I'm a week behind with these write ups at the mo so I'm gonna quickly churn this bad boy out to catch up. Apologies for the haste with which it's written.
As it stands I'm still suffering with this bastard rib muscle injury. Can barely do anything that involves core strength. Sparring is totally out of the window. I'm insisting on carry on with technique drilling though as I don't want my Bjj muscle to totally rust over.
Venue: Sweat FA, Weston Super Mare, Uk.
Instructor: Ian Rossiter (Black Belt, Checkmat).
Techniques:
Ian started us off with a simple guard break. It was his old favourite, the knee up butt guard break. The opponent has you in a tight closed guard. Using both your hands you hold onto his gi pants, or his belt, or even clench your fists up and push them into his pelvic bone. The aim being to ensure the guy's hips are forced to the floor. From there you bring one of your legs back and then ram it forward into the opponent's ass. With your other leg you step back and off to the side slightly so you are able to totaly sit back with perfect balance. When you sit back the pressure of the knee being up the ass coupled with your whole lower body strength driving backward will break the opponent's guard right open. Textbook guard break. Everyone should know it like an old best friend.
Moving on from there, Ian showed us a guard pass. Once you've broken the guard open you select one of the opponent's legs and bring your opposite side forearm down into the hip joint. Your then reach around outside with your other hand and grab the wrist of the first arm so you can tighten that arm up around the top of his leg. Driving your upper body into the back of his leg and pulling this in tight now, as if stacking but with extra pressure, makes the opponent immediately want to relieve himself of the pain this causes. I doubt you'd get a tap with this unless it was against a really new white belt but they will want to get out of it and to do so, they'd probably push their leg forward toward you. This being the case you just roll with the leg pushing it by you so your body comes around into side control.
We finished up with a Forearm choke from Side control. With a strong side control you pass your head side arm under his head and take a grip of his offside collar. Maintaining the lions share of your body weight on his upper body to keep him in position you pass your other arm under your body and grab the guys gi jacket at the arm pit area. You can then open your head side arm out so as to pass that arm over his head (ensuring you maintain the collar grip) and enabling you to drive your forearm down across his throat. Rest all your weight hard down on the forearm across his throat for maximum pressure.
Like I said, it was short but sweet for this one as I have another write up to do too. I didn't get any sparring done as I'm still not ready for that with my ribs so I just used that time to gain some experience cornering. It was good to be back to class and I'm going to carry on doing the technical parts of the class as I just can't stay away. Bjj = Life. ¬m/
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/
I've had another amazing couple of training sessions at lunchtimes on Monday and Tuesday this week. My good buddy, Marcus (Hedley) and I have really beaten the shite out of each other for the sakes of sharpening up our skill sets at our favourite form of martial art. As we plan to be continuing on with, Monday was Gi day and Tuesday was No Gi.
Monday:
After my total planning failure last week in the technique department, relying on Marcus to do it all, this week I planned ahead fantastically. I decided to theme the session on Guard Passing as it's an area that can get quite rusty if not practised and drilled suitably (which is true of all aspects of the game really, I've just found passing to be the most rust gaining).
First off we started with basic methods to break closed guard. Getting the knee inside was first. On your knees with the opponent's closed guard tight around your waist. You get a double grip on his belt and push yourself back, sprawling your legs out behind to make the space in his closed guard for you to bring one leg forward and put the knee in. Now you can sit back down and the knee inside takes up to much space for the closed guard to be kept by all but the lankiest of guys.
Next guard break method was to stand. You're kneeling in his closed guard. Grab one of his arms at the sleeve cuff and force it down to his waist. The other hand grabs his belt or his gi at the waist. You can then push down on this hold to lift your hind quarters up enough to jump your legs back to a standing position.. From there it's just a simple matter of using one of your hands (either will do) to push down on one of his legs at the knee to break the closed guard. Usually very easy but if your opponent has Herculean leg strength you can push down with both hands on the same knee. This will work every time.
Another one using the standing position. On knees in closed guard. Put both your hands on the opponents hips and use the same motion as before to get to your feet (legs going back stops the guy from securing one of your legs). This time, reach back with a hand and force it between the opponents crossed feet and your back and push your arm deep in then forward (leaning your weight against his leg whilst doing this) to easily break open the guard and start into the smash pass.
The last guard break we hit was a new one on me. On knees in closed guard. Stand using one of the methods from before, and press both of your knees into the opponent's butt, then squat. The pressure of the knees in his rear whilst you squat to make space, should open his guard quite easily.
We drilled all those pretty quickly, both acknowledging that it's pretty rare to find yourself in closed guard these days.
The first pass we did was the Single Stack Pass. You're kneeling in his open guard. Reach behind one of his legs and up and across to his opposite side collar (as if for a smash pass). It can help to distract the opponent if you grab quite deep and press the forearm against his neck. Now push your weight forward against his raised leg and reach back with your other hand to grab his belt or gi pants near the small of his back and pull up so as to stack him up. Now you can push even further against his raised leg, turning his legs to the side (away from the passing side) and then duck your head around his leg and come over into side control.
We also did a pretty cool alternative to that one where the guy resists against the full stack or manages to keep moving away from your passing side (or you could even go for this cause it looks cooler). Same set up but when you reach down for the belt and pull him up, put a bit of welly into it and flip the guy over to turtle. In the scramble you can easily take his back or at least get a rear mounted half hook and seat belt control. I loved this move and will definitely be trying to add it to my Adrenalin Brain repertoire. A great way to skip a few steps in your guard passing game.
Next pass was a Double Stack. In open guard and you get both of your arms under his legs (so only your head is inside). You then stack the guy up using your body weight so his legs are crushed toward him and smash pass as usual. Remember to crush the forearm into the neck as a distraction whilst doing this.
From the same sort of set up comes the Over Under Pass from Double Underhooks. You've got the both arms under the opponent's legs. Bring one of your legs up and out and then press the shin of that leg against his same side shin to trap his leg in that position. Now bring your arm underhook on that side, out and overhook the leg. Now crescent kick your other leg up and over the top to land on your back, quickly scissor switching your legs then, to get to side control. This pass sounds more complex than it is and once you've go it, it's quite a handy little number to know.
Another little variant from the double underhook set up is the sit out pass. You've got the double underhook position and you push both the opponents legs in one direction (left or right) then, using your leg on the side you've pushed the legs toward, sit out in the other direction effectively ducking under the legs and shrug the legs away so you can pop up into side control. I absolutely loved the simplicity of this pass. Another for the insta-memory.
The next up was a nice flashy looking pass. In open guard, both your knees are inside forcing his legs apart. Have one hand grabbing his gi front at the waist, the other hand grabs his gi pants at the knee. Then, duck your head down toward his midriff and off to one side (the side with the gi front grip). Now roll onto your shoulder (right on his belly) firing your legs up in the air and over the top of the leg that you have held down with the gi pant grip, taking you over into side control. Ace pass. Looks cool. I will be hitting this a lot in the future.
The last few passes were for against ButterFly Guard. First up was a kick out pass. In the guys butterfly guard and you've managed to push his back to the ground. Holding his gi pants at both knees you kick one of your legs far back and then bring it in close to the other leg so it's passed around it's respective hook. You should now be in butterfly half guard with the hook clenched between your leg and your arm on the off side restrain the passed leg away. Now pushing away against the remaining hook while you kick out and over with the same leg as before you should be able to neatly pass into side control. Now I know exactly what I was talking about there but reading it back makes it sound quite complicated. Basically, you're doing a kick out to pass one leg, then the same again to pass the second. It's a reliable move and I was able to use it later in rolling against Marcus.
There was another Butterfly Guard pass after which was essentially the same flip pass as before, applied to the Butterfly. Hands gripping his knees. Lay in close and put your head against his lower ribs on one side, then roll your shoulder into his gut and kick your legs in the air and flip over his hook on the other side. Got to kick up really high though so he can't stick his legs in the air to follow you and maintain guard.
Last one was a real gem. The Cradle Pass of Butterfly Guard. The opponent is in a sit up butterfly guard position. You grab his head in a near guillotine style, cupping his chin. With your other arm you grab under his leg on the other side. Now you can roll him over in a cradle style, turning over onto on to your back in the process. A quick rotation of your hips and using your arm (the under leg cradle arm) to push his legs away you can come up neatly into North South. Lovely move.
After all that we found there wasn't a lot of time for rolling. we only managed to get about 10 - 15 minutes in but it was pretty intense and I found myself trying out a lot of the stuff I'd been drilling that day. A good packed session.
Tuesday:
Moving back to No-Gi for Tuesday, we decided to do some takedowns into leg locks. For this I'd basically watched a shit load of YouTube footage and copy and pasted some links to an email sent to my Iphone so I could re-watch them as we need them. Technology these days is friggin' amazing isn't it? If you told me 15 years ago when I was waiting about 5 minutes for one web page to load to my desktop PC (which incidently took up about a fifth of my bedroom space), that one day I'd be able to load video clips to a mobile hand held device in a matter of seconds, I'd probably think you were mad.
Anyway, I started this session straight into the marquee move as I'd been dying to try this one for ages. The Leg Scissor Takedown into Heel Hook is a move made famous by (not created by, but hit in such a dramatic fashion) MMA fighter Ryo Chonan against "The Spider" Anderson Silva, earlier in his career. The move is the leg lock equivalent of a flying arm bar and can turn the tide of a fight to victory in a heartbeat.
Now this was the ultimate aim of our training of this move, obviously without torquing the Heel Hook (never a good idea in training as it's a dangerous move), but the vid I used to help train this from was this next one demonstrated by AJ of Fade MMA. He shows the takedown and detail and then finishes with a different leg lock. We explored all the takedown moves to see which subs came naturally from them. In this vid, AJ shows that you grab the opponent around the back of the head with one hand and then twist around and back step behind your opponent before putting your other hand on the ground and using what was your front leg to scissor takedown the guy. Once he hits the ground it's easy to hit either a Heel Hook, Knee Bar or Toe Hold.
I feared after the sheer awesomeness of that move that I might have peaked to early but there was more to come. The next one we tackled was advertised as a "Palhares style takedown to Heel Hook". Now that title alone says enough for me as Rousimar "Paul Harris" Palhares is the king of the Heel Hook in MMA and one of my favourite fighters. After the way he decimated his opposition at the ADCC (only losing to eventual winner in his weight class, Andre Galvao on points) I have become a bit of a fan. This next vid is a demo by Ken Primola. From a standing back take, you throw one of your legs through his legs and swing it up and over his near side leg as you fall out to the side one your back. This action takes the opponent down into a fantastic position to hit a Heel Hook, but can also set up a nice Toe Hold.
The next video is so fast that you really need to watch in a few times to see what happens. The move is effective though. It works under the premise that you're on your back being attacked by a standing opponent. What you do is attack one leg by wrapping an outside leg around it quite low, then using the knee of your other leg to push against that secured leg to take him down. As he's going down though, the leg you used to push him has hooked behind his other leg and pulls it out so you can roll over coming up with the knee. As I said, it really needs a few watches to get it. Great move though.
The next load of leg locks all came from one vid and were all from one set up. This next vid from Erik Paulson starts from a failed arm bar attempt (from guard) against you. Follow the vid closely to try out each of these locks. I really can't be bothered to type all this out but needless to say, when trying these techniques it's amazing how easy they come on. Me and Marcus both were truly amazed by the simplicity and painfulness of these locks.
The last move we tried out did not feature a takedown but I included it anyway as it looks pretty cool. I saw this in vid of a No Gi grappling match between Vinny Magalhaes and Daniel Gracie. Vinny manages to get Gracie turtled on the floor with one hook in. He crosses his other leg over that hook so he's got a sort of Rear Mount Half Guard control on him. He then reaches across and secures the other leg and rolls over (rolling forward) see he ends on his back and pulls his legs in opposite directions for the "Banana Split". And yes, it's as painful as it sounds when hit tight. Great move though. The move is on the last minute of this following vid.
We followed all these techniques up with a healthier dose of rolling this time and I was quite pleased to see how naturally the leg locks come on. Great days training there, I look forward to the next No Gi sesh as it's really starting to expand my game.
Looking forward to Thursday now for the Ian's DV8 class in Weston. \m/
I went up to Chico's class on Tuesday night up at LA Gym in Bristol. It was a great turn out and a very exerting class. Now that was the problem for me as I've (in an effort to get a bit of a beach body for the summer) been taking creatine to assist with my physique. For those that don't know, creatine works by taking the water content in your body and filling your muscles with it to help increase your size. This leaves your body dehydrated requiring you to drink a lot of water whilst using it. Whilst exerting yourself in a combat/grappling sport such as Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, you find yourself dehydrating MUCH quicker and this leads to you becoming weaker, exhausted quicker and you experience muscle cramps.
Now I managed to drain my 1 litre bottle of water in about 20 minutes on Tuesday leaving me to become extremely dehydrated. I managed to experience all of the other side effects listed above also. I couldn't use explosive power, I was totally drained after about 40 minutes of drilling and I got a leg cramp at one point. Also, due to the lack of energy, I started to lose concentration/awareness which knocked me off of the technical aspect of my game and prevented me from taking much of the lesson in. Which is why I find myself hardly able to remember any of the lesson. Which is why I'll not be taking creatine again. Bloody stuff.
Venue; LA Gym, Bristol, Uk.
Instructor: Chico Mendes (Grade 2 Black Belt).
Warm Up:
We were getting changed when the warm up started but I can remember doing some neck and arm limbering, some running and some sit ups and press ups. The Chico had us do lengths of the mat doing some less orthodox stuff. First was some frog jumps. Then one legged frog jumps (a length for either leg). Then we did these weird things where you fire your leg out one way then reset to a frog position, then the other way and reset, all the way down the mat (I was mega shit at these).
Drills:
To start off we were paired up and told to aggressively drill passing the guard from standing. The guy on the floor is on his back with his legs tucked up and he has to try and get a half guard or closed guard on his opponent. The standing guy just has to try and pass to side or mount or back.
I paired up with Marcus Hedley first off and then went with Mark Acton (long time Blue Belt). Can't remember how well I did. That's pretty much going to be a theme for this write up as I'm finding it difficult to remember anything.
Chico then showed us a couple of techniques that can help in our ability to pass from standing. First he said it's most important to squat down in a combat stance so you're on the same level as your opponent. Standing guys are easier to sweep or pull into your guard. Another tip was to find which is you opponent's strong side, that being the side he leads with and finds more comfortable to attack for sweeps with. For this you see which leg the guy is leading toward you with. More often than not this will be his strong side. Chico is a firm advocate of trying to get the guy attacking you with his weak side. To do this you need to ensure that your lead leg in your squat stance in on the other side to your opponents favoured lead leg (meaning if he starts coming forward with his right leg then you lead with your own right leg so he has to switch to his left leg if he wants to attack your closest point) thus leaving him attacking with his weaker side.
We were then shown some techniques to pass the guard. You're standing up in your attacking posture, your opponent is sat up, leant forward with one leg out (preferably his weaker side leg). You can forcefully lift his near leg in the air and then come forward so your weight is pushing into his raised leg (kind of like a half stack) with both legs clenched around that leg leaving him in quite an uncomfortable position. You can then easily swim past the leg into side control.
For the second, same start as the first with the opponent leant forward with one leg out (preferably his weaker side leg). You come forward toward him and push on his forward presented knee with the same side hand (his right knee your left hand) and with your other hand press on his same side hip to keep him away from you. From there you can press the knee out and down pushing him onto that side of his body and walk your legs out and around that flattened out leg so your body is extended out but you have a lot of your body weight pressed against him. From there you can either attack straight into the pass but give the guy a chance to recover in the scramble or you can wait for him to move and pass when his leg is moving in the wrong direction to get a fine pass into side control. Also, if the guys forgoes moving the leg and instead tries to sit up into you, you can push your head into his upper body to keep him from getting anywhere.
Next up was an attack against the opponent who has both legs forward or even raised in the arm slightly while leaning back (bad position that, even though some think it's good). The standing guy just needs to pull them up and toward him and then push them apart so the opponent is going into a quite painful split. As a result of this the opponent will either try to alleviate the pressure or try to attack, either way they'll bend one of their legs at which point you can push both legs in the direction of the non-bent leg and attack the bent leg in the style of the first pass.
Three good passes. Chico then pitted us against each other in situational rolling. Guy on bottom had to try and get a secured guard or a sweep on his standing opponent (or a sub but that wasn't very likely). The guy standing had to try and pass the guard. I was really blowing out of my ass by this time and can barely remember who I rolled with or how successful I was (I imagine not very).
Rolling:
We finished up with a bit of sparring. I really was good for nothing by this time and rolled against Andy (Judo Guy). After a brief struggle for the takedown I tried to be too flashy (idiot when I was that knackered) and tried to hit an armbar when Andy was over balanced. Unfortunately Andy has a pretty amazing base and managed to power me down on my back and then proceeded to crush me in side control/north south for about 4 and a half minutes with me feeling pretty feeble in my attempts to get out. He attacked once with and Americana attempt and a few times with Kimuras and chokes. I eventually managed to get out and turn him over so I was in his guard and then had about 30 seconds to do anything by which time the horn (Chico's phone) sounded and it was over. Pretty poor show from me really.
Next roll was against Tom Hill, a regular to Chico's class and Ian's Weston Class. Tom was fresh off a win at the latest instalment of the Hereford Open where he took the Gold medal in the under 64 Kg category at white belt. Well done for that Tom, it's a really good achievement. So I rolled with Tom, which pretty much featured me trying to pass his guard for most of it. I eventually did but didn't get to do much from there before he reclaimed guard. Pretty uneventful roll really.
I sat out the final roll as I was totalled by this time. Just to reiterate this, I WILL NOT BE TAKING CREATINE AGAIN. Bloody stuff ruined my Bjj game for the night.
After class Chico told us that he is going home to Brazil for a month to see his daughter and family and train with some of his old friends back home. He did leave us with a good bit of news though. Raphael Heck managed to get a new visa and is on his way back to take the classes in his absence (if all goes to plan). Great news.
Once again to anyone who reads this, I apologise for the lack of detail and can't emphasize enough how shagged I was during that class. Really wasn't operating on full. Promise you I won't do that again.
A bit of a sad night for the Bristol class of Checkmat/Trojan Free Fighters last night as it was Rafael Heck's last class there for the foreseeable future. Raf has to go home to Brazil as his visa has expired and he is unsure as to whether or not he'll get another to come back. So potentially, last night was the last time we saw and got to train with Maestre Heck. If all goes well he will be back at the end of next month but that's only if everything goes well.
As for the session, I was up ridiculously early with my daughter Jolie yesterday morning so I found it difficult to focus on any of the techniques (or anything else really) so if I've forgotten details I apologise.
Venue - LA Gym, Bristol, UK
Instructor - Rafael Heck (Checkmat Black Belt)
Warm up.
By Raf's standards it was a relatively lax warm up starting with stretches, then some star jumps and the weird bush whacker on the spot thing he does and then into the running man (a personal favourite).
From there it was down on the floor for sit ups, lateral sit ups (both sides) press ups, cross collar sit ups, press ups, bicycle sit ups, press ups, crunches and ending with superman flies (or sky dives as I think of them).
Light Drills.
Raf had us do some light minimal resistance drilling. With a partner we started with sweeps from guard. Any type of sweep will do. You sweep your opponent then he recovers to guard and sweeps you. I loved this type of drilling, particularly cause it gave us time to brush up on sweeps we're less confident with. I was firing off all kinds of Butterfly and Half Guard Sweeps. I hit the ones we learnt at Leo's last seminar a couple of times, particularly loving that inside leg turn sweep from half guard (not an official name but the best I could come up with).
Next we started from a mount position and lightly hit five subs with minimal resistance and then swapped to let your partner do the same. This was a lot of fun too, I went with the mounted triangle, kimura, cross collar choke, arm bar and ezekial for my first go then found myself struggling to think. Americana, another choke variant and then I tossed in an S mount Bow and Arrow choke from the top.
For the nights techniques Raf took us back to the guard passing from last week. Starting with a closed guard pass, break the guard using the knee in, then thread one arm under the same side leg and do the lock and stack thing. Your opponent then pulls on your arm to block the stack so you push his other leg down and pass your knee over so the foot is still un-passed (the leg brace technique from last week). Now press your weight on the opponents torso, wrap your free arm around the guys neck and buck the other leg out from over your initial securing arm, then bring your other leg through over top. Now make sure your hip is on the floor, then you can bring first leg through and make sure you are tight to the opponents body to ensure he doesn't have room to shrimp a knee inside and ruin your move (Marcus does this ALOT if you let him).
The next technique was a sit up Guard pass. The opponent is sat up facing you with space inbetween the two of you. He's ready to jump into Butterfly at a moments notice if you move forward. You have hold of his legs at the ankle and push his legs in toward him. You then secure his legs by wrapping arms around both parts of legs (so they're folded up)and rest your head on his torso leaning in against him. Sprawl your legs out and push one of the opponents knees down through the gap inbetween your legs and then at this point you can do one of two things. You can either pass the one leg over (so you're in a top half guard situation) and turn on your side to pull the other leg through, OR if you're quick you can pass both legs over keeping tight to his body so he can't escape away. I don't know if it was something to do with me being spaced out due to lack of sleep but I was having a hard time accepting that the second variant would work. Seemed too simple.
The third and fourth passes of the night were shown together. The first was a Butterfly Guard pass. Raf showed us that if you hug the opponents legs together high on the leg (ie above the knee) the guys instinct is to push out with his legs using his butterfly to make space. If he does that though you just keep his legs hugged tight together and rest all your weight down. His legs will flatten under you and as long as you use good knee control and all you weight well, you should be able to pass your legs over to one side, keeping a strong hug on the opponent while you inch up his legs and torso to flatten him out into side control.
The other guard pass was worked as if you'd managed to get double underhooks on his legs (both his legs are around you head with no arms inside). You can then grip the lapel on one side of his jacket using both hands and use it to pull yourself in towards him. You can then use this to shoulder shrug pass around the legs the opposite side to the secured lapel into side control.
Next we did some situational rolling in the form of Guard Passing or Sweeping. The guy in guard has to sweep, the guy on top has to pass. I did pretty well for this portion of the sparring last night as I managed to pass AND sweep 3 of my four opponents. Hit the half guard sweep I talked about earlier twice, so it's good to know it's working in live rolling. The only guy I didn't sweep was Andy (Judo throw guy from last week whose surname eludes me) who I didn't hit a sweep on. None of my opponents managed to pass or sweep me for the situationals either which was a bit of a reassurance for my control techniques.
We closed the class out with some good rolling. Four turns for 5 minutes. Very enjoyable.
First up was Marcus who went straight into guard. I had a hell of a time passing his guard this time however and whenever I did manage it he just escaped back using his wicked hip escapes (very strong part of his game). Really good defensive rolling from Marcus last night and I couldn't get anything on him.
Next up was Jase Brookbank and it was another energy sapping endurance roll. I was in his guard and after some furious grip fighting and sweep blocking I got close to passing so he turtled up and held a really tight hug grip on my leg quite high up. This was horrendously difficult to shake and we were in the position for a good couple of minutes. I eventually broke out of it using the arm underhook technique Leo taught us (using a lot of Leo stuff that night). From there I was really close to taking his back but he managed to keep an arm in to block. That was where the time played out and we were both totally shagged after. While we were gasping for breath and drinking everybody else had paired off and weregoing again so me and Jase rolled together again.
Next one Jase jumped guard straight away and the roll turned into a guard to half guard, recover back to full guard rinse and repeat effort for ages. Then in the end I got sloppy and was trying to push his upper body for a pass and he caught me with a very neat arm bar. Fuckin tight too, still smarts a bit now. He swang his leg over and I had the arm secure with my other arm and stacked him up. I used the arm bump to pull the arm out and just when I thought I'd got the elbow through he managed to pull the secure arm off and locked the arm bar on. It seemed to be positioned perfectly so his hips could be used as a fulcrum and my arm could invert to either side of the elbow. Ouchie. I'll definitely be bringing the A game for Mr Brookbanks next week.
Last roll was against Andy (Judo Guy) and for this one I was feeling a bit lazy so after an initial grip battle I just pulled spider guard then pulled him into closed guard and tried to look for ways to submit him from there. I didn’t find any but I rest easy in the knowledge that I could’ve swept him a few times if that had been my aim, but I was content to look for subs. His game was tight enough though that he had everything well scouted.
At the end Raf made a little speech and then we all got pictures with him. Unfortunately, due to the exceptionally steamy nature of the room we train in post session, the lense on the camera basically steams up a second after you've wiped it off.
If that was to be my last raining session with Rafael Heck then I want to thank him for the instruction he's given us and the laughter and camaraderie he brings to the table with his teaching style and personality. Raf you're one in a million. Cheers dude. \m.
There was a bit of an air of disappointment in class this week, which in no way reflects how we feel about being taught by Rafael Heck, but at the Seminar on Saturday it was hinted at that Chico would be there along with Leo Vieira who is sticking around in the run up to Chico's MMA debut fight on Saturday. Just the thought of Leo being in attendance for a regular Tuesday night lesson had us all a wee bit excited. I understand the reasons they weren't there (Chico training for his fight) but when you pump yourself up for something you can feel a little deflated when it doesn't happen.
Still, Raf is a brilliant teacher and his command of the English language is improving every time I see him. He rarely stumbles on a word now when showing us a technique which is a vast improvement on his first lesson.
Venue - LA Gym, Bristol, UK
Instructor - Rafael Heck (Checkmat Black Belt)
To start Raf took us through an absolute beast of a warm up. Lots of running, sit ups, push ups, hip escapes and all sorts of other stuff. I was fairly knackered after the warm up alone to be honest.
When the instruction part of the session started, Raf explained that we were going to do Closed Guard Passing. This was due to the fact that there was a competition two days before at Hereford and a number of Checkmat guys went to compete. Raf felt that there seemed to be some people having no success breaking and passing closed guard so he wanted to go back to basics. It's worth mentioning however, that of the three guys I know of that competed from the Bristol class, all three acquitted themselves well by all accounts. Josh Kersey won a couple of fights in the always heavily contested under 82 kg bracket, Shabba Vaithianathan managed to get three wins (all by sub) and finished fourth in his bracket and Ronan Fleming impressively managed to come away with a silver medal at blue belt under 100 kg. Well done guys. All good results.
On to the techniques then. First pass Raf showed us was a standing one for No gi. Start in your opponents closed guard, laying down on his torso with hands pressing his armpits. You then stand and pressure his body using your hips as if to stack him. If you bend your legs in slightly and balance on the instep of your foot the opponent will not be able to take your leg for a sweep. From here, push one of his legs down with both hands to break his closed guard, then land your knee past the leg with your foot the other side so you have his leg pinned to the floor. Lean across his torso using your body weight to keep the guy down then pull your other leg through and secure the side control before bringing the bracing leg fully over.
Raf also showed nearly the same for Gi, but you start postured up with one hand on his belt, the other taking his same side wrist and pressing it into his body. Stand as for the first technique, then break closed guard with one hand using a grip on the gi pants (almost as if you're pulling the leg open) and then pass same as before.
I was drilling the techniques with Marcus Hedley. I managed to slip in a demo of the Half Guard Sweep that Leo taught us on the Saturday as Marcus was unable to attend. He agreed with me on the awesome-osity of the move.
For the next Guard break and pass Raf taught, you start in closed guard again, this time pressing on hips using your hands. You then push a knee into the opponents rear so you can break the guard and end with the knee in between his legs. From there, secure one leg with your same side hand (this would be on the other side to the knee you have raised) and push the leg to the floor, then reach back under same side knee with your other hand and pull that leg up to your shoulder and drive it upward (as if toward his other side shoulder) using constant body weight pressure. Then you just need to buck the leg by turning your body sideways slightly and you come over into side control. Make sure you stay tight at all times or the guy might get space to bring a leg back up for guard recovery.
We drilled this and also drilled the move for if the opponent flips over to turtle. Quite fun.
For the last pass the start was basically the same up to the knee in-between the legs point. You then reach under the other side knee and pull down hard using both arms gable gripped together. You can drive your body weight into this as well as if to sort of half stack the guy which causes some discomfort for him. You can then smash pass in the same way driving forward with shoulder and passing to side contol.
After drilling this last pass we were stopped for a bit of situational rolling. The purpose of this was mainly to practice passing. The objective for the top guy was passing while the bottom guy tries to sweeps. I rolled with 3 different guys through this - Marcus, Jase Brookbank and some other guy whose name escapes me. I managed to pass all three at least once and managed to hit a few sweeps which was good and I successfully defended my guard through the lot. Result.
After that came the real rolling. Me and Marcus went first and after a good bit of back and forth sparring I managed to hit him with a triangle which I was happy with (remember, it was one of those moves I really wanted to be hitting more often at the end of last year). After the reset Marcus landed a really impressive arm drag on me and very nearly took me back. I was fortunate to manage to turn in at the last second to recover guard from which I managed to pull off an armbar. We reset again with him jumping into Butterfly Guard. He nearly threw me over the top with an impressive fall back sweep but I kept my balance and pushed into an S mount. From there I wrapped my arm around the back of his neck and secure his arm in a position so it was crossfacing him (almost like he was RNCing himself), tucked my nearside leg down in between his legs and used the leverage that the gift wrap (as the Americans call it) allowed me to pull him up so I'd taken his back with both hooks in. Then I was attacking his back for the rest of the roll with Marcus defending liking a demon. Very impressed with Marcus' ability to defend his back, I was trying Bow and Arrows, RNC's, armbars, nothing worked and time expired.
Then I rolled with Jase. We had another excellent high tempo roll but it was one of those attack-parry- riposte type rolls where you barely get to advance or gain a significant upper hand. I was in his guard. I attempted a pass but only made it to half guard. He nearly got the sweep on me to which I based out then passed one knee over to attempt to get to mount. He then pushed me back down to get back to half then attacked with some fairly well measured gi chokes. I piled on top and started to attack the guillotine, he broke this and threatened with the over shoulder lapel gi choke, I tried to control his hand with his belt and from there it just deteriorated into a grip battle. By the end we were both pretty knackered and happy with the well earned stalemate. As Jase said, it was very much a chess match type roll where you're thinking about what the opponent is doing next and trying to block that before it happens.
Me and Jase.
To close out the session the class separated into two group, under 80 kg and over 80 kg. Obviously I was in the over group (tubs). In these groups with did a bit of standing start throwing practice where two guys start with the aim being to throw the opponent. Winner stays on up to three goes. I got beat in the first go against the guy whose name I don't know from earlier. He got a pretty cool judo throw on me (Ian told me the name of it but I forgot. I'm shit at remembering Judo names) and then proceeded to last for his full three turns. Then Ian went on and blasted everyone he fought using the same move. Some sort of fall back and flip the opponent over so he landed in mount. Pretty impressive.
At the end of the session we all gave Raf a big clap for the lesson as he quickly made us forget all about Leo and the class was actually really enjoyable. Some of the guys seemed a little disappointed as they though they were to be graded that night (oh did I forget to mention that was supposed to be on the cards too) but it'll probably happen next week now so I'll be going up again to see who gets a shiny new belt. And to punish then for it like they did me >:o)
Good luck to Chico for his fight Saturday. I hope he gets it to the ground and gets a flash sub real quick! \m/
Last night was the last session of the year for SJJA down Sweat FA. I have, unfortunately, missed the last 2 classes in Weston due to work commitments so I very much wanted to attend the last one. On getting to the gym though I was initially very concerned as the only people there were the gym staff and they were cleaning(?!). It honestly looked like the place was closing down for Christmas and when I was approached by Josh, one of the managers at Sweat FA, he was unsure as to whether or not the session was on. I was fairly certain the lesson had not been cancelled as I had exchanged text messages with Ian early in the week but when you're the only person in gym waiting for said lesson you start to doubt yourself. To make matters worse I have a tendency to get to the gym about 20 minutes early to socialise/warm up and on this occasion I was the only person to do so which only added to my concern for the possibility that the lesson had been cancelled without my knowledge.
As it got to 8 o clock though, Ian trundled through the door to my relief and we walked into the Martial Arts section of the Gym to find there was a guy waiting there who wanted to start training with us. As we were chatting and getting ready 3 others walked in and during the warm up another 3 trickled through so we had reasonable numbers in the end.
Warm Up: Laps of the mat, including ass kicks, knee ups, facing inward for a lap, facing out for a lap. Neck, Arm and Shoulder stretching. Push ups 15 x 3, Squats 15x 3, Crunches 15 x 3 and then some leg stretching.
Techniques:
For the first technique Ian had us breaking closed guard (or at least coming to a position where you're about to break guard) by first taking a grip on your opponents gi front with one hand and pulling the guys arm across him a securing it at his belly with the other. Then, standing in the opponents closed guard, push your knee against their ass then drop back down so you're kneeling in their guard. Your knee should come in between you and your opponent so you're in a combat stance in their closed guard - depending on the size difference this action alone may break the guard. We drilled getting to this position for a couple of minutes first. I was drilling with Marcus for this bit and we had a bit of a chat and a laugh about his new job (congratulations by the way, I think forgot to say that in my last SJJA blog post).
Ian then moved us on to the pass. For this we push through the gap with the knee to the other side of the opponents body (be sure to underhook on the farside arm for this and pull up on the jacket sleeve at the nearside elbow), slide the leg through so your ass has passed and is on the mat, then pull the other leg through with a yank. You should now end in Kesa Gatame. I drilled this pass first a few times with Marcus, then we changed and I went with Gary.
Ian then changed the focus of the position to the guard player. As the guy on top is in the combat stance (knee forward through the closed guard), with one of his hands gripping the jacket front and the other gripping the guard players sleeve arm, the guard player then takes a grip of the sleeve cuffs of the opponent (for the one where his arm is gripped just switch your arm under and to the outside to take the grip) and simultaneously clenches and pulls up with his closed guard while pulling up and over his shoulder with the opponents arms (shoulder on the opposite side to the one where the guy was about to pass). This movement should sweep the guy over to his back with you on top but with the guys leg rather uncomfortably in the way in a kind of half butterfly hook that is pushed over to the wrong side. You then pressure down on the leg with your bodyweight so the guy can't use it to sweep you back off, switch your hips so your ass is on the floor and kick the leg the opponent has hooked out and then swing it up and around in a wide arc to the floor. Once there you're in a reverse Kesa Gatame position (facing legs instead of head), you can then switch your hips to bring your lower leg out from underneath to get to a strong side control position. Me and Gary drilled this for a while also trying out some variations on how to either pass over to the other side or get to mount.
After this Ian moved us on to a drill where you start in closed guard, the bottom player sweeps to mount then the mounted player upa escapes back to guard. We drilled this for a few minutes getting the chance to try out a load of different sweeps which was much fun.
After this we had a roll. I was mostly trying to fight from guard for the duration of the session to try out some sweeps and subs. I managed to hit an arm bar from guard but that was pretty much it. I also managed a kind of inverted Bow and Arrow choke from the top which was pretty sweet but it was against a newer guy so it doesn't really count.
I really enjoyed this session. Everyone seemed very light hearted with Christmas round the corner and it felt like a good way to end the year. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Ian for the instruction he's given me over the last year and for getting me promoted to blue belt. I've enjoyed every minute of it and can't wait for the new Bjj year. \m/
