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/