Venue: LA Gym, Bristol, Uk.
Instructor: Ian Rossiter - Checkmat.
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 10x8, Squats 10x 8, Crunches 10 x 7 (Stupid big classes :o|), then some leg stretching.
Techniques:
First technique of the night was how to force the opponent to give up the arm for an Arm Bar from Mount. Starting with the mount on your opponent, with one of your hands, reach over and cross grab the guys non opposing shoulder (so if using your right hand you'd grab his right shoulder) and crush your forearm down across his throat. This move is never going to get a tap from anyone as the block for it is instinctive. The opponent reaches over with his opposite side hand and pulls on the crushing arm at the elbow to relieve that pressure on his neck. In doing so he exposes a lot of his arm and lifts his shoulder partially off the ground. Now you can secure his blocking arm by releasing the neck crush and reaching through the gap to the high arm/shoulder and turning your body in toward his shoulder to stop the opponent from pulling his arm away. Whilst doing this you also switch your far side leg (the leg on the far side of his body when you turn) to point up towards his head. Now you change the arm you have securing his arm over (you should now have your arm nearer his head threaded into his endangered arm elbow crook), and use the newly freed arm to either grab his gi pants at the near side knee or post out behind you. To finish this move you just need to bring the other leg over his head and lean back, clutching the opponents arm tight to your chest so you can use the power of your whole body to extend his arm. Clench your knees together tight so you only need to lightly pull down on the arm to finish. If your legs are too lose you have to pull right back on the arm and over extend your hips to get the tap.
This move has been a staple of my Bjj repertoire for years and I cannot even begin to remember how many guys I've tapped with this exact technique. I drilled this move with Marcus.
Moving on from there, the standard defence against the above arm bar is to clutch the endangered arm with the other arm. The next set of three mini techniques were some tips Ian gave us for breaking the opponents arms apart when he uses this method to block the arm bar.
The first was a simple wrist lock. The opponent is holding on to the secured arm with his other arm for dear life, trying to puzzle out a way to escape the imminent danger. All you need do is grab the hand of the secure arm and pull it down, bending it at the wrist, as if you're trying to get his hand to touch his elbow crook. With the elbow of that arm firmly against your stomach there is nowhere for him to move to relieve the pressure. A submission is imminent. This move is sometimes known as a goose neck wristlock.
The second method to break the grip is to just swim your free arm inside the opponents clenched arm ensemble and then back away, leaning in that direction too (still clenching the arm to you) to snap the grip apart.
The third method Ian demonstrated (on me, the bastard) was to bring his arm right into the crook of the opponents secured elbow and use his other arm to crush that arm together (so the wrist pushes toward the shoulder) closing the elbow so the arm left inside expands the elbow joint for lots of pain.
Three good techniques for the arm bar clutch break. I drilled these techniques with Rich Long. I found the first two fairly easy but the third took a bit of exploring arm positioning to get the most effective hold on.
Ian showed us one more technique to combat someone blocking the arm bar attempt. This time, you've got to the arm bar set up where the arm is secure (but clenched to defend) and both your legs are over the opponent to prevent his easy escape. Sometimes people have a tendency to try and push on the far side arm at the bicep with their far side (leg side) foot. This technique works when the guys shakes your foot off leaving both your legs positioned above (closer to his head) the far side arm. You can now move your near side leg (the one over his head) out at roughly a 45 degree angle to his head, then reach behind his head with your near side arm to grab the your other leg at the ankle and pull that leg partially around the opponents head, keeping your arm very tight to the back of his head. Some guys might tap at this point to the arm and leg triangle but the real choke comes when you wrap your other leg around the choking leg to form the traditional triangle figure four for the tight choke. If you're still having problems finishing it from there you can move your ass away from the opponent, increasing the pressure on the neck.
Me and Rich both found this move easy to get to grips with and very effective.
Next up was a Kimura from Half Guard top. In your opponent's Half Guard, you have managed to isolate his arm (the off side arm so you are leant right across his body, with him flattened out) off to one side. You secure it for the Kimura using the traditional overwrap figure four arm hold and pull the arm in close to your body. You then pull the opponent up a bit so you can roll over on your shoulder and head to come up on the side bringing the opponent forward slightly so you can finish the Kimura behind his back. Ian suggests crossing your legs as you go over so the guy can't push forward to roll you over and escape the hold. Marcus and his drilling partner, Shabba, also discovered that if you bring your knee up once you've gone over the opponent stops dead in his tracks and the Kimura almost finishes itself.
Ian's final technique of the evening was a Kimura reversal. From a Half Guard bottom Kimura, the opponent has your arm locked up on the other side of your body to the trapped leg. To block the hold you need to grab your gi pants to give you some time to reach under inside and grab the secured arm by the wrist. Now you can lean in close to the opponent while you pull the secured arm up, so the opponent's figure fouring arm get pulled up uncomfortably until he's forced to tap.
Me and Rich both initially had the problem that we were just pulling the arm up with out leaning in. The opponent can easily slip the hold in that situation.
Rolling:
First roll was against Rich Long. And I have to say, Rich has improved A LOT over the last few months. Dedication has done his game the world of good. I started off by push him backwards and attacking his guard. I managed to pass briefly to side control but Rich recovered well back to half guard. While I tried to pass his half guard I think I over commited as Rich managed to sweep me over to mount, although I Upa'd out of it in super quick time and finished the round trying to pass his guard again.
Second roll was against Shabba. It was a back and forth affair with some sweeps and passes for each of us. I threatened an Americana at one point, shabba threatened a triangle at one point. Other than that it was fairly even.
Third roll was against a guy whose name I can't remember. I attacked straight off and passed his guard to side control. I broke off then and pulled guard instead to work on my bottom game. While we were struggling in this position I came up against a floor to ceiling speedball half garrotting my neck. We could of moved but I figured the obstruction could one day represent a table leg or other obstruction so I should try and work my way around it. Unfortunately it allowed his to pass to side control and my best method of escape actually required me to remove my head from my shoulders. Consequentially he trapped me in a head and arm triangle which I was able to "answer the phone" to block. I was just working on a hip twist escape when time was called.
I wasn't very impressed with my own performance that session. I was, however, very impressed with Big Justin's progress. He went up to a class where there's a considerably higher level of grappler and managed to come away without getting tapped. That's a very good step up in game for him.
That's it for me for Bjj for the week :o( My next session will be with Marcus on Monday. I wish I could train more \m/
