29/06/2010 - BJJ (Basics)

Class #321
Gracie Barra Birmingham, (BJJ), Nathan Roberts, Birmingham, UK - 29/06/2010

I’ve been waiting for a bright, colourful BJJ hoody for a while now, and it’s finally arrived, in the shape of Scramble’s re-release of the ‘Newaza’ design...but this time in purple or green. You can pick them up here: the SLIDEY discount code will get you 10% off. I’m hoping it’s as bright a purple as Matt’s Lock’n’Roll shirt. :)

Once again, couldn’t make it on Monday, so back to the basics class. Still, that was no bad thing, as Nathan has been continuing his detailed dissection of side control fundamentals. First off was a straightforward side control to mount. You’re in a tight side control, and they try to push up into your neck to escape. Lean forward into their arm (but not so far they can roll you), then switch your hips.

You can either grab their near arm with your hand as you do this, or maintain a gable grip around their head and armpit, using your hip to scoop up and trap that near elbow. Immediately switch your hips back, simultaneously moving further up towards their head. This puts you in an even tighter side control than before, with improved control over their near elbow.

From here, you can walk your far hand under their far arm towards their head, slide your knee and shin over their stomach, then switch into mount, scooping up their other arm for good measure.

Nathan also covered another two side control escapes, beginning from the same position, but this time you’re on the bottom. As you push up into their neck, they switch to scarf hold. Keep pushing with your arm, driving their head towards your hip. With your other hand, being careful not to get trapped, reach under their arm and grab their elbow, then pull it towards you.

Shrimp your hips into them, still pushing them towards your hip, then switch one leg over the other. This should make it easier for you to come to your knees, which will simultaneously roll them over, putting them under your side control. During drilling, the person getting rolled should turn their head towards your hips, to avoid cricking their neck.

The second side control escape uses the same principle, but for a slightly different situation. This time, their side control is really tight, and you’re having no joy getting a forearm into their neck and pressing. So instead, you’re going to bait the Americana. Your arm under their neck will dangle loose.

As soon as they loosen their grip from under your head to go for it, get ready to bring your other hand to the back of that elbow. At the point their arm cross your face, you want to straight-arm into the back of their elbow, shoving it towards your hip. Again, shrimp into them, always maintaining a hold on their arm, then come up onto your free elbow for base.

The motion is now the same as before. Switch one leg over the other, then come to your knees. Try to imagine that there isn’t anyone on top of you, and you’re just shrimping out and going straight to your knees. You should end up lifting them with your hips, and then dropping them off the side and underneath you, without a great deal of force. If you find you’re having to muscle it, then you’re not quite getting the leverage right.

There was no specific sparring tonight (Nathan had earlier given us the option of either specific sparring or more technique: fortunately, we went with more technique), but there was time left for one free spar. I went with my training partner Amit, a white belt who is possible a bit bigger than me, but not by the usual huge margin.

So, that gave me a chance to practice attacks. I tried to get my preferred overhook, but the choke was probably too telegraphed. I looked to switch to a triangle, and got my legs locked and started to wiggle backwards, but I could see I was losing it. That meant it was time to switch to an omoplata, but my transition was sloppy. I didn’t flatten him out enough, retain enough control over the arm, or get a decent grip over his back.

I did manage to land an Americana or two from top half guard, but I think that was mainly down to his inexperience rather than any skill on my part. The arm was left out there as he was trying to escape, so that meant I could lock on the figure-four. Still, there again I was sloppier than I would have liked, without especially solid top control or a particularly good angle.

Should be training again tomorrow. I also was able to give my Zero G gi its first outing since Wycombe, as I finally had a chance to visit home last weekend and pick it up again. Once I’ve put that through a few more weeks, I’ll try to get a review together (though all the review you could ever want of the Tatami Fightwear gi is already up on Meerkatsu’s site).

23/06/2010 - BJJ (Advanced)

Class #320
Gracie Barra Birmingham, (BJJ), Rob Stevens, Birmingham, UK - 23/06/2010

The bus was almost late again, but just made the train connection from Leamington in time. That’s going to be more difficult after the end of term, as buses change their times. So, I’ll be lucky to get the bus I need in time, which may make training a little awkward until term starts up again in October. So, hopefully that timing won’t work out as badly as I’m expecting, or I’ll be able to catch the bus from the other company (I’ve got a Stagecoach bus pass, but that runs out in August. So, I could then switch to Travel West Midlands, or whatever they’re called now) that does the route, presuming their times are any better.

I was very keen to make tonight, because I suspected that the crucial England versus Slovenia world cup game would mean attendance would be low. That tends to result in closer attention from the instructor, which was especially good today. Rob asked the people waiting before class started if there was anything we wanted to work on. As ‘the people waiting’ at that point consisted of me and Tom, I had a chance to request some escapes from modified scarf hold, which has been causing me problems for a while now.

More people turned up later, including Chris with a shiny new purple belt, so congrats to him: he got promoted about two weeks ago. Still, it was a fairly small class, and not many big guys there, which meant I had plenty of training partners around my size. After some drilling and work on takedowns, Rob moved into a detailed explanation of the technique, which had some cross-over with the escape Norby showed a little while ago.

To escape modified scarf hold you first need to free your trapped elbow. As Rob emphasised, this is often the hardest part. He suggested using your free hand to press firmly into their arm, creating a brace by straightening your limb. Bridge off both feet and shrimp. You may well need to do this multiple times to get the elbow loose, especially if your partner has good top control. You can also try grabbing around their elbow and pulling it towards you: mix and match to wiggle your arm free.

Once your arm is out, both your hands go to their lapel (the one nearest to you). Push that straight up and into their neck, straightening both your arms. Shrimp out, until you can wedge your near knee into their side. From there, you should have enough space to recover guard, or possibly even go for a submission if they leave their arm there (which is unlikely: people will probably move around, ending up in your open guard).

To drive this home, Rob then had us do specific sparring from that same modified scarf hold position. On top, I was looking to time my hip switch back and forth to side control, like yesterday. Of course, when your opponents aren’t white belts, this is much harder. It also reminded me to use north-south more often, and try to distract people by attacking their arm.

Underneath, I was looking to practice what we were just taught, but probably because everyone had just seen the scarf hold escape, people were tending to quickly switch to side control before I had much of a chance. Still, it did seem to help me get my knees in place quicker, and be more aware of my arm placement.

Free sparring was even more painful than usual, because unusually for England, it was hot and humid. I was sweating just standing around doing nothing, so once it got into the flow of sparring, everybody’s gi was soaked. As somebody mentioned, it makes you wonder how they manage in a climate like Brazil: I’m easily knackered at the best of times, so I can’t imagine how I’d cope training in those conditions every day

I went with five people, IIRC. Norby stayed very light, so was presumably looking to let me try things out. Nathan tapped me all over the place, but did mention that I was basically doing the right thing: however, I need to move from delaying the inevitable to a more proactive defence. I also need to watch out for footlocks, which I sometimes forget about because I avoid using them myself.

I was generally under side control, with the odd moment of scarf hold too. I looked to try Rob’s technique, but struggled to get myself into the straight arm position holding onto their lapel. I think I was probably failing to shrimp out properly, and perhaps going for it too late, when they were already switching their weight back to side control. Getting that transition from a scarf hold to a side control escape is something to keep in mind, and watching my arms don’t get harvested in the process.

I also found myself in top half guard a couple of times, on both occasions in an effort to drive through out of their attempt to take the back. I had trouble each time, but got closer than I normally do, as I tried to really focus on getting my weight into their neck and shoulder, and also yanking on their arm to stop them turning. My base could do with some work there, and I probably wasn’t being careful enough with my hips.

At the end of class it was announced that there would be a charity seminar at Victor’s new club in Mansfield. Brazil has been subject to some severe flooding recently, and many people have been put under great financial strain as a result, including people close to Braulio. So, if you’re willing to spend £30 and make it down to Gracie Barra Midlands, you’ll be rewarded with a top-notch seminar on Saturday 3rd July.

22/06/2010 - BJJ (Basics)

Class #319
Gracie Barra Birmingham, (BJJ), Nathan Roberts, Birmingham, UK - 22/06/2010

For the second week in a row I couldn’t make the bus on time to get to Monday, and annoying, the same thing happened on Wednesday. Same story this Monday, so as usual I went to my back up of Tuesday. Hopefully this week, I will be able to do Wednesday, though as I have a free weekend, there’s the option of Friday too (I’m planning on visiting home, but Friday class probably finishes early enough that I could still make it at a reasonable hour).

As with the other lessons by Nathan I’ve been to so far, tonight was about control from the top. There was a clear progression, beginning by drilling a side control escape. Wedge your forearm into their neck, gripping over their shoulder blade. Lever up your wrist, bridge to get your other elbow in, then shrimp into that space. Move your knee in to guard, making sure you control their arms: otherwise, they can just pass back to side control.

From the top, as soon as somebody presses up into your neck, you want to go to scarf hold. Lean slightly forward (be careful, as if you overbalance, they could roll you straight over), then switch your hips, aiming to scoop up their elbow as you bring your leg close to their side, foot past the head. Your other leg will be up, to create a solid base.

Keep your head low, and most importantly, keep a firm control of their near arm. Ideally you want to hold behind their tricep, but grabbing somewhere on their upper sleeve will do. If they start to get their elbow down, yank it back up, pressing forwards with your hips if you need some extra power.

From here, you can move from side control to mount. Switch your hips back, moving higher towards their head. You should now have their arm right out of the way, while one of your own arms will be controlling their far elbow, with the other arm is underneath their head. To being your transition, the head arm is going to move to the far side, then you’ll slide your elbow right back into their skull. This will trap their head between your elbow and your knee, severely limiting their movement.

You’re now going to switch your hips again, so that you’re facing their legs, in reverse scarf hold. The arm by their head will stay where it is, while the arm you were using to control their far elbow will instead grab the top of their near pant leg. This means you can both control their hips and a point from which to push, to help your hips scoot backwards towards their head.

You want to shove your hips as far back as you can, so that you’re effectively lying on their face. This is very uncomfortable, and also restricts their view. You can now bring your foot over to their far hip: don’t just swing your leg over, but instead curl it inwards. If you’re not flexible enough, just grab your foot and pull it over. You can then twist to mount, scooping up their arm in the process.

We did some light specific sparring from that tight side control, which was particularly light due to one of my partner’s being smaller than me, while the other had a back injury he was watching carefully. That meant I could try and really concentrate on the technique, so from the bottom, that meant I was paying particular attention to getting my elbow free, then making space to wedge my knee in.

I was also attempting to put Norby’s scarf hold escape into action, though I found it difficult to get my arms straight. Sneaking an arm under sort of worked, though my timing needs work, as I almost managed to just get it trapped rather than in place for an escape.

On top, I tried to keep my hips down, and time my hip switch to match the moment they pushed up with their arms. That continued into the next bit of specific sparring from side control, again with the near arm already cleared. As the only other blue belt was injured, I took the opportunity to go with the biggest guy there, as that should mean that if I made any mistakes, his power would be enough to throw me off.

He was fairly inexperienced, but still, it made for an interesting test of holding down a larger opponent, again trying to time that hip switch while also keeping control of the arm. Underneath I was trying to get my elbow free, then make space and shrimp. I’m also making sure to remember to grip around the shoulder blade and lever up with my wrist, to make it more difficult for them to press their head down.

Free sparring at the end was with a small white belt, so as before I was trying to think about technique. I had a play with that same spider guard series from Braulio’s video, but I’m still not quite securing that grip properly. I also tried to get into the same scarf hold position as earlier, so my training partner had a chance to practice.

Should be in again tomorrow for the advanced gi class, which will be a very different sparring experience, but we’ll see how work and buses sync up.

15/06/2010 - BJJ (Basics)

Class #318
Gracie Barra Birmingham, (BJJ), Nathan Roberts, Birmingham, UK - 15/06/2010

I couldn’t make the advanced gi on Monday, so did my usual backup of the basics Tuesday class. That also has the advantage of starting later, so even though I stayed on at work for thirty minutes, I didn’t having any trouble getting to Leamington train station to get to Acocks Green in time.


As I walked in GB Brum, Kevin was showing a useful looking escape from side control to the advanced no-gi class. I didn’t see it from the start, so probably missed some details, but it looked as though they have a normal side control. You keep your elbows in, grasping their underhooking arm with both hands, on either side of the shoulder. That means you can also use the lower part of your arm against their neck if required: Kevin noted that you should never rely on just your wrist or hand, as they can simply collapse that with their weight.

You’re then going to make a powerful bridge, by bringing your heels right to your bum. That gives you some extra force, as you aim to either bridge them right off, or at least make enough space to get your knee in. Due to your elbows both moving beneath their torso, that makes it more difficult for them to collapse their weight back down. Shame I didn’t see it from the start, as it looked interesting.

Nathan’s class began with several drills, which are always useful. For example, where you stand up in their guard, with a grip of both collars, the other hand driving their same side sleeve into their opposite hip. This controls that arm and also helps to immobilise their hips. As you stand up, you let go of the collars, pulling the arm up, but also keeping your elbow inside their knee.

Make sure you drive your hips forward too, to keep the pressure on: something I often forget to do. My passing remains terrible: it would be good to get some guard passing classes at some point again, as it feels like it’s been a while. That also reminds me to review my notes from Kev Capel’s private a while back, which presented a good set of tools for passing.

The main part of Nathan’s basics session was focused on side control. He began with a transition to mount, similar to what he’s shown before. You have a tight side control, and have already cleared their near elbow. First, shift your hips up towards their head, getting as tight as possible. Walk the hand that is under their far arm towards their head, until you can reach the top of their skull.

You can then slide your knee onto their stomach, but don’t go all the way to the floor yet. Keep twisting towards the area you just vacated, to bend their body and make it more difficult for them to bridge. You can also move up towards their head, staying tight. Once you’re secure, go to full mount, and there is the possibility of either digging their arm into position for an arm triangle, or setting up an armbar by getting a good high mount.

Nathan then demonstrated how to move into a triangle from side control. This isn’t the option I like to try where you step over their head from scarf hold, but instead a transition straight into a mounted submission. As before, you have a solid side control, and have cleared their near elbow. Also as before, you want to shift your hips towards their head, then walk your hand underneath their far arm.

This time, you’re going to manoeuvre that arm to the ground, pressing their wrist to the mat with your hand. You can then feed it to the hand you have under their head. Next, drive your hips forward and straighten your arm. That will prevent them turning their head, and it also puts them on their side. Be certain to keep that near arm of theirs trapped, so they aren’t able to pull their elbow free.

Now put your free hand on their torso, using that as a post to swing your leg over and sit on them. You then want to slide it over the arm you’re gripping, at which point you can let go to pull their head up and towards you. That should provide enough room to wrap your leg under their head, meaning that their recently freed arm is of no real use to them. Grab your ankle to maintain the grip.

Lean forward and post with your free hand, in order to get the space to then lock up the triangle with your other leg. From here, you can either go for the triangle, attack their arm, or indeed go for a wristlock. Your weight is on their neck, and their bridges aren’t going to be very effective, as their hips are so far away.

Finally, Nathan switched perspective for an escape from side control. This time, it’s your elbow that’s been cleared out the way, so the first thing you need to do is get it back. Start by digging the hand near their head into their jaw line, knuckles first, until you can slide the forearm under their neck. You can then grip around their shoulder blade and pry their head up, by lifting your wrist and thereby driving your forearm into their neck.

This is unpleasant (meaning that I try not to be too gung ho with this in drilling: fortunately, my training partner tonight was of a similar mindset), so you’ll suddenly find you have some space to free your trapped elbow. You can then shrimp out, bring your knee in and recover guard. That forearm against their neck will make it difficult for them to bring their weight down, while the elbow by their hip prevents their motion forwards.

Specific sparring was unusual, in that for once most of my training partners were either my size or smaller. There also weren’t any other blue belts there this time round: Gary normally attends the Tuesday basics, but I guess he must have been teaching at his kickboxing club or something. So, that meant I had a chance to practice both on top and on the bottom.

On top, I tried moving into reverse scarf hold to mount, which worked nicely the first time, but then that was against somebody a fair bit smaller (I did try to focus on technique, but it is always hard to know if you’ve managed to avoid using a size advantage, especially if you’re not used to having one). The second time, I don’t think I controlled their torso well enough, as they were able to get onto their side. I should probably have made better use of the arm by their head, and perhaps grabbed a knee or something before they managed to turn.

Underneath, I looked to put Norby’s advice from Saturday into practice, especially as I was starting from the worst position possible, with both of my arms clear. Again, that worked a few times, but I think I wasn’t always concentrating enough on bending their head towards their shoulder coupled with a firm bridge. It is definitely good to have that option for when they’ve managed to isolate your far arm, so something I’ll be looking to try more often (though it is of course much more difficult against bigger people, especially if they’re more experienced).

A Taste of LARP

As this weekend is one of the few where I’m both in Leamington and my girlfriend isn’t visiting, I thought I’d take up an offer from one of the people I work with. Last time my Sunday was free, I headed down to a judo no-gi session, to get in some extra grappling. Yesterday, I was at Gracie Barra Birmingham for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Today, I went for something quite different, which at first appears to be the antithesis of ‘alive’ martial arts like BJJ and judo: Live Action Role Play (LARP).

I spent a large proportion of my waking hours before university buried in a variety of computer role-playing games (CRPGs). I have many happy memories of slaughtering goblins, throwing fireballs and building up high-level paladins in Amberstar, Ultima Underworld and Daggerfalll, a few of my favourites. If I wasn’t swinging a pixellated sword, then I’d probably be completely engrossed in a fantasy novel, from authors like Piers Anthony, or a series like Dragonlance, Dark Sun or Forgotten Realms.

So, I’ve been strapping on a broadsword and sallying forth for loot and XP for some time: my initial RPG experience was when I first booted up the original Bard’s Tale on a Spectrum +3, back in the ‘80s. However, I’ve only ever quested by proxy. This time, there would be no digital intermediary. I’d be swinging that sword myself.

Before I could get whacking people, however, I needed to get some safety training. Clare, my colleague from work, kindly offered to run through the basics with me on Friday, along with her husband Ian. Contrary to what I had assumed, LARP is not a matter of rolling dice, or totting up variables to see if you managed to overcome someone’s defences. You simply hit them.

You don't use just any weapon, as LARP has specific equipment. They're carefully made, carbon fibre core foam swords (or mace, axe, dagger etc, but Clare and Ian’s impressive arsenal was heavy on swords). So in a sense, there is a martial arts element of sorts, though it is much, much lighter contact than judo or BJJ: you’re acting a role, rather than actually looking for the most effective method of belting somebody with a big piece of metal.

As this is not the Dog Brothers, the (relatively) light contact nature means there are several things to keep in mind. Perhaps the most important is that you can only slice, never stab. That’s because the carbon fibre core of weapons designed for LARP can potentially burst through the foam, if you press the tip into somebody or something (hence why you also can’t rest a LARP sword point-first into the ground). Having said that, there are a few that are ‘stab safe’, like Ian’s enormous axe, because the point protruding from the middle of the axe head is almost all soft foam, which depresses on impact.

The head and groin are out of bounds, though it’s taken as a given that accidents happen. As a general rule, you’re meant to pull your strikes, as you’re not looking to do any serious damage. The foam means you can still give them a good thump, but you don’t want to smack them so hard that it leaves a bruise. Of course, if somebody is wearing a full suit of metal plate armour, you can give it a lot more welly than if they’re wandering around half naked with only warpaint between them and your foam-padded fury.

Even so, as you are hitting people for real, and they’re trying to hit you back, there’s certainly skill involved. Basically, it’s a form of fencing, with carryover from numerous weapon styles (or at least the elements that enable you to both pull your strikes and chop rather than stab). As far as I can tell, the way to improve is to try hitting people, along with getting hit in return. Lots. So in a limited sense, it is ‘alive’ in the Matt Thornton usage of the term (see below video), though there are still plenty of rules and restrictions. Of course, LARP is not a martial art, so there is no stated intention of developing practical combat ability.



In a similar vein, I was surprised that it is possible to fire arrows at people in LARP. The bows look to be much the same as those you’d use for standard archery, though there is a limit of 30lbs to reduce the distance and power. The arrows, however, have a thick wad of foam on the end, both to lessen the force and prevent them getting into anybody’s eye socket.

I’ve got some idea of how to parry from fencing (though I was pretty useless at adjusting to block lower cuts to my legs), but even that brief bit of experience abandoned me when it came to the attack. I’ve only ever fenced with a foil, so slicing was new to me, as made very clear when I practiced with Clare and Ian (both experienced LARPers, who were smacking me at will).

Those restrictions can result in people effectively just tapping you on the shoulder, in order to get the hit. Ian emphasised on Friday that you should make attacks realistic (in role-play terms): some systems have a one strike per second rule, to help make sure people don't simply wiggle a sword along your arm in an effort to generate lots of 'damage' quickly.

Having said all that, during the actual event itself on Sunday, I didn't get involved in much combat. There are two groups to choose from, 'players' and 'monsters'. The 'player' is a created character, with personality, skills, equipment, and if all goes well, longevity. Monsters, on the other hand, are basically there to be killed, especially the kind that featured on Sunday. Zombies, shades and skeletons are have pretty limited hit points, and they don't move too fast either.

I went with the monster party, as that meant I didn't have to worry too much about roleplay. The kind of basic grunts I was playing is never going to last longer than one quest at most. It also meant, theoretically, I'd have more of a chance to practice with a variety of weapons. As it worked out, the two quests were fairly heavy on roleplay, and the bit of combat I did take part in ended rather quickly.

That was down to another part of LARP: magic. It turned out there was a spell (which in LARP generally means saying the name of the spell, with a few lines you make up in front of it, to create a brief verse) that instantly kills people, which I kept falling prey to. I think I only actually got off one swing.

Still, with all the roleplaying, it was entertaining to watch how the plot developed, especially as half the party in the first quest actively undermined the ostensible goal. For example, instead of killing a necromancer with a bunch of zombies, they sacrificed one of their party to him, then got his zombies to help them fight someone else.

As a 'monster', there was plenty of downtime, as we weren't 'in character': effectively, you're an extra. That meant I had the chance to socialise with my fellow undead, because I didn't have to be in character the whole time. So, when not being slaughtered by adventurers, I was chatting and getting to know people, which is always good fun.

It was also refreshing to see that it wasn't entirely male-dominated, with five women taking part. As with BJJ, the presence of women immediately improves the atmosphere, due to the instant reduction in testosterone. Not that the men weren't nice too: everybody was welcoming, friendly and ready to offer their help: the whole group felt very inclusive.

Something else I wasn't expecting (but it makes sense) was the sheer amount of planning that goes into each quest. The Ref (who both orchestrates and moderates the action) has a long chat with each group beforehand, laying out their place in the plot. I wasn't present at the players talk, but for us monsters, we had clearly stated roles, and a set of actions to follow. The Ref also has to keep running around telling the 'monsters' who and where they need to be ('statting' them), as encounters with the players can be frequent. As the pool of people playing monsters is limited, they have to be recycled. What looked especially difficult is the need to think on the fly if the 'players' don't react as expected, as happened today.

The system used at Warwick Uni is called Scarred Lands, thought up by students over the last six years or so. If you're interested in checking out the rules, they have a number of pdfs to read up on the website. From what I gather, it is seen as relatively straightforward, so ideal for beginners like me.

Should I happen to have another weekend free, I'll definitely look to give this another go. If nothing else, LARP always offers the chance to dress up (or indeed get made up: plenty of people with facepaint and make-up), one of the things I used to love doing back during my undergraduate years. I look forward to pulling on a suit of armour at some point in the future. :)

12/06/2010 - BJJ (Advanced)

Class #317
Gracie Barra Birmingham, (BJJ), Norby Nowak, Birmingham, UK - 12/06/2010

Apparently some blokes were kicking a ball round a field somewhere, which meant that class tonight was nice and quiet. With a good instructor, that is always a boon: Norby ran an awesome session today, benefitting a relatively small number of us. I especially enjoyed it due the focus on what remains one of my favourite areas to work: escaping side control. Better still, Norby spent a lot of time on drilling, and also connected moves together, covering ‘what if’ scenarios.

The situation for this escape from side control sequence is that you’ve been put in a terrible position. They’ve managed to both get your elbow away from their hip, and they’ve also got your other arm to the dangerous side of their head. You need to get that arm out of there, as otherwise it is very vulnerable to attack. You also want to get your other elbow by their hip.

So, reminiscent of a principle seen on Demian Maia’s Science of Jiu Jitsu, the first thing you do is bridge, punching through with the arm by their head. It is important that you’re pressing their head to their shoulder, knocking your arm towards the upper part of their skull. Combined with your bridge and twist to the side, that should enable you to bring your elbow to their hip.

However, don’t bring it all the way through. Otherwise, you’re still in trouble, because they can still crush their weight down onto you, especially as your arm by their head is still in danger. Instead, the elbow by their hip is going to stay pressed against the hip, rather than using your forearm to brace their hip.

That means they now can’t press forward, because your elbow is in the way. Your next task is to get your head arm safe. To do that, dig your hand under their neck, until you can get your fingers around their shoulder (so that they’re touching the shoulder blade at the top of their back, not around the side of their upper arm). You can now bend your wrist up, which drives your forearm into their neck.

This is not only uncomfortable, it also makes it next to impossible for them to push their weight back down. That should mean you can now bring your knee inside, across their stomach. Get your other foot inside their hip (next to your first foot). From there, you can recover butterfly guard, or even go for a sweep.

Of course, your partner is unlikely to make it that easy for you in sparring. Most likely, as soon as you try to shove on their neck, they will switch their hips, sliding through to scarf hold. This happens to me all the time. To escape scarf hold, you’re going to switch from pressing their neck to grabbing their lapel.

So, the hand which was on their shoulder now slides to grab their nearest lapel instead. Again, you’re going to shove into their neck, but this time, you’ll be doing it with their gi instead of your forearm. Keep your arm straight, and you’ll also want to bring your other arm next to it, pushing as well.

Shrimp out slightly, but keep the inside leg out flat. The reason is so that you can keep pressing their lapel into their neck, shoving directly towards your legs. With that leg out flat, they aren’t going to squish their weight onto your thigh. Instead, you can keep driving them backwards, switching your hips to come up in side control. If you end up in scarf hold, be careful that they don’t use the same escape on you: keep your head low.

What if they post with their hand to stop you pushing them over? If they post near your legs, your escape is still good to go: in fact, you can change to a submission. Start by hooking their bicep with your outside foot. Make sure to curl your toes, and also angle your knee towards them. This is to make sure there is enough tension on the arm: otherwise, they’ll just circle it free and come back to side control or scarf hold.

You aren’t going to leave it at that. Having secured their arm with one foot, you’re now going to switch it to your other leg, by bringing that leg over the top. That means you can triangle your legs, putting your partner into the crucifix. From there, you can pretty much do what you want: bring the leg nearest their head over for an armbar, sit up and establish a choke, pick up their leg and go to the back...various options.

If they are more careful and don’t post their arm near your legs, you can’t hook it. Also, it is more likely that instead of posting, they’ll be trying their best to push back into you, to re-establish scarf hold or side control. That’s fine: you’re going to let them do it. The timing of your next move is very important, because you’re going to let the hand nearest their head drop.

If you release the pressure too early, they may catch on that you’re escaping. Instead, you want to make it appear that your arm has just got tired, and they have managed to bend it back to your torso. The other arm should stay straight as long as possible, or they will simply trap your hands with their chest.

As soon as their chest touches yours, they’ll have opened up a small gap by their armpit, right where your hand is waiting. Until they try and push into you, that gap is filled with gi material, both yours and the loose fabric between their arm and side. When the gap appears, reach through.

You can now forcefully bridge, whacking your arm up into their armpit, in the direction of your head. This should fling them forwards, enabling you to scoot down and either take their back, or go for their leg and then drive through for side control.

Norby then spent the rest of the class on specific sparring from side control, which was another cool part of the class. Loads of drilling, followed by the same thing with much more resistance. Like Rob, Norby did king of the hill where one group of people stayed on the mat, instead of whoever was successful switching to take their place.

I prefer Rob and Norby’s method, as it provides a lot more opportunity for practice, instead of just the most skilled people staying on the mat the whole time. Norby didn’t count us off into ones, twos and three, instead leaving it up to us as to who was going to stay on their back. Everyone eventually had a go, but it worked out that I was in the last group of people on their back.

On top, we started in the ideal side control, so as with drilling, the top person already had the elbow cleared from the hip and the other arm past their head. That meant I could work on maintaining the position, blocking the arm from getting to my neck by dipping my head, and switching my hips and adjusting my weight to keep side control.

What I had trouble doing was the next step: going for an attack. I did manage to sneak my knee through to mount on a fellow blue, probably because after all that drilling, people might have been a little less wary of the knee slide. However, that only worked once: also, all but one person in the class was a good bit bigger than me.

That turned out to be a good thing though, as it was a useful test of my pressure from the top (though of course you can never be sure if people are holding back, when they could simply bench press you). I generally could hold the top position with a reasonable degree of consistency, but whenever I looked to attack the far arm, I got rolled. I was trying to base with my head, but without much success. Something to work on, along with combining that distracting attack with attempts to switch to mount.

I also got a good tip from Norby, who I happened to be sparring in front of at one point. I was losing the top position, and attempting to move round to get back in place. They got a knee in the way, in a sort of z-guard position, with the shin manoeuvring for my stomach. What Norby advised I do at this point is switch my base around that knee, so that I’m facing their legs. You can then switch back, recovering side control.

On the bottom, I was able to dig my elbow into place by bridging and pressing the head, but digging the hand past the neck was more difficult. Generally, I got it through when they went for an attack. I was also trying to be careful of my arms, not leaving them out there to get pulled free, and trying to thread my knees to get to turtle. While I found my way there a few times, I couldn’t manage to secure and leg and push through into a takedown (unsurprising, as my wrestling sucks, as does my judo, given that I hate doing takedowns and almost never spar from standing, if I can avoid it).

Great class: I should be training again on Monday, presuming nothing academic comes up. I’ll be doing something rather different tomorrow, which should be fun. Or at least, it seems completely different at first, but I’ll get into that on Sunday. ;)

09/06/2010 - BJJ (Advanced)

Class #316
Gracie Barra Birmingham, (BJJ), Rob Stevens, Birmingham, UK - 09/06/2010

Rob continued where he left off last week, moving from maintaining the mount to taking the back from technical mount. There was a quick recap of last week, where you’re in mount and they turn towards you to start the elbow escape. Immediately bring the heel pressing on their front to their hip, while the knee next to their back shifts up towards their head. Make sure you lean forward and press your weight into their top arm.

The situation for this technique is that they’re defending their next, with their hand near to their opposite shoulder. With your top arm, press on the back of their top elbow, to make sure they can’t turn towards you. Your other arm will reach behind and around their head, grabbing the wrist they have near their shoulder.

Rolling them over the knee you have behind their head, roll in the direction away from their back, still holding them in tight. This should enable you to take their back. If they somehow manage to turn and you’re about to lose the position, simply yank up on their arm and return to full mount.

This also works in half guard, in exactly the same way. The only real difference is that they might be able to block your second hook with their knee. That isn’t a problem, as you can lock your feet anyway, into a sort of half-back take. Apparently, this can get you two points in a competition, though I’m not too up on rules, so not sure of the specifics.

We did lots of drilling on that, which was good. That proved to be the only technique, however, as we then progressed to specific sparring from mount, in Rob’s preferred groups of ones, twos and threes. Also like last week, the person whose turn it was stayed on top, not the bottom.

I was generally able to escape from the bottom, either by sneaking my knee in, or somehow creating space then popping out either the back door or getting to guard. Bradley very nearly caught me with a nice triangle attempt when I went for a bridge and roll, which left me wondering if he would have had it if he was bigger.

On top, it was a mixed bag. Some people bumped me off quickly, while one or two I managed to hold on for a good while. As before, I was taking Rob’s earlier advice about reaching under their head and then grabbing the collar, from a low grapevine mount. That’s been working well for me, so I tried to progress into attacking for the Ezequiel. Unfortunately, I wasn’t combining the choke attack with a shift to technical mount well enough, so after the third or so attempt on one partner, I got rolled. With the second partner, I was at least able to adjust into a higher mount, so that was an improvement.

For free sparring, I started off with Rosie. I was looking to practice Braulio’s spider guard again, but failed to keep the necessary tight spider hook on her arm. I later went for an attack I’ve been playing with for a bit longer, the overhook from guard. This went a bit better, as I was able to switch to an omoplata. However, I didn’t secure an arm over her back very well, leaving it a bit late in the technique. So, like Bradley, I suspect that had she been bigger, she would have completed her attempts to escape.

I also had a chance to put Kev W’s passing principles into practice, though I think I may not be pushing on the hip enough. I can’t be certain I had the right positioning on her knee either. I did manage to cut under the arm with my hips, but again, I’m not sure how much size was a factor.

I then had an active roll with Christian, who is always good to roll with. We’re a similar size, so that means we can both be energetic, because we’re both still able to move each other around. So, when I grab his leg and try to use that to break his balance and escape, it at least has a chance of working, which I find is very rarely the case with somebody bigger. It also helps with submission escapes and the like.

Next up was a bigger guy, who I think was called Ian, but might be misremembering. By this point I was knackered, so it proved a good test of my defences when I didn’t have any strength left (not that it would have helped much with the size difference anyway). He eventually caught me in a choke, which I was trying to defend by getting my fingers into my gi, never a great option.

Really, really knackered, especially with the humidity, I was then with the instructor, Rob, who naturally got me in all sorts of submissions. He even stopped at one point and went for something else, noting he’d already got that choke earlier! ;)

Rob also gave me some good advice on pulling butterfly guard, which adds to what Kintanon has already suggested (as per his handy video). As you move in, grabbing their collar, have the knee of your hooking leg out wide, so not so high up that they can easily push it to one side and pass. Your other foot shouldn’t be too close, so that it is ready to either establish another hook, or potentially kick out their knee.

You can also switch sides if they look like they’re about to initiate a pass, bring the other knee out wide while the original hook becomes your base. That may also give you a chance to control their other arm, as you may now have an arm over the top of it.

The class overran a little, so I had to leave before the warm down in order to catch my train. Or so I thought: it got cancelled, meaning I had an hour wait for the next one. Sod’s law: should have stayed after all!

02/06/2010 - BJJ (Advanced)

Class #315
Gracie Barra Birmingham, (BJJ), Rob Stevens, Birmingham, UK - 02/06/2010

I was talking about old training partners yesterday, and that trend continued today, although this time in person. Rosie is somebody who used to study at Warwick last year (where she turned up to a few Warwick Uni BJJ meet-ups), and has just returned to Leamington: she trained at GB Brum before, so I wasn't the only one welcoming her back.

Rob was taking class again tonight, and like he did a while back, he was looking at maintaining the mount (although this time, it wasn’t from a low grapevine, starting higher up instead). For this technique, they are trying to dig their elbow under your knee and begin an escape. As soon as they move to get that elbow under, you grab their sleeve with your opposite hand.

Don't yank their arm across, but instead move your weight forward and come down with your elbow on the other side of their head. That should bring their arm across their neck. As soon as their arm moves, immediately shift your knee up to fill the space left by their arm, and push their elbow if you need extra help to stop them replacing their position.

Putting your feet into their hips, move up their body, and keep going until you get right up under their armpits. Squeeze your knees together, staying tight. You're then going to push on the top of their head, alternating between squeezing your knees and thrusting your hips forward, to get into a solid high mount with their arms right out of position.

If you're a little late removing their elbow from your knee, you can shift to technical mount. They've got their elbow under your knee and have begun to make space. Grabbing a sleeve with each arm, pull up on their digging elbow arm and push down on their other sleeve. At the same time, twist towards the side they're digging and bring your foot right into their hip. Your other knee slides up behind their head, into technical mount.

What you do next depends on their reaction. You could potentially go back to mount if you start losing your grips, or you could bring your arm under and go for a choke (e.g, wrap around to grab their collar, bring your knee right behind their head, grab their knee on the same side with your free head, then pressure for the choke). Alternatively, there is an armbar available, or the option to take the back.

Specific sparring was from the mount, and again we were split into ones, twos and threes. However, as opposed to the normal drill, where one person stays on the bottom the whole time, here you remained on top. That was an interesting variation, because what tends to happen to me with this kind of king of the hill is I'll wander up, get thrown off quickly, then to the back of the queue. Staying on top meant I had more of a chance to experiment and work on mistakes.

That was only towards the end through, as I was a three. Underneath, I as usual relied largely on digging an elbow under and either making enough space to slide free, or move into half guard. I managed a sole bridge and roll, but that tends to be rare in the advanced class, as people will often be wise to it and prepare their base accordingly.

On top, I was getting one arm under the head and grabbing their opposite shoulder, as Rob had taught previously. Definitely helps maintain the mount, with the other arm out to post. I was able to hold that for a good while on one person, but they eventually rolled free by grabbing my posting arm and straight arming it so I couldn't get my hand to the floor. My other rolls tended to be variations on that theme, with people finding various ways to eventually get free (I never manage to submit anyone from mount, unless they're a good bit smaller), like a tall flexible guy bringing his legs through.

Free sparring started with Rosie, and Rob announced that this first round would start from standing. Normally I'll pull guard fairly quickly, but Rosie made good use of her arms to stop me easily establishing grips. Eventually she went for a leg and I sprawled, then moved to take the back. I couldn't really do much from there, attempting various chokes.

I particularly wanted to give the bow and arrow a go again, but still struggle getting the legs in the right place. At some other point I ended up in spider guard, but failed to get the grip I wanted. I made an attempt to straighten out that arm by pushing into the other bicep, but couldn't manage to wrap up the arm and pull the sleeve across my thigh.

Next was Pete, another blue belt I like rolling with. I was aiming to move into butterfly, but he was aware of it and almost passed immediately. I just about got my legs into some vague semblance of open guard, with him pressing down looking to pass. Not very effective on my part, as it proved only a matter of time before he slid round.

As ever, I'm still too complacent under side control. I need to bridge and shrimp more regularly, but also more carefully, rather than just bumping to knock them off their offence. I seem to have gotten out of the habit of threading an arm under the neck and prising them upwards: I'm not sure if that is some latent worry about the americana (something Christina used to do to me every time I tried that), but either way, something I should be practicing.

I got to half guard a couple of times, but too flat, so again as ever, need to work to get up on my side. A few times I found myself in open guard and looked for reverse De La Riva: I have to admit, I'm always tempted by Saulo's depiction of this as basically a place to rest. Unfortunately for me, my reverse De La Riva isn't at that secure a stage yet, though I did finally remember to try the sweep, where you press into their leg. However, I keep forgetting that you need to hook their other leg too for that to work properly.

My last roll was with Christian, which started off with a chance at the triangle. I got distracted by the prospect of using an armbar to tempt him forward into a triangle, when as Rob said, I should instead have been focusing on controlling the head. Rob stepped in to demonstrate, showing how to use both head control and also stretching out the legs to stop them escaping (he called it scissoring the legs, so presumably that means you also squeeze them together). From there, you can then work for the triangle.

What I did was try for the armbar, wiggle around a bit, then eventually lose the position. After Rob's handy demo, we restarted from the knees, where I think I might have been in guard, but can't quite remember. Either way, we weren't there long, because another pair sparring almost crashed into us, so we had to move back, starting from open guard.

This time, I soon found myself under side control. Again I was being too flat on my back and immobile, though I did try to use the north-south escape a couple of times (which reminds me, that semi-worked with Rosie earlier). It didn't do much good, and also reminds me to try Roy Dean's suggestion from his recent UK seminar.

Next week I'll hopefully make the Monday and Wednesday again, although my gf is busy that weekend so I could potentially train on the Friday or Saturday too.

01/06/2010 - BJJ (Basics)

Class #314
Gracie Barra Birmingham, (BJJ), Kevin Webb, Birmingham, UK - 01/06/2010

Good post by my old training partner Ben, on dealing with the temptation to quit BJJ, here. If we're honest with ourselves, I think everyone in BJJ has at least considered the possibility of quitting at some point. That might be from a terrible competition performance, a really bad few days of class, or struggling with things outside of class. So, Ben's recent post is probably one everyone reading can sympathise with: check it out.

Speaking of old training partners, I also want to give a shout out to Dominique, who recently got her purple belt after a great performance at the SENI last weekend (to read more on that event, check out Meerkatsu's write-up, here, who also happens to be a current training partner of Dom's). She's the first person I ever rolled with in BJJ, so it's cool to hear she's doing so well. :)

Braulio was there tonight, although taking the no-gi session rather than the basics class I was attending. This isn't the first time I've ever seen him, because he used to pop down to Roger's to train with the black belts, but it is the first time I've seen him in his own club. So, hopefully I'll get the chance to experience a lesson with him at some point: should be interesting seeing how his teaching style compares both to his videos and to other instructors.

The basics class was taken by Kevin, which surprised me as I had thought Nathan always took them. It could be that the schedule has shifted now that Braulio is back, but either way, I really like Kev's classes, so I was looking forward to seeing how he runs a more junior level session.

As ever, Kev employed his trademark attention to detail, honing in on the essential details in such a way that they really stick in your head. Afterwards somebody mentioned to me that his day job is a PE teacher, which goes some way to explaining his impressive instruction. The focus tonight was passing the guard, but as Kev said, it wasn't so much about a particular technique as the principles that lead to success.

The scenario was that they are facing you, chest close to their knees, hands and arms inside their legs, feet on the floor. You're standing, and keeping your head low, you first need to get past their hands: for this situation, Kev just slapped them down. You then press one hand into their same side hip, the other just above their same side knee, pressing their same side leg to the floor. Make sure you do shove that leg to the floor: this helps disrupt their defensive posture.

It is also important to get the right hand position, as you need to make sure they can't slip that knee out, as otherwise they can block your pass and recover guard. Your hand is above their knee, on the top of the leg (so, the same side as the front of the kneecap, not the inner or outer thigh). Similarly, you need to stay aware of the other knee: if they try to bring it through, block it with the elbow of your other arm, which is pressing into their hip.

You don't want to dawdle in that position: in two large steps, keeping your weight into them all the time, move past their trapped knee and to their side. You are now past their legs, but this is the easy part. As Kev explained, after that is where you'll often run into trouble. They will probably block your pass with their arms (as you've prevented them using their legs).

This could be by putting both hands on your shoulder and straightening their arms. That can make it difficult to continue moving round. However, you can bring your hips and weight into play to work around their arms. Using the hand on their hip, press them flat on their back, leaning forward into that hip. As you drive their shoulders to the mat, it should become easier to keep moving around and cause their arms to move up towards their head.

There is now a large space between their arms and their leg (you'll have let go of the leg as you move towards their head, but still prevent them curling in due to that firm pressure on their hip). Drop your inner hip into this space, cutting in under their armpit, sliding right into scarf hold. Get right underneath that arm, so that when you switch your base again, you can move right into a tight side control.

A variation on that guard pass is if they don't push on your shoulder, but instead go lower on your arm, or get a hand into the hip you have nearest their head. That removes the option of cutting in under their arm, so instead, you'll bring your leg over the top, from the other direction.

As before, you keep pressure on their hip and move up towards their head. This time, however, you bring the leg nearest their head over their near arm, your knee pointing back towards their hips. That leg goes right over and straightens out, the other stretching out behind you, in a reverse scarf hold position. You're basically sitting on their arm.

Once again, due to that scarf hold, when you switch your base back, you'll get a tight side control. In this case, because you've slide over that arm with your leg, when you switch it back, that knocks the arm out of the way towards their head, so you automatically clear their elbow, slipping the leg right into their armpit.

Kev then got us to drill this with a little more resistance, to demonstrate some of the typical mistakes, a useful way of ironing out kinks. I found that I was being too gradual when moving round, so needed to take two big steps, rather than lots of little ones. More focus on pushing into that hip to flatten them out was also useful, and making sure I got their arms good and high towards their head before cutting in with either my hip under or leg over.

Class finished with free sparring, without the king of the hill specific sparring Nathan tends to do. I started with one of the two women present, Julie, looking to work that spider guard set-up from Braulio's video. I sort of got the position, but I don't think I swung my legs around enough or pulled the arm in sufficiently, as I ended up on the side rather than the triangle/armbar option I wanted.

During back mount, I wanted to try for Kev Capel's favoured bow and arrow choke. I got the grip around the neck and swivelled for the hold on the knee, but I don't think I was tight enough on the collar grip. I also didn't have my legs in the right position, getting one stuck underneath, which is a recurring problem I have from the back when attempting armbars and bow and arrows.

The next spar was with Kevin Webb, who mercilessly crushed me. That also exposed my side control defence weaknesses, as while I was able to get on my side and crunch up, I was leaving my arm vulnerable to attack. I also got caught in a few chokes, and one silly mistake, where started from the knees I ducked my head straight into a guillotine. As a general rule, I need to be more careful of my arms under side control, as I'm finding myself at risk of armbars far too often.

That contrasted with the completely different roll I had with somebody who was experiencing their first lesson. So, instead of being crushed, I could stay relaxed and try to be helpful, attempting to move into the same positions we had just drilled earlier so he could practice. In terms of technique, it was quite a lot to take in as a first lesson (especially principles like switching your base to scarf hold, which takes a bit of getting used to), so he did pretty well to remember as much as he did.

Finally, I finished up with Sofia, were again I was looking for that spider guard, and again ended up on the back instead. This time, I don't think I stretched my legs out enough, meaning that I didn't break their posture, and I also didn't have enough control over the arm I was looking to attack.

Should be training again tomorrow. If I do, that will be my first advanced class in a while, as I've had to miss the last few due to bank holidays and the like. Possibly with Braulio too, which would fun, though as there are so many top notch instructors at GB Brum, it is sure to be an excellent class whoever takes it.