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.

Tap, tap, tap...

Yesterday, Kevin facilitated the class. After some light stretching, we proceeded to pummelling drills. Again, Kevin emphasises this drill to promote sensitivity and increased tactile ability. He then taught us another variation of the bodylock takedown, which entailed taking down your partner forward. This transitions into side control. Important thing to be aware of is not to get caught up in a half guard after the takedown.

This nicely segued into half guard escapes. Kevin demonstrated the concept of head control using your shoulder. This is a very important concept, because where the head goes, so does the body. You achieve this by getting your arm under your partner's neck and grabbing the gi cloth on his shoulder. Make sure that your partner's head is cradled in the crook of your elbow. Only then you can drive your shoulder against the side of his face to force him to face the opposite direction. You can then drop your bum/hips on the mat,your chst toward the ceiling toprevent you partner to control your posture. Once you have this, you can the concentrate on getting your leg out of the guard.This could mean using your hand, other knee, foot,etc. to ease that leg out. Kevin enthuses doing this in stages, rather than using one move,as it would more than likely be a power move than a technical move.

After that, another drilling on the butterfly guard and sweep to improve "feeling your opponent". A new concept of what I call "deception" was introduced. This is about moving your partner onto one side, and as you sense a change in his centre of gravity to compensate for this action, you then sweep him onto the other side. Wicked.

We had 4 rounds of 5-minute sparring. Jack, Keith, Little Steve, and Mammoth Steve became my rolling buddies. Mammoth Steve clearly had at least 50 kilos on me! I caught him once in an over-under but he was so big that I couldn't shift his weight. We just laughed.

In a nutshell, I was trying to survive for 20-odd minutes. I did try some submissions - I like Ezekiel best, but I was getting caught so much in chokes that my neck was sore and bruised. Not that it mattered, I just kept on getting back for more. It didn't matter that I was tapping, I was more concerned on surviving longer than the last time. And I was having fun.