DV8 Bjj

It's been a busy week for me, what with the awesome weather we've been having here in England. As a highways inspector, I am required to drive around the county of North Somerset during the snowy weather and find the worst hit areas and arrange for them to either be gritted or closed off for safety. Consequentially I've been pretty damn busy these last few days so I've only just got round to putting this entry in.

Venue: Sweat FA, Weston Super Mare, Uk
Instructor: Ian Rossiter ( Black belt Checkmat)

Last Thursday down at Sweat Fa, Weston, we once again started the session with stretches then an awesome circuit.

The circuit featured 20 seconds of;

Sprints
Burpees
Vaults
Crunches
Skipping Rope
Kettlebell raises
Sky divers
Tricep dips
Kettle bell around the world
Elevated Push ups
Step ups
Squats
V sits

I'm really loving these circuits.


Techniques:
(For simplicity, I always explain techniques from the side and using the grips that I initially learned them)

Ian started us off with an arm drag from butterfly guard. In your seated butterfly position the opponent has his hands gripping your legs at the ankles. You reach down and grab the cuff of his left sleeve with your right hand and grab at the elbow/triceps of that left arm with your left arm. You then step your right leg outside of his left and lay back and to the left whilst pulling on his left arm. His upper body should shoot to your left side with you now able to come up to your knees behind him and pressure your weight against him to keep him in a turtled position.




Moving it on we went to Rear Mount. You've got the guy to turtle, still with your left hook in between his legs. You reach over his back with your right hand and then under him to grab a grip of his left lapel (this can be quite low). Grabbing a hold of his left arm to stop him basing out you can now drop yourself to the floor on his left side while using the right hand grip to pull him over you to a seated rear mount position. As he's coming over he will (usually) open up the space between his right arm and leg for you to handily slip your right hook in. This should land you in a fantastic seated rear mount with both hooks in and you already have 1 lapel grip. Good going.



The first finish we did from this position was the Half Nelson choke we did last week. Check back if you don't know how it's done.




Next up was another choking finish but one I hadn't seen before and am not entirely sure I am remembering correctly. from the seated rear mount you reach over his right shoulder with your right hand and take a grip of his left collar. You then pass your left arm under his left arm and under your right forearm, then press your fist into his throat. Increase pressure by leaning back and pulling against the collar so your right forearm crushes the fist into his windpipe for the Collar and Fist choke finish.That's how I remember it anyway. If Ian corrects me on that then I'll do an edit.



Another attack was the old faithful rear mounted Arm bar finish. Once again, I've written this move up a few times so no real need to do so again. Just look back through my blog if you want.



We finished off with a rear mount escape. Starting with your opponent having your back in seated rear mount with both hooks in. You defend your neck with both your hands and plant both feet flat on the ground to push yourself back into your opponent, flattening his back to the floor. You then shift your hips out to the right, moving your back out also, to get it to the floor. During this movement, the weight of your lower body should press against the opponent's right inside leg, knocking the hook out and leaving you the opportunity to reach under his left leg with your right arm. If you then reach that right hand to grab something high on him like his left arm or his gi jacket, you will be supported enough to drive the leg up high and pass through to side control. A great move if you can pull it off. Any time I've used that escape though in sparring, I've generally ended up in half guard top or bottom as it's pretty easy for anyone but a rookie to see the pass coming and close up shop. Still, either half guard top or bottom is preferable to having your back attacked.



Rolling.

For rolling this week I've pretty much forgotten everything that happened. I know I rolled with Dan first and had a pretty good time of it. Can't remember specifics though.


I also rolled against Ash, Ian and Sean E. Don't remember any details about them either. Ah well. Great sesh.


I've been pretty ill since Thursday and had to miss out on the Tuesday session as I didn't want to infect anyone with my lurgy. Hopefully I'll make Thursday's class and get in a double next week with some weekday lunch time training too to make up for it.

DV8 Bjj 10/3/13

After last weeks cardio blip most of our class seemed to have suffered, Ian decided to take a different tack at the most recent DV8 class on Thursday night.

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


Warm Up:

He started us off with a trimmed down version of the usual basic warm up. Lap of the mat with arm wind mills, butt kicks and knee ups. Then stopped and ran us through some upper body stretching, then straight on to the leg stretching. I was beginning to get a bit suspicious at this point. Ian NEVER cuts the warm up short. Unless he has something horrible planned!!

We then did a couple of circuits of the below exercises:

step ups
elevated push ups
crunches
skipping
vaulting
burpees
sprints
turn overs


20 seconds of each x 2 sets.

I felt pretty knackered after the first set but strangely, by the time the second set was done I felt really buzzing. Fully warmed up and raring to go. I kinda hope we do more stuff like that to warm up in future. It'll certainly help shift some of this gut I need to move by the 17th of Feb.


Techniques.
(For simplicity, I always explain techniques from the side and using the grips that I initially learned them)


Attacking the back was Ian's theme of the day and we started off with a sweet Rear mounted Collar slide choke. You are seated and have your opponent between your legs with his back to you in "Rear Mount". You have both your hooks in and an over under (seat belt) grip on hi upper body. It's your left arm that is tucked under his left arm that starts this technique. You open his left lapel with your left hand so you right hand that is over his right shoulder can pass across his face and get a good deep collar grip on his left collar. You now cross your left hand over to a low grip on his right lapel, tightening the slack around his neck. To finish the technique you lay back, letting your entire upper body finish the move by tautening the collar, cutting of the flow of blood.



Next up was a Rear Mounted Half Nelson Choke. Same start again all the way up to the right hand across face grip of the left collar. From there you bring your left arm up underneath his left and pass it behind his head. This move is once again finished by leaning back using your upper body to tighten the choke.

Ian let me demo the next technique as it is my all time favourite back attack, the Bow and Arrow Choke. From the hooks in rear mount position you reach across face with the right hand and take a grip of the opponents left collar. Doesn't have to be too deep a grip. You now lean your upper body out to the left side and grab the guys pant leg at the knee, pull yourself further out and to the side of the opponent. Your left leg at this point should be across the guys sternum area and the right leg now gets passed over his right shoulder. Once again leaning back, the upper body does all the work finishing this move.
Love that technique, it's an all time fave!!

The last technique was the Rear mount transition to armbar. I have covered this move many times on this blog so have no need to do so again.



Rolling:

First up I was against Dan. Remembering how Dan poured on the power last week I went on the instant offensive and took Dan down to his guard. He recovered briefly to which I managed to get him back there again. I then went on a mission to pass his guard, starting with Smash pass attempts, a knee slide attempt and managed, eventually to get a Toreando pass. I held side control for some time before Dan was able to recover guard. We then performed a double sweep (he got me then I got him quickly back) and that was about when the round ended. Massively enjoyable round of sparring that was.



Next up was young Ash. We played at grip fighting for a bit before I pulled guard, mainly because I was bored of the grip fighting. Ash is getting a lot better with not extending his arms in my guard but he still did it eventually as he got more frustrated so I punished it with an arm bar.  I take no joy in hitting cheap arm bars on white belts but I feel they need to learn not to extend the arm in the opponents guard. The best way to learn something is to get caught by it. Ash came back too strong though and was trying to batter past my guard with out defending himself whilst doing it. I caught him with another harsh lesson by hitting a triangle on him. Something that I still struggle to learn sometimes (especially against Dan). I then briefed him on making sure that he doesn't try and attack a guard with one arm forward one arm back, unless he has the guys off leg defended from going over the shoulder.



I had a quick tussle with a New kid called Mike - I mostly showed him some escapes and stuff but at one point he was coming in to my guard very hard, trying to use main strength to throw my legs out of the way so I got him with a Gogoplata. I was damn chuffed with that.


I finished with a round against the Professor. We started off and i was able to threaten a takedown enough for Ian to pull guard. I managed, after a lot of struggling, to pass his guard to side control, then transitioned to mount where he held me with a kimura style lock that I spent the rest of the round struggling to get out of. It was a pretty wily trick as he wouldn't of been able to finish me like that but at the same time I wasn't getting anything on him either. I was just formulating a response to it when the buzzer went.


Great class. Great warm up. Good sparring at the end. It's what we do it for ;o)

Checkmat Bjj - 5/10/12

I've had a double great day today.  Not only did I get some lunchtime No-Gi training in down Sweat FA in Weston, I also managed to get up to Ronan Fleming's  Checkmat Bjj class up at Bristol Combat Legion.

The session was very good. Ronan demo'd a couple of techniques then we got a shit load of sparring in. When I'm next training for a competition, I will definitely be going to Ronan's class for a bit of extra sparring and to build up my match ready grappling fitness. The guys up there set a good pace and keep it up all the way through.




Venue: Bristol Combat Legion, LA Gym, Bristol, Uk.
Instructor: Ronan Fleming (Purple Belt - Checkmat).



Warm Up:
For the warm up we started with laps of the mat whilst doing knee ups, butt kicks, inward facing sidesteps, outward facing sidesteps, then two in two out sidesteps. We then did lengths of the mat, doing forward rolls (X 2 Lengths), backward rolls (X 2 Lengths) and Spiderman Crawls (X 2 Lengths).



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


For the techniques, Ronan started us off with some escapes from Rear Mount. Starting with your opponent having your back in seated rear mount with both hooks in. You defend your neck with both your hands and plant both feet flat on the ground to push yourself back into your opponent, flattening his back to the floor. You then shift your hips out to the right, moving your back out also, to get it to the floor. During this movement, the weight of your lower body should press against the opponent's right inside leg, knocking the hook out and leaving you the opportunity to use both of your legs to trap the guy's left leg (as if for half guard). At this point, if he's sensible, he'll accept that he's lost the position and try to limit his losses by coming over on top of you into your half guard. However, if he tries to hold on for dear life and not accept that he lost the back control, you'll find it easy to roll over on to him, bringing you up into half guard top.
Working under the assumption that the guy is going to take the sensible option and roll on you for half guard top, Ronan had us drill practice two different methods of ensuring you come up in as favourable a position as possible. The first being the side half guard with deep under hook that I've covered here a lot recently. The second being a cool underhook for deep half guard. The guys (Ronan and Josh Kersey) also showed me a nifty little deep half sweep for if the guy tries to base out using his left leg.


The second rear mount escape was the more common butt scooth, leg drop and hip shift method that I have written up many times before. A great basic staple move that everyone practising Bjj should know.



Moving on from there, Ronan ran us through some good basic finishes for if you have the guy's back. He hit us with three nice easy ones in quick succession and then had us drill all three together. All of these are from the full seated rear mount position.

First was a variation from the rear naked choke for if you're finding it too hard to get your (right)arm buried all the way in under his chin so you can apply the rear naked properly. Instead, you can finish the choke using the forearm/wrist under the chin, angling it just so that the flattest part is crushing the opponent's throat. To finish this you only need to pull the right arm up into the opponent's throat using a no thumb grip down over the hand with your free left hand. If applied correctly the choke comes on quick.

The second and third were two variations of the rear mounted ezekiel.
From a seated rear mount with seat belt control, your right arm is over the top of his right arm (as if to attack the neck), your left arm is under his left. You reach up in front of him with your left arm and put the fingers of your right hand into the sleeve of the left arm. You then pass the left hand behind the guy's head, with the right hand nestling neatly into the opponent's throat. The finish this you just need to lean your body weight backward which seems to naturally push your arms out. Very tight choke.
The alternate method is where you push your left arm fully under his arm and through so it is past the right side of his head. You then put the fingers of your left hand into the sleeve cuff of your right and pass the right arm behind the opponent's head so the blade of your right hand can be pushed into the left side of his neck. Once again, finish by laying backward and pushing your arms out.
Two real eye waterers there.


Sparring:

We kicked off with some situational sparring. Attacking the back. The guy with the back has to submit. The guy whose trapped has to escape to either top control or guard.

We rolled with loads of guys through this and as mentioned before, the pace was really high. Some great rolling. I didn't get tapped out through any of the situational stuff and managed to get a couple of taps.

For the full sparring I had a turn against Tom Kocur first, who was really on his game. Although he didn't finish me, he basically controlled me for 85%  of the round, quite a lot of it in a triangle choke attempt. It was a real tough round and by the end I fel totally beasted.

Then my second round was against Matt Sellars. A long standing brown belt who, quite frankly, is waaaaay out of my league. Every once in a while you have a roll against someone who reminds you just how very far you have to go in your Bjj development. Matt Sellars was that guy for me. I held him off with my guard for about a minute at the start but he pretty soon found a way to glide past and once in side control it was pretty much all over. He tapped me first with forearm choke from side control, then we pretty much repeated the transitioning and he got me with an Americana. Thoroughly handled but Matt's a very humble and friendly guy and tried to give me pointers on how to tighten up my game.

I very briefly had a roll against Ronan who also managed to pass my guard before the bell saved me from some form of pain.

My last roll was against a guy named Ben, a white belt who was showing some really good movement and strength. I got some sweeps on him and got to mount once but he recovered quite nicely each time. I eventually managed to get him with an ezekiel from mount.

For my first taster of a Friday sesh under Ronan I had a bloody good time and really loved the masses of rolling. I shall definitely be attending some more if time allows. ¬m/

DV8 Academia de Jiu Jitsu - 23/8/12

Back to Ian's class for the first time since before the comp. After all, I had to attend Ian's first class as a Black Belt Professor. Oh, and of course it was Marcus' last class in Weston for what I can only imagine will be quite a long time, so there was definitely no chance I could miss this session.

Numbers were reasonable for the summer hols, a lot of the new guys have stuck around so it's a good bunch of regulars we've got coming now. We were also lucky enough to be joined by Steve Keen, long time Bjj Purple Belt who hasn't really trained Gi for quite a while. Steve says he's interested in taking it up again and getting a bit fitter for it. I truly hope that Steve does stick around because his game is pretty awesome and we could all benefit from sparring with him.

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


Warm Up:
The usual laps of the mat with arm wind milling, knee ups, butt kicks and side steps. Then on to arm, neck and shoulder stretching, Squat (4 x 10), push ups (4 x 10) and sit ups (4 x 10). We finished up with some leg stretching.



Techniques:
(I will describe the techniques from the side I initially learnt them on for ease of description).

Ian went straight into a Butterfly Sweep to start with. It's the standard one from seated Butterfly, where you have your left arm underhooking his the opponent's right, your other arm is grabbing his left arm on the outside and forcing it in tight to your torso. You need to keep your head low and driven forward into his left shoulder to avoid him getting HIS head underneath and driving you off balance. From here you fall out to your right, taking him with you. As you get to the ground you kick you left butterfly hook high up, sweeping the opponent over on to his back with you coming up into top control. What top control you land in depends on the scramble but the highest percentage is side control or kesa gatame. You can try for mount but you run the great risk of getting caught in his half guard.
I trained with Marcus for this one last time. We were joined by a newly promoted Tom who arrived late and stepped in with us. We all found this fairly easy and played about with a couple of other techniques in between drilling this move.



The next move was Arm Drag to Back from Butterfly Guard. The move works on the premise that you're in seated butterfly guard and your opponent is trying to pass by standing off and grabbing you gi pants at the ankles. Utilising the idea that your legs will nearly always be stronger than his arms you step your left leg out to the side (taking his controlling arm with it), leaving room for you to thrust your right arm under his right arm and grab the back of his triceps or his shoulder. Now you canthrow your right leg through between the guys legs while pulling back hard on his arm and turning in toward him at the same time. The opponent should shoot right past you and land on his front, opting to turtle before he's completely flattened out (you handily have your right hook in at this point). While he's in he's getting his turtle, you should harness grip around his waist/high chest and put pressure on his back to keep him down. Then you can work your way low down on his back so your left leg can be moved up in position to thread in to it's hook slot. If he's closed up at this point a quick jerk upwards with your harness grip should make enough space. Now you have both hooks in and the harness grip you can tip you body over and fall on your side taking the opponent with you. You have now taken his back a broken down his turtle.
Good quality sweep and transition to back. Very tasty. I shall be trying to use it more often.


Ian changed the focus around now to the guy who had just had his back taken. The next move was the rear mounted guys reaction with a Rear Mount Escape to side control. The guys just pulled you over to the side to get the hooks in for the rear mount. You need to sit up so the opponent is forced into a seated rear mount position. From there you bend forward to reach your ankles and lean back down to the right. Now you can use your hands to push the guys right leg (the one under you) away to release his hook. You can now escape your hips out to your right, turning toward the opponent as you do. Now pull your left leg out so you can turn onto your front and force him down onto his back. You will be left with your right leg in a loose half guard here but as you come over you can reach your right arm under his left leg and lift it forward while flattening him, leaving you open to easily bring the other leg out and gain side control. Very nice escape which I found myself enjoying. I like arm under touch at the to get to side control. Very good.



The last technique Ian gave us was an old favourite of his. A basic Gi Choke from Side Control where you have the guy secure around the neck with your left arm and you grip his collar with that hand. With your other hand you reach down and grab a handful of the guy's gi jacket at about the underarm area (quite near to the floor though) whilst ensuring you keep an adequate amount of weight down on his torso to block any escapes. Now you open your left elbow out so that arm can pass around his head, then bring it back in and down across the upper chest/neck (you are still gripping his collar here). To finish this move you start pushing your elbow out into his neck/throat whilst keeping him from moving with your bodyweight and your grip on his gi with your right hand.



Rolling:

I rolled with Marcus first. Last roll for some time I imagine. We did a bit of back and forth, top and bottom play. I eventually managed to tap him out with a kimura from half guard top, just for old times sake :o).

Next up was Steve the purple belt. And I really had a fantastic roll with him. Exchnaging position and control. Steve's fluidity in his rolling was really good. I only even once felt close to threatening with a sub attempt. On the plus side (although I'll attribute it to him being rusty) Steve didn't threaten me with anything either although he was able to pass my guard right at the end. I recovered to half guard as the buzzer went. A great roll and I really hope Steve sticks around to train more with us.


Next up was Tom. I went with mostly top control in this one but was very impressed with how well Tom's guard game has improved. I did manage to pass his guard a couple of times, getting to mount on him twice but Tom escaped well for one and I gave up the other trying to bow and arrow his from technical mount. Tom managed to survive everything I threw at him in the end which is good.

My last roll was with Ian and his new Black Belt. It was a brilliant roll. Ian tried to straight leg lock me at one point which I was able to stand into easily to resist. Other than that, neither of us really threatened a sub, just went back and forth with positions. Ian ended up with top control just before the buzzer.

It was a great session with some cool sparring at the end. We all said our hearty goodbyes to Marcus. He certainly will be missed by all. A great guy, a good friend and a phenomenal training/sparring partner. I wish him well in everything he tries and I hope Southampton turns out well for him and Aneta. He'll be welcomed back any time he wishes.


¬m/

DV8 Academia de Jiu Jitsu 2-8-12

I was and have been buzzing and fired up to f!!k for my up coming competition on Sunday 5th August. Unfortunately, as Marcus has been working away this last week I didn't get any chance to train at lunch times in the week. Which, as I was on call for work, meant my sole opportunity for training this week was at Ian's session down at Sweat FA in Weston Super Mare on Thursday night. So I was understandably fit to burst by the time I got down there this week.

We were back to relatively good numbers again this week after lasts week's effort. We also had a new guy trying out although I don't think he'll be back as he seemed more interested in Judo.

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


Warm up:

The usual laps of the mat with arm wind milling, knee ups, butt kicks and side steps. Then on to arm, neck and shoulder stretching, Squat (4 x 10), push ups (4 x 10) and sit ups (4 x 10). We finished up with some leg stretching.



 
Techniques:

It seems Ian has been struck by a little Olympic fever for the beginning of his techniques this week as he decided to go with methods of breaking down your opponent's Turtle. This has been something that has been bothering him due to the Judo on the box at the moment. Specifically, now the Judo players are allowed more time for ground work but their ability to attack the turtle seems a bit shite (in Ian's opinion). So the first technique was Attacking turtle to knee on belly. Your opponent is turtled up in front of you with you leaning your weight across him on from his left side to keep him down in turtle.You then grab his left arm with your left arm and push it in (to stop him basing out with it) and with your right arm you reach over the top of the guy and then thread you arm in under to grab his opposite lapel (left one) . You now stand up and step back whilst pulling hard on the opponent's lapel. You may need to put your right foot against his left leg initially to stop him basing out with the leg. The guy should pull over onto his back his back with you falling neatly into knee of belly.
I was drilling this and all over techniques with Justin 'Man Tank' Thomas. Justin is huge and strong as hell so getting the technique right with him is imperative as pure strength on my half just ain't gonna work against him.


The second technique of the night was extending the first move to an Arm Bar. You flip the guy over and attain Knee on Belly with the guy's arm neatly coming up in front of you for you to grab with your left hand/arm. You bring your right knee (the one that's on his belly) up tight on his chest so the foot of that leg stops under his armpit and bring your ass in as tight to his shoulder as possible. Now swing your left leg over the top of the opponent's head and clench your knees together tight as you fall/sit backward. If clenched correctly you shouldn't need all the yanking you see with a lot of guy's arm bar attempts. All you should need is to lean back and extend your hips slightly to put on enough pressure for the tap.



The next move was from the Lucas Leite seminar and Ian allowed me to demonstrate the it which was pretty cool. The opponent is turtled up once again with you laying across him from his left side. As before, you reach over with your right hand and thread it through between his arm and leg and grab his opposite (left side) gi lapel at about chest height. With your left hand you push his left arm in to stop the base out, whilst you place your left knee at the gap between his left arm and leg. Now, pulling/sitting back you turn the guy over into your seated rear mount. As he flips over his legs seem to naturally open up and space away from his arms with just enough of a gap to slot your hooks in, first on the right side, then as you carry the movement on the left opens up. You should end sat up, with the guy seated in front of you. You have one under hooked lapel grip and both hooks in. I love this move and have used it countless times to take the back.



Ian also let me demonstrate the Lucas Leite sliding collar choke. From the above ending position you release the far side lapel grip to grab the nearside (right) to open the lapel wide. This allows you to reach you left arm over his left shoulder and around to grab the open and exposed(right side) lapel and slide the hand up that collar as far as it will go around his neck. You can then release the right hand lapel grip and grab low on the left lapel. To finish you lean back while pulling on the lapels. You sometimes may need to bring your left leg up and wrap it over his left arm to pull it away so it can't relieve the tension of the choke.



Ian next showed us the Rear Naked Choke from rear mount but both guys are on their right side. You have the position secured with both hooks in and you left arm under hooked under his left arm to keep him in place. You now reach over his right shoulder with your right arm and around to grab his left shoulder with your hand. You can now bring the left arm out and over his left arm to rest at the side of his head so you can manoeuvre your right and into the crook of your left arm and then close that arm and pass the left hand behind the opponent's head. Apply the pressure by leaning forward into the move and tightening you right arm around his neck whilst pushing hard against the back of his head.


The last technique of the session was a defence against the single leg takedown. The guy's shot in for a single on you left leg. You immediately sprawl out with your right leg and lean your weight against him. Reach under his chin/face from his left side with your right arm, pushing it all the way through to come out at the other side of him at his right arm pit. You can now gable grip the hand to secure it in place and kick back hard with your left leg to break it from the opponent's grip. You now ensure you have the right arm pushed through as far as it will go so you can put the right hand in the crook of your left arm (same as for a rear naked) and fold it over to close resting your left hand on his back. You now roll both of you over by dropping your left arm down and rolling over on your left side. Carry the move over so you've both rolled all the way over on to your other sides and finish the move by walking yourself in toward him. Lovely tight choke ensues.


Rolling:

In preparation for Sunday's competition and lacking any blue belt opponent's, I elected to roll with the stronger, heavier guys. Justin was first and we started from standing. I stupidly tried to go for a falling arm bar which Justin scouted well. He then stacked me and basically tried to fold me in half which was pretty uncomfortable. The rest of the roll I was trying to submit him from my guard. It was only toward the end that I realised I was limiting myself to this and so tried a weak flower sweep attempt but it was like trying to move a boulder. Justin's one heavy dude.


The next round was against Neil Owen who is essentially built like a tank. I was once again in guard pretty quickly but faired much better this time. After an initial arm bar attempt which left me chronically stacked once again, I managed to turn into an omoplata to get the tap. At this point Neil's cardio left the building and he does what Neil does best; Turtle up. This gave me the opportunity to try my turtle attacking skills against him which proved mostly fruitless as Neil's turtle is immense. I managed to get hooks in and was fighting for the choke at the end.


My last roll was with a guy named Luke Brown. Luke is a bit of an MMA fighter and has quite a colossal rolling ego, so it was a bit of a struggle in the beginning but I managed to get a few transitions in there ending in mount and hitting him with and arm bar. Good one to end on.


So that was it before my big day on Sunday 5th August. Those more astute of you will notice the posting date of this is actually Monday so I have already had my competition. I will tell you all about in my next entry.

Good rollin' ¬m/

DV8 Academia de Jiu Jitsu - 17-5-12

A new name for the club and a new era. And what do you know....... Ian's late. Well it had been prearranged and Ian had left me in charge of the class until he got there. Ooooo the power. The numbers for the nights lesson were brilliant with more guys turning up than had for a while. It'll be nice to see if we can keep some of the new guys as they seem very enthusiastic. We were also graced with the presence of old SJJA face, Glen Cutter, a blue belt from the old Burnham class who'd taken a considerable amount of time out from Jiu Jitsu but decided to take another turn off the wheel. Welcome back dude.

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


Warm Up:

I decided to take a different approach with the warm up tonight just to freshen things up. We started off with about five laps of the mat to get the blood pumping. Then stopped and did some star jumps, some running man jumps (my name, not official), limbered up the ankles, knees, hips, wrists, elbows, arms, neck. Then we got on the floor and did a load of hip escapes, then a load of Upa bridge escapes, then a load of triangles. From there we finished off with assorted legs stretches.


Techniques:

Ian arrived in time for the techniques so he started us off with a nifty choke alternative from attacking the back. You've got the opponents back, sat up with a seat belt grip and both hooks in. You feed the underhook arm right across the guys body and grab the sleeve cuff of the overhook arm, then pass the overhook arm behind the opponents head so you have a Rear Mount Ezekiel. To finish the move well you just need to lean back, the leverage giving you the hard choke. Nice move.

I drilled this with Dan Foster. We played around with it for a while and found that if you clench your fist when grabbing the sleeve cuff it becomes a carotid artery choke so the guy doesn't realise he's getting choked until his head starts getting fuzzy and by then it's too late.


Ian's next technique was just a basic Rear Naked Choke putting emphasis on the clenching down with the elbow, into the opponent's chest. Same set up as before but this time you get the overhook around the opponents neck and ensure you bring that elbow down hard into his chest. You put the hand of that choking arm into the elbow crook of your other arm and then close that second arm and pass the forearm behind the head and pressure the head forward. Most guys will tap at this point if you have the technique in tight but if not you just need to lean back while bending forward. This move is an old friend to any long time Jiu Jitsu practitioner but it is amazing how repeatedly drilling it under good instruction sharpens up your technique. It's easy to forget after a while that the move comes on stronger with the elbow crushing down into the chest.
I drilled this one and the rest of the lesson with Marcus Hedley.


The next move was a technique I'd not seen before and smacks of a Bow and Arrow variation. Hence why I loved it. Same set up as before, this time getting an overhook arm across the opponents front to get a decent collar grip. With your other arm, you reach across as if to go for the opposite collar for a rear gi choke or something but the guy blocks your arm with his far side arm, so you can grab the gi sleeve of that arm and pull it tight across him, then lean back and off to the side and pass the leg on the choking arm side over the shoulder (as if for the Bow and Arrow finish) and pull on the choke. Tap city. Very nice move.
Drilled this move with Marcus too. After our training Tuesday and some of the drilling today my neck is uber fooked thanks to Marcus' spiffy new "sandpaper" Koral gi. I am in pain.


Ian changed it up for the next technique, going for a Darce Choke. starting with you opponent under your side control, the guy bursts up with his arms as if to hip escape but you catch him in the movement and overhook his top arm and pass it right through across his body to pass out between his head and shoulder. You then close the other arm around around the hand/wrist of the choking arm and press the hand of the closing arm on his back. To finish this move you curl into a ball and move toward the opponent then wrap your top leg over his legs. Tight choke. Very nice.


Following on from that Ian showed us the Anaconda Choke from Single Leg Takedown Defence. First off he showed it from if the opponent is attempting to single leg you from Turtle. You've sprawled to defend and managed to pass one of your arms between his nearside head and shoulder to reach under across the chest and grab him at the arm pit on the other side of his body. You can then rest your weight on his back and kick the leg leg he has secured hard backwards to break his grip, continuing the downward pressure so his arms are stretched out. From there you can push the arm further through to close your other arm around it (same as for the Darce). You now switch your hips so they are facing against the choke and barrel roll backward using your legs to push you over so the opponent come over the topof your head and back down on the other side. Then you can close your body in toward your opponent by balling up and wrapping the top leg over for the finish. The move is basically the same for the standing single but with more sprawling necessary.


Rolling:

My first roll was against Marcus and as I've been rolling a lot against him this week it hardly felt like we'd stopped. I pulled guard straight off then got a sweep, attempted to come up into side control to which Marcus blocked and recovered guard. Then Marcus got me with a sweep and spent the rest of the round trying to pass my guard while I tried to catch him with a sub. Good round. I look forward to Monday and Tuesday for more.


Second roll was against Rob. Rob's an old boy and a white belt so I try to go quite easy on him but he's pretty strong from years of being a storesman and tries to muscle you about so I find his pressuring causes me to go faster at it. Because of this I managed to sweep him and gain mount fairly quickly. A quick bit of fakery for a choke and Rob over commited his arm to pull me off so I managed to switch for an arm bar. We reset and I pulled guard then managed to get him to an arm bar situation bringing Rob down onto his back with the gaining of the position. Rob managed to defend it admirably though, rolling his shoulder under so I ended up having to recover to S Mount or lose the position entirely. We finished the round with me attacking his arm again and then trying for the mounted triangle.

Third go was against one of the newer guys Chris. I'd heard Chris did some MMA stuff so I thought I'd see how much he'd managed to bring over. I pulled guard and him, dummied and arm bar and then set up the omoplata )as per Andre Galvao's method I'd previously been trying out with Marcus a couple of weeks ago) for the tap. I  spent the rest of the round teaching Chris a few easy things to enhance his game as I noticed he was 'another sit in my guard and try and choke me' type. I taught him a quick and easy guard break and pass.

Next round was against Rich Presley. I jumped straight to guard here and was just trying to catch him in various different subs which Rich defended well. Rich nearly passed my guard at one point but I was able to handily recover by going inverted and then coming back around the other side. I threatened a Pace Choke at one point which Rich was wary of. Other than that it was a fair stalemate.


My last round was against the returning Glenn Cutter, who I thoroughly enjoyed rolling against. Glenn rolls with a furious pace and doesn't seem to gas out so if you're going against him, you're going for the full round. I pulled guard first off and fended off his admirably ferocious attempts at passing my guard. I was able to pull in close at one point and tried out the Kimura trick I wrote of in my last blog. He had a hold on my gi pant so I grabbed his hand and leant forward, reached over and by the he realised what I was going for I had the arm secured and was angled out to the side. A little bit of pressure and I got the tap. From the reset he jumped guard quick and managed the quickest scissor sweep I think I've ever encountered. I quickly managed to recover guard and the round played out with me defending. my guard.

Amazing session tonight and the class almost seems like it has a renewed vigour to it. I really hope we can keep some or all of these new guys around, train them up for the future. Maybe get a decent team together.

Ah well, roll on Monday (could that be a pun??) \m/

Weston Bjj - 3/5/12

Thursday night at Sweat FA was a particularly brilliant lesson. Only a few of the usual faces but a couple of new guys turned up and a few returning guys who've only attended a couple of sessions so are "as good as new". Still, a good buzz about the class going in, everyone was nice and chatty during the warm up. Good to have a friendly class where everyone's comfortable talking about non Jiu Jitsu related stuff together. Makes things seem a bit closer knit.

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 20x3, Squats 20x 3,  Crunches 20 x 3 (Ian was on one), then some leg stretching.






Techniques:


The first couple of techniques Ian gave us were from a Rear Mount back controlling position. You are sat up with the opponent sat with his back to you between your legs. You have both hooks in (your legs are around his waist with the feet "hooked" in behind his knees on the inside of his legs). You have your arms under-hooking him (underneath his arms) with your hands gripping his lapels. This is the starting position for most of the lessons techniques.


The first sub shown involved you pulling the lapel out on one side (same side) with the underhook and bringing your other arm out from underhooking to overhooking (passing the arm around over his arm) so you can grab the opposite side lapel quite deep at the collar and pull it taught against the opponents neck. Now with the other arm you reach up and pass the hand behind the opponent's head (as it's an underhook you should still have the opponents arm trapped in there). To apply the pressure here you just need to lean back while pushing forward with the arm behind his head for the nice tight Arm in Gi Choke from Rear Mount.

Ian showed us the second sub in the same demo so we could drill the two at the same time. The second technique was a straight forward Rear Naked Choke. From the start up position, bring one of your under hooked arms out and over hook to wrap around the opponents so the hand is coming up near the opponents opposite shoulder. Then you get your other arm out and put the hand of the choking arm on the bicep of the tightening arm and then close the tightening arm and pass that hand around the back the guys head. To finish the move, tighten the choking arm around the neck while clamping it down against his chest and leaning forward into the move to push pressure on at the back of his head. This move is one of the most commonly used submissions from Back Control and is a firm favourite for MMAers.

I was drilling the nights stuff with Marcus. We both had these techniques down already so we just drilled a bit and talked crap.


For the next technique, Ian split the class up and dealt with the new guys for a bit and let me show the Bow and Arrow choke to the more seasoned side of the class. From the start up position you present one lapel and remove the other under hook to bring it back over the that shoulder and get a grip on the opposite presented lapel (doesn't have to be particularly deep). You then lean out to the side where you haven't got the overhook lapel grip and grab the opponents under knee or gi pants on that side and pass your leg on the other side over the opponents shoulder to stretch the choke taught. This is my favourite rear mount choke technique. I love it and usually try for it when ever I have someone's back. It is a choke you have to be careful with though as a lot of guys have tried to fight it for too long and gone under. You need to be aware of your sparring partners consciousness when applying that choke.

Me and Marcus have drilled the hell out of this technique over the last couple of years so we were happy to try different ways of blocking or countering it. One that I found quite successful was to pull down on the lapel from underneath where the choker has his grip, which takes a lot of the pressure off, giving you the opportunity to scoot your but down a fraction and reach up with your other arm to push it against his elbow and release the head. This makes the whole sub fall apart and puts you in a good position to attack. I also found an interesting kimura variation from that escape that I couldn't even begin to describe without doing it again. We also drilled arm bar counters on the escape.


For the next sub Ian showed us the simple yet very effective Rear Mount to Arm Bar. A move I am very familiar with being as that it was my go to move from Rear Mount for ages. Until everyone started realising this and blocking the arm bar meaning I'd just given up my highly controlling position and ended up with my opponent in my guard. Anyway, from the start up position, your opponent is blocking out any collar control or your ability to cross his neck. With one of your under hook arms, reach up and grab the guy's shoulder (effectively securing his arm). You then lean out to that side, pushing on the side of his head with your other arm, and then bring your far leg out and over the top of his head and lean back, pulling the secured arm out straight for the arm bar. Brilliant technique, simple yet effective if you get it on an unsuspecting opponent. As I said before though, fail and you've lost position and may well look a bit of a pillock.


The last technique was a real peach. Ian's disco move of the day was a Rear Triangle/Armbar option from Rear Mount (with kick out). From the start up, you reach up to the shoulder as for the Rear Mount Arm Bar and the opponent decides to hit the ill-advised MMA escape where you drive back on his legs to flatten you on the floor. To counter this, you remove your foot hooks and put your feet under his legs in the crooks of his knees and kick out firing the guy back forward to the seated position with the additional bonus of his underhooked arm pulled right up toward you. Now you just need to wrap your leg (the one on the other side to his raised arm) over the shoulder and past his head and raised arm. You then escape you hip slightly to the other side and use the leg on that side to wrap around your first leg forming the triangle. If you've done this right but you're having trouble hitting the triangle the arm bar is right there too. In fact both are so easy to attain you actually find yourself accidentally hitting one when you're trying to drill the other.
Two very effective techniques and definitely my favourite techniques of the night. Me and Marcus drilled the hell out of these, I just hope I manage to retain the knowledge for when the adrenaline is pumping. I'd love to hit that move.


Rolling:

We didn't have loads of time at the end of the class for rolling but we still got a few in. I managed to roll with the more experienced guys in the class which is good. I don't mind showing the newer guys stuff but if feels good to let loose with some full sparring.

Rolled against Marcus first which was a back and forth affair starting with me in guard, then hit a sweep on him, passed to side, went to North South, Marcus pulled a pretty wicked escape out of the hat and swept me and we finished the round shortly after.

Next up was Dan Foster. Dan is a really good challenge for me and I'm loving rolling against him regularly as we are of comparable weight and level. I attacked straight from the start and managed to pull Dan's leg out and push him back forcing his to assume guard. I then attacked his guard managing to pass it ever so briefly to side control before he recovered. Eventually Dan got a sweep on me jumping on to mount, also very briefly, before I escaped to half guard. I was in the process of hitting a Half Guard sweep when the round ended. A good furious paced roll there. I look forward to our next.

After Dan I was up against Big Justin. What Justin gives up in technique he manages to make up for in pure power. I went straight into open guard and tried to set up various arm bar or omoplata attacks. I very nearly had a gogoplata on him (which would have been a first) but he muscled out of it. I was very pleased that Justin was attacking a lot too, trying to pass my guard constantly with out even trying his old tactic of trying to choke me from within my guard (it's never worked). Justin's game is improving loads and he was really trying some well thought out passes, all the while defending my sub attempts. I eventually hit a sweep on him to side control which he powered out of to get guard. I was then attacking his guard as the round played out.

Now my final roll of the night was against Ian and I was insistent on not getting tapped this time. Jumping straight to guard I first fought off some of Ian's pass attempts before I managed a hook sweep on him. As he went down he tried to get a cheeky little Achilles Ankle Lock on me but I leant forward to take the pressure off the hold and pulled out. I then tried to pass his guard with a few different passes without much joy before trying a feeble effort at my own Achilles. Ian easily broke out of this and nearly hit me with a scissor sweep before I was able to base out at the last second. We then went in to a kind of 50/50 position but with me standing. I could feel Ian reaching down for my leg to go for another Achilles attempt or a sweep of some kind and I had his leg secure so I decided to slap on an old school Toe Hold Ankle Lock (Ian is a Brown Belt after all so it's not really cheating). Ian tapped to this, making that the first time I've ever tapped Ian (or any Brown Belt) out. Result. I think I'll go in to hiding for a few weeks now until all this has blown over :o)

Anyway, as I said, brilliant lesson. A couple of great moves. Got to teach a move. Got a cheeky tap. And I went home and had a Caribbean Curry after (it was ok). What more can I guy ask for.

An image of purely coincidental relevance and importance.

 

\m/