A good stance and posture reflect a proper state of mind.

Thursday with Dante. More people in today compared to yesterday. I guess many are busy with holidays and stuff this summer, including Kevin. Two women graced our mats today, I believe one of them is Dante’s daughter. Welcome.

After warm up, Dante demonstrated another judo takedown that involves a form of ankle reaping. Quite effective and easy but for some reason it felt awkward to me. Falling down  is more awkward ad slightly disconcerting as you fall backwards and not forwards nor sidewards  as in the other  takedowns I’ve learned. I think I sprained my groin muscle during that drilling. Ouch.

Afterwards , drilling a kimura from north-south position. I tell you, this is one nasty position if done correctly. In the north-south position, the top guy gets his arms underneath the bottom guy’s shoulders and reach to grab his belt by his sides. Top guy pushes hips forwards and downwards towards the floor to effectively distribute weight and smother the bottom guy. Real NAS-TEY!

Then once you’re bored being nasty, one arm comes across bottom guy’s chest to grab opposite lapel and then come up to knees.  Turn bottom guy on his side and top guy’s shin comes across bottom guy’s back to prevent him from rolling back. Top guy’s farthest hand grabs bottom guy’s top wrist, the releases lapel to grab own wrist. Turn bottom guy’s hand towards his back for a kimura.

After drilling this several times, we also did kimura from  side control as done in previous classes to familiarise ourselves with kimura from various positions.

Sparring time.  As it has always been in Dante’s class, he would pick couple of guys (usually 4-5) with advance/solid skills (in my opinion) to remain on the mats for the duration of the sparring time. Then the rest would rotate amongst them every 5 minutes, alternating sparring and resting. I‘ve always joked to guys like Big Steve, Keith,  Elliott, Gerry and others who always get picked by Dante  is that the problem with getting good at BJJ is that you get less rest during sparring.

Today, this opinion was crushed as Dante picked me to remain on the mats. Now, I KNOW I don’t have solid BJJ skills – my neck and joints would attest to it. What I can say is that my survival skills are  getting better – this is not about holding out on chokes and joint locks but about preventing myself from being in the position in the first place and awareness when I get myself in such positions to enable me to attempt to get out of it (sometimes).

But I am not one to complain for the honour and did my best for 25 minutes. At least I know my cardio is getting better...

Important point to note:

Big Steve complimented me on my burgeoning skills (gee thanks, Steve) but noted that my posture could be improved. I admit, I round my back on top position often and lean forwards too much. I need to be more mindful of this in the future.

Post title taken from one of the quotes of Morihei Ueshiba, founder of Aikido.

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?