2 Man Gi Training - 2nd and 3rd July 2012

 
Back to lunchtime training with Marcus this week. For the Monday we basically covered a few spider guard techniques as a sort of follow on from the stuff Chico's been doing in his classes lately.


Marcus pulled some stuff off YouTube for the Spider Guard from a Caio Terra demo vid (although Ciao doesn't seem to actually teach any of the techniques in the vid)

We did the first two techniques in the video. I loved the sweep from leg lasso fake. Very good and I very nearly hit it in sparring a short while after learning it. When Marcus blocked it I also nearly hit the arm bar. Both good techniques. The other stuff we did was recapping some of the Spider Guard stuff shown by Chico last week. We then had a very healthy long rolling session. Totally knackered after. For the Tuesday session we managed to cover a lot more stuff. Mainly because Marcus came a bit more prepared. It was my anniversary the night before so I had absolutely no chance to look anything up so my input was minimal. We kicked things off with a couple of alternate methods to finish the Bow and Arrow Choke. Basically if you're trying to get the leg over his shoulder to put the pressure on and he keeps dropping the shoulder, your leg will slide right off. In this situation you can escape your hips out a fraction (not enough to lose the grip) and use the knee of that leg to push against the near side of his head to apply the pressure for finishing the choke. The other is very similar but instead of using the knee you turn the leg to point inside and use the shin. Both cool variations. Next up was an Ezekial to the back of an opponent. You have full seated rear mount on the opponent and one of your arms has snaked around his neck but he is refusing to let you get your other arm over for the RNC. Instead you can reach under and up behind his head but while doing so catch your gi sleeve with the fingers of your choking arm. If you then push forward with both arms whilst leaning back with your body you get a really cool choke. Nice move. We followed that up with a double underhook pass counter to triangle. Now that's a lot to say in one name and doesn't really convey the move very well. What's basically happening is your opponent has you with both your legs around hi head and his arms around them preparing for a double underhook pass. What you need to do is pull yourself away from him and tuck your feet under and in between his legs so you can lean up and take a hold of his belt at his lower back with one hand. You can then use your other arm to tuck under his same side arm and start to pry it up slightly as if to remove his underhook. Then with some speed you can open your leg on that side and the guys arm will pop up through and you are able to quickly pass that leg over his back and hit the triangle choke. Very nice move and I have to say quite useful as I always find myself in that sort of position so it will give me another good option. Next up was a move we had played a little bit with the day before but really had a go at on the Tuesday. The Hell Choke to turtled opponent is where you have rear side mount on a turtled opponent and you reach in nearside(in between shoulder and head) to grab the guy's opposite side lapel with your head that is nearer his head. You can then Very quickly stand and pass your far leg ( the one furthest from his head) over the guys back and around to over his head and fall backwards. This places a fantastic amount of pressure on the guys neck and will usually gain a very quick tap. Amazing move. I will be trying to hit this very soon :oD We also did a load of chokes from side control and rear side using your own lapel but I will have to save the writing up of them for another day as it's getting late and the moves are awesome enough to require their own log entry.

I've got Ian's class tomorrow evening at Sweat FA and I'm pretty pumped for it. Can't wait. ¬m/

Checkmat - Bristol Combat Legion 26/6/12

I didn't have any lunchtime training sessions with Marcus this week as he's had a virus so I was really looking forward to Tuesday night's class at Bristol Combat Legion. And it was another blazing hot session under Chico Mendes on the top floor of the LA Gym. I'm thinking that my alcohol binge last week has taken a bit out of my cardio and my ability to cool myself down. I kid you not I was sweating my life away during the second half of Tuesday night's class and I felt so weak I think even my dear old Nan could've tapped me out (she throws up a mean triangle choke does Nanny :oD). Even so we worked on something that I haven't really worked much on before so it was still a rockin' experience.

Venue: Bristol Combat Legion, LA Gym, Bristol, Uk
Instructor: Chico Mendes - Checkmat (Grade 2 Black Belt)


Warm Up:
For the Warm up we did laps of the with knee ups, butt kicks, facing in for a couple of laps, facing out for a couple of laps, two steps facing in/two steps facing out for a couple of laps, touching the mat for a couple of laps.

After that Chico had us practice our stand up stances for a Bjj competition match. Chico says it is best to concentrate most of your weight on your back as this with defending takedowns as well as with your manoeuvrability. He also advises that you should use the same side arm as your forward leg for your collar/head/shoulder gripping arm to avoid any disastrous counters from the opponent. So we practised moving about in stance, forward - backward, side to side, all the while offering the correct hands and legs with weight distributed correctly.

Once done with that Chico ran us through some Spider Guard tactics and a couple of sweeps. Chico says the key to a good Spider Guard is to have you feet in the opponents elbow crooks with a good grip on his cuffs. Try no to start or default to legs extended, try to have your legs bent with feet pushing out into the elbow crooks so the opponent is relatively close to you and under your control. When the guy tries to pass to one side, extend you leg on the other side. Don't be to tempted to extend the leg on the side he's trying to pass as he then knows the full extent of your range and can also just pull the leg up and spin past. With the other leg extended you're dragging half his body back to position, you just need to shift your hips and re-angle your body to return to your starting position.

Chico also showed us a few sweeps from Spider Guard. One I remember was where the opponent is trying to pass and you've extended the opposite side leg. You then bring your unextended leg and push it against the opponent's opposite side leg (so you've now got a leg in his elbow crook and a leg on his lower leg, all on the same side) and with your spare hand you reach under his free leg and us a combination of the holds to sweep the opponents over you and over on to his back. This was the sweep that I found the easiest.


Another was where the opponent has raised one leg against your rear to try and make space. You extend your leg that is pushing out the other side of his body and lean forward and grab the back of the leg he has pushed against you. You can then lean forward into him while pulling the leg to tip him over and come up into top control.

There was also another sweep but I cannot remember the details. I've been trawling footage on YouTube but nothing seems to ring any bells.

The next part of the session involved us situationally sparring with a partner from Spider Guard. We were first off just trying out our Spider Guard positioning but were progressed on to sweeping and passing.  I was already pretty hanging by this point in the session.

I rolled this section with many opponents. The ones I can remember are Justin, Kamil, Andy and Sam. We then went on to practising turtle-ing up from from this position. Chico made a rule that if anyone gets their guard passed to side control, the whole class does 20 push ups.

The logic behind this is that if someone is passing your guard in competition but you give up the back into turtle (make sure they don't get hooks in!!) the opponent will get and advantage. If you then try to regain your position and accidentally give up side control, they don't get the points for it as they haven't passed your guard. I never knew that. Great bit of knowledge there. Anyway, it was at this point that I ended up with Ronan (the Man Mountain) Fleming in front of me. I was already totalling shagged and I had to try and resist this giant. I failed. Quickly and impressively. I was the reason that everyone had to do 20 push ups (except Ronan who was exempt being the passer). I would've been embarrassed if not for the fact that I'd managed to sweat ever emotion out of my body by this point.

We were then moved on to a situational roll starting from stand up and going for takedowns. I was against Tom "Egg" Kocur for this and it must've been the easiest thing he'd done that night. My most effective weapon at that point was the ability to fall on Tom. I think he impressively took me down 3 times and for that I can only apologise to Tom for not supplying him with a very tough challenge.

I finished up with a light situational roll against Judo Andy but as both of us were dying we didn't really achieve anything. The whole night was a very unimpressive performance from me really. I am going to have to take away some hard learnt lessons here. These are:

1/. Bristol Combat Legion Gym is Hot, Hot, Hot and unless I'm prepared for grappling in high heat I am not going to get anywhere.

2/. A whole week on the lager (on school nights too, thanks Euro 2012) has wreaked havoc on my cardio.

3/. My body really gases out very badly when the above combination come together leaving me about as much use as a grappling dummy.

4/. Chico finds this funny.

I am seriously gonna have to work on the main two problem, firstly, my cardio - back to running nightly and hitting the interval training in the gym- and secondly I need to drink more water or preferably Performance Sports Drinks during the day as my body is seriously overheating and I could also do with regularly working out at higher temperature to acclimatise my body to the heat. Doing all this will help me out with training at Bristol Combat Legion and possibly stop Chico from taking the piss out of me while I'm trying to die in the corner. Now that's gotta be worth any kind of hardship.

On the plus side, Big Justin, whose been training loads with us at Ian's and Chico's recently is improving loads and even tried his hands with a couple of rolls No-Gi toward the end of the sesh as there were a couple of guys without opponents so Justin was more than willing to step up to the plate. He didn't do badly either. Fair play to him, it's always good to see newer guys kindling their own Bjj Obsessions.

Now I've got to wait for Monday (hopefully, if Marcus is better by then) for my next does of Bjj-ness. I hate long gaps in training. ¬m/

DV8 Academia de Jiu Jitsu 21/6/12

Great numbers again for Ian's class. This is becoming quite common place now (touches wood) as we seem to have quite a committed group of guys coming along. Great times for this club really.

Venue: Sweat FA, Weston Super Mare, Uk.

Instructor: Ian Rossiter

Ian wasn't feeling his best Thursday as he'd been a bit under the weather for the previous two days so I stepped in to take the warm up.

Warm Up:

I didn't really deviate (no pun intended) from Ian's usual warm up model too much. We started with   laps of the mat, including, ass kicks, knee ups, facing inward for a lap, facing out for a lap. Neck, Arm and Shoulder stretching. Push ups 10x4, Squats 10x 4,  Crunches 10 x 4. I did add in some hip escaping and triangles and then we did some leg stretching.


Ian's first technique was a closed guard transition to back (not the same one Marcus and I did Tuesday though). Start with the opponent in your closed guard then you reach under one of his arms and pull the guy in toward you with your legs whilst reaching around the other side of him with your other arm (but over the shoulder) and locking your handsto pull him in close and break his posture down. Keeping this hold you hip escape out to the over hooked side and then release your arms and pressure his neck with your nearside forearm. You can now angle yourself up putting his nearside (trapped) arm at an uncomfortable position, then swim your arm under that arm and shrug hard to duck under it and come up around to take the back.
I drilled this with Marcus.


Next move was a Butterfly Sweep. From sitting up Butterfly Guard you secure one of the opponents arms under your same side arm and hold it in close. You can then under hook the other arm or even just hold him on the outside of that arm using the gi. From there you just lean off and to the side (on the trapped arm side) and kick up with your other side leg, flipping the guy over onto his back with you coming over into mount.
This is a very cool sweep that I used to have a hell of a time with (during my early white belt years I just couldn't understand it). The reason was that as I white belt I used to do all my guard work flat on my back. As soon as you realise you should be sitting up for this it becomes obvious and easy. I started the drilling of this move with Chris Hardaway, a guy who is considerably lighter than me, but we changed around to try using the move against different sized guys and I ended up with Big Steve (who outweighs me by about 3 stone). And amazingly the move was still just as easy. With the right technique you should be able to hit it against anyone (within reason).



Then next move of the session was an Arm Bar from Butterfly Guard. Which I can't seem to remember the mechanics of. D'oh. That'll teach me for doing a half assed notes session afterward in favour of getting pissed with the missus. I shall discuss this with Ian and edit after.


The final move was a Buttefly Guard Pass. The opponent has his Butterfly Hooks in and is going for the sweep above. You resist this by bringing your leg on the side he would be kicking out with up so your foot is flat to the ground and pressing your knee into the opponents outside leg. From there you just need to grab the guy around the back with your hand on the side you're passing and use the other to hold his leg so he can't move away to reset position. You can then bring your other leg out and around while pushing down with the knee that's holding his leg at bay and you easily pass to side control.
I was drilling this move with Steve too.


Rolling:

I rolled first against Steve who I have been able to gain position on well recently. No I've stopped just sitting back from the start and trying to sweep him I've found myself gaining top control quite frequently. This time I went for the arm drag but Steve resisted so I pulled him off to one side, brought a leg under and reached under his leg and swept him pretty quickly. I then spent a while in mount, attacking him with various different chokes and arm bar attempts. I was eventually able to get an Arm Bar on him.


Next up was Rich Presley who I pulled guard on then managed to tap quite early using an Achilles Lock. After a restart we had a bit more of a back and forth guard play game. Trading sweeps.


I then had a pretty high paced roll with Dan Foster who I pulled guard on then got a sweep on and then spent the rest of the round trying to pass his guard whilst avoiding his Triangle attempts. I managed to pass to half guard at one point to which he recovered and he got a near miss sweep on me which I recovered. Other than that there was a lot grip fighting and jostling for position.


Next up was new guy Cameron so I spent some time trying to show him some stuff. Can't remember what. I just don't want to spar hard with him at the moment as he's not got enough of the basics down yet so I feel the time would be better spent showing him a few things.


Last up was Marcus which was another good back and forth affair with neither of us really gaining an upper hand. We know each others favoured moves so well by now that I find myself chuckling every time he goes for something like a wrist lock or one of his trusty cross chokes as I know it's coming and am already blocking it straight from the off. I like rolling with Marcus the most as it encourages me to try stuff outside of my usual comfort zone as he knows and counters my usual bag of tricks.

Another good week of Bjj done and now I'm left waiting for Monday to start all over again. I don't think I've ever had a hobby/obsession I've ever been more committed too and excited about in my life. Times are good. ¬m/

2 Man Training - No Gi - 19-6-12

I am way behind with these entries at the mo' as I've had one busy week. It's Saturday night and I'm relaxing with a few lagers after a long day travelling and seeing relatives so I'm going to take this opportunity to write up what I did lunch time Tuesday with Marcus at our No Gi session on that mats at Sweat FA.

Marcus did the techniques for this session and we started with a closed guard move shown to him by Chico Mendes at the Checkmat class the Friday before. He was shown this move in the gi but realised it translates well to no gi. Start with the opponent in you closed guard and overhook one of his arms with your same side arm. Then reach down with your other hand and underhook his knee (on the other side of the body to the trapped arm) and pull on it while you lean to the trapped arm side. This pulls off a nifty sweep that you don't even have to open your guard for until the very last moment. Once on top in mount, you still have the secured arm so you can easily switch angles to hit a very tight arm bar.


The next move was a counter to the knee up ass guard break and pass that is heavily favoured by a lot of guys. You have your closed guard on. The opponent drives the knee against your butt for pressure and brings his other leg out to the side to start the sit back for the guard break. What you need to do is shrimp your hips away from from the leg that he has raised off to the side to relieve the pressure, then grab his near side arm, reach down with your other hand and under hook at his leg and swing your legs over away from his based out leg (once again you do not need to open your guard for this until the last moment). You should land nicely in mount for the attack.


Next up was a over head flip sweep from butterfly guard and as I managed to find a perfectly good video of this there is no need for me to explain it. Video is from YouTube courtesy of TheMDBJJ. (Many thanks).

It's a perfectly good sweep and doesn't require the use of a gi to hit as long as you have good underhooks.


For the next bit we recapped the Jason Scully Half Guard stuff from the day before (see previous day blog) which are also perfectly good to use in No Gi.


Marcus was also keen to show me another trick Chico had shown at Friday's class. The technique is a pretty slick way of getting to back from closed guard. Your opponent is in your closed guard trying to break your guard with using the cheap elbow to the inside thigh method. You use both hands to grab one of his arms around the back and yank it out and over, trapping it in position with one of your hands while you shrimp out to the side where the arm now isn't. Then, maintaining closed guard, you shrimp away by shifting your hips which pulls the opponent out a bit flatter allowing you to easily come out around and take the back. Nice simple technique.


The last few things we tried involved the set up we use for the first technique with the closed guard and overhook. All we did was work on options from here to hit a Triangle, an Omoplata and a Gogoplata. The Gogo was particularly slick. These are all pretty straight forward to hit so there isn't really a need for me to explain.


We finished up with a load of rolling as usual. Marcus is still being stubborn about not let me hit a Gogoplata on him. I think I must have had about 3 near misses. One day it will be mine, MWAHAHAHAHA.

Anyway, I've now gotta write up Thursday's lesson so I can't hang around here being weird. Laters. ¬m/

Two Man Gi Training - 18/6/12

One again Me and Marcus hit the mats for a bit of training Monday lunchtime. We hit up a bit more of the Jason Scully Half Guard Bottom vid. I have really been ranting on a bit about his videos but I think he's really hit onto something by pouring as many techniques from a single position into a 7 minute-ish vid and letting the watcher work out the rest themselves. It's like have a specialised book in video form. If you take the time you can catalogue the moves he's doing and work out a small session using just 30 seconds of his vid. I cannot recommend these films enough.

Here is the video just to refresh you on what I'm ranting on about.

We started off this time at about 2:34 on the clip doing a Half Guard to Rolling Triangle. The guy is attack your half guard trying to pass. You've ended up bringing your free leg up to block him against his torso whilst your trapping leg is still between his legs. He makes the mistake of bringing his arm to overhook your top leg then drive the arm up between your upper legs. You then secure that arm in position between your legs and bring your trapping leg up and out (effectively releasing half guard). You bring that leg out the side where your butt is pointing and do a sort of forward/sideways roll bringing that freed leg over his head and around his neck to close the triangle on him. This technique lends itself to getting a near perfect position for the triangle. I found myself not actually having to work too hard as the position was naturally there.

The second one, at 2:42, was the Hallf Guard to Rolling Omoplata. Exactly the same setup as above but instead of rolling forwards/sideways you just roll forward, bringing you up in an amazing and super sweet looking Omoplata finish. These are two super disco looking moves that I'm fairly sure I will be trying to attain for some time.

The third and final technique we tried from the Jason Scully vid was another Omoplata. Once again from the above setup with the arm between you legs but this time you overhook the arm (he has stuffed up between your legs) right at the arm pit and pull while you drive your leg forward and through. Now all you need to do is pull the leg over and tuck it under the opponent's chin and then move around into Omoplata position. This is by fair the simpler variant of the three and we also found it lends itself to a fantastic tight Gogoplata. Nice move.

We moved on from Half Guard for a bit of variety and stole a move from Ciao Terra.

I really enjoyed this little variation on the Side Control/S Mount Armlock. I am always finding myself in this position so to find a little gem like this was a pretty good.

The last move I can remember from the Monday sesh was a Ricardo Almeida Gogoplata/Armlock from Mount. 

This is a lovely little move and if I can ever pull it off I will be over the moon. In fact I'm on a bit of a major crusade to pull off a Gogoplata against a resisting opponent at the moment. I've had so many near misses but still not actually got there. It'll come one day. I've just got to remember that I need one of my opponents arms very securely wrapped up before I can even attempt the Gogaplata or it's too easy for him to move.

We chucked a bit of rolling in at the end but were constrained for time so only had about 25 minutes. I'm still pretty impressed with how my rolling cardio is coming along.

In all a great (if quite short) little session Monday. I'll post the Tuesday No- Gi session as soon as I can type it up. I seem to have a recurring alcohol indulgence problem at the moment as there has just been an enormous development in my Wife's life that has given us reason to celebrate so typing up these blog entries has come a bit late. The alternative is to do it a bit pissed which is not a good idea.

Catcha later ¬m/ 

Lucas Leite

We've just heard the news today from our fantastic instructor, Chico Mendes, that he has managed to convince multi time World Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Champion, Lucas Leite to come and do a seminar for us out here in the West Country. I cannot emphasize how massive this is. Lucas Leite is phenomenal. Your Bjj game will instantly improve just by being in the same room as him. I fully expect to be amazing after one session under his awesome tutelage.

Lucas Leite's credentials include:

2x World Champion (2007, 2005)
2x World Nogi Champion (2009, 2011)
3x Pan American Champion (2012, 2009, 2007)
3x Grapplers Quest Pro Division 1st Place (Del Mar 2009, 2007)
Sao Paulo State Champion (2006)
European Champion (2006)
World Silver Medallist (2011)
World Pro Cup Silver Medallist (2012)
Pan American Silver Medallist (2011)
World Bronze Medallist (2012)

 

And here's a pretty cool highlight vid of Lucas in action.

 He is well recognised as being one of the best practitioners of the Half Guard in the world and given my current leanings towards learning Half Guard I think this could well be one of the most useful seminars I've attended (trusting he goes with Half Guard as his subject). Can't wait. ¬m/

Checkmat Bjj - 12/6/12

To finish off a quality 2 days of training I attended Chico Mendes' Bjj class in Bristol's LA Gym, Tuesday evening. I have to confess to being a bit knackered and achy going into the class, after mine and Marcus' hammering No Gi sesh earlier in the day it's not really a surprise.

Venue: Bristol Combat Legion, LA Gym, Bristol, Uk
Instructor: Chico Mendes - Checkmat (Grade 2 Black Belt)



As is the norm for us we arrived a little late so we were getting changed while the rest of the guys were doing the warm up. From where I joined in we did laps of the mat with knee ups, butt kicks and mat touches.  Hips escapes for 2 lengths then we partnered up and did a length of mat in wheel barrow each, ending with 20 Push ups, then we carried our partners 1 length each, then carried backward 1 length each. I was with some MMA dude for this who seemed about my size. Didn't think it would be fair to team with Marcus on that one. Hehehe.



Techniques:
Chico started us off with  the fairly basic Closed Guard Hip Bump Sweep. Your opponent is kneeling in your closed guard. Chico demo'd this with a guy trying to break closed guard using his elbows on against the inside leg whilst holding his belt. Chico first dummies one way, as if to attack the arm on one side, then throws himself the other way. He opens his guard but ensures his knees are clenched together to control the opponent, then, picking a side, he bases out with his arm on that same side then throws his other side arm up and over the guys head and shoulder and grabs the guys arms at the triceps on the selected side and then hip bumps and pulls the guy over. You flip the opponent easily over so you have him mounted and in a great position for attacking.
I drilled all the techniques that night with Marcus as both of us were a bit knackered so we went a bit easier on each other.


The next move was the Closed Guard Kimura. Chico just showed us this as an option off the blocked Hip Bump Sweep. As you're hitting with the hip bump the opponents uses the arm you are grabbing to base out on the mat so as to block the sweep. Using the arm you had based out with, grab HIS basing arm at the wrist and release the triceps with your other hand and reach further over and inside the arm to grab your own wrist. Then bend the opponents arm up and back using the superior strength afforded you by the double grip and move yourself out to the side so you are perpendicular to him. For additional pressure on the hold, when you bring the guys arm up high, pull your supporting arm (the one that is reaching around and grabbing the your other wrist) in tight against the opponents shoulder.
Very painful. I'm still feeling tight now and that's two days after.



Next up was a Closed Guard Flower Sweep variation. An old favourite of mine, Chico's version worked for when you opponent is grabbing your lapel high on one side. You grab the cuff of the high arm with a pistol style grip and reach down to the guys other side leg and grab a hand of gi pant around the lower leg. Then, open the guard but as before, keep the legs clenched at the knees and swing the guy over by pulling up on the guys leg and raising your same side leg slightly (whilst keeping it tight) and dropping the other side leg slightly (also keeping it tight) to sweep him over on to his back, once again mounted for a great attacking position.
It struck me during the drilling of this move, that I haven't used move in ages and I think that's because I nearly never use closed guard any more. Weird that my old go to moves have been left behind since I've been trying to evolve my game.



The last move we were shown I have just spent the best part of  10 minutes trying to remember as I was quite shagged by that time and my head wouldn't have been working at a hundred percent. Stupidly, the only notes I left for myself on this was "Closed Guard Foot Out Sweep and Arm Bar" which was particularly useless and left me racking my brain in the effort to conjure up what the hell it was.
Starting off in closed guard, you've grabbed the opponent's wrist at your lapel, as for the flower sweep, so the opponent bases his leg up on the other side as if to try for a guard break. From there you "chop up" with your arm, under the opponent's leg preferably as low as possible to knock the guy off his base and bring his leg up so his foot is near your head. You bend your arm at the elbow and keep you arm raised above your head, so his leg is secured and stretched out next to you. From there you can hit and arm bar if you manage to keep the guys arm stretched out. The point of the move was for the sweeps though. You need to gage which way the opponent is resting his weight so you can sweep him with his over balance. You sweep him the same way as the side of the arm you've grabbed by twisting your legs that way and leaning forward and to that side, lifting the leg as you go. To go the other way you quickly grab the opponents other arm and twisting your legs toward that direction and sit forward, this time holding the leg out of the way.
We were trying those moves for quite a while before Chico called time for some rolling,



Rolling:
I can not remember much at all about the rolling except for who I rolled with and some very vague details. Oh and that it was 6 minute rounds.

I rolled with Marcus first and as we were both knackered it was just a very sloppy back and forth affair.

Next I rolled with Jase BrookSbank in a very good roll where I remember hitting a semi decent half guard sweep. I also took his back at one point but he shook it off quite easily. It ended with me in his half guard trying to pass or hit a kimura, until Jase at the very end (and with some advice from Ronan) got a pretty sweet sweep.


The next was Judo Andy (as I've taken to calling him, even though I am unsure his name is Andy and he hasn't done Judo in many years), a very strong and advanced white belt with a tight holding game. I was really feeling the pain by this time so I just jumped guard and attempted to sloppily throw up subs against him whilst fending his attempts at passing. I have become reasonably proficient at using my legs and arms to block out attempts at passing my open guard and just rolling away from the pass. This was frustrating Andy somewhat, who was trying to grab both my legs and then throw them out of the way to jump past. This was fended off easily and I even threw in a couple of choke attempts (pace, cross and even a gogoplata). That was pretty much the roll.


Next up I went against a girl called Leigh, who is relatively new to Bjj and is focused more on MMA so she only really grapples no gi. As she isn't very experienced at all I mainly just showed her how to break a closed guard, how to pass guard, how to escape mount and a half guard sweep. Just some functional stuff she could use, instead of just smashing her up and destroying her confidence.


Last roll was against Rich long and it was pretty much identical to the Andy roll. I basically did the guard defence bit and various sub attempts, with absolutely no sweeping attempts. I was even managing to do the turtle-ing up and inverting stuff to defend the guard pass. I'm particularly chuffed with the turtle as it's never really been part of my game before but it's coming along nicely. I was close to a gogoplata at one point (I WILL hit that move one day) but Rich defended it well. Rich managed to pass to my half guard at one point to which I rolled him over using a kimura sweep, which he defended and then rolled me back over using a similar sweep before I recovered guard which is where we ended. A really good roll with Rich there.

A great class there from Chico with a good, yet sloppy (on my side), rolling session at the end. And I also got a couple of good Jiu Jitsu T-Shirts while I was there. One I had pre-ordered through Ian, from Tatami and the other was the new Bristol Combat Legion/ Checkmat T, which is awesome ¬m/