Busy week...

Been very busy these past several days both at work and at home, hence this late post.  School holidays have always been a busy time in my line of work and I have a couple of much-delayed tasks at home that needed to get done.

Decided to install a different car stereo in my car over the weekend. What I thought to be a 30-minute job turned out to be two hours! This particular car entailed removing the WHOLE dashboard front just to change the stereo.  Well, after two hours and bloody fingers and arms, I managed to do what I set out to do. Have also managed to leave 2 screws and a fridge magnet (used to try and pick up THE two screws) rattling inside the dashboard.  And then I found out that I couldn’t get a radio signal because I forgot to plug the antenna. Oh well...

Last week, Kevi n drilled the S mount and how to get an arm bar from it. Also further drilling on double leg takedowns and sweeping.  This takedown variation requires the front/lead leg to come in deep between your partner’s legs for the takedown sweep.  Same procedure as before, i.e., grabbing the back of the legs and driving forward. This is good because I wasn’t able to attend the previous week when Kevin first taught it.

Thursday, Dante took the class, and as par normal in his class, we spent some time in learning judo takedowns. He taught the concept of “Judo eyes”, wherein you keep your eyes on your partner’s base of throat as you manoeuvre for a better position/set up for takedown. This way, your partner will not be aware of your intentions and keeping  your eyes focused on this location allows you to see your partner’s movements (limbs, body) as a whole.

We also did arm bar drills, which is always good. Drilling makes the techniques more familiar to your musculoskeletal and cognitive system.

At the end of the class, I found myself stuck in the parking lot again. The Croydon Martial Arts Academy is housed in a building that is shared by the supermarket chain, Lidl. The academy is upstairs and Lidl is downstairs, and uses the parking area as a loading bay for deliveries, which happens every Wednesdays and Thursdays (probably everyday but I only use the parking  lot on these days when I go to class) AT AROUND  9 pm. Elliot tells me that he found about this the hard way and decided then to shell out £2.50 to park on the road. I’m too stingy for that so I pay the price – every single time...

I guess as a consolation, some of the other guys and Dante were stuck, as well, and we just chatted away until the delivery guys finished their business.  Good conversation we had, though, with topics ranging from Kevin being likened to a modern-day Bruce Lee by Dante himself,  about resilience, and to how martial arts in general is perceived by different people.  Guy asks about spirituality in martial arts and Dante replied, “There is no spirituality in smashing someone’s face in. That is brutality. Spirituality comes from the years of doing martial arts but choosing not to use those knowledge and skills you have learned unless you truly have to.”

As a bonus, Dante demonstrated some Temeki  Aikido techniques that would be handy against someone with a knife. I found this interesting as a lot of these moves are similar to Escrima, which I have done in the past.

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.

Transition drilling

Training yesterday with Dante doing the class. Quite personable – makes it a point of chatting to everyone individually and making introductions to new students.

Because of his judo background, he always would have judo techniques as part of drilling. On this class it was over the shoulder takedowns and “the thing where you cross the arms before you trip them backwards” takedown. With the first one, the tip is to lower your centre of gravity as you turn around then connect your hips to your partner. With the second one, it’s about controlling the posture thru crossing your partner’s arms across his body, as pointed out by George, my drilling partner. George is a massive guy but uses technique, rather than strength in sparring.

Afterwards, we did transition drills. This starts off from turtle position, then into closed guard or butterfly guard, then reversal into mount. The transition from turtle to guard is interesting. The key is to immediately control the far leg/knee by grabbing cloth using your inside hand. Afterwards, extend the inside leg and scoop hips to feed through the outside knee, going into either a closed guard or a butterfly guard.

To drill the movement, the one being mounted needs to get his elbow in between partner’s knee and your body. The key is to scoot your hip on the opposite side as you dig your elbow/push the knee away to create space and force your partner to spread his legs more, making the mount unstable. Once this is achieved, bring the knee into the space and rest foot on your partner’s hip. Then scoot to the other side to get the other knee out. You can now choose to implement closed guard or butterfly guard.

Sparring came next with Dante, Jaffer, and Steve. I survived most of the time and nearly got caught in a tight arm bar by Steve but thankfully time ran out. Whew. I did attempt the Ezekiel upon gaining positional dominance but wasn’t successful again. I managed to employ the Scoop and the Turtle defense from Saulo Ribeiro’s JiuJitsu University, so I was able to thwart any attempt to RNC me – good thing as my throat is still sore from last week.

Towards the end, we played King of the Circle, where we made a small circle on the mats from our gi jackets rolled and placed side-by-side. The object of the game is to move your enemy out of  the circle, sumo-style, or if any part of  his upper torso touches the area inside the circle. Good game and we had fun. The morale of the game is aggressiveness if you manage to find yourself in a street fight. Your martial art would not save you if you get pushed onto an oncoming vehicle. Aggressiveness and using your environment to your advantage is the key in a street fight, where no rules apply. Or fast legs for running away.

Good training all in all but I have niggling injuries that have been bothering me for the last couple of weeks. My dodgy left shoulder is acting up again, and a localised upper back pain. I was complaining to my doctor colleague about the pain I feel whenever I have deep breaths or a sudden sharp intake of breath such as sneezing or coughing. He said it could be pleurisy, wherein the outer lining of the lung is filled with air or fluid and is inflamed. That or I could have a busted rib. Either way, DAMN.