Two Man Training 24-4-12

I've had the pleasure of getting in a couple of training sessions over lunchtimes (god bless flexi-time) on Monday and Tuesday this week down Sweat FA in Weston Super Mare, with my trusty training amigo, Marcus Hedley.

Given the impromptu-ness of the first one on Monday, we didn't really plan anything to train in advance. So instead we just decided to roll..... for the whole hour. Which was awesome, challenging, enlightening and knackering, all at once. I got to try a load of stuff that I've been learning recently but not had a chance to try or hit in normal class sparring due to time constraints or the right opportunity not coming up.

To be frank, an hour of rolling was just what the Bjj doctor ordered. Once you fight through the cardio wall you start to pull your shit back together and get your second wind. And your adrenaline brain also fades, bringing back some of your repertoire. Interesting that, and worth remembering for any future competitions.

Anyway, on to today's session and the techniques we worked on. Thinking ahead, Marcus and I both went away Monday and looked up a few things to train. I personally took most of my inspiration from "the Jiu Jitsu Genius" Marcelo Garcia, in the form of his new book Advanced Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Techniques. And what an amazing book it is. Marcus looked up some stuff from various sources, including Andre Galvao's Drill to Win book and various YouTube vids.

To start we drilled some techniques to enhance our Rear Naked Choke game (courtesy of Mr Garcia). Now Marcelo is firm advocate of isolating an arm so he can then use both arms to attack the neck. Starting from full back control (sat up, both hooks in, seat belt control) you grab one of the opponents defending arms (with your overhook arm) at the forearm and push it down, then quickly bring up your leg on the same side and clamp it over the top of that arm to secure it to his side, pulling the arm you used to acomplish this back out and reverting to the seat belt. You can now push the other arm away in a similar style but with your underhooking arm (so from the inside of the forearm)and whip your free arm up hard (Marcelo's preferred method for hitting the RNC is aggressively whipping the overhook arm up from the seat belt to attack the neck direct) to encompass his neck. Now releasing with the other arm you can quickly wrap it around the first (crook of elbow around hand) and bring the arm around to apply pressure to the back of the head, squeezing tight.

The next one works under the premise that you have full back control but are leant over on the side with the overhooking arm against the floor. Basically you use the same style, but back to front. You start with the underhooking arm pushing down on his same side defending arm from the inside forearm, trap the arm with your top leg. You then use the same arm (top arm) to reach across the opponents body and push down on his other arm so you create space to quickly whip the overhook arm up around the neck. You can then release the other arm and finish the RNC in the usual way.

The last one also worked from the back control but laid on your sides. This time though, your opponent is using his top arm to try and push away your top hook. You let him push it until his arm passes his hip (so the arm is now a little way behind him) and then grab it at the inside forearm using your underhooking arm (the one the was at the top) and pull it further behind him and then up his back so you now have an old school style behind the back arm lock on him. Now bringing your top leg up and putting your foot on his hip you can squeeze in a keep the arm in place. You are now free to attack the RNC using the two arms on one situation again.

Arm isolation is one of Marcelo's key tips for hitting the Rear Naked Chokes that he is famous for. Using any of the above moves can seriously aid your back attack game.


The next thing we covered was something Marcus had been looking at in Andre Galvao's book. Defending from Kesa Gatame bottom scarf hold as others know it), bring your outside arm up and grabbing the opponents same side lapel with an upside-down fingers in grip, you do a punching motion with the gi in hand to pass the opponents opposite shoulder. Whilst doing this you hip escape away (as far as you can) and simultaneously bring the outside leg up across the head, the inner leg up to pressing knee on the opponents side and grab the opponents near arm, extending the whole lot out for the arm bar.


Another technique we drilled a little was a North - South Choke. From a strong side control position, grab the gi material of opponents far side arm near the upper arm, with the hand of your leg side arm and pull it down and close to the opponents body. Then, using your near side arm, pass the arm over the top of the opponents head and then wrap it around underneath so your hand ends near your belt area. Now you just move your body around to the North - South position, forcing the opponents head down on it's side with the pressure of your torso as you move and reach down with your other arm to grip the wrapped arm with a gable grip so you can pull in to apply the pressure. We found that if you use the crook of the elbow around the choking arm you can get it on REALLY tight but sometimes you may not be able to reach it.


Marcus brought a bit more Galvao to the table for the next couple of techniques. We did an amazing and somewhat disco omoplata and triangle from the same set up. Started in closed guard, you cross grip the opponents sleeve using a pistol grip and reach down to the same side knee with your other hand and grab the gi pants. Now comes the flash bit. You swing your leg on the other side, over the top of his head whilst rolling sideways across your shoulders to come up in an inverted position off to the side off your opponent with your leg tucked under his arm. Now you just need to roll forward, keeping hold the gi pants (so he can't roll out of it), coming up beautifully into an omoplata. Amazing yet simple move with a really cool set up. I NEED to hit this move.

The second move from this set up works the same up until you get to the rolling forward point. This time when you're rolling forward for the omoplata the opponent blocks by straight arming the far side arm and starts turning in toward you. This movement leaves him perfectly set up for the triangle finish as he turns into your legs. Just wrap your far side leg around his shoulder/neck using this to pull him in position  so you can easily wrap your free leg over the top of the other to close the triangle. Raise your hips and pull the arm across and you don't even need to pull on the back of the head. Another flash finish from a relatively simple and attainable set up (trusting you're not afraid to invert).


There was another really tasty triangle that I had been trying in our rolling session (didn't know it at the time, was just trying to escape a bad position) that Marcus pointed out later. It has a funny name, after an MMA fighter of relatively little renown, who used it to win a fight one time and then faded into obscurity. I cannot remember the name of the guy but the move is basically a triangle from Half Guard, being closed up using your arm/s. You are in Half Guard bottom position but quite loose on the outside. You bring your outside leg up and over his shoulder and back and grab it at the other side of his head with your same side arm (same side as where the leg is coming from, so you've essentially got an across neck choke hold). Now you just pull hard on the leg while lifting your shoulder to apply the choke. You can actually use both arms to grab the leg but it's the off side arm that's applying the choke. Me and Marcus were mega chuffed with this triangle variation which I why I am a bit gutted I can't remember the bloody MMA fighters name. Grrrr.


We finished with another Marcelo effort, this time the Over the Shoulder Armbar from Mount. Mounted on your opponent crouching low, you thread one of your arms under his same side forearm and out a little so he ends up with that arm underhooking yours. With your other arm you grab his other arm at the forearm and press it to his chest and bring your leg on that side up and over his shoulder (as if going for a mounted triangle but without attempting to wrap it around his head). From there (you should still have his first arm tucked under your arm at this point) you can bring your other leg out and up to beside his head and use that leg a fulcrum for the arm bar. This move is remarkably simple and actually very tight.

I'm sure I missed a couple of techniques off but never mind. I got the bulk of it. After all that we had a quick ten minute roll which was mega fast and furious, neither of us managing to hit any of the moves we learned today. Once again, I cannot recommend enough this two man training format as you can both bring moves to the table that you've been dying to learn and it teaches the other guy the move at the same time. Brilliant. Anyway, now I have to wait until Thursday for my next Bjj fix. I will definitely be trying to get more of these two man sessions in though as I feel like my game is really improving a lot and particularly my cardio (previously my Achilles heel) has been benefiting no end.

A big thanks to Marcus for training with me too. \m/

Checkmat Bristol 6-3-12

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

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


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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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


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



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

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

Chico and Shabba (with Josh lurking)

Chico and Josh

Chico and Rich

Chico and Marcus

Chico and Mario

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

Checkmat Seminar 15th Jan 2012. Part 1

I attended the latest Checkmat/Trojan Freefighters seminar yesterday at the excellently kitted out, though slightly cold, Trojan Gym in Cheltenham, Gloucester and I have to see that the day was brilliant. I now regret not being able to go for the entire weekend although frankly, my body is thankful that I didn't.

The journey up was pretty good, though I didn't drive so it took a lot longer than it usually would have. Dan 'Grizzly' Adams did the honours on the driving taking me, Ian and Dwaine up. Dan and Dwaine are from the Taunton/Wellington classes so it was good to catch up with them and the discussion mostly settled around club news and the UFC 142 that had taken place the night before (awesome head kick by Edson Barbosa).

When we got there we had a bit of a chat and inter mingle with the guys from the other clubs whilst getting changed and waiting for everyone to turn up. I got changed into my No Gi get up which was a nice rash guard I was given by BJJHQ.com, that I'm sure fit me before Christmas, and some fight shorts I'd "borrowed" from Sweat FA a while back and still haven't got round to giving back. Then we were lined up and Chico introduced us to Valmyr Neto, a Checkmat Black Belt instructor from the Kent area. From there we had a short warm up, more of a limber up really and then we were straight into the techniques of my first No Gi lesson.

I was quite surprised that the lead on the techniques this time was taken by Neto as I thought it was going to be a Chico Seminar, but I found Valmyr's instruction to be first class and he had no problems communicating what the technique was as his command over the English language was brilliant.

Half guard to knee bar or heel hook
First Technique was from the Half Guard. You got the opponent in your half guard and you're on your side, hips out to one side. Bring the outside knee up to your opponents shoulder and grip the back of his head with the same side hand (use the cup grip not a claw grip) a keep the arm of that hand inside your knee to ensure the opponent doesn't pass your guard (which becomes easy if you don't keep the arm inside). Then, pass your free arm underneath his free leg at the knee pit and pull his leg up toward your head (be sure to use the crook of your arm or your forearm for maximum strength and be sure to pull at the back of the knee for minimal resistance) then pull the guy over the top of you, balancing his weight so he almost floats over. As he's passed over the top he'll instinctively post his arms out to balance himself and avoid the full sweep. At this point you can pull what was your outside leg out from underneath him and simultaneously drop your arm (the one that was on his free leg) further down his leg so your legs have room to encase his.You can then turn your body so it's positioned inside his legs and thrust out with your hips for the knee bar. A very tasty move which in normal circumstances I would not use as I've don't hit the leg locks (I a bit of a purest Bjj-er) but I was happy to train this as a change is definitely as good as a rest.

The second part of the first technique was done in exactly the same way up until the guy has floated over you and you've gone down to the leg. In the second part the opponent passes the knee over and puts it on the ground too so the knee bar becomes unattainable. In this instance you turn on the leg your holding so you can put the foot into your arm pit, wrap your arm around the heel while you gable grip your hands together so your forearm is able to pull on the heel for the Heel Hook. *It's worth mentioning at this point that the Heel Hook is an exceptionally painful submission technique which is generally not drilled in most gyms. The utmost care is to be taken with this move as to much pressure applied to it could seriously injure your opponent, causing severe ligament damage and putting them on crutches for up to 6 months. This technique is not to be taken lightly. If you have a fear that your drilling partner may be a bit of a meat head who likes to go for it and slap subs on hard, I would sincerely suggest you don't bother drilling this move with them*.

Fortunately, I drilled this technique and all the others for the No Gi part of the class with a guy called Ben who is one of Neto's pupils from Kent. Ben was a really nice guy who was not prone to bouts of spazzing or big headed-ness and was really easy to roll with and explore moves with. We both found the knee bar fairly easily but Ben struggled at first finding the correct positioning for the Heel Hook. Neto is very active while you are drilling, trying to visit with each pair once for each technique to ensure they have the manoeuvre correctly down to pat. For us, he gave us some pointers on leg positioning for the Heel Hook, telling us to ensure you wrap your top leg over his to ensure the best control for the move.

Half guard sweep to mount
For the second technique Neto started with opponent in Half Guard once again. This time he had the guys near side arm wrapped up with his arm in a near whizzer, and put his free hand on the bicep on the guys the free arm. Then he escaped his hips out to the side with the arm whizzer'd, vined the leg he had going between the opponents legs around the nearside leg to reduce mobility and then pulled his outside leg out and tucked it inside in the form of a butterfly style hook on the opponents nearside thigh. From there he bridged the guys weight up while taking the guys base arm away by underhooking it with his arm (the one that had secured that bicep) and pulling up toward his head. With the guy turning over you can just hang on him and use his momentum to pull you over on to him into a tidy mount position. Net emphasized the control with this mount, squeezing the legs tight quite high on his chest, maintaining the whizzer and basing yourself out over his head using your free arm on one side and your head at the other.

Me and Ben both had problems with this one at first, solidifying in my mind at that early point in the seminar that Half Guard definitely isn't my strong point. It took many attempts and a visit from Neto to get it right.

Half guard to split sweep into side control
The next technique was another sweep from the half guard, this time using an at times painful splits method for the sweep. The move starts in nearly the same position but this time the opponent has based himself out by going up on both legs. On this one Neto hooks his arm underneath the freeside leg, pulls it up to his shoulder putting his opponent in an, as mentioned, quite painful splits and then just has to roll over pulling the arm (the whizzer'd one) underneath him, turning the guy onto his back. Neto made a point of ensuring we all knew to pull the vined leg out while the guy was going over to avoid the move be just a trading of half guard positions. With the leg out you are neatly in side control.

I found this technique a fair bit easier than the last and had it down to pat quite early. Ben said he was having problems with the move but seemed to land it well each time so I didn't see anything wrong.

The next move was just a variation on the above with but for if the guys stands up on just one foot (the outside one). This basically makes the sweep even easier with the opponent going over as if they weigh nothing. A nice technique.

From here Neto had us rolling for a short while but not proper start on your knees rolling, this was start in halg guard. Guy on top has to pass or submit, guy on bottom has to sweep or submit. Here was where I had problems. For starters this was my first lesson so I really found it difficult as I was like "hey, where the fuck's my grips?".  I had an alright roll with Ben, who passed my guard first, but then I was able to get a sweep on him. Then I was on top and I managed a couple of passes. That was where my good luck ended as my next opponent was Paul Severn. Now I think Paul is worth a hell of a lot more than the Blue Belt around his waist when he's wearing a Gi and he really proved it to me here, passing my guard a couple of times when he was on top and sweeping me twice when he was on the bottom (taking my back one of those times). Paul has a competition coming up soon at Hereford and I truly would stick at tenner on him coming away with gold if there was a bookmaker that took bets on Bjj comps.

 We had a few more of these situational rolls with fairly mixed results. A guy called Paul from Kent (who I, in error, assumed was a White Belt) issued me another toasting (I later found out he was a Purple Belt and one of Ben's instructors) and Dwaine from our club who I managed a couple of passes and a sweep against although he pass me quite neatly at one point too.

What I learned from this was that my Half Guard is fairly shit and that I haven't trained it nearly enough so the mantra I am adopting as a result of this seminar is;

I MUST GET BETTER AT HALF GUARD!!

 

I may as well include passing half guard in on it too as I wasn't setting the world alight from the top either. I did enjoy my first No Gi class though, although I was surprised by just how painful frappling without the protection of the gi is. I will do it again though and I think I can safely say that everyone in attendance enjoyed themselves and Valmyr Neto's teaching.

I'll type up part 2, the Gi seminar, probably tomorrow or Wednesday. 

\m/

Tonights action.

Ok. Taking a break from the story telling aspect of this blog I just wanna take this opportunity to point out that there is an MMA event on tonight. Strikeforce World Heavyweight Grand Prix: Barnett vs. Kharitonov will feature two of the most stellar BJJ practitioners in the world today.


Roger Gracie, mutli time BJJ and ADCC world champion will face off against "King" Mo Lawal.

And Strikeforce Middleweight Champion Ronaldo "Jacaré" Souza will defend against Luke Rockhold.

I can't wait for these matches more than any others on the card but I also have a certain trepidation for them too. You see I have tickets for the ADCC in Nottingham in two weeks time and both Roger Gracie and Jacaré are strong fixtures on the competitors list with Jacaré headlining against Braulio Estima!!! and Roger a firm favourite for a big win. If either of these guys can't attend through injury I will be gutted!

Good luck guys. A couple of slick subs in the first minutes of your respective matches would be great.