Sweeps are sweet!

Dante's class.

I was running a bit late, as a meeting at work took longer than expected. After which, I needed to pick my daughter up at school, grab a quick bite at home, before going to class. I don't like being late at anything, if I can help it. I always try to come at least 30 minutes early to class so I could leisurely get myself prepared and catch up with the guys before it gets too busy. No one could beat Elliott, though. Personally, I think he sleeps in the gym and only pretends to leave at the end of the classes...

I was really knackered. My work can be really mentally draining, and I have missed classes before due to work commitments. But then I remembered what Gerry said the other day, "Better be knackered at class, than be knackered at home." So here I am.

Nice to see familiar faces back in training - John, who had a whale of a time being Derren Brown's audience assistant (!!!) and Jack, who came to train yesterday, albeit still nursing an injured shoulder. We were asking around where Keith was, as it was very odd not to see him in class. We found out later that he was stuck at work, getting really pissed for not having the other half of his weekly dose of BJJ.

After the warm up and leg stretches that I think only Dante can do (amazing flexibility for his age), he then proceeded to teach variations of gaining positional dominance starting from bottom guard. Dante counts them as four sweep variations but I think (with all due respect) that there were only two - the other two were adaptive counter techniques in case the first two did not work.

These techniques are best employed if your opponent is just sitting on your guard and not actively controlling your body. For all the subsequent techniques, they involve grabbing his wrists and holding them against the sides of your hips using a thumbless grip.

 First technique: From the bottom, come up towards your opponent, bringing one arm diagonally across and over his shoulder to secure the opposite tricep. Check the knee on this side using your legs and continue securing the wrist against your hip to prevent him from adjusting his base. Pivot on the aforementioned leg to  complete the sweep, transitioning to a full mount.

If this does not work, e.g., failure to prevent adjusting base or opponent drives you backward, release the tricep and wrap your arm around your opponent's neck guillottine style - the object is to be able to secure a hold against his lapel on his opposite side. Control his posture by coming back down and employing a closed guard whilst securing a lapel choke.

Second technique: Come up as before and arm diagonally across and over opposite shoulder. This time, snake your arm (over and under) and grab your own wrist to effect a figure-of-four key lock (Kimura). Come back down, post opposite foot against hip whilst one leg comes across his back perpendicular to his spine (45 degree rule) to control his posture.

If you are not able to secure a key  lock in the first instance, e.g., arm was able to base forward to prevent you from grabbing your own wrist, use his movement to further extend his arm towards you and instead of trying to grab your wrist, secure his triceps as before and sweep to a full mount. Voila!

Sparring with Big Steve and Gerry. I've been  noticing that I have been getting paired with Big Steve a lot. I could see a twinkle in Kevin's eye as he scours the mats to look for me to partner up with big 'ol Steve. Not that I mind, of course, as big as Steve is (probably 20-odd stone, and I 13 stones) , he never uses his strength to bull-charge his way to a dominant position and always mindful of his partner's safety. On the other hand, Gerry is quite an enthusiastic player. You need sharp skills and match his enthusiasm to survive rolling with him.

I wonder what instructors think of when they pair partners with each other - size, ability, style?

Other points to note:

A blue belt Brazilian came to class with us and introduced himself as Wagner. Trains regularly at the BJJ School in Battersea. Quite friendly. Showed Gerry a tip to execute a kimura from mount. This entails sacrificing the mount to move to a far side control to be able to bring  your opponent's elbow down towards his hips so you can torque the lock better.

My ADCC ticket has come through the post the other day. I wonder if any of my BJJ brothers are going to Nottingham to watch in September as well?

Does your game flow?

Wednesday class with Kevin.

After a light stretch to warm our muscles up for the forthcoming pain later, Kevin then proceeded to demonstrate and teach an escape and reversal technique from side control. This involves positioning your hands/arms across your opponent's hips and shoulders and pushing away at a 45 degree angle whilst shrimping out. The key action in this techique is the ability to get a deep underhook using your far arm and getting to your knees to provide base and leverage. From this position, grab opponent's knee (underhook side) using a monkey grip to establish your new position. After this, you could either check the farther knee with one hand to prevent him from basing or ankle pick the farthest ankle, as you drive your body forwards to attain side control position. A variation of this technique is to pop your head on the opposite side of your underhook and execute a single leg TD.

What I love about this particular class is that after being taught the technique, Kevin the proceeds to teach how to counter THAT technique. How cool is that?!

Basically, this entails applying enough force on the back of your opponent's head to pin it on the ground. Then snake your opposite armover and under his shoulder to grab your opposite wrist and cinch it close as tight as possible. This would naturally enable you to move towards your snaked arm and apply enough leverage to flip him over on his back, effectively transitioning to a side control position.

After some drilling on this technique, Kevin demonstrated leg triangle from bottom guard. Apparently, he taught this the other week but as I wasn't present then, I welcomed the chance to learn it  from him but from my partners who have practiced it before. Fortunately for myself and Big Steve, purple belt Steve was warming up beside us and gave us essential 1:1 tutoring regarding this. Massive props to him!

Sparring with Keith, Guy, and James. I have to ask Keith at some point to give me pointers on TDs from kneeling. His was definitely very effective. I'm also starting to survive longer against Keith, which I hope is a good one.

Interestingly  enough, as soon as I met up with Guy, he immediately told me that he had no submission skills. I told him, "Great! Neither have I!" That didn't prevent him from trying a couple out, though.;)

James and I agreed to do a light rolling, as we were both tired at this point. With light rolling, there is a deliberate consciousness of your actions and reactions to keep it at a light level - something that higher belts seem to do with ease and white belts seem to struggle with. I believe it has something to do with having a greater awareness of the techniques and your body's position in space in relation to your partner's. This enables you to just apply the requisite amount of force to either counter your partner's action or to establish a more dominant position. This is what I'd like to call FLOWING.

Gas. Good for cars, not for BJJ

Thursday training with Dante. Because of the influx of new people yesterday and today, he focused on fundamentals together with sports-specific exercises. We then did double-leg takedowns transitioning to knee on chest. After that, an escape technique from it. Another one is controlling the legs from standing and moving on to knee on chest. Strung together, this makes for nice transition drilling.

During technique-sparring, Dante lines up the more experienced players to take on the newer ones, as he is wont to do, before swapping places. He states that under no circumstances should the lower belt/level practice a technique before a higher one. By letting the higher belt/level try the technique first, the higher belt effectively demonstrates the technique to the lower belt, which grants more opportunity to see the technique done correctly before trying it on himself. Makes sense. Elliott, Keith, Gerry, and the two Steves really helped me on getting my technique half-decent.

One thing that Dante said before the sparring sessions that made everyone chuckle, he said, "When your opponent is hell-bent on doing something, it's best to let them do it. It strokes their ego hopefully they'll won't be so hell-bent the next time."My sparring performance was marginally better than last Wednesday. I only gassed on the last match :(  I really need to work on my cardio. On the last match, I was letting my training partner slap on his submissions, as I was too tired to move. I also need to work on my takedown techniques from kneeling and need to be more assertive. Either that, or I really need to get my bottom game better.

By the way, props to Peter, who helped me a lot during the technique-drilling earlier. Quite a friendly and helpful chap. He emphasised the need to get a deep collar hold during knee on chest, coupled with controlling the outside knee to be more effective in controlling your opponent. I've only seen him today, but judging on the reception he received with the regulars, it seems that he used to train regularly before and is a popular guy. Looking forward to train with him.

By doing it wrong, we understand why we have to do it right

Went to class today after being off for nearly two weeks. Good to see familiar faces once more - Elliot, Keith, Little Steve, amongst others. Also saw Jaffer with his shiny blue belt. There were a couple of blue belts in the house, as well - Raz, who is fast becoming a familiar friendly face, and a Polish guy whose name escapes me at the moment. I think this is the first time I have seen this many blue belts in one class.  This led myself and Elliot to expertly discuss which shade of blue looks better. To be honest, I wouldn't mind which shade of blue I get eventually. I will be so pumped up I'll even wear it at home.

By the way, Kevin mentioned that the Motta Gomes seminar down in Portsmouth went very well and a couple of belts were also given. Dang! If I knew they were handing out belts I should have gone down and nabbed myself one. Hehe

Enough of the lame jokes and onto the training. We practiced pummelling again as a precursor to takedowns. Elliott kindly tweaked my takedowns a bit to make it more effective. I seem to be combining shoulder throw takedowns with the over the leg takedown. By erroneously having a wider base during shoulder throw, I had difficulty getting my opponent over my shoulder, as my hips aren't as aligned to his hips as before.

We then did escapes from side control  using shrimping combined with pushing at a 45 degree angle and moving your hips away from your opponent. To make the teaching more effective, Kevin asked us to escape without using the technique. Myself and Elliot did a bit of experimentation during drilling - getting the outside hand onto different positions to try and negate the technique. We also thought long and hard with regards to why the outside hand is placed against the opponent's near hip, instead of a monkey grip or by the outside hip. Elliot had a light bulb moment and surmised that it was to  prevent getting a knee in for a possible butterfly guard or half guard. Now, why didn't I think of that?

I liked the way we were able to rationale the techniques during drilling. A small part of my work is to train NHS staff to be able to prevent and manage aggression and violence. This necessitates teaching physical techniques to effectively manage a violent and aggressive individual. As a large number of staff I teach are not familiar with the techniques nor physically inclined to to them, I find it useful to break the techniques into manageable segments and to give rationale as to why "this hand should be in an overhand position,and not underhand", etc., by getting them to try the wrong way, to see the effectiveness in doing the right way. In my opinion, this creates an understanding as to why they're doing what they're doing - because it makes sense. I believe this was what Kevin was trying to instill in us by letting us practice the wrong way.

Annyways, the technique flowed onto a reversal, which highlighted the need to have a deep underhook using your inside arm. From then on, you could choose several variations: grabbing your opponent's outside knee and driving your shoulder forward to attain reversal, use of single leg combined with outside knee pick, or single leg combined with outside ankle pick. All of these end up in side control. Very effective techniques - as long as panic does not set in and you start muscling your way out of a side control only to find yourself in an armber or a choke...

I did not fare well in sparring today. I got absolutely tooled by everyone. My ribs started to bother me again on the second match and I was gassing out. Obviously didn't help that everyone had burgeoning submission skills and did not hesitate on trying them on me. I guess my blog title says it all : I am a grappling dummy.

My breath was coming in gasps, which impacted on my ability to survive. Let me make it clear - at this stage of my journey, my aim is to survive and start building my defense game. Tonight, I wasn't able to do any.

Funnily enough, during handshakes one of the new guys referred to me as BJ Penn. I probably am - cardio-wise.