ups.

The logic behind this is that if someone is passing your guard in competition but you give up the back into turtle (make sure they don't get hooks in!!) the opponent will get and advantage. If you then try to regain your position and accidentally give up side control, they don't get the points for it as they haven't passed your guard. I never knew that. Great bit of knowledge there. Anyway, it was at this point that I ended up with Ronan (the Man Mountain) Fleming in front of me. I was already totalling shagged and I had to try and resist this giant. I failed. Quickly and impressively. I was the reason that everyone had to do 20 push ups (except Ronan who was exempt being the passer). I would've been embarrassed if not for the fact that I'd managed to sweat ever emotion out of my body by this point.

We were then moved on to a situational roll starting from stand up and going for takedowns. I was against Tom "Egg" Kocur for this and it must've been the easiest thing he'd done that night. My most effective weapon at that point was the ability to fall on Tom. I think he impressively took me down 3 times and for that I can only apologise to Tom for not supplying him with a very tough challenge.

I finished up with a light situational roll against Judo Andy but as both of us were dying we didn't really achieve anything. The whole night was a very unimpressive performance from me really. I am going to have to take away some hard learnt lessons here. These are:

1/. Bristol Combat Legion Gym is Hot, Hot, Hot and unless I'm prepared for grappling in high heat I am not going to get anywhere.

2/. A whole week on the lager (on school nights too, thanks Euro 2012) has wreaked havoc on my cardio.

3/. My body really gases out very badly when the above combination come together leaving me about as much use as a grappling dummy.

4/. Chico finds this funny.

I am seriously gonna have to work on the main two problem, firstly, my cardio - back to running nightly and hitting the interval training in the gym- and secondly I need to drink more water or preferably Performance Sports Drinks during the day as my body is seriously overheating and I could also do with regularly working out at higher temperature to acclimatise my body to the heat. Doing all this will help me out with training at Bristol Combat Legion and possibly stop Chico from taking the piss out of me while I'm trying to die in the corner. Now that's gotta be worth any kind of hardship.

On the plus side, Big Justin, whose been training loads with us at Ian's and Chico's recently is improving loads and even tried his hands with a couple of rolls No-Gi toward the end of the sesh as there were a couple of guys without opponents so Justin was more than willing to step up to the plate. He didn't do badly either. Fair play to him, it's always good to see newer guys kindling their own Bjj Obsessions.

Now I've got to wait for Monday (hopefully, if Marcus is better by then) for my next does of Bjj-ness. I hate long gaps in training. ¬m/

Checkmat Bjj - 12/6/12

To finish off a quality 2 days of training I attended Chico Mendes' Bjj class in Bristol's LA Gym, Tuesday evening. I have to confess to being a bit knackered and achy going into the class, after mine and Marcus' hammering No Gi sesh earlier in the day it's not really a surprise.

Venue: Bristol Combat Legion, LA Gym, Bristol, Uk
Instructor: Chico Mendes - Checkmat (Grade 2 Black Belt)



As is the norm for us we arrived a little late so we were getting changed while the rest of the guys were doing the warm up. From where I joined in we did laps of the mat with knee ups, butt kicks and mat touches.  Hips escapes for 2 lengths then we partnered up and did a length of mat in wheel barrow each, ending with 20 Push ups, then we carried our partners 1 length each, then carried backward 1 length each. I was with some MMA dude for this who seemed about my size. Didn't think it would be fair to team with Marcus on that one. Hehehe.



Techniques:
Chico started us off with  the fairly basic Closed Guard Hip Bump Sweep. Your opponent is kneeling in your closed guard. Chico demo'd this with a guy trying to break closed guard using his elbows on against the inside leg whilst holding his belt. Chico first dummies one way, as if to attack the arm on one side, then throws himself the other way. He opens his guard but ensures his knees are clenched together to control the opponent, then, picking a side, he bases out with his arm on that same side then throws his other side arm up and over the guys head and shoulder and grabs the guys arms at the triceps on the selected side and then hip bumps and pulls the guy over. You flip the opponent easily over so you have him mounted and in a great position for attacking.
I drilled all the techniques that night with Marcus as both of us were a bit knackered so we went a bit easier on each other.


The next move was the Closed Guard Kimura. Chico just showed us this as an option off the blocked Hip Bump Sweep. As you're hitting with the hip bump the opponents uses the arm you are grabbing to base out on the mat so as to block the sweep. Using the arm you had based out with, grab HIS basing arm at the wrist and release the triceps with your other hand and reach further over and inside the arm to grab your own wrist. Then bend the opponents arm up and back using the superior strength afforded you by the double grip and move yourself out to the side so you are perpendicular to him. For additional pressure on the hold, when you bring the guys arm up high, pull your supporting arm (the one that is reaching around and grabbing the your other wrist) in tight against the opponents shoulder.
Very painful. I'm still feeling tight now and that's two days after.



Next up was a Closed Guard Flower Sweep variation. An old favourite of mine, Chico's version worked for when you opponent is grabbing your lapel high on one side. You grab the cuff of the high arm with a pistol style grip and reach down to the guys other side leg and grab a hand of gi pant around the lower leg. Then, open the guard but as before, keep the legs clenched at the knees and swing the guy over by pulling up on the guys leg and raising your same side leg slightly (whilst keeping it tight) and dropping the other side leg slightly (also keeping it tight) to sweep him over on to his back, once again mounted for a great attacking position.
It struck me during the drilling of this move, that I haven't used move in ages and I think that's because I nearly never use closed guard any more. Weird that my old go to moves have been left behind since I've been trying to evolve my game.



The last move we were shown I have just spent the best part of  10 minutes trying to remember as I was quite shagged by that time and my head wouldn't have been working at a hundred percent. Stupidly, the only notes I left for myself on this was "Closed Guard Foot Out Sweep and Arm Bar" which was particularly useless and left me racking my brain in the effort to conjure up what the hell it was.
Starting off in closed guard, you've grabbed the opponent's wrist at your lapel, as for the flower sweep, so the opponent bases his leg up on the other side as if to try for a guard break. From there you "chop up" with your arm, under the opponent's leg preferably as low as possible to knock the guy off his base and bring his leg up so his foot is near your head. You bend your arm at the elbow and keep you arm raised above your head, so his leg is secured and stretched out next to you. From there you can hit and arm bar if you manage to keep the guys arm stretched out. The point of the move was for the sweeps though. You need to gage which way the opponent is resting his weight so you can sweep him with his over balance. You sweep him the same way as the side of the arm you've grabbed by twisting your legs that way and leaning forward and to that side, lifting the leg as you go. To go the other way you quickly grab the opponents other arm and twisting your legs toward that direction and sit forward, this time holding the leg out of the way.
We were trying those moves for quite a while before Chico called time for some rolling,



Rolling:
I can not remember much at all about the rolling except for who I rolled with and some very vague details. Oh and that it was 6 minute rounds.

I rolled with Marcus first and as we were both knackered it was just a very sloppy back and forth affair.

Next I rolled with Jase BrookSbank in a very good roll where I remember hitting a semi decent half guard sweep. I also took his back at one point but he shook it off quite easily. It ended with me in his half guard trying to pass or hit a kimura, until Jase at the very end (and with some advice from Ronan) got a pretty sweet sweep.


The next was Judo Andy (as I've taken to calling him, even though I am unsure his name is Andy and he hasn't done Judo in many years), a very strong and advanced white belt with a tight holding game. I was really feeling the pain by this time so I just jumped guard and attempted to sloppily throw up subs against him whilst fending his attempts at passing. I have become reasonably proficient at using my legs and arms to block out attempts at passing my open guard and just rolling away from the pass. This was frustrating Andy somewhat, who was trying to grab both my legs and then throw them out of the way to jump past. This was fended off easily and I even threw in a couple of choke attempts (pace, cross and even a gogoplata). That was pretty much the roll.


Next up I went against a girl called Leigh, who is relatively new to Bjj and is focused more on MMA so she only really grapples no gi. As she isn't very experienced at all I mainly just showed her how to break a closed guard, how to pass guard, how to escape mount and a half guard sweep. Just some functional stuff she could use, instead of just smashing her up and destroying her confidence.


Last roll was against Rich long and it was pretty much identical to the Andy roll. I basically did the guard defence bit and various sub attempts, with absolutely no sweeping attempts. I was even managing to do the turtle-ing up and inverting stuff to defend the guard pass. I'm particularly chuffed with the turtle as it's never really been part of my game before but it's coming along nicely. I was close to a gogoplata at one point (I WILL hit that move one day) but Rich defended it well. Rich managed to pass to my half guard at one point to which I rolled him over using a kimura sweep, which he defended and then rolled me back over using a similar sweep before I recovered guard which is where we ended. A really good roll with Rich there.

A great class there from Chico with a good, yet sloppy (on my side), rolling session at the end. And I also got a couple of good Jiu Jitsu T-Shirts while I was there. One I had pre-ordered through Ian, from Tatami and the other was the new Bristol Combat Legion/ Checkmat T, which is awesome ¬m/

Checkmat Bjj - 29-5-12

Tuesday night was a very hot, very muggy night out at La Gym, Bristol, to train under the returning Chico Mendes (2nd Grade Black Belt). It was great to train back under Chico again after his looooong trip away, first to Brazil, to see his family, then to the USA, to train with a whole host of people, including Dan Henderson (lucky bast).

It's good to have Chico back though as his level of training and instruction is just phenomenal, his attention to fine details is first class. In fact I think it would be safe to say that Chico's knowledge of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is close to encyclopaedic and to have access to that level of expertise is a real gift.

Venue: LA Gym, Bristol, Uk - Bristol Combat Legion
Instructor: Chico Mendes - Checkmat.

Warm up:
We started with laps of the mat with butt kicks and knee ups, facing in for a lap and facing out for a lap, then 3 steps facing in, 3 steps facing out for a lap, then mat touches for a few laps. We then did two lengths of the mat with hip escapes, one length of front rolls and one length of back rolls.


Techniques:

First thing we were started on was stand up techniques for grips and shooting. Chico ran us through a few tips for stand up including how best to grip the collar - using the elbow down into opponents chest technique so he can't duck under your arm and take your back - and to not let the opponent get the grips he wants.
We drilled the first few things in pairs before moving on. I was paired with Marcus.


Moving us on from there, Chico showed us his preferred Pulling guard technique. When you collar and elbow tie up together, your opponent has one arm extended, most likely gripping your collar. You are to be gripping that extended arm at the elbow. That is the side of your opponents body you should be concentrating on for your guard pull. You can use your foot on that side of you to push against his hip and then sit back and off side slightly. Your foot on his hip will stop him from passing on that side and basically helps to control his whole position in relation to you. Your other foot is off to the side  and can be hung out wide to stop any pass attempts or be ready to use for a sweep attempt or sub attempt. The triangle is a particularly good attack from this position.



Next up was the Shoot for Takedown into Pull guard. While you're collar and elbow tied, fire the guys arm up so you can shoot in for the takedown as usual. Whilst in the shoot position the guys sprawls, you need to bring your outer leg back in to either go between the opponents leg and bring him down in your half guard or hook the leg and bring the other inside too, to get the butterfly.


The next couple of techniques work if you've gone for the shoot takedown and the guy sprawls well to put you in the Turtle (Guard) position. The first of the two move had you put you head out of the turtle near his lower ribs and then base your leg out on that same side - leg needs to be braced at a right angle so the knee is underneath you arm, so the opponent can't collapse you in your turtle. You can now sit out under with your other leg and come out at the side, the arm that was braced by your outside leg can now be used to push the guys to the side so you can take his back. Beautiful technique this one.
The second one involves you putting your head at one side the same as before, but this time the basing leg goes out at the other side. You can now use your other leg to sit in to half guard, with a strong underhook in place. Now if you use the your outside leg to trap his secured leg and pull it out and away, it makes it easy for you to use the underhook to shunt the guy up so you can duck under and take his back. Another nice move.
I loved both of these techniques and will definitely be trying to push them in to my standard game. Brilliant.




Situational Rolling:

Next up was a bit of situational rolling. In pairs for 6 minutes. We did 2 minutes of stand up, the object being to takedown of successfully pull guard. 2 minutes of one guy in closed guard, then another two with the other guy in closed, object there for the top guy to pass, bottom guy to sweep. It was so friggin' hot though that I was running on fumes so I really don't remember much for a blow by blow account.
I paired off with Marcus first. Don't remember much about it.

Second was with the returning and recently renamed Jason Brooksbank. Why he wanted to move the S in his name I have no idea, :o))   (I'm such a dillon).
Think Jase got a decent takedown on me. Jase is quite a short guy but he's freakishly strong for his size and I was already gassed to fuck by this time so I was not having a good time in the stand up. I managed to pass his guard effectively though which was a bonus though. I can't remember if I swept him or not, or if he passed my guard or not. Good roll though. Always is with Jase.


At that point I flaked a bit and sat out a round as I was seriously over heating. The airflow in that gym is tragic at best and I needed to pound back a massive amount of water and stand next to the fan to cool off for a bit. I wasn't alone though as Mario Saeed kept me company next to the fan and we bantered about the recent UFC event (Dos Santos v Mir) a bit to kill the six minutes.


So it was only fair that me and Mario paired off after that. Unfortunately for me (or fortunately for Mario), Chico decided to make it 2 minutes stand up, 2 minutes guard, then another 2 minutes stand up. Now Mario regularly trains MMA so his wrestling is pretty shit hot. I didn't give it enough credit to begin with as he dummied me then shot in for a takedown that was so fast I didn't even get close to sprawling. I was flat on my back before I knew it. The rest of the round involved me either pulling guard or, on one occasion, letting him attempt the trip takedown and then over balancing him to land on top. For the guard play we had a damn good round with me sweeping Mario early, then him going all out trying to pass my guard and getting to side control, but he was unable to hold it for more than a second as I was able to break out and return to guard. From there Mario was trying to lean in on me so In Tomoe nage'd (monkey flipped) him over my head and landed in mount. I was particularly chuffed with this as it's the first time I can ever remember hitting this move in full strength sparring.


To finish up the session we had a free roll. I rolled against Marcus. He pulled guard first and I managed to pass to half guard top. From there I was able to gift wrap his arm across his face and use it to pull him up and take back. From there I struggled for quite some time before I was able to hit a Bow and Arrow on him. Next off I pulled guard. We struggled for a while in that position but I was eventually able to hit the very same Tomoe Nage on Marcus, flipping over and immediately hitting the arm bar. I think I hit another arm bar on him from somewhere else too but I can't for the life of me remember where. I'm fairly certain I faired so well because Marcus didn't sit out a round and was looking absolutely roasted.

That was the end of the session and to be honest I was a bit gutted. I would've loved to roll againat that point but alas, it was not meant to be. Great session though. Shame that's it for me now for about 9 days due to the stupid smelly bank holiday and the fact that I'm on call. Ah well. Let's me rest up and heal a bit. Can't get enough of this amazing art/sport though. ¬m/

Checkmat Bristol 6-3-12

Hey guys. Yesterday evening at Checkmat Bristol was a special night for 5 guys. The promised grading that we were to attend at the recent Leo Vieira seminar got put back for a few weeks for various reasons so it was last night that we got to see a handful of very chuffed, very honoured guys get promoted to their Blue Belts in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. I was particularly happy about this as my long time training partner and buddy, Marcus Hedley, was one of the lucky (though thoroughly deserving) guys to get his belt. Marcus has been training Bjj since just after Ian Rossiter moved his Sjja class up from Burnham to Sweat FA in Weston Super Mare. That's about two years and Marcus is very committed to his training, doing two nights a week most weeks, occasionally fitting 3 sessions in (Lucky B).

The other guys to be graded were Josh Kersey, Shabba Vaithianathan (yes I did just copy and paste that from Facebook), Richard Long and Mario Saeed. Well done to you all guys. You all looked suitably chuffed and I imagine you've spent the best part of today trying to find out where you can get a new blue belt from and how long it'll take to get to you.


Going in to last nights class I was (and still am) carrying a bit of a brutal injury. My legs, yes both of them, are absolutely killing me. Once again. I spent Monday afternoon in the gym with my buddy Steve and we did a "bit of a leg workout". Or 'Big Legs Monday' as Steve's trying to call it although I'm fairly insistent that it's not going to become a weekly thing. Going through a pretty intense workout of Leg Presses, Squats and Weighted Lunges, I could actually barely walk after the session so I knew the next couple of days were gonna be painful. By yesterday morning I was struggling to walk up and down stairs. By last night I was in tatters. Muppet.

Still, I knew there was a grading on and I had a feeling it might be Marcus' night and I wanted to be there to see it so I struggled on (like a soldier ;op) through the training and rolling. 

Venue - LA Gym, Bristol, UK
Instructor - Chico Mendes.

With all these grading shenanigans going on I almost forgot how good it was to have Chico back teaching us. Since his fight training and his post fight relaxing it seems like ages since I'd actually been taught by Chico. It certainly was brilliant to have Chico back.

Warm Up.
The guys started with laps of the class (I was kind of getting dressed really slow for this bit) with laps doing various different steps. Then we did some sit ups, some cross choke sit ups, some hip escapes and that was about it. I was pretty happy about that as I wasn't quite ready for standing squats or star jumps. Sometimes a quick warm up is good.


For the techniques Chico ran us through some methods of breaking closed guard. For the first one you're in closed guard with a grip on both of the opponents lapel (both hand gripping both lapels-as if holding them together). Then bring one leg up outside of the opponents leg and bring the knee in toward your elbow to put pressure on the guys trapped leg. Now with the other leg you move the leg straight backward and then use it to stand up (it looks like you're doing a lunge) and then use your body to pull backwards breaking the closed guard grip.

For the next technique, you're in the opponents closed guard, you push up under the armpits to keep the guys arms away from you. Then you jump up to your feet in one motion (you release the under armpit grip at this point) and stack the guy using hip pressure. Now with both arms you can attack one leg, pushing down to break the closed guard (quite easily too).

Me and Marcus drilled these techniques. Both felt relatively easy and were pretty similar to the stuff Rafael had been teach the last couple of weeks.

For the next closed guard break method Chico showed his preferred way of securing the opponents arm. In closed guard, you've got a single hand grip on both lapels. With the other hand you grab the cuff of the opponents sleeve on the same side. Grabbing a handful of the sleeve without any fingers or thumbs in is preferable  so the material is gripped in your clenched fist (wankers grip). Now pull the opponents arm down and push it into his abdomen, at the same time moving the knee on that same side up and then pressuring inwards so the knee in closing with your elbow for maximum control. From there you force the secured arm over his body toward the ground while your lower body is pushing the guy almost on his side. From that position you can let go of the lapel double grip and use that arm to push on his free leg to open the guard and then go straight into the knee pass while keep foot hook in (as per a lot of Rafael's recent techniques).


For the last one Chico actually used me to demonstrate the technique. Under normal circumstances that's a cool thing and a bit of an honour but this particular move was started by him showing how most people use the elbows to dig into peoples inside legs to break closed guard. OW the pain. Then Chico showed how he prefers to see the elbows used for breaking guard. First get a good grip of the guys Gi pants just below the drawstring and push down, use both hands for this to keep the guy secure without being able to shrimp in either direction. Then angle one leg out at an angle slightly and use you elbow to push the opponents leg on that side outwards to break the guard. Very easily in my case.



After that we did some situational sparring. Closed guard bottom needs to sweep or submit. Closed guard top needs to pass.
I went with Marcus, Jason, Long Tall Mike, Mario Saeed and Mark Aston. Had an ok time of it given that my legs were murder. Found it trickier to pass the guard than I did to sweep. Didn't get any subs but managed to sweep most guys.

After that Chico did the grading and then we all got to join in for the traditional beating of the newly raised. Some put a bit more vigour into it than others but a good time seemed to be had by all. Shabba and Mario were particularly stupid and elected to go without a gi jacket on. Not clever. Looked really painful. Bet they were laying awkward that night. The rest of the guys took it well and then we all lined up for some snaps.

Chico and Shabba (with Josh lurking)

Chico and Josh

Chico and Rich

Chico and Marcus

Chico and Mario

Once again, well done to all the guys who were graded. \m/

Chico Seminar.

Great weekend of Bjj this Sat/Sun as Chico Mendes (2nd Degree Black Belt) is holding another Checkmat seminar weekend at Trojan Cheltenham. I am only able to go to the Sunday but that is still very pleasing for me. Some lucky bastards I know actually get to go to both days which would be absolutely phenomenal but is, alas, a pipe dream for a family guy like me.

I am going on the Sunday with a few of the guys from our SJJA club and can't wait. I love these club days out we have occasionally. It's always good to see some of the guys from the Taunton Club and there's usually a good bit of banter on the journey or while we're there. The seminar start time for Sunday is approx. 10:30 - That's a 9:30 journey start, no heavy drinkin' Saturday night then - and features 2 hours of No Gi Bjj, a half hour break and then straight on to 2 hours of Bjj in a Gi (urgh, that last 5 letters brings the horrible Rener Gracie rap tune to mind).

I'm quite full of nervous anticipation for the No Gi portion of the seminar as I haven't trained Sans Gi since the day I got my first (horrible, thick Adidas thing that shrunk unbelievably) and almost feel like I'm stepping on the mat as a white belt again. This will probably lead to me getting owned all over the mat during the sparring as even the static punch bag at the side of the matt gets a tap out of me. Look forward to learning though and a humbling experience every once in a while is character building.

The main reason why I'm going though of course is for the Gi part of the seminar as I can't wait to see what stuff Chico's got planned for the Techniques and drilling part. Chico never fails to show some pretty advanced and yet attainable techniques that can actually find a place in your Bjj arsenal. Some seminars you go to, you find that the stuff being shown is stuff that's so advanced or so specific that you wouldn't use it in your average everyday Blue Belt journey. Chico's stuff is always usable from a fairly early grade but a lot of it is stuff you haven't really seen before (from my point of view) or helps to polish/perfect the stuff that you already know with little tips that round off your technique.

Also, as this is Checkmat, we are going to be graced with the presence of a number of other Black Belts including Leonardo "Bomba" Queiroz, Luiz Neto, Marcus Canha and Rafael Heck. That's what I love about these Checkmat seminars. They tend to bring in loads of Black Belts so they can all train together too, but this benefits us all as, when we're practising techniques, you'll often get a stray Black Belt stop you and give you a few pointers to nail the move correctly. That's the beauty of the Checkmat family, they all pool together for things like this so we get a more complete experience.

We will undoubtedly also get the opportunity to roll inter club with some of the guys from Cheltenham and Worcester, which is always a good litmus test for how your skills are coming along against guys you've never or rarely rolled against. All in all, good times ahead.

Can't wait 'til Sunday. \m/.