Gracie Barra Birmingham, (BJJ), Chiu Kwong Man, Birmingham, UK – 10/09/2010
Moving onto the gi class, Chiu added some more details to the toreador pass he’d been drilling as a warm-up for no-gi. With the addition of trousers to grip, Chiu advised to grip midway on the inside of the lower leg. Keeping a low stance, lean into that grip to squish their knees up by their chest.
Step diagonally across with your leg: this is the knee you’ll be putting into their stomach. The other foot goes out wide for base, and also so that they can’t hook your leg. You’ll also be pushing into their far leg with your grip, while pulling the near leg behind you. That will make it tough for them to try and bring their knees in to block your pass.
Should they try to hook your leg before you pass, shove that leg away from you, while swinging your other leg back. By pushing their leg, you’ve created a space: bring the leg you swung back to fill it, moving straight into knee on belly. Depending on the size of your partner, you’ll either knock them slightly out of the way, or potentially swivel them perpendicular.
The main technique was again butterfly guard, going through similar sweeps to no-gi. However, as with that pass, the gi provides helpful grips. Now rather than just hooking their lat, you can grab a handful of gi. Ideally, you want to shove their lapel with your free hand, feeding it around their back to your other hand. This makes for a really tight grip. As before, drive your shoulder into their near armpit as you also pull your arm in, chest close to the mat, putting them in an awkward position. Should they try for a whizzer, you simply raise your elbow. For the sweep this time, Chiu went through a technique similar to what I saw Kev demonstrate at RGA Wycombe a while back. Twisting as you drop back, lift them with your hook: your leg will be in a position that can only be describing as a dog urinating.
From there, you can bring your other leg through, then push off that foot. This will give you extra power to drive them to their back. If you want to go to mount, keep driving and follow through with your knee. If you prefer to go to side control, you do more of a flick with your hooking leg, then slide into scarf or side.
Worth noting here that you can do various things with your legs and feet. For example, you could push on their knee to collapse it to help your bring them over. That may be of a particular use if they’re using it to base and resist your sweep. IIRC, you can also try bringing the knee high, if you’re finding that you’re getting stuck on their legs as you move to the top (though I might be remembering that wrong: I didn’t have my notebook at the side, so may have missed some details over the course of the two lessons).
No sparring again, though it looked as if Chiu had a sort of specific spar to finish off, but it was already past eight, and I had a train connection to make later. So I rushed off for the train, got there with a minute to spare...but of course that just meant when I arrived, the train was cancelled anyway. Sod’s law. I guess that running at least helps a bit with fitness, but always annoying when you miss out on something for no good reason. Bleh.
Anyway, should be back for another double on Monday next week, then probably my last lesson at GB Brum the week after. I’m intending to move out at the end of the month, so training at GB Brum will most likely be the last thing I do before heading off.
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