DV8 3/1/13

Holy shit! Thought I'd posted this last week but just looked on my log board to see it was still in draft format. Bugger! Ah well, here it is.


I have had a shit hot Christmas Time and, as is the norm for me, an over indulgent holiday period. I have probably eaten my body weight in Chocolate, biscuits and cakes and imbibed an incredible amount of alcohol. Consequentially, I have put on quite a bit of weight since my beginning of December weigh in of 13st 2lb. As of Thursday morning I was a scale busting 14st 4lb. Ouch.

So for a new year I need to hit the diet and work out hard if I'm to make the 13st 7lb I need to be to weigh in for the next Hereford Open in Feb. That meant straight back to the gym for lunch time work outs this week. A bit of interval cross training and some weights. And of course back to Thursday nights at DV8 Bjj.

It was truly brilliant being back to training after a couple of weeks lay off, even though we didn't really have a massive turn out. Seemed like there were still quite a few guys celebrating new year or something as it was a pretty flimsy turn out of regulars along with two new guys.

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


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

After the usual brief warm up we got down to business. We started off pretty basic as we had the two new guys so Ian kicked us off with a Scissor sweep from guard. This was the very first sweep I ever learned back in the old days down at Burnham. With your opponent in your closed guard you grab his right arm sleeve at the elbow with your left hand and grab his left collar with your right. Opening your guard you shift your butt out to the right side so that you are lying partially on your side, bringing you right leg up so the shin is pushed into his chest/left ribcage and dropping your left leg down flat to the mat next to his right leg. Using your grips to "steer" him over to his right you scissor your legs, kicking out with your right leg while drawing your left leg back. Your opponent will flip over onto their back with you coming up into mount.
This technique has taken me quite a lot of training over my first year of bjj to get good at. I think it was because I used to be a bit heavier but I was never really good at the shifting hips to the side bit. Now it's second nature, dropping out into position to hit the move quickly against a weary opponent. This is a move that you definitely get better at with years of drilling and practice.



The next technique lead on from from the first. You've just swept the opponent over into mount and you still have hold of his right sleeve at the elbow. You push the opponent's right arm across his face and then lean on it to keep it in position with your right shoulder. You then pass your right arm behind his head so your hand comes out from behind his head in front of your face. You then grab your right hand with your left hand and close the arm tight to increase pressure. To finish the move you then bring your right leg over the guy (giving up mount) so your legs are both stretched out to his right side and you are lying flat on the mat.
That in itself is not a fool proof version of the head and arm triangle but it helps to get the positioning right. Taking the technique back to the point where you've passed the arm under the head and grabbed the hand. To improve the technique you use that grip to pull the arm further under the guy's head, closing off the space. This time you tuck your right hand into the crook of your left arm and then cup the back of your head with your left hand. Finish the move in the same way, stepping over and laying out flat. That version of the head and arm triangle will deliver a tap a hell of a lot quicker.

The next technique Ian let me show as it's an old one of my favourites. I still hit this one from time to time but it used to be my go to move from top control. As I've previously explained this one as a favourite technique I figured I'd just link the old blog post here.





Rolling.


I sparred first with Sean Errock, an athletic young lad whose been training a lot of no-gi with Steve Keen's MMA class and does the Gi class occasionally. He's got some very good wrestling ability because of this and I think if he really applied himself he'd become a very polished Bjj practitioner. In our roll with started off with a lot of grip fighting and jockeying for position. I managed to over balance him toward me first then take him down into mount. I quickly dispatched him from there with an Ezekiel choke which is fairly ironic.After the restart however, he came back very strong and got a damn good arm drag on me, forcing me to turtle. The round ended there with him trying to get my back properly. As I said, he's got a lot of potential.


Next up was a round against Rich Presley which was one of our usual back and forth affairs with both of us having some guard time and some top game. Neither of us threatened any kind of sub though but it was a good technical roll.


My next opponent was Chris Cook who is getting better every week and skinnier every time I see him. Training for the marines he's become a bit of a cardio machine and, as I was pretty much hanging out of my proverbial by the time we rolled, it was a lot tougher than it should of been. I controlled most of the play but at one point Chris pulled off a good guard pass and attacked from side control for a bit so there's definitely some improvement there.


My last roll of the night was with Dan Foster who was on a bit of a mission to say the least. He was trying to blast past my guard with a vengeance and by this point in the night it was all I could do to hold on to him. Dan managed to pass guard and got mount at one point before I was able to upa him on and attack his guard. I got close to a pass of my own before he pushed away and got back to his knees so we were reset. After that he bowled me over with another takedown with me just able to get a weak half guard in there. He nearly passed this twice before I was able to drop my shoulder under his raised off side leg and take deep half (I was chuffed with that as I rarely get to use deep half). From there I was in the process of popping out the back and trying to take his back when the round ended. I was well and truly done in by this time.

It was a great first session back. I just hope more guys turn up next week as the new guys stick around.  ¬m/

Weston Bjj 26-4-12

We had reasonable numbers for Ian's class again this week and the dojo at Sweat FA in Weston has been done out with new mats so the place absolutely stank of chemicals or glue or something. Everyone in attendance was feeling relatively high after being in there for a couple of minutes (it's all good). And because of the super slippy-ness of the new mats, everyone's hip escapes were amazing. Even tubby gits like me were hip escaping like Rickson Gracie, keeping position on people was a lesson in control by itself.

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 10x3, Squats 10x 3,  Crunches 10 x 3, then some leg stretching.


Techniques:
Ian started us off with the very first sweep I ever learned off him. The Scissor Sweep. I must confess that I don't use this sweep very often. I see lots of guys using it but it's just not one of my favourites. Starting with your opponent in your closed guard you grab a hold of his gi at the elbow or triceps on one side and at the collar on the other side. Then,opening your guard, hip escape to the side you have the collar grip, leaving your far side leg flat to the ground next to his leg, while pulling the near side leg up to push against the opponent at the torso (Ian prefers it to go diagonally up across his body). To finish the sweep you steer the opponent sideways toward the side where you have the triceps grip whilst simultaneously 'scissoring' your legs to sweep the guys base out from underneath him and flip him over on to his back.
I was drilling all of the nights moves with Dan Foster. This one being an old move was fairly straight forward and both of us knew it well anyway.


Next technique Ian showed was a variation on the first. Same set-up as before but this time, when trying to turn the opponent over, he bases out well with his far side leg. To counter this, just bring the sweeping leg up and press your foot against his basing out leg. Then just push hard on that leg to knock the base out and continue the flip over the same as before.

We then drilled the above two sweeps in continuous motion by having the opponent Upa escape out of the mount back to guard. We did 4 turns each then swapped. Did this for a couple of sets.


The next move was a technique I'd not seen before. Starting from closed guard, reach up with one hand and secure the same side collar of the opponent using a pistol grip. Now, bait your opponent into trying to pass guard on that side of your body by dropping the leg a bit. Let him pass one leg over but clamp his second leg in (effectively going into half guard). Whilst the passing was going on you should be using your other hand to grab his other collar using and inverted grip (upside down pistol grip, so fingers are in). Now, moving your far side shoulder in toward your opponent, you can bring the inverted hand collar under the opponent's chin and then pull up the other side of his face to start applying the choke. Sometimes this will be enough to get the tap but if the opponent can resist this you just need to bring your far side leg up and over the top of the opponents head to pressure down on him making the choke much tighter. A real eye popper.
Me and Dan both really liked this choke once we'd got the hang of it.


The next technique was a variation of the above. Same movements up until the point that you're applying the choke. This time though, the opponent has managed to get his near side arm in between the choking arm and the leg that comes up, taking the pressure off the move. From here, you just simultaneously shift your hips out to bring the inside leg up to rest against their ribcage while securing the blocking arm to your chest. You can then extend your legs for the arm bar finish.
Nice and flash.
Funnily enough, me and Dan had been trying to work on how you could change it into an arm bar just before Ian demo'd the technique. Works really well.


We then worked on blocking cross chokes as Rich had requested it. Standard block of pushing the elbow of the top arm of the cross choke a little bit further across so you can bring the other hand up in between his cross choke and rest that hand against the top of your head (not on the lower part of your face or a strong opponent could break your fingers). This totally defuses the pressure of the hold.
We drilled this for a bit.


We started on another gi choke technique then but I can't remember the details as I didn't get a chance to drill it. We stopped to roll soon after the demo.

Rolling:
We had a nice long rolling session in this class. I went against Dan first. I started by pulling guard and we spent a good couple of minutes with Dan trying to pass my guard and me doing everything I could to not let that happen, occasionally I would threaten a sweep by grabbing a leg too but Dan was really energetic in his pass attempts and didn't give me a lot of time to work anything. I eventually managed to wrap a leg under and around his leg and swept him down into 50/50 guard and then came up into his guard. Dan then threw up and triangle attempt which he turned into an arm bar attempt. The round played out with me desperately blocking his arm bar attempt. He was VERY close to hitting it but I was twisting my arm to stop the pressure being put on.


My next opponent was Rich Presley and I was happy once again to jump guard. This time though I baited Rich to pass over my leg into half guard and then wrapped my untrapped leg over his back behind and around his head and grabbed the leg on the other side of his head with my outside arm. I then passed that arm under his chin and pulled the leg tight while pushing the arm up into his throat for the choke. I was chuffed to get the tap from this as it's the same Pace Choke technique that Me and Marcus had been drilling on Tuesday. Although the proper way to finish it is to extend the leg so the arm closes tight across the throat. Ah well, I'll work on that. Great move though. The rest of the round played out with guard play and a bit of side control on both parts.


My next opponent was a new guy called Steve. As Steve didn't really know what to do I didn't really spar with him, I just showed him a couple of methods of passing guard and let him use them on me. I showed him the knee up ass, extend legs guard break with the smash pass and also the knee over then rear leg over pass. He seemed very appreciative of this.


Chris Whiting was next. Chris is a strong but not very experienced white belt. Once again I pulled guard (couldn't be bothered to wrestle for position that night) and tried for various sweeps and other moves under Chris' vigorous guard attack. I eventually shot my legs up and turned him over for an arm bar. Chris took a breather for a sec and then we were just restarting when the time buzzer went.


The next guy I sparred with was Rob (still don't know his surname) who after starting from guard I managed to tap ridiculously easily with an arm bar. I didn't realise Rob was as new as his skills as he appeared. So instead on carrying on rolling from knee to knee I let him first of start in side control which I found escaping quite easy (probably down to the super slippy new mats) and then gave him tips on side control pressure. I then let Rob start in mount, a decision which I nearly regretted as Rob went straight for the throat, literally, as he latched on a very tight cross choke from mount. His arms were particularly strong on this and it took a lot of strength for me to perform the choke block that we were drilling earlier. I was able to Upa out of the mount though and the round ended.


Last opponent was Marcus, who I managed to sweep but landed in his half guard. From there a bit of arm wrestling lead to me hitting a straight arm bar on him. The round played out shortly after that.


That was the end to another wicked Bjj lesson. I can only say I am loving this Martial Art and Sport more and more as my time in it passes. I have some ideas on things I won't to improve on which I will talk about in upcoming posts. And I'm developing a small list of techniques I really want to hit. I'll probably be doing a bit more training on Monday and Tuesday lunch with Marcus too. We're thinking of doing a No-Gi session on Monday which'll be cool. \m/