Interview - Romulo Barral on Teaching

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Romulo was kind enough to grant me an interview on Saturday, which I'll be sharing in instalments over the next month or so. This is part one of five.

slideyfoot.com: You’re a top competitor in BJJ, but also an instructor. Is teaching helpful for developing your BJJ game, or does it detract from your own training?

Romulo Barral: I think teaching helps a lot, because when you teach, you work on details of the technique. When you roll, you have details, but sometimes you use power, sometimes you overpower somebody who is not as strong as you. So when you’re teaching, you develop a lot of details, and then every day you teach, even if it’s the same technique, you can see another detail.

That helps a lot to develop your BJJ. I think if I wasn’t teaching, just training, I would not be that good. [laughs]

slideyfoot.com: Your instructor, Draculino, is well-known for producing champions, like yourself. What do you think is the key to effectively teach BJJ?

Romulo Barral: I think the key, to teach BJJ or compete, you’ve got to put a lot into what you do. You need to put everything in to make people get better. I have seen a lot of people, when they’re teaching, they don’t put in a hundred percent. They don’t want to show everything, all the details for their students to get better.

So, Draculino – I train with Draculino since I was a teenager, it has been a long time, maybe more than ten years ago - his style of teaching is like this. He gives everything for you, everything. He is not teaching only his style, only his details. He is trying to show you everything, so you can choose your own type of game, or you can be complete, learning everything from him. His style, it is my style, you know. I learn from Draculino, and I try to pass to my students now what I learned from him.

slideyfoot.com: Do you think it is beneficial to split the beginners into a separate class for a few months, or is it more productive to have a mixed ability class from the beginning?

Romulo Barral: Definitely, you’ve got to split them. You cannot have somebody who has never seen jiu jitsu before in their life come into class and do spider guard, flying triangle, something like that. So, Draculino, that’s another thing Draculino has success with, because maybe like six or seven years ago, it used to be everybody in the same class. If somebody new came into the academy, they’re going to be the same class as the black belts.

So Draculino – I don’t remember, maybe more than six or seven years ago – he started to split the class, and then he started to do a curriculum class. Like, this is a fundamentals class, and these guys go to the advanced class. He’s got to take a little while here, you know, until they pass through the basics. When he was doing that, I think he made a big difference.

First, the students, they weren’t quitting the training, they kept going, because they were training with people on their level. Also, all the students had strong basics, strong fundamentals, so when they pass to the advanced class, they were learning much faster.

slideyfoot.com: So he had a set curriculum of say escaping side control for a few weeks, then mount, then submissions, that kind of thing, or was it more just general principles?

Romulo Barral: It was all the basic positions, you know. There were all the situations, but the basics. Like you said, side control, couple of attacks, basic attacks, and basic escapes. Then, mount, basic attacks, basic escapes. Very consistent, like that: couple of takedowns, self-defence. All the basics they would need to go to the next level, so they’re not going to be lost.

slideyfoot.com: Following on from that, if the beginners class is with that clear structure, how would the advanced class differ? Would it still have a curriculum or is it more of a “this week we’re going to do 50/50, this week we’re going to do reverse triangles”?

Romulo Barral: You know, a lot of places, they still don’t have a curriculum. My place, Draculino’s place, we always have a curriculum. You cannot go to the class, drive your car, and then think “oh, what am I going to show today? I’m going to show spider guard today.” Then the next day, you drive again, “what am I going to show today? Today, I’m going to show mount attack.” It’s very important you break down the curriculum, so you can work all the types of game. For example, let’s work for two months on spider guard, maybe spider guard sweeps, spider guard attacks.

I think that is the best way for people to learn and develop their own game, so you can teach everything, not focus on one thing. You’ve got to have a curriculum for both parts.

In the next instalment, Romulo shares some of his thoughts on competition. To read more about Romulo, check out RomuloBarral.com, and you can also follow him on Facebook and Twitter

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27/08/2010 - BJJ (Basics)

Class #336
Gracie Barra Birmingham, (BJJ), Chiu Kwong Man, Birmingham, UK – 27/08/2010

Christian Graugart, the Danish brown belt who writes ShogunHQ, is planning an awesome training trip for Spring 2011: check out the preparations at BJJ Globetrotter. Should make for some excellent reading once he gets underway. For a travel-heavy blog that is both excellent and well underway, check out top BJJer Hillary Williams’ site. I’ve probably mentioned it before, but this is easily one of my favourite blogs: well-written, lots of relevant pics and an interesting angle (female world champ teaching seminars in Brazil, with plenty of anecdotes about the culture).

I plumped for the Friday class rather than Saturday, as I wanted to try and get a good chunk of work done tomorrow morning, hopefully on the way down to Bucks (nobody is home, so I’ll be catching buses and the like, so that will take around three hours total or so). Rather than sweeps, tonight it was working from the top.

Chiu showed a lot of technique tonight, so I’m not sure how much I’ve managed to remember (especially as I was the uke). Keeping that in mind, the first drill focused on getting good posture from the top. Basically, you don’t want them to move off to the side, where they could go for a sweep, try and take your back etc.

So, first thing you do when they establish their hook and put their other foot on your leg, ready to push, is pull up on the pushing foot’s heel (or gi trouser). Turn that same side hip towards them, stepping around, and turn out your other leg. Your base will be fairly wide, hips forward. At worst, this will put you square on, and at best, it could knock their hook free.

If you don’t manage that, as they’ve already sat up, wrapped an arm behind your knee, pushing on your other leg ready to sweep, you can use the next technique, a De La Riva pass. On the side they’ve hooked, grab the back of their gi collar. They’re probably going to be holding your other sleeve, so grab their sleeve in return.

Now do a big step back and around with your free leg, so you move around to their hooking side. You want to collapse your weight on them, keeping one leg back for base. Don’t go too far forward or they’ll roll you. Your free hand will thread through their legs and grab their bottom knee: it doesn’t matter if they maintain a grip on your sleeve. This will stop them turning towards you.

After that, things got more complicated, as Chiu moved into at least four different passes, based around their likely reaction, which is to lock their legs tight into half guard. IIRC, the basic pass was to get your far elbow up into their armpit, moving your hips back as far as you can. This means you’ll be putting a lot of weight on their head and upper body, blocking their view and also limiting their mobility.

That means you can concentrate on freeing your leg. Having squashed them with your upper body, you grab their knee with your free arm. Yank it towards you while pushing on their leg with your free foot. That should create some space to get your leg out, then move into side control. Exactly where you push will vary depending on how they’ve locked: possibly their top leg, their bottom leg, their knee etc. Chiu suggested experimenting.

There were several other options, like ‘skiing’ them to one side by pushing their arms to the floor, from where you could try and take the back. Alternatively, if they present the opportunity, you can step through and around to the other side. Chiu also grabbed at feet, and demonstrated how even if you aren’t allowed to kneebar, the same position can help you to pass. Unfortunately, I didn’t quite catch all the details, so hopefully I’ll get a chance to see some of those again in the coming weeks.

In specific sparring, I tried to put that into practice, with a modicum of success, though not especially smooth. I was pleased with a backstepping pass I got early on, but that was more of a lucky reflex action than a flowing technique. I found myself trying to push the leg down and circle around a few times which rarely works. Definitely need to keep on working what Chiu just showed us, though of course my sparring partner was prepared for what we’d been learning earlier.

It was good to practice half guard passing, as I’ve been slacking on that recently, probably because I’ve had quite a few smaller sparring partners. Chiu’s technique was useful, particularly his focus on getting your balance, through things like threading a hand through their legs, or putting an arm under their head and walking your hand through.

Underneath, I was looking to work the various sweeps we’ve been shown, but didn’t get too far. Generally, my arms were quickly grabbed and pushed away, making it difficult to get the grips I wanted. I played around with spinning underneath, which sort of worked at one point, as I kicked up and tried to go the other way. I say ‘sort of’, because I ended up in their guard. So, on top, but not quite the idea.

My sweeps largely failed due to my inability to get good grips with my hands. I need to work on breaking their grip, then quickly establishing my own and getting the sweeping motion going, rather than giving them a chance to settle their base. Connecting techniques would help with that, and I at least now have about four or five I can try. Judging by the last few weeks, I should also get plenty of time to drill them: hopefully we’ll do some drilling through various combinations.

24/08/2010 - BJJ (Basics)

Class #335
Gracie Barra Birmingham, (BJJ), Nathan Roberts, Birmingham, UK – 24/08/2010

For those who haven’t heard, Seymour from Meerkatsu.com and Liam from Part Time Grappler are jointly running a ‘design your own gi’ contest: full details here and here, on their respective blogs, along with a specific contest site. There have been lots of entries already: the prize is pretty nifty, as the winning design will become an actual gi, sent to the creator. Given that my own dream gi would basically just be plain white, light and fit properly, I’ve not yet found my artistic inspiration. ;)

My annual trip to Aberystwyth was great fun as usual, catching up with friends and barbecues in the rain. I also got a chance to test my Scramble hoody (I think 'slidey' still gets you 10% off: purple is sold out, but there are some green ones left) against the Welsh climate, which gives me an excuse to finally put up a different picture.

Class tonight was again De La Riva sweeps, revisiting the techniques we ran through last week. Nathan had some useful fine details to add this time round, particularly on the very first sweep he taught us a while back, where you grab their collar and pull them over.

First, Nathan talked about keeping up the pressure on their far leg. If you have your leg completely straight, then particularly with tall opponents, it is easier for them to step back and release the pressure, as you’re at the extent of your reach. However, this can still work if you are able to keep their posture broken using your grips.

Nathan suggested pulling their far arm towards you: that way, your leg is secure, because they no longer have a strong base, which in turn makes them much easier to sweep. You could also just yank them forward with your collar grip, which has the advantage of making it more difficult for them to raise their torso up and establish some kind of resistance.

Secondly, once you are about to try and take them over, you can use your foot by their near leg to help you. Instead of just having it flopping there on the floor, push off with your toes as you pull down on their collar and try to roll them. That will give you additional power, making it much harder for them to stay upright.

Specific sparring went badly for me last time, as I found it difficult to do anything much from the sitting up position against an opponent fully expecting my two attacks: I was either going to pull on their collar, or try to swing towards their far leg. This time, I had a few more sweeps to play with, most usefully the one from last week where you curl your legs around theirs, then drive forward, head inside, effectively taking them down with a single leg. I managed to land it, but very sloppy considering I forgot an essential detail, which is to grab their gi skirt or belt and pull it by their leg.

Nathan had done a drill at the start of the lesson where we put our legs in that position, wrapped around one of theirs, switching so that your front foot first pointed away from them, then behind them. That proved helpful, as I found the motion a little more fluid during sparring (though my attempt was still kinda sloppy). Having had my initial sweep blocked, I could switch to that driving single leg instead.

I ran into some problems when people started grabbing my leg, my arm and my collar, as that made it rather more difficult to complete the technique. I could still get it against a few people, but especially if they were bigger, those grips were tough to shift. Fortunately the teaching on De La Riva is likely to go on for some time, so hopefully some of those problems will be addressed in future lessons.

Against another sparring partner, I managed to move into the spinning under sweep, though my opponent was a fair bit smaller than me. Still, it was nice to link the sweeps together, even if my transition needs a lot of work.

My passing was, as ever, poor. At the moment, I’m mainly just stepping my leg back and then trying to collapse onto them, which often results in a scrappy scramble. I imagine at some point there is going to be some coverage of passing De La Riva, which should help with that.

If my parents are back from their holiday by the end of the week, I’ll be looking to head home for the Bank Holiday weekend (as my gf is away in Belfast). That means that I will aim to train in the Friday basics class, so I can either head down late on the Friday, or early on Saturday.

Article - A Women's BJJ Class (3)

One woman's journey into creating a women's jiu jitsu program
Article #17, by guest writer Chrissy Linzy [FAQ Entry]
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Post-Tournament Wrap-Up

Thanks to injuries and cold feet, we ended up with one woman competing at US Grappling’s Dominion Grappling Championships on August 7, 2010. Rachel Prestipino took 2nd place in her white belt division, losing to a woman who was promoted to blue belt the following day. Rachel trained very hard for the tournament, and I’m really proud of her. I think this is her first time competing with women instead of teens (she just turned 16 this summer), and the first time she’s competed in about a year. I can’t wait to see how she does in her next event.

Class Progress

July brought several new women to class, which meant retooling lesson plans nearly every week. This is a great problem to have, and I’ve structured the August classes so that new women can jump right in. This month, we’re working from the closed guard. I’ll be introducing the women to passing, sweeping, and submitting from there so that they get a taste of both top and bottom games. I’m trying to incorporate both sides into the drills, but sometimes it means that we work the same basic position for two classes in a row. I actually like doing that, since it means that the students get more reps from a position and they spend less time practicing bad technique (like putting their hands on the mat so that their opponent can practice a kimura, for example).

Curious Problem

I think it’s fairly common practice for the instructor to (kindly) submit students when they first start jiu jitsu. The problem comes in when I’m training with the teenagers. I don’t want to train so hard with them that they are too discouraged to return. I also don’t want to train so light with them that they think that jiu jitsu is easy or ineffective. I’m also a bit worried about the perception of the parents on the sidelines that don’t train, who are watching their children get beaten repeatedly by an adult. Being a teenage girl is hard enough without this sort of extra pressure, and I’m trying to find the right balance.

So far, my solution has been to reward good grappling choices and to “punish” bad ones, much like I would do if I were training a puppy. If the teenagers flail around under side control, the pressure slowly increases. If the teenagers attempt proper escapes, the escapes will work. I’m still working out if this is the best way to work with them or not, and I’d love some feedback from anyone that has trained teenage girls in the past. I don’t want to treat them like delicate flowers, but I also don’t think that treating them like a full-grown adult is the answer.

Coming Up

After August, I will start trying to get some of the newer women over into the co-ed classes. I think they’ll have enough of the basics to start trying things on a larger variety of opponents at that point. I also don’t want them to become too spoiled by always having sparring partners at their size and skill level. Plus, they need to find ways to adjust techniques for shorter and longer limbs and so on. If they’re always training with the same body types, they’ll never learn to make these small adjustments that will make their jiu jitsu more effective.

I’ll be spending a week at a women’s grappling camp in Toronto for the last week of August, and I hope to come back with some more ideas about developing the women’s program.

Chrissy Linzy has been training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for 5 years, and is one of the owners of US Grappling, a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and submission grappling tournament circuit that travels across most of the United States for events. She (rarely) blogs at www.clinzy.com.

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18/08/2010 - BJJ (Advanced)

Class #334
Gracie Barra Birmingham, (BJJ), Norby Nowak, Birmingham, UK – 18/08/2010

Yep, more De La Riva sweeps tonight. We began by reviewing the options from last week. All of them begin by holding both sleeves, then establishing the De La Riva hook (wrapping your same leg behind their knee, hooking their inner thigh with your instep). Grab their heel, then push on their far leg and simultaneously sit up. Move your same side hand from their heel to wrap behind their knee, then transfer the other sleeve to that hand behind the knee.

From here, the first sweep is to grab their far collar with your free hand, still pushing with your leg on their leg, then pull them down and out, rolling on top. From here, maintaining your grips, pass the guard. Note that even should they try and block your hips with their hands, your can roll over the top, twisting your body.

The second sweep starts the same, but this time, when you switch their sleeve to your knee hand, they push down with their free hand to release the grip. You switch your grip to that hand instead, then swivelling through, reach for their far leg with your arm (wrapping around the outside), then roll them in the direction they’re facing to coming up on top.

The third sweep was one we hadn’t covered before. This time, they manage to free both of their hands. As this is gi, you still have the option of grabbing their belt and pulling it tight with the hand your have behind their knee (or if their gi has a long skirt, like the judogi I wear, you can grab that instead).

You are now going to switch the position of your legs, so that the one closest to their leg wraps around, your foot pointing backwards. This will be on the side they’re facing, Your other leg also curls back, so that your knee is touching your other foot. In other words, it is the same position as a common stretch for your legs. Finally, grab the gi material by their far knee with your other hand.

Maintaining both grips, drive forward into their leg, making sure your head is on the inside of their hip (so, like a single leg takedown). Due to your grip on their far knee, they can’t just step back. Once they fall, lock out your arm to stop them moving that leg. From here, you should be able to easily pass, as one leg is immobilised by their belt, the other by your hand.

The next sweep follows on from that. Should you find your leg position, you can try it with your legs wrapped around the other way (so, your foot with be touching your knee, but behind them). You probably won’t have enough leverage, but this does put you in position for a similar sweep to before, where you swivel to your back, then roll them over in the direction their facing, using your grip on their knee to help.

They have both their hands free, so may well try to base out. That isn’t a problem: all you do is kick your legs up to disrupt their balance, then roll in the other direction (i.e, the direction opposite to the way they’re facing), pulling that far knee away from you as you do so, in the direction it is pointing. From here, you should be able to pass as before.

I felt my wrist was sufficiently rested to try specific sparring today, although that didn’t go too well. I either got passed very quickly, or ended up fighting from half-guard. I managed to sweep a couple of white belts, but in a fairly sloppy fashion. Passing didn’t work too well, as while I was circling my leg back and around then trying to pass, I’m missing some details, as I was often still struggling to pass their knee. I also got caught by a lovely sweep from one of those same white belts, who got a grip on the back of my gi and rolled me right over.

There was a large French contingent visiting today, which made for an interesting change: most of the people I sparred were from that group (several brown and purple belts, plus a couple of whites). However, during free sparring, I ended up with two regular GB Brum members. First was a big blue belt I’ve rolled with before, who tends to take things fairly easy, so I thought that would be a good idea given my wrist.

The second was a white belt I haven’t sparred before, where the pace was also relatively relaxed. He must be fairly new, as I kept getting into position for a triangle. Having said that, I failed to finish any of them, as often happens. While I could lock my legs, I was normally either too stacked, or couldn’t slide my legs into a proper triangle: presumably I wasn’t scooting back enough, or creating a sufficiently decent angle.

I had a go at switching to an armbar a few times, but he immediately got a secure grip by clasping his hands. I’ve got some idea of how to break that from mount, but was at a bit of a loss from guard. Something to work on, though I’m not normally going to get the time to sit there and ponder like today, as the pace wasn’t too quick.

I’m off to Wales tomorrow, but should be training again on Tuesday, as normal.

17/08/2010 - BJJ (Basics)

Class #333
Gracie Barra Birmingham, (BJJ), Nathan Roberts, Birmingham, UK – 17/08/2010

Class began with some unusual drills tonight, starting with a sort of ‘musical belts’: when Nathan said ‘go’, everyone had to rush to grab one of the belts in the middle of the room, of which there weren’t enough for everyone. Whoever was too slow was left doing burpees in the middle. I’ve never had the quickest reactions for that kind of thing, so naturally I found myself sweating rather than with a belt in hand.

The next drill still used the belts, but this time, we shoved them in the back of our own belts, to form a ‘tail’. The idea this time was to face your partner, and pull their tail free. First, you weren’t allowed to use any grips, which then came back in during the second round. Again, I was pretty terrible at this: my stand-up is crap, so I frequently found myself without a tail.

My left wrist was twinging a bit, but seemed to be holding up ok. That would be tested later, as the technique was again a De La Riva sweep (which I presume will be the case for long while, given the couple of months that were spent on side control and mount. The set-up was the same as before, starting with a grip on each of their sleeves and your feet in their hips. Swing one leg out, then swivelling your body, wrap it around their same side leg, hooking their inner thigh with your instep.

Once you’ve got that secure, let go of their same side sleeve and grab their heel, or alternatively low on their trouser leg (but not inside the cuff, as you’ll bust your fingers. It’s also illegal in competition, IIRC). With your free leg, push just above the knee of their other leg, while simultaneously rising to a sitting position, wrapping the arm that was on their heel around the back of their knee, feeding the sleeve you were holding with the other hand to the one now by their knee. You want to hug that knee in tight while also push straight out with the other leg: this will disrupt their posture.

Nathan stressed the importance of keeping that pressure on their leg, as if you leave any slack, they can step back and pass. It is also key to hug that knee while pushing the other leg, to immobilise them. Your other leg is on the floor, but ready to come up and pinch in towards them if they somehow get free of your arm.

Having broken their posture, you’re ready to sweep. Your pushing leg goes to the floor, while you drop your back towards the mat, spinning towards their far leg, reaching with your free arm. You are aiming to grip around the outside of their far leg: continue to maintain a tight hold on both their knee and their sleeve with the other arm.

Continue the momentum of your spin, trying to knock them over, yanking with the arm on the trapped knee. It will help if you keep their trapped knee tight to your chest: if that knee ends up on your stomach or armpit, they’ll be able to base, meaning you’ve basically just set them up for knee-on-belly.

Should they still base out even if you’ve done everything right (possible if they’re bigger than you), use the legs you have around their knee to disrupt their base and complete your roll. Either way, once you come up on top, you should be in a great position to pass the guard.

As ever, this works much better in drilling than against resistance. Specific sparring started with you already sat up, with an arm around the knee and your foot in place, pushing on their far leg. From here, you were supposed to try one of the sweeps we’d been learning over the past couple of weeks.

I failed miserably. Every time, my partner had no trouble at all either sitting down and passing, or getting my leg out of the way sitting on me. I was struggling to keep up decent pressure on their far leg, and also couldn’t seem to hold a secure grip on their knee. Of course, it is more difficult when your partner knows exactly what you’re about to do, but nevertheless, I clearly have a long way to go with De La Riva. On top, it was less difficult, as again, knowing what was coming generally meant you could recover your base and slide to the side for a pass (although I did still get swept once).

My first partner for free sparring was George, who is a couple of kilos lighter, but very strong for his size. However, he did leave a few gaps in side control, meaning I could slip in a knee, and I was normally able to snatch at half guard. I was also looking to wedge a knee or foot in the way whenever possible (though I need to be careful, as sometimes those extended grabs at half guard depend at least partially on flexible, which has resulted in a sore inner thigh a few times in the past).

The last spar was a chance to practice my half guard passing, as this time my partner was the one snatching at half guard, but I didn’t take the opportunity as much as I should have. I kept just putting my knee on the floor to try and slide into mount, or flop and look to see if I could slowly wriggle my leg free. I need to go review the half guard passes I’ve learned in the past, as I wasn’t being very technical.

Should be training again tomorrow, as I’ve got some more time in lieu to use from work. Then on Thursday I’m off to my annual Aberystwyth trip, which is something I always look forward to: it tends to be wet and rainy, but I love the landscape. Wales is definitely somewhere I’d like to live in the future, if the chance ever pops up (though my dream homes are still New Zealand or Canada: really enjoyed the time I’ve spent in both those countries. Spain would be cool too, if I ever get a handle on the language).

11/08/2010 - BJJ (Advanced)

Class #332
Gracie Barra Birmingham, (BJJ), Norby Nowak, Birmingham, UK – 11/08/2010

There was more De La Riva action tonight, beginning with the same sweep Nathan taught yesterday. I felt it more on my wrist today, so had to make sure I was sweeping the other side to avoid too much strain. A key point I hadn’t been doing enough last time was keeping the leg straight all the way through, rather than straightening as you pull them other. That means their posture remains broken, making it easier to roll them to the mat. Also, I found myself ending up in a better position for some reason, as I didn’t have to clear the leg in the same way.

The second De La Riva sweep was a little different. This time, once you get to the point where you’re sitting up and switching their sleeve to your arm under their leg, they use their other hand to push down, then yank their trapped arm free. In response, you grab the sleeve of that other hand instead, which sets up you for a different sweep.

Having secured that grip, swivel towards their other leg and reach through with your free arm, so that you’re gripping around their inner thigh. Your legs will now be on either side of the first leg you attacked, meaning you can now lock them together, clamping your knees tight. Continue the spin to knock them over, so that you end up on top.

There isn’t much they can do to block you except swing one leg over. You can pass under the leg, shoving through with your shoulder, as if you were executing a single underhook pass. Alternatively, go in the other direction, twisting so that you legs touch the floor and you’re facing the ceiling. This clears their leg by spinning over the top of it.

One thing to note is that you maintain that grip on their sleeve throughout. That means that if you use the usual grip, where you make a pocket of their sleeve with your thumb and hook it round your fingers, it can be painful as you spin and roll with the sweep. A pistol grip is much kinder on your fingers, but less secure.

That also meant I was feeling the strain in my wrist even more with the second sweep. Either side involved some tension on both wrists, so I had to be careful. It also showed me that it hadn’t sufficiently recovered to risk in sparring. So, I sat out of specific De La Riva rolling, instead watching how people swept and passed. Bradley was particularly instructive, as his passing functioned by swinging his leg backwards, looking to step through, with smooth technique. I tend to try and stay close and crush forward, but watching other people try that, Bradley’s approach appeared to be far more successful.

When it came to free sparring, I could guard my wrist more carefully, so did a few rolls with people I felt I could trust not to slam into my injury. That automatically meant they were going light, but it was still a useful exercise, as like yesterday I had to rely on my legs to try and control my partner. I was also even more conscious of keeping my knees close to my chest to stop them passing, and attempted to keep in mind the option of rolling backwards over my shoulder to recover guard (though that didn’t work too well).

In open guard, that was ok, and I also found I could still work to try and escape from side control with just the one arm too, as long as I pre-emptively made enough space with my knee. However, when I ended up on top in half guard, it was much tougher without the use of both arms, as normally I’d lock them around the head and armpit and use shoulder pressure to try and pass. Still, that did mean I was more relaxed, jumping over to see if I could dislodge my leg by moving to the other side (though again, that wasn’t particularly successful).

I also had a good long chat with Christian, who had some interesting info about the new central location for Gracie Barra Birmingham. Apparently, it’s huge, on two floors, with the top floor featuring a mat triple the size of the one at Stevie B’s (which isn’t exactly small). There’s also going to be a cage, and various martial arts on offer, like muay thai, wrestling and MMA besides the core of BJJ. It will also be right by Five Ways station, which is very handy.

Hopefully my wrist has now been sufficiently rested, although given that I have to do a lot of typing both for my job and writing commitments after work, I’m never going to be able to avoid using it completely. So, we’ll see if it’s any better by next Tuesday.

10/08/2010 - BJJ (Basics)

Class #331
Gracie Barra Birmingham, (BJJ), Nathan Roberts, Birmingham, UK – 10/08/2010

I’ve been chatting to Andrew (an old friend of mine who now lives in Birmingham) about BJJ for a while, and tonight he decided to pop along and give it a try. I haven’t seen him in a while, so it was nice to both introduce a friend to the sport, as well as just having a chat.

His first class would prove to be a little challenging for a beginner, as it was based around the De La Riva guard. Nathan built up to the main technique gradually, beginning with some movement drills to get people more familiar with using their legs to control an opponent. Shrimping forwards down the mat was followed by grabbing both of your partner’s sleeves, putting both feet on their hips, then pulling them forward. The idea was to gauge their weight, then balance them on your feet, using leverage rather than strength.

Another good exercise was kneeling next to your partner, then dipping your shoulder and rolling over their leg, swinging your own legs. Using your legs to push against their sides, you roll to the other side and come back to your knees, without using your hands.

Finally, Nathan had a handy drill where you lie on the mat, while your partner stands in front of your feet. You then hook your feet behind their legs, keeping your feet tense. They will step backwards slowly, while you will use those hooks to pull yourself along with them.

This fed right into the technique, which was a De La Riva sweep. Before the technique itself, Nathan went through a method for moving into De La Riva. You are holding both of their sleeves, with your feet on their hips. Being by swinging one leg out and around the back of their knee, hooking your foot around their inner thigh. You should swivel towards their leg while doing so, meaning that your hips are no longer square to theirs.

You can now release the grip on their same side sleeve, dropping that hand to the ankle of their trapped leg (or the pant leg, depending on your preference). Your other foot will slide down their leg, just above the knee, and push. This should force them to step back, and disrupt their balance.

Sit up, then drop your hooking foot to the floor, transferring the control to your same side arm, which will wrap around their leg. Feed their other sleeve to the hand you now have behind their leg. That leaves the other hand free to grab their same side collar.

That sets up the sweep. Still pushing on their knee with your foot, pull downwards and up past your head on their gi, rolling towards the collar-grip side. This isn’t a strength move, but about leverage and momentum. Keep rolling until you’re on top of them, maintain steady pressure. Maintain your collar grip, which will now slip further behind their head. Move around towards their head, past their leg, settling into side control.

Watch out for their arm: if you’re not careful and their limb is free, they can use that to push off your side and spin away. So, you want to both block their hip with your hand, and also keep your weight down, driving a shoulder into their face to keep the pressure on them.

As my left wrist is still quite sore from getting whacked last Tuesday, I was glad that sparring was almost entirely with small people. That meant I could rest my left hand, which also meant open guard became more of a challenge, as I couldn’t secure a proper grip on their left sleeve.

I was mainly trying to practice open guard, using my legs, and also still working on jnp’s ball technique. With the one bigger partner, I ended up in closed guard most of the time instead, where I definitely missed having the use of my left hand for grips, but fortunately I think he was taking it a little easier than normal, as I mentioned my left wrist was knackered.

Sparring tomorrow may be a tougher proposition, as I won’t be able to keep the pace light and steady in the same way. So I may have to either skip sparring, or hope that there are a few people there I can trust to take it easy, so I don’t make my wrist any worse (not that it’s terrible, but

Strangely enough, I saw another face I knew in the changing rooms after class, Brad, who I met back when I spent a month at Combat Athletics in Canley. He’s been training regularly for a while now at GB Brum, though I think he mostly sticks to the no-gi sessions, which is why I haven’t seen him around before now.

Should be training again tomorrow, as I’m able to get off work thirty minutes earlier, which gives me time to make the right bus to get my train connection. Hopefully Andrew will enjoy the Foundation class on Saturday (should be a bit less steep a learning curve than De La Riva!)

Article - A Women's BJJ Class (2)

One woman's journey into creating a women's jiu jitsu program
Article #16, by guest writer Chrissy Linzy [FAQ Entry]
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The Classes

The day of the first class, I couldn’t really think about anything else. What if no one showed up? What if I forgot everything I wanted to show? What if jiu jitsu techniques magically stopped working?

None of these things happened, of course. I had two students for the first class, and have had at least two students for nearly every class since then. I have designed the classes so that the warmup, the self defense move of the week and the two BJJ techniques all tie together somehow so that there are common motions being repeated.

At the end of each class, we do some positional sparring and then review the techniques from the class. During the first class, I covered details of mount escapes and then my “rules” for maintaining mount. The positional sparring was solely to maintain mount, without working for any submissions. I wanted to make sure that the women become comfortable with making adjustments in their posture and base automatically, before thinking about submissions.

Since most of the women that have been attending classes are fairly new to jiu jitsu, I’ve been spending a lot of time on the basics. I want these women to feel confident in the co-ed classes, and to have a lot of repetitions of the fundamentals. I also spend a good bit of time on the principles behind the movements so that the women understand other places that these movements will be effective.

Nearly every jiu jitsu academy talks about posture while you’re in someone’s guard, but I try to point out what good posture is from every position so that they’re always thinking about how to be safe, even if they don’t quite know what to do next. This is where I think that the positional sparring is the most helpful. Now that I have 3 months or so under my (blue) belt, I’m going to start making a few changes. I’m going to drop the second BJJ technique and add in more sparring. A lot of my students are teenagers, which means parents are very prompt about picking them up. This means that they expect class to end right at 9 PM, so the teenagers are missing out on the open mat time after class ends.

The Future

Right now, I have a few students who are planning to compete at US Grappling’s Dominion Grappling Championships, so we’re spending July and the beginning of August working on tournament strategies and on what to do if the plan goes awry. We’ll have some women coming from other academies to visit for classes between now and August 7 to help prepare for the tournament. In addition, I know I’m going to be getting a few new students in the next week or two, and I’m excited about seeing the program grow. Planning the lesson is one of my favorite parts of the week, especially when I work out the alternate ways to explain things, or to accomplish a particular technique with a different body type. I feel like it makes me a better instructor and a better grappler.

Chrissy Linzy has been training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for 5 years, and is one of the owners of US Grappling, a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and submission grappling tournament circuit that travels across most of the United States for events. She (rarely) blogs at www.clinzy.com.

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06/08/2010 - BJJ (Basics)

Class #330
Gracie Barra Birmingham, (BJJ), Norby Nowak, Birmingham, UK – 06/08/2010

Didn’t make it back in time for the cinema, but I did get out Hiroshima, Mon Amour from the library (which strangely enough relates to my interest in AIDS and cancer in poetry) before training. So, should make for interesting viewing: I don’t know much about it, but that’s how I prefer to watch films. I’d be much happier in a world where trailers were just the title of the film, that didn’t tell you anything about it at all (though I guess that might make it a bit tough to work out whether you might like it or not. But hey).

Also, I see from Matt’s blog that my first ever BJJ instructor, Oli Geddes, has a few instructional clips up, such as this one on his infamous loop choke:



I’m looking forward to seeing what he pops up with next.

It was another basics class tonight, this time with Norby. His focus was on passing the guard, easily the weakest part of my game. We began by drilling the orthodox standing guard break, from the standard grip where you hold both their collars in one hand (straightening your arm to keep their back on the mat), then grab their sleeve with the other (make sure you aren’t too obvious, so don’t just stare at their arm before trying to grab it). Finally, the elbow of your sleeve-grabbing arm must be braced inside your knee: if it is outside, then you're vulnerable to an omoplata.

You can either step up your leg on the trapped sleeve side, or slide your double collar grip up towards their head, using that as a post to jump up to your feet. As you raise up, let go of the collars, thrust forwards with your hips, while simultaneously yanking up their sleeve. To finish, push their same side knee off your hips with your free hand (which is often easier said than done, but at least this puts you in a good position to do it).

Next, Norby went through a variation on the leg pin pass. Instead of just dropping your knee other and keeping your shin on their leg, drop your knee as close as you can to their ribs. Keep your foot hooked under their leg, so it raises it up slightly. You’re also going to bring your same side arm under their head, driving your shoulder into their neck.

From here, you can exert a great deal of pressure on their legs, stretching them out until they’re liable to give up the pass just to relieve the strain on their inner thighs. Even if they’re flexible enough to resist that, you’re in an excellent position to complete the leg pin pass as usual, swinging your free leg right over to the floor past their legs, then switching the other leg underneath to establish side control.

Sparring was guard passage, with the class split up into ones, twos and three. The chosen group stayed on the mat, trying to pass the guard of everyone else. I was in the first group, and stayed very defensive. I had the excuse of my busted up wrist, but still, I should have been much more proactive. It’s very easy to slip into a defensive posture, just maintaining my base or tucking my elbows to my knees, which isn’t really the idea.

Underneath, in my comfort zone, I was a little more active, although as my first partner was pretty big, I was still fairly defensive, waiting for them to make a move. I thought I was going to get passed in short order as a result, because in flinging my legs up for a triangle, I went too high and immediately got stacked. However, for some reason he didn’t continue to push through and pass as I’d expected, so that eventually gave me the chance to move to half guard, reverse him and pass through to side control.

I asked later, and it seems that they were concerned about that triangle attempt. I doubt very much he was in much danger had he pushed through to go for a pass, but it’s interesting that proved a sufficient distraction to stop them completing the motion. Of course, this is the basics class: no way would I get away with that against blues or higher.

With somebody smaller, I was trying to be helpful, as they kept leaning forward when going to stand up, meaning it was a simple matter for me to pull in my legs and break their posture. I’m not sure if it is patronising to let them keep on making the same mistake and seeing if they correct it, or if perhaps I should have said something during the spar rather than after. It gave me a chance to practice the flower sweep, which I normally never get, but again, they were a good bit smaller than me, so it doesn’t really count.

I was reminded of reality again during an unsurprisingly brief specific spar with Norby. He easily opened my guard, then moved round to side control: I briefly tried to switch into butterfly guard, keeping my knees in tight, but too slow and without sufficient control.

A lot of people were trying to elbow dig to open the guard, which I really hate (also one of the reasons I like Saulo’s instructionals so much, as he targets plenty of scorn at that particular technique) . One of these days I’m going to have to spend a few hours drilling the triangle counter for that, as I still don’t have the timing down.

03/08/2010 - BJJ (Basics)

Class #329
Gracie Barra Birmingham, (BJJ), Nathan Roberts, Birmingham, UK – 03/08/2010

Tonight’s session was pretty much a repeat of the class Nathan ran a couple of weeks ago. Not that I’m complaining: it’s always good to review techniques, particularly when you feel you didn’t quite get to grips with them the first time round. That was true for the scarf hold attacks we ran through tonight, which had also been covered (with some modifications and variations) by Chiu recently.

The class began by revisiting the three side control transitions Nathan went through last week, starting with scarf hold, then reverse scarf hold and finally knee on belly. I tried to pay close attention to driving into their ribs rather than just dipping my head, and also staying tight when sprawling back and switching my hips. There were also some further details on moving into knee on belly from side control, in terms of the grips. As you lean slightly forward to pop up, slide one hand to their collar and straight arm into their face, while the other hand can either grip their knee or slide under their hip.

The scarf hold attacks were exactly the same as before, though Beton had a few useful adjustments to note on the second attack, where you pull up under their elbow. First, he suggested bringing the arm through further, so you aren’t just using your wrist, but cutting in with the upper part of your forearm. Second was the position of your head. Instead of posting on your forehead, Beton advised going higher on your head. The advantage is that this means your back is automatically more curved, meaning that you provide yourself with more space to pull into.

My training partner was a big white belt called Chris, who like many of the big white belts I’ve been training with recently was concerned about using too much of his weight. That’s three in a row now, so it’s good to see that at Gracie Barra Birmingham the stereotypical inconsiderate meathead white belt is not common. That meant that not only was he being cautious during drilling, but he also tried not to unduly use force during sparring.

We stuck with the same partner throughout, beginning with specific sparring, from side control. It wasn’t easy to stay on top with the size difference, so I attempted to focus on keeping control of the near elbow, jamming my other leg through to scarf if he got it free. I need to watch that I don’t lean too far forward when looking to stay tight in scarf, as especially with a big opponent, that just means I get rolled. Instead, I should be thinking of what Nathan said about driving into their ribs, which doesn’t leave you vulnerable in the same way.

Underneath, I was looking to curl up and spin, as Chris left a bit of space with his arm giving me a chance to push off them with my feet and shins. I also managed to get in a sweep when I hooked under one of his legs, but again, he wasn’t using his weight as much as he could have. If so inclined, he could easily have just crushed down and I would have been stuck.

With then moved into free sparring, where again I was looking to stay mobile and keep my legs curled in. I flung my legs up into a triangle, but Chris shrugged that off. I also tried getting my leg across, thinking of the omoplata, but failed to properly control around his back, scoot out or get the other leg into the right position. Going for the overhook also didn’t get me too far, as I didn’t have a sufficiently tight grip on his opposite collar.

I also need to be careful of some of the habits I’ve ingrained over the years, one of which is to be ready to block with my hands when they’re about to pass. Unfortunately for me, my hand was getting ready to block his hip just as he thrust his knee forward, meaning that his body weight slammed painfully through my arm, as my elbow braced against the floor, leaving my woefully unprepared wrist to bear the brunt.

Hopefully it will be ok tomorrow: I always get worried when I whack something hard during sparring, as I fear it’s going to swell up or bruise badly the next day. I’ve been stretching it since sparring finished (and as I was still able to grab and pull on the gi and grip the head, I’m taking that as a good sign), but we’ll see how my wrist feels after a night’s sleep.

My girlfriend is visiting again at the weekend, but as she is heading up on Saturday, I should be able to get in another gi basics class on Friday. Technically I could go for the no-gi, as I finish work early enough, but no-gi tends to be a last resort. Not something I enjoy anywhere near as much as gi: too much strength and speed involved, I find, and I always feel lost without those equalising grips. Then again, I haven’t seen Inception yet, so I might have to look into film times at the Apollo and check if I could squeeze it into Friday. ;)