DV8 Bjj - 11/4/13

So I ended my last entry telling you how I was gonna bust a gut getting back on the training mats at full force. This changed however, when I decided to enter the next Hereford Open in June. I've decided this time to go for the under 82.3 Kg bracket. I nearly made that weight last time I was cutting, even though I wasn't trying for it, and this time my I'm planning it better. Unfortunately I have my post-easter break weight to get rid off. I managed to drive myself back up to an impressive 14st + (stopped weighing myself after the 4 came back) so now I'm blasting away in the gym doing interval training and weights while eating well and ensuring I get a signifcant bit of weight training in there to keep my strength up. After one week of this I've dropped back to 13st 6 1/2. A couple more weeks of this and I'll be sitting pretty at the low 13 - maybe sub 13 - mark. Once I've attained that weight I'll maintain the healthy diet, kick up the training sessions per week and maybe fit 2 or 3 cardio/weight sessions in a week also. If I follow this plan I think I will be much more prepared than I ever have been before.

With all this in mind the only Bjj session I've done this week coming off of Easter was Ian's Thursday class. And what a belter it was to come back to. Good numbers there with a few old faces returning to the mats (JT and Ed Travis) and we even had a cameo appearance from the streamlined "Big" Steve Rudd and the Turtle King Neil Owen (although neither of the latter two were training). It felt good to have the old club mates back and there was a good bit of banter and a jovial feel to the class.

Venue: DV8 Academia de Jiu Jitsu, Sweat Fa, Weston Super Mare, Uk.
Instructor: Ian Rossiter (Black Belt - Checkmat)




Warm Up:

The usual full body stretching to begin.

Then on to Ian's favoured Tabata curcuit.

(All these items are done in unison)
Everyone doing 20 seconds of high knee running on spot

then 10 seconds of pausing in squat

20 seconds of press ups

10 seconds paused in plank

20 seconds of crunches

10 seconds paused in a v sit up

20 seconds of jump high on spot

10 seconds of pause in squat

Then do the same circuit again.

And then proceed to blow out of your ass. :o)

Techniques:
(As usual I will describe techniques from the side I initially learnt them).

To start the lesson Ian gave us a simple Arm Bar from guard. A quick demo of it cause everyone is pretty comfortable with their AB from G movements. The idea behind this was that we just practised the technique a couple of time from each side and then drilled it fast. Getting the movements into your memory, coupled with the ability to do them fast, so you can hit it at speed to punish an opponent whose got a bit slack. The basic technique starts with the guy in your guard with both hands gripping your lapels. With your right arm you reach under his left arm to grip his right arm across the forearm and pull it toward your centre line. Keep the grip nice and strong so he can't pull it away. Now with your left hand take a deep grip of his left lapel and pull him in toward you. Open your guard and put your left foot on his hip whilst putting your right leg across his back to keep the guys posture broken down. Using the foot on hip you shift your angle out to the right and then pass that left leg over the guy's head, clench you knee tight and extend your hips to get the arm bar sub.



Next up was a Gi Choke to counter the arm bar block. You've done all of the above up until you're about to slap the arm bar on (remember that you still have your left hand deep on his collar). Unfortuantely the opponent has managed to wrap his free arm under the arm you're trying to extend so he can bring it tight to his chest to block the arm bar. To counter this you just need to slide your right hand into the guy's right collar so you have a cross collar grip. Finish the gi choke by pulling your elbows in tight and then drawing them down across your sides.


The last technique of the night was a Triangle from guard. Different to the usual method though, for this one Ian used the sweeping arms out wide method. Basically the guy is in your and has a grip on each of your lapels. You bring your hands under his arms and put them together, then push the up between his hands to break open the guys grip and force the hands to the mat to either side of you. Quickly wrap your right arm over the top of his left to trap it in place while grabbing his right arm with your left hand and straight arming it away. Shift you hips out to the right slightly so you can bring your left leg up and pass it through the gap between your arm and his and then kick that leg up high and wrap around the back of his head. Pass your right leg over the top of the left to close off the triangle, then bring the guy's trapped left arm across the front of his face. Shift your angle so you're out to his left side (so you've shifted to your right) to close the amount of space in the triangle and get the choke submission.

Situational:
After the technical part we then did some situational sparring starting from closed guard. The guy in the guard has to break guard and pass. The guy with the guard has to sweep or submit. 2 minutes then you change.

This was a great addition to our usual weekly drilling and rolling regime.

I went again Rich first, then Tom and then the returning Ed Travis. I was only swept once (by Rich) and managed to sweep and pass everyone. Most multiple times (except Tom whose guard I only managed to pass once).


Three Way Rolling:
We then did the good old three way rolling where you group off in a trio, two of the guys roll for a minute while the third waits for the minute to be up. When the minute is up he attacks the guys with the weaker position. This decides the order. From there the next waiting guys then attacks you (regardless of what position you're in) and on it goes from there.
I was with Dan and Rich. It went ok. I got a tap on Rich (can't remember what) but other than that I was pretty knackered and didn't get anything good.


Good sesh. Ian told me at the end that he's got a wedding schedule for next Thursday so I may get another teaching session in. Cool. I best start planning now.

¬m/

DV8 - 5/6/12

There were loads of us waiting outside the Martial Arts Studio of Sweat FA this week having a chat and a laugh before the session. It's this sort of camaraderie that really brings us together as a class. Good team spirit. Everybody standing around talking about their week, or what gi they're gonna get, or have already got. It's what sets the Martial Arts apart in the sporting world really. No where else do you have a good laugh with your buddy one minute, then try and choke him to the verge of unconsciousness the next. Marvellous.

Venue: Sweat FA, Weston Super Mare, Uk.

Instructor: Ian Rossiter

Warm Up:

Laps of the mat, including, ass kicks, knee ups, facing inward for a lap, facing out for a lap and arm windmilling for a couple of laps. Neck, Arm and Shoulder stretching. Push ups 10x5, Squats 10x 5,  Crunches 10 x 5, then some leg stretching and some back stretching exercises.
 

Techniques:

Ian kicked us off the week with the Standard escape from seated rear mount. You are in what is considered to be the worst possible position you can be in in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. You are seated upright with your opponent behind you, with his legs wrapped around your body and his feet in between your legs (or "Hooks In"). He is now free to attack you mercilessly with his arms, looking for gi chokes, rear naked chokes or even arm bars and rear mounted triangles. Not a good position. For a basic defence you need to be sure your arms are pulled tight in to your sides and your hands are up defending near your throat and gi lapel (T-Rexing as it's known). While the guy is working on passing his hands through your arm defence you can scoot yourself down by putting your heels to the ground and pulling your butt toward them, thus moving your body down within in rear mount. Sometimes you might need to do this a couple of times to get down the required distant. From that position your danger has lessened considerably as even if the opponent does get his arm around your neck now, he will not be able to finish the choke. Now you can bring your heel to your butt again so the opponents hooks are up quite close to you, then pick a side and quickly drop the leg on that side so the opponent's hook pops out. It's usually good at this point to use the same side elbow to help the hook pop out. Once the hook is out you quickly shrimp your butt out to that side, twisting your body around the hook that was still in so you can hug that leg. This is the part that usually ends in a mad scramble. In an ideal world you would have a tight hug on the leg with your own legs keeping it in place so you can push it to the ground and then hurriedly kick your trailing leg out and over and end in side control. In the real world you will probably end up in half guard if the opponent is savvy enough to see that he's lost the position and to try for damage control rather than a quick regain of position. What I found is that the harder the guy tries to keep his controlling position once you've shrimped those hips out, the worse off he will end up (usually).

I drilled this and all moves tonight with Rich Presley. We had a good bit of banter and kept straying off the beaten track with techniques we were trying.


Second technique of the night was an alternative escape from rear mount. What this one entailed was for you to use your legs to push yourself backward into your opponent and off to one side. The aim is to get your back flat to the ground but you may have to fight for this against a determined opponent. Once there your danger has mostly subsided and you can make good your escape by shrimping out and coming up on top. It's worth noting though that a quick opponent might try to mount you if you take all your weight off his leg whilst escaping. Rich did this to me before I realised what I was missing.




Ian moved us on from there to a fairly basic Gi Choke. This time the focus is on the guy who has the rear mount. All you do is select a side and pulled the guy's gi lapel away from his body to make space. You can then bring the other hand over his arm and under his jaw to grab very deep into his collar using the thumb in grip. You now use the other hand (that was originally pulling the first lapel out) to take a low grip of the other lapel. You finish the move by leaning your body backwards. Easy finish. easy move. Tight as hell though.
Me and Rich also played around with a Gi choke where you put your foot in the opponents jacket to apply pressure and one where you use your own lapel to wrap around the opponent from behind  and then finish it like a bow and arrow.


The next move was an arm bar from the rear mount which was formally one of my most favouritest moves. Basically you force an arm into his T-Rex defence and grab your gi pants so you can use this as leverage to pull the arm away from the his side. You then use the other arm to push against the side of the guys head (the same side as where the rest of the action is happening) and lean your body out on that side passing your other side leg over and around his head and falling back to the floor, taking the trapped arm with you to finish the arm bar. Remember to clench your legs together tight to minimise the possibility of the guy escaping the hold.



Next up was three good little tricks to help you defend when an opponent has got your back.
The first one was a very slick inverted arm bar. The guy has you rear mounted and has managed to pass and arm under your chin for the rear naked choke. He's about to fold the other arm over the hand of the first. This would be disastrous and must be stopped at all costs. What you do at this point is use both of your arms to grab the arm that's about to wrap over the choking arm and pull it down, using your shoulder as a fulcrum to finish the inverted arm bar. It's so simple yet it's not a move you'll instantly think of when being threatened in that position.  
Second one was the good old crossed feet crusher. Your opponent has your back and commits the cardinal sin of crossing his feet to keep the hold, rather than getting his hooks in. All you need do is pass one of your legs of the top of his crossed ankles and use your other leg to triangle it. Pushing down on this now puts an immense and very painful amount of pressure on the guy's ankle. I have never known this to fail when executed correctly.
The last one was a body lock break. The guy has your back and is blessed with legs long enough to wrap one around your body fully, using the other leg to triangle it in place for a really tight lock. What Ian showed was you lean your body weight toward the triangled foot so you and your opponent are over on your sides. You then bring the your leg that is closest to the crossed feet up to press against them and use your off side arm to push against his inside leg just above the knee, while your nearside arm pushes against the mess of ankles you got on the other side to put pressure on his ankles for an ankle lock tap. Nice move.



Rolling:

First roll of the night was with Rich. I mostly played about with guard but fell into my usual routine of using crazy legs to block his passes while trying to hit the occasional sub. This is a habit I must break out of because it's not gonna take me anywhere in the long run. I got to remember to go for the sweeps from the outset.


Next was Glenn Cutter, who used his his usual ferocity and pace to good effect. I initially went for an arm drag to get to his back but Glenn's judo skills helped him resist this to good effect and brought him out on top. I working from guard I threw up an arm bar attempt and tried to push my leg through for an omoplata but didn't get anything. Then Glenn broke my closed guard and after a while managed to pass my open guard and come round to North South, though he strangely just rested on that for a while, not trying to threaten anything. I was just waiting for him to move one way or the other to make my escape and when he eventually did I managed to quick pull back to half guard. That was where the roll ended.


Next up was Jay. A new guy who didn't have a gi. I asked him what kind of experience he had to which he replied " this is only my second session". I was about to help him out and run him through some basics but he basically bull rushed me and tried to hit me with an achilles leg lock, but with both his legs crossed over mine and trying to yank on it for all he was worth. I just stepped into it to take any pressure off then turned towards his ankles and isolated one, then slapped and achilles lock of my own on which got the tap. I then explained to him about the whole illegality of the method he used for the lock for Bjj purposes (he was reaping the knee) and started again. He charged straight in again going full pace and trying to bulldoze me over so I explained to him about not extending the arms to push against an opponent while slapping a light arm bar on him.


Last roll of the night was with Chris Whiting who is definitely showing improvement. He's not using all his strength to just try and push me down and crush my neck from in my guard any more, in fact there were definitely some signs of guard pass attempts. I did get him with and arm bar from the guard at one point but this time I really had to work for it whereas previously he used to just basically give up his arm with one of his throat crushing endeavours.

After rolling we all had some photies taken. This is by far the best one though :oD

Great session all round really. Everyone seems happy with the club at moment and we have a great new influx of guys who have been attending regularly and show some strong commitment. Some athletic types too who could make a decent run of it at competitions if they stick at it. I see great times ahead for this new little club.

Now I've gotta remember to prep some stuff for this weekend just in case me and Marcus get to train Monday and Tuesday lunchtime. ¬m/

2 Man Gi Training - 2nd and 3rd July 2012

 
Back to lunchtime training with Marcus this week. For the Monday we basically covered a few spider guard techniques as a sort of follow on from the stuff Chico's been doing in his classes lately.


Marcus pulled some stuff off YouTube for the Spider Guard from a Caio Terra demo vid (although Ciao doesn't seem to actually teach any of the techniques in the vid)

We did the first two techniques in the video. I loved the sweep from leg lasso fake. Very good and I very nearly hit it in sparring a short while after learning it. When Marcus blocked it I also nearly hit the arm bar. Both good techniques. The other stuff we did was recapping some of the Spider Guard stuff shown by Chico last week. We then had a very healthy long rolling session. Totally knackered after. For the Tuesday session we managed to cover a lot more stuff. Mainly because Marcus came a bit more prepared. It was my anniversary the night before so I had absolutely no chance to look anything up so my input was minimal. We kicked things off with a couple of alternate methods to finish the Bow and Arrow Choke. Basically if you're trying to get the leg over his shoulder to put the pressure on and he keeps dropping the shoulder, your leg will slide right off. In this situation you can escape your hips out a fraction (not enough to lose the grip) and use the knee of that leg to push against the near side of his head to apply the pressure for finishing the choke. The other is very similar but instead of using the knee you turn the leg to point inside and use the shin. Both cool variations. Next up was an Ezekial to the back of an opponent. You have full seated rear mount on the opponent and one of your arms has snaked around his neck but he is refusing to let you get your other arm over for the RNC. Instead you can reach under and up behind his head but while doing so catch your gi sleeve with the fingers of your choking arm. If you then push forward with both arms whilst leaning back with your body you get a really cool choke. Nice move. We followed that up with a double underhook pass counter to triangle. Now that's a lot to say in one name and doesn't really convey the move very well. What's basically happening is your opponent has you with both your legs around hi head and his arms around them preparing for a double underhook pass. What you need to do is pull yourself away from him and tuck your feet under and in between his legs so you can lean up and take a hold of his belt at his lower back with one hand. You can then use your other arm to tuck under his same side arm and start to pry it up slightly as if to remove his underhook. Then with some speed you can open your leg on that side and the guys arm will pop up through and you are able to quickly pass that leg over his back and hit the triangle choke. Very nice move and I have to say quite useful as I always find myself in that sort of position so it will give me another good option. Next up was a move we had played a little bit with the day before but really had a go at on the Tuesday. The Hell Choke to turtled opponent is where you have rear side mount on a turtled opponent and you reach in nearside(in between shoulder and head) to grab the guy's opposite side lapel with your head that is nearer his head. You can then Very quickly stand and pass your far leg ( the one furthest from his head) over the guys back and around to over his head and fall backwards. This places a fantastic amount of pressure on the guys neck and will usually gain a very quick tap. Amazing move. I will be trying to hit this very soon :oD We also did a load of chokes from side control and rear side using your own lapel but I will have to save the writing up of them for another day as it's getting late and the moves are awesome enough to require their own log entry.

I've got Ian's class tomorrow evening at Sweat FA and I'm pretty pumped for it. Can't wait. ¬m/

Weston Bjj 26-4-12

We had reasonable numbers for Ian's class again this week and the dojo at Sweat FA in Weston has been done out with new mats so the place absolutely stank of chemicals or glue or something. Everyone in attendance was feeling relatively high after being in there for a couple of minutes (it's all good). And because of the super slippy-ness of the new mats, everyone's hip escapes were amazing. Even tubby gits like me were hip escaping like Rickson Gracie, keeping position on people was a lesson in control by itself.

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


Warm up:
Laps of the mat, including, ass kicks, knee ups, facing inward for a lap, facing out for a lap and arm windmilling for a couple of laps. Neck, Arm and Shoulder stretching. Push ups 10x3, Squats 10x 3,  Crunches 10 x 3, then some leg stretching.


Techniques:
Ian started us off with the very first sweep I ever learned off him. The Scissor Sweep. I must confess that I don't use this sweep very often. I see lots of guys using it but it's just not one of my favourites. Starting with your opponent in your closed guard you grab a hold of his gi at the elbow or triceps on one side and at the collar on the other side. Then,opening your guard, hip escape to the side you have the collar grip, leaving your far side leg flat to the ground next to his leg, while pulling the near side leg up to push against the opponent at the torso (Ian prefers it to go diagonally up across his body). To finish the sweep you steer the opponent sideways toward the side where you have the triceps grip whilst simultaneously 'scissoring' your legs to sweep the guys base out from underneath him and flip him over on to his back.
I was drilling all of the nights moves with Dan Foster. This one being an old move was fairly straight forward and both of us knew it well anyway.


Next technique Ian showed was a variation on the first. Same set-up as before but this time, when trying to turn the opponent over, he bases out well with his far side leg. To counter this, just bring the sweeping leg up and press your foot against his basing out leg. Then just push hard on that leg to knock the base out and continue the flip over the same as before.

We then drilled the above two sweeps in continuous motion by having the opponent Upa escape out of the mount back to guard. We did 4 turns each then swapped. Did this for a couple of sets.


The next move was a technique I'd not seen before. Starting from closed guard, reach up with one hand and secure the same side collar of the opponent using a pistol grip. Now, bait your opponent into trying to pass guard on that side of your body by dropping the leg a bit. Let him pass one leg over but clamp his second leg in (effectively going into half guard). Whilst the passing was going on you should be using your other hand to grab his other collar using and inverted grip (upside down pistol grip, so fingers are in). Now, moving your far side shoulder in toward your opponent, you can bring the inverted hand collar under the opponent's chin and then pull up the other side of his face to start applying the choke. Sometimes this will be enough to get the tap but if the opponent can resist this you just need to bring your far side leg up and over the top of the opponents head to pressure down on him making the choke much tighter. A real eye popper.
Me and Dan both really liked this choke once we'd got the hang of it.


The next technique was a variation of the above. Same movements up until the point that you're applying the choke. This time though, the opponent has managed to get his near side arm in between the choking arm and the leg that comes up, taking the pressure off the move. From here, you just simultaneously shift your hips out to bring the inside leg up to rest against their ribcage while securing the blocking arm to your chest. You can then extend your legs for the arm bar finish.
Nice and flash.
Funnily enough, me and Dan had been trying to work on how you could change it into an arm bar just before Ian demo'd the technique. Works really well.


We then worked on blocking cross chokes as Rich had requested it. Standard block of pushing the elbow of the top arm of the cross choke a little bit further across so you can bring the other hand up in between his cross choke and rest that hand against the top of your head (not on the lower part of your face or a strong opponent could break your fingers). This totally defuses the pressure of the hold.
We drilled this for a bit.


We started on another gi choke technique then but I can't remember the details as I didn't get a chance to drill it. We stopped to roll soon after the demo.

Rolling:
We had a nice long rolling session in this class. I went against Dan first. I started by pulling guard and we spent a good couple of minutes with Dan trying to pass my guard and me doing everything I could to not let that happen, occasionally I would threaten a sweep by grabbing a leg too but Dan was really energetic in his pass attempts and didn't give me a lot of time to work anything. I eventually managed to wrap a leg under and around his leg and swept him down into 50/50 guard and then came up into his guard. Dan then threw up and triangle attempt which he turned into an arm bar attempt. The round played out with me desperately blocking his arm bar attempt. He was VERY close to hitting it but I was twisting my arm to stop the pressure being put on.


My next opponent was Rich Presley and I was happy once again to jump guard. This time though I baited Rich to pass over my leg into half guard and then wrapped my untrapped leg over his back behind and around his head and grabbed the leg on the other side of his head with my outside arm. I then passed that arm under his chin and pulled the leg tight while pushing the arm up into his throat for the choke. I was chuffed to get the tap from this as it's the same Pace Choke technique that Me and Marcus had been drilling on Tuesday. Although the proper way to finish it is to extend the leg so the arm closes tight across the throat. Ah well, I'll work on that. Great move though. The rest of the round played out with guard play and a bit of side control on both parts.


My next opponent was a new guy called Steve. As Steve didn't really know what to do I didn't really spar with him, I just showed him a couple of methods of passing guard and let him use them on me. I showed him the knee up ass, extend legs guard break with the smash pass and also the knee over then rear leg over pass. He seemed very appreciative of this.


Chris Whiting was next. Chris is a strong but not very experienced white belt. Once again I pulled guard (couldn't be bothered to wrestle for position that night) and tried for various sweeps and other moves under Chris' vigorous guard attack. I eventually shot my legs up and turned him over for an arm bar. Chris took a breather for a sec and then we were just restarting when the time buzzer went.


The next guy I sparred with was Rob (still don't know his surname) who after starting from guard I managed to tap ridiculously easily with an arm bar. I didn't realise Rob was as new as his skills as he appeared. So instead on carrying on rolling from knee to knee I let him first of start in side control which I found escaping quite easy (probably down to the super slippy new mats) and then gave him tips on side control pressure. I then let Rob start in mount, a decision which I nearly regretted as Rob went straight for the throat, literally, as he latched on a very tight cross choke from mount. His arms were particularly strong on this and it took a lot of strength for me to perform the choke block that we were drilling earlier. I was able to Upa out of the mount though and the round ended.


Last opponent was Marcus, who I managed to sweep but landed in his half guard. From there a bit of arm wrestling lead to me hitting a straight arm bar on him. The round played out shortly after that.


That was the end to another wicked Bjj lesson. I can only say I am loving this Martial Art and Sport more and more as my time in it passes. I have some ideas on things I won't to improve on which I will talk about in upcoming posts. And I'm developing a small list of techniques I really want to hit. I'll probably be doing a bit more training on Monday and Tuesday lunch with Marcus too. We're thinking of doing a No-Gi session on Monday which'll be cool. \m/

Weston Bjj - 5/4/12

After my two Bjj sessions earlier on in the week I had a thirst for more action. Bjj is definitely one of those addictions where if you feed it, it only gets stronger. Anyway, Thursdays class down Sweat FA, Weston Super Mare, had a limited attendance, what with it being Easter weekend and all that. There were only seven of us in total but you get the odd class like that sometimes. Still, at least Ian ensured the lesson didn't suffer for it. In fact I felt like we managed to cover more than we usually would in a packed class as Ian had less guys to see too.

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


Warm Up:

Laps of the mat, including, ass kicks, knee ups, facing inward for a lap, facing out for a lap and arm windmilling for a couple of laps. Neck, Arm and Shoulder stretching. Push ups 15x2 then 10 x 1, Squats 15x 2 then 10 x 1, Crunches 15 x 2 then 10x 1, then some leg stretching.



Techniques:
Ian started us off tonight with the basic Kimura from Side Control. You establish a strong side control on your opponent with lots of downward pressure on his torso. Next you push his far side arm out at a 90 degree angle to his body, then bend his arm at the elbow so it's pointing south from his upper arm, also at a 90 degree angle, and secure the arm in that position by grabbing his wrist with your far side hand (the one closer to his legs). Now take your other arm and thread it underneath your opponents upper arm, reaching to grab your own wrist forming a figure four and massively strengthening your hold. From there you switch your legs so they are turned toward his head and then step over his head with your top leg. Applying the sub now is a simple matter off pulling up and toward you on the arm that's threaded underneath while keeping the opponents wrist held down. This move is not one that your training partner will thank you for if you hammer the technique on as it is quite an intense shoulder lock.
I practised this move with Rich Presley (still in fine competition shape) .


Next, Ian ran us through a variation of the same move. The setup is the same as the last move all the way up to having the arm secured in the figure four and switching your legs to face his head. This time though, instead of stepping over the head you just walk yourself toward his head using your top leg to kind of drag yourself across. As you do, apply the shoulder lock in the same way and the hold will come on, arguably tighter than before.
We were constantly swapped around tonight and I drilled this second move with Big Steve. In an actual Bjj or grappling competition I do not think I would have any chance of getting this move on Steve as his shoulders are pretty massive and I have fairly stumpy arms. Threading underneath to reach for my wrist process would probably not be attainable in a fight situation with that kind of size disparity.


To give our dying shoulders a bit of a rest Ian moved the next move on to something else. The technique was started from Side Control then transition to Knee on Belly then switch back around for a North-South Gi Choke. I was particularly chuffed with training this as we rarely do Knee on Belly in either of the classes I attend and consequentially I rarely find myself utilising the Knee on Belly position as it's not one I find myself going to automatically. From Side Control you grab your opponents collar around the back of the neck using a thumb in grip. With your other hand grab the guys belt at his far side hip. You can then quickly push yourself up into knee on belly using the downward pressure at neck and hip to keep the guy from escaping out of the way (be sure to maintain this position for 3 seconds in comp as it's worth 3 points). From there you use the hand that was at his hips to reach up into his collar using a fingers in, thumb pointing down (towards yourself) grip. You can now transition yourself to North-South and by doing so your forearm (of the arm you'd just secured the collar with) will come to rest across his neck. Push this arm down toward the floor to put the pressure on the throat for the sub. This is one of those moves that if executed correctly, you will make the guy tap real quick as the pressure on your throat is very painful.
I practised this technique with Neil 'Touché Turtle' Owen who is another fairly big guy so I was pretty grateful for the fact that he didn't dive into the Knee on Belly with vigour. I have this horrible memory of being tapped out by Ian in my early days of Jiu Jitsu training by the Knee on Belly. Not pleasant at the time and I was such a newbie that I didn't have a single answer.


Which lead neatly onto the second part of the technique which was how you traditionally react when the opponent hits Knee on Belly and then how the guy on top can use that to finish the sub anyway.So to start with we did the escape from knee on belly which involves the guy on the bottom putting his far side hand on the opponents attacking knee and his nearside hand against the guys chest or in his arm pit. You then push away while shrimping out to the side and from here you can bring your knees in to recover to a guard position. The actual point of this technique though was to show how if the guy on the bottom uses this traditional Knee on Belly escape, you can still hit the choke (as long as you've managed to get the hand in the collar). So from the Knee on Belly, if you quickly get the fingers in grip at the collar, then the guy tries to escape using the usual KoB escape, you can use the momentum of him pushing you away to still rotate around to North South for the Gi choke and with a bit of good weight distribution you can still hit the sub.
I drilled this move with Rob who is a relative newbie to Bjj so I was content to focus the learning on him, allowing him to first drill the Knee on Belly escape and then doing the escape resist into North South Choke.


For the last technique of the night we did the good old Side Control Forearm Gi Choke. As the guy on top you have a strong side control, during which you establish the same rear neck collar grip as the last few techniques. With your other hand you reach down (whilst maintaining good downward pressure on the opponents torso) to either the guys belt or his Gi at the underarm. Getting a good grip with that far side hand, you can now bring the arm with the hand still at the rear neck gi collar out and over the top of the head/face to close the forearm across the throat. When hit right this can get a real quick sub as the pressure on the throat is great. Unfortunately, the move is virtually never hit right off against a guy who has a modicum of experience as it kind of telegraphs its self. Although Ian showed us a way that I think is maybe a little less predictable. I have always done this technique using the underarm gi grip but using Ian's clench and twist of the belt you can keep the opponent in place without "showing your hand" to soon. Generally though, most experienced guys are "shrugging up" with their chin low and their shoulders drawn up so you can't land the move. I'd say it's pretty low percentage, although now I've said that I'm sure some smart ass'll tap me with it in the near future.
Practised this with Dan Foster who proved pretty much straight away when applying a little resistance to this you can easily shake the sub.


Rolling:

We did a good amount of rolling at the end of the lesson, although some of the older boys sat out a couple of rounds. I sparred first against Big Steve who has a distinct weight advantage over me so I elected to start seated and try out the arm drag. With Steve fresh it didn't work as when I grabbed the arm he dived straight forward to pancake me out. Unfortunately, Steve seems to have an obsession with trying to choke guys out from within their guard which, to my knowledge, has never succeeded for him. I spent the entire round pushing him away with feet on hips and trying to arm bar him or hit a triangle on him. Now I'm not sure if it's possible for a guy my size to triangle a guy with a neck and shoulders the size of Steve's. This is something I am insistent on trying over and over even though I probably won't succeed. I can see that I would have to get it totally perfect to actually hit the sub. Anyway, the rest of the roll played out with me trying to hit subs and Steve basically sitting in my guard trying to choke me with his forearm. After, I tried to encourage Steve to attempt to try and pass a bit as I can only imagine the kind of hell he could cause if he were to attain side control.

For my second roll I was with Dan. I decided I would go straight to guard and a furious pass guard against maintain guard battle ensued. I even inverted at one point to maintain my guard. Dan managed to pass in the end though and went to side control and then to mount. From mount Dan was trying to take an arm but I was able to Upa out of it back to guard. During my attempt to pass guard though, Dan was able to fire a lose triangle up from a strange side on angle which was smothering my mouth a bit although I had it blocked with my second hand. Unfortunately Dan managed to extend the trapped arm while I was trying to escape the triangle and got a nifty arm bar on me. Good move well earned. The round ended soon after that leaving me having to wait until next time to get some measure of revenge. I also need to remember that I shouldn't go to guard and just try and counter his attempts to pass I should be trying to sweep or sub straight from the off.

Next up was Rich. Rich threw up some good guard play, particularly with his ever improving Spider Guard, but I had the bit in my teeth for this one so I was quickly able to smash pass to side control and then get to mount. From there I tried to gi choke, arm bar and trap the arm for and head and arm triangle, all of which Rich impressively blocked out. I was able to eventually throw my weight down on his arm and hit and Americana though but I always feel a bit cheap after I've hit that move. After the restart I was quickly able to get to Rich's back but the round ended soon after that with me not able to get anything more.

The fourth roll was with the 'Turtle King', Neil Owen. Now Neil is a bit of a tank (his former nick name before the Turtle presented itself), but his cardio is relatively shocking and he has a tendency to 'turtle up' when he gets too tired. So when we started I was happy to jump guard, knowing full well he would most likely take me down easily anyway. From the guard I threatened with a couple of chokes and arm bars for a bit but he gassed out ridiculously quickly and actually said "I can feel a turtle coming on" just before I swept him, to which he virtually DIVED straight to his favourite position. From there I had about 40 seconds of trying to attack his amazingly strong turtle base with absolutely no luck at all. After trying various chokes (can't get his collar) and to upset his base and take him over (Neil's base is inhumanly good), I eventually tried to tuck my leg inside his (for a single hook) to go for a forward roll taking him over to side control. Time was called at this point though so I never got the opportunity to see if it would work.


Last roll off the night was back with Steve again. This time I worked the arm drag from the beginning and managed to get to rear side mount. From there Steve just rolled over giving up the mount, allowing me to attack various neck chokes (unsuccessfully as Steve's got a huge neck) before I managed to push his arm across, whip my leg around and fall backwards for the armbar. From the restart I hit the arm drag again, which Steve resisted this time. Fortunately, Uncle Marcelo supplied me with the answer to this as well as I reach back and secured his near leg and pushed him forward. Steve flipped back over again to give up the mount allowing me to attack from the top once again. The round played out like that with me coming away loving the Marcelo Garcia Arm Drag stuff I learned on Tuesday.

A good session with some good rolling and some things to think about regarding my Bjj development. Specifically, try more arm drags; attack more with sweeps from the guard; use more Knee on Belly; and carry on learning stuff from Marcelo Garcia's books (it all seems to work so far). \m/

SJJA 27th Oct 2011

I see that a lot of guys use their blogs as a way of logging their classes and what techniques they have covered in a particular lesson. This seems to be a fairly good idea and as I've got an off week (work stuff) I can't see why I shouldn't start this off with last Thursdays lesson at Sweat FA, Weston Super Mare. I hope you like it and it doesn't sound like so much waffle to you guys.

Thursday 27^th Oct 2011

Venue: Sweat FA

Instructor: Ian Rossiter.  (SJJA)

Warm up: Laps of the mat with sprints. Upper body stretching. Leg Stretching. Push ups, squats, ab crunches. 20s x 2

Takedown Techniques:

Reworked the collar and elbow tie up to walk forward/push down from previous week. Then reworked the same but with the sweep. Finishing with the Armbar.

We then changed it to the collar and elbow tie up, pushing your elbows up and out to raise your opponent’s upper body. You then quickly simultaneously step forward and duck down and take the double leg (gable grip behind legs). I had problems with this initially due to not putting my foot forward at the correct time. Once the double is secured push out with your arms one way while pushing the guy over with your head the other. Keep hold of the legs until you pass any possible guard they might try to throw up at you. 

This is very similar to how the technique looked although we didn't leave the right arm around the neck, we ducked under, stepped in and grabbed straight away with both arms.

We then did an exercise to get this down to pat. 1 guy stands at the front with a line of people facing him. He does the technique on all of those people then the next guy in the line is at the front. Rinse and repeat. We did this drill twice (at my request, I didn’t feel like I was getting it very well the first time through) and by the end most of us seemed to be getting it.

Side Control Techniques:

Ian then moved us neatly on to side control first making sure we were securing a nice strong point scoring position. From that side control position he then pulled one side of his gi out of his belt (the side that was furthest from his opponents head) and passed it around the back of his opponents head (far side to near side) and clutched it in his hand underneath his opponents head. Then, putting his hand furthest from the opponent’s head flat on the floor near to the guys hips to use as a brace (so he can’t chase you around the mat to avoid the choke), rotate your body away from your opponents hips as if moving into north south, and press your head toward the ground where you knee just were. The choke will be put on by a combination of the gi being stretched taught due to your movement and the top of your forearm pushing his neck up into it for the tap.

This move is shown here by the amazing Renzo Gracie (I met him :o) ADCC 2011 ).

Ian then showed us a different variation of a gi choke from side.

This time he was in a dominant side control position and pulled one side of his gi up but it was the side nearest the opponents head. The gi was passed over the top of the guy near the neck and then gripped with a hand passed underneath the guys head so the grip occurs near the far side ear.  He then brought his free arm (the one farthest from opponents head) around to grip on the opposite sleeve and press the forearm onto the stretched taught gi and the opponents neck. Then you pull on the gi twisting the opponents head round and putting immense pressure on the neck for the choke.

Here’s a clip of this being demonstrated by the Jiu Jitsu Genius, Marcelo Garcia.

Closed Guard Technique:

Ian finished the series off with a quick gi choke from guard.

Opponent in the closed guard, pull one side of their gi out and pass it around their back, pulling them forward with your knees to catch the gi on the other side of them up at the neck. You then cross grip that lapel (ie. If the collar is over your opponents left shoulder, grab it with your left hand) and pull on it so the gi is pulling him into you and your wrist/forearm is running up the side of his neck. Then, shifting your body around away from the gripped lapel, use the other hand to grab his shoulder and then pull down with both lapel and shoulder closing on the choke.

This is a vid of the choke as shown by Jean Jacques Machado, although it differs at the setup as JJ’s version is shown with the guy resting on him where as Ian’s version was worked as if the guy was postured and you had to pull him forward with your knees.

Rolling:

We then rolled in a slightly different way. Two guys were on the floor rolling, then after 1 minute a third guy would come and attack the guy in the least advantageous position. They’d roll together for the minute then the guy who’d tagged out would come back in place of the guy who’d been in the longest, taking the most advantageous position he could from the way the last guy was positioned (ie. If he was on top attacking, you can jump on his back. If he was on his back defending, you can attack side control, knee on belly or mount). We repeated this for a few rounds then called it a night.

Hope you understood most of that and it didn't waffle to much. Personally I really enjoyed typing it out and it really helps to remember the techniques.

Til next time ;o)

\m/