Update Jan 2014: I've since moved to Artemis BJJ in the centre of Bristol. Artemis BJJ currently has classes on Mondays and Wednesdays from 19:30-20:30 at Bristol Sports Centre: for full details, head over to the Locations page.
Class #492 Gracie Barra Bristol, (BJJ), Nicolai 'Geeza' Holt, Bristol, UK - 06/03/2013
I headed down to Geeza's class straight from the private lesson. I was especially keen to attend to today, as Geeza said in his text message he was covering one of my favourite techniques, the tripod sweep. I'm always interested to glean more details on techniques I teach in my own classes, so was hoping Geeza would have a different take (which he did). Which means I can add that into the class I'll teach tomorrow.
The 'self defence' bit was basically a double leg takedown, driving straight forward. Due to being positioned as 'self defence', this was off ducking a looping overhand punch. I'm more familiar with slipping round to the back, as that's something I've drilled more often: in tonight's version, you drive straight forward, putting yourself in their guard. I had to be careful when it was my partner's turn, as heavy impact on the ground is exactly what my injury doesn't need. Hence why I was completely ignoring the proper way to breakfall, instead putting my hand behind me and lowering myself down slowly.
Getting on to the tripod sweep, grab their sleeve with both hands, putting your feet on the hips. This helps control the distance. From there, leave one foot on the hip while the other drops down behind their other heel (I prefer behind the knee, so that already reminded me of a variation I can add when I teach it). Leaving a hand on the sleeve, use your same side hand on the hip-foot side to grab their ankle.
Geeza prefers to cup their ankle, which requires good timing: the other option is to get a grasp of their trouser cuff. There appears to be some disagreement between black belts as to which is the better grip, but the latter makes most sense to me. First time I learned it 2008, Nic G advised cupping the ankle, which looking back seems to be true every time I've learned this sweep so far. If Geeza is reading this, you're right: Roger has always emphasised grabbing the trouser leg rather than cupping the ankle, as this is the post I was thinking of. ;)
From here, you're going to push with your hip foot, pull with your other foot and block with your ankle gripping hand. That should knock them over, meaning you can come on top. Again, Geeza does this differently to the method I normally use, as he moves back rather than forwards. After you've knocked them down, put your hooking foot on the floor, bring your other leg behind you. Let go of their sleeve.
Stand up, holding on to their trouser leg, pulling up and then pushing the leg towards them. That will make it difficult for them to recover, as you move around to a dominant position like side control or knee on belly. Standing up when someone has your foot in the air is hard. My instructor at RGA Bucks, Kev Capel, teaches the technique the same way in this video:
I was expecting Geeza to follow up with the sickle sweep, but instead he showed a back take, presumably in keeping with the Gracie Barra Fundamentals syllabus. They have the standard grips inside your closed guard. Grab the hand by your chest with both hands, gripping the sleeve on either side of their wrist. Thrust that hand away from you (same direction as the side their arm is on), also turning slightly and moving your shoulder back for increased leverage.
Maintaining your grip, pull their arm back across the other way as far as you can. Let go with your near arm and reach around their back, aiming to lock them to your body in an awkward position turned on their side. Clamp your chest to your back, so that you can then release the grip on their sleeve and use that hand for base. Slide your knee out, then swing the other leg over to establish your first hook. From there, you can roll them into back control.
Specific sparring was from open guard, with the proviso that the person standing can't kneel. This was a perfect follow-up to my private lesson earlier, as now I could practice my passing. It was all white belts and none of them were significantly heavier than me, which is a good environment for testing out techniques you haven't used often. The first hurdle to overcome was reaching the starting position for the pass. Which I didn't.
The difficulty was getting in tight enough to then step my leg forward, driving into the back of their knee, in order to get a grip on the collar and pull their shoulders off the mat. I wasn't able to stop them pushing me back with their legs, though I did still get the knee cut several times more sloppily. However, it seemed that when they push you away with their legs like that, it can set up the bullfighter pass quite nicely. That's something I'll ask Dónal about.
I could perhaps use the knuckles into the shin grip more: my natural grip is inside the knees, as that also means I can pop their foot off my hip with my elbow and then punch my hands into the mat for the bullfighter. I was also using my back-up half guard grip a lot, where you have an elbow behind their head, gripping their back, facing their legs. I used that to force half guard and pass from there a few times. However, I was clearly using too much strength, as I was breathing heavily afterwards (I didn't get a break during king of the hill, which obviously contributed, but still, I shouldn't have been using that much energy).
On the bottom, I went for the tripod and sickle over and over again, which generally proved successful, but then it was small white belts. I was pleased that my leg appeared to hold up ok, meaning that is the first bit of sparring I've been able to do without feeling crippled since September, which is cool.
Class #490 Gracie Barra Bristol, (BJJ), Nicolai 'Geeza' Holt, Bristol, UK - 27/02/2013
Seymour of Meerkatsu fame has once again kindly lent his design skills to the GrappleThon efforts, coming up with this excellent suffragette inspired poster. The fundraising team has now grown to eleven people, with various others pledging to come down and take part. Even better, our current team total for Rape Crisis is £1258.28: please help us reach (and hopefully surpass...) our target of £3,500! Donations gratefully received here. :D
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In regards to class tonight, things started off with the usual self defence portion of Gracie Barra Fundamentals classes. This was intended as a response from closed guard to when somebody tries to punch you. Hold both their wrists, then when they put up a knee and wind up for the punch, hook their leg, swivel and armbar them. That's an interesting contrast to the Gracie Combatives approach to blocking punches, which mainly relies on keeping them close if they try to punch, then create distance to get out of the way if possible.
The main techniques tonight were both chokes from the back, using the gi. Both of them start with the typical seat belt grip, one arm under their armpit,the other over their shoulder. With your armpit hand, open up their collar, folding it over to create two layers of cloth. Feed this to your other hand and get a firm grip. Try and bring the shoulder of your choking arm towards your choking hand, with the choking elbow moving behind their head.
With your other hand, grab lower on their other collar. Drop to your choking arm side, then pulling down on their other collar, tighten your grip with your choking hand. Move your upper body backwards to add further leverage and complete the choke. The second choke was much the same, except instead of grabbing their other collar, you thread that arm behind their head, trapping their arm in the process. You then also have the additional leverage of that arm behind the head to help your choke.
Class finished off with some specific sparring from turtle, where you already have a strong grip, securing their opposite collar and pulling it tight across their hips. This also served to remind me how totally rubbish I am at attacking the turtle. For some reason, I rarely find myself in this position: not quite sure why, unless I'm subconsciously avoiding it.
Anyway, I was crap on top of turtle: that wasn't helped my only being able to use one leg properly, but even if I'd been in full working order, I still wasn't able to mount much of an offence. Underneath didn't go a whole lot better: I think I managed to escape once, but that was because a white belt reached too far inside with their arm, and even then it took me a bit of scrambling to get to a controlling position on top.
Geeza quickly showed me what I should have done later, which was basically using that strong grip to pull them in towards me as I move to the side, establishing back control. Definitely a position I need to work more, once the leg finally heals up. For the moment, I'll continue concentrating on passes and the top position, as that doesn't aggravate the injury, but as soon as it is working, I'm really keen to improve my guard and back control. Back escapes are a high priority too, which I should be able to do with the injury.
Class #486 Gracie Barra Bristol, (BJJ), Nicolai 'Geeza' Holt, Bristol, UK - 05/02/2013
For a long time now, a major goal of mine has been to support women already in jiu jitsu and encourage others to give BJJ a try. I was therefore appalled when I read that a woman had been raped by two of her team mates. I would like to turn the strong feelings about that incident towards something positive. Hence why I've decided to run another GrappleThon (you can read about last year's event here) in aid of the important work undertaken by the charity Rape Crisis.
My fundraising page is here. Please donate whatever you can spare to make a positive change (JustGiving functions outside the UK too). You can also donate via text message, by texting GRAP54 £1 to 70070.
The GrappleThon will take place on the 4th May 2013. Just like last time, we're planning to stream it live over the internet: Steve has some gadgetry up his sleeve. :)
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No Dónal tonight, as his partner was in the process of having a baby. That meant that instead Geeza was taking class, which means a very different atmosphere and class structure. It has been quite a while since I last made it down to one of Geeza's classes (I think I may not have been since the last GrappleThon, so that's about four or five months), so I had forgotten how Geeza often has small variations to the standard technique. Although it's also possible this was just material of the Gracie Barra curriculum, but I'm not sure.
Either way, it was basic mount escapes tonight, with a twist. I was expecting the typical elbow escape to start with, but Geeza combined it with the heel drag and releasing the hooks from low mount. They have grapevines, so first circle your leg around to free your leg, just like in Gracie Combatives. Put that leg flat, then circle the other trapped leg free and immediately bring it right across, moving into the heel drag. Shrimp out to half guard, then switch so your outside foot is hooking inside, rather than your inside foot hooking out. Geeza prefers this, even naming them 'good half guard' and 'bad half guard'. The reason he likes it is because having the outside foot hooking gives you greater mobility when recovering full guard, which is the next step..
That was followed by another basic escape, the bridge and roll. Interestingly, Geeza didn't emphasise the bridge with his version, instead focusing on trapping the arm. If they grab your collar to look for an attack, grab their wrist with your opposite hand and their triceps with your same side hand. Again, this follows the method in Gracie Combatives, although the reasoning is different. Rener does this because he says it makes it harder for them to pull their arm back and punch you.
Geeza's explanation was that grabbing the triceps means you can use your elbow to block their knee, while still being able to drive your elbow into their ribs with the wrist hand. That makes sense, although you can also do that if you grab their wrist with your same side hand and the inside of their elbow with your opposite hand. The difference is that the former is better for blocking the knee, the latter is better for bracing your elbow and arm into them when bridging.
The other option was for when they wrap under your head, where again Geeza advised grabbing the triceps. That's as opposed to the 'comb your hair' grip which I'm more used to, but both will work. Geeza then drives his other arm into their same side armpit to roll them over. Once again, that closely follows the methodology of Gracie Combatives. The main alternative is to instead push on their hip, as per Roy Dean and others.
As ever I couldn't join in properly on the sparring, so instead tried various drills to work around my injury. With one of the blue belts I worked on the pass Dónal taught me last week, where my main concern is avoiding that triangle. Obviously he won't be available for the private tomorrow, but possibly next week. I'm expecting that his schedule may be a little erratic over the next few months, which would be totally understandable for a new parent. :)
After that I did some specific sparring under side control with Geeza's eldest son, who is a good technical rolling partner. We kept it fairly light, with Oli trying out various submission attempts. Not being able to use my left leg properly is an annoying hindrance, but I can still work on staying tight and observing the kind of attacks people try in certain positions.
Finally I did some open guard with Berry, which is one of my default positions when I can't use one of my legs properly. I aim to go to the Xande spider guard variation where you're pressing into their bicep and pulling on the same side collar. It doesn't always work, but as long as the other person is much bigger or a lot more experienced than me, I can at least use it to hold them off for a while.
[This is the write-up of the 2012 GrappleThon. For the 2013 GrappleThon, go here]
If you're following me anywhere online, you'll almost certainly have seen me babble about this event over the last few months. I started thinking about doing a marathon grappling session after watching the grapple-a-thon held by the Martial Arts Planet gym in Ontario, Canada a few hours before I got promoted to purple belt, in March last year. After starting full-time at Gracie Barra Bristol later that year, when I moved to Bristol in May, I was waiting for the academy to get a WiFi connection. As soon as it did, which I think was around a year later, I could put my plan into action.
First I needed to ask Geeza if he was happy for me to run the event at his school, then check with my various contacts in BJJ about the possibility of t-shirts and prizes. Seymour 'Meerkatsu' Yang (who I have known online for a good few years now, but only met a fewtimes) and Tatami Fightwear both responded immediately. Seymour generously provided the fabulous design at the top of this post, which Tatami put onto some t-shirts. I was particularly pleased that Seymour was able to make it down in person: as he's a popular figure in BJJ (who has recently opened his own online shop), I was hoping that his supporters would get behind the event too.
Thanks to various people around the web and the impressive efforts of the MUK Press Officer, we managed to get the GrappleThon a hefty bit of coverage. Obviously I've posted about it in various places, like here and here. Seymour has been active too, mentioning it here and talking about how he came up with his awesome custom design here.
Facebook has been another good place to share, like here, here and here. Other sites have also kindly put up some details, like Martial Arts Unltd, Gi Freak, BJJ Board and Southern Jiu Jitsu. We also got a mention on episode #39 of the Inside BJJ podcast, which was cool. The charity itself put up a press release here, then finally there has also been a bit of local press, here and here as well as national coverage in the October 2012 issue of Martial Arts Illustrated.
Once I began announcing the event in class, a steady stream of GB Bristol students started signing up (it won't surprise anyone familiar with my geeky tendencies that this was through an online spreadsheet ;D). Geeza and Dónal got behind it too, making announcements in their classes, along with adding a mention to the group emails Geeza regularly sends to all members of the club.
The difficult part was pinning people down to a specific time, as I was very keen to ensure that we didn't run out of people: e.g., everybody arriving on Saturday noon and forgetting about the early hours of Sunday. Unsurprisingly there were a few people who pulled out, but fortunately their absence was filled by the considerable number who hadn't put themselves down for a slot on the spreadsheet. That additional influx was thanks to Geeza and Dónal's class announcements, which meant we had a total of forty-four people over the course of the GrappleThon. :)
By the time of the GrappleThon, the spreadsheet was relatively full even with those gaps from people having to drop out. On the day, numbers were even better, with an average of at least eight or so at any one time. Several people stayed for much longer than they put on the spreadsheet, or popped in and out, like Steve. Nevertheless, there were still a few quiet spots. Between around 4am and 6am, it was beginning to look like the handful of tired, injured or sleeping grapplers remaining would have to cover a good three hours worth. We were therefore thrilled when first Andrew walked in, followed a bit later on by Sam and then Andre.
As the donations began to mount up on JustGiving, the last part to sort out was the stream over on JustinTV. I tried a couple of different webcams, which worked, but the quality wasn't great. Steve stepped in at this point: with the help of his technical wizardry and horde of gadgets, the stream jumped up to excellent quality, although that did of course depend on your home connection.
Seymour arrived at my house on the Friday, ready to go the next morning. I had a great big box of t-shirts to carry down, along with a backpack loaded with gis, cereal bars, collection boxes, meningitis information, laptop paraphernalia and spare pants. Yes, spare pants: sitting in underwear sodden with sweat for several hours is not pleasant. Hence why I had four: I brought two with me, then my gf brought another two when she dropped by to visit around 8pm. ;p
During the event, I was mainly acting as the administrator, sat behind a bank of laptops. From there I could check the stream, respond to the chat room, post Twitter and Facebook updates, but perhaps most importantly, manage my lovely spreadsheet for tracking how many spars each grappler had racked up. During the planning stages, I instituted several competitions for the GrappleThon, which I hoped would both help motivate people in attendance and also encourage maximum donations.
The first competition was for the Meerkatsu designed t-shirt. I was impressed that they arrived exactly when Gareth from Tatami had said they would: if their customer service is that good for a charity event, it must be brilliant for paying customers. To earn one of them, you had to donate to Meningitis UK by 9am on the Saturday, which most people did via JustGiving (though there are a few who prefer to do it offline, and have done very well. I'm looking forward to updating the total once those sponsorship forms come in! :D). I had some 'standard' Meningitis UK shirts to give out too.
The second competition was to see who could spar the longest, hence the spreadsheet. That proved to be a successful concept, as I think a number of people were tempted to stay on longer to either get the highest total of six minute rolls, or at least beat somebody else's total (one girl was even motivated to try out BJJ for the first time, having come down with her family to watch her brother: she ended up with 16 rolls!). Maeve took this a step further: on her fundraising page, she announced that for every £50 she raised, she would spar another hour, in addition to the two hour slot she'd already agreed. That meant she had the difficult challenge of sparring for six hours.
Now, most people would probably break that up over the twenty-four hours, perhaps heading home for a sleep in between. Not Maeve. She sparred pretty much non-stop. When she finished the sixty rolls, she was still full of energy. In fact, I reckon she could have done sixty more! Brilliant performance: you can watch the last few minutes of it here. Almost the entire stream is still available for playback, here, although I'm not sure how long the videos stay up on JustinTV after the stream has finished. Even if they do go down, Steve has all of them downloaded: we'll hopefully have a highlight video sorted at some point.
Along with Maeve, there were several other people gunning for the title. Andrew Wormald was the early leader, who ended up with 60.5 rolls (the 0.5 was because Geeza was keen to go one better than Dónal: otherwise they would have been tied). Seymour made it to 60.5 as well. Young Louis Horne (I may have that surname wrong) was also in the lead for a long time with 42 rolls. That's an even better total when you take into account Louis is only ten years old. Yet the eventual champion was Kyle Chesmore, who was there for most of the day, spreading out his 63 rolls. Well done champ!
Speaking personally, I didn't spar all that much by comparison. My total at the end of the twenty-four hours was 31 rolls, meaning I had sparred for just over three hours. In one go, that would have been a lot, but I spaced it out across the whole event. There were two longer stints, including an hour long roll with Maeve (thanks Deidre! ;D) and thirty minutes with Andrew to give everyone else a rest during a quiet period. Those were the exceptions: most of the time I just occasionally jumped in. I wanted to be ready to take up the slack if needed, so I tried to maintain an even lower intensity than normal. It also meant I could pose for random pictures, like the one below with Gem. Hooray!
The third and final competition is a simple one: who can raise the most money. In order to be fair to people who are fundraising offline and therefore have to chase their supporters to claim the pledged cash, the deadline for this one is October 22nd. So, if you are supporting an individual fundraiser, you can still help them win if you pop over to JustGiving (if they have a page: most of the fundraisers did, but there were a couple of exceptions). And remember, JustGiving works outside the UK too. Incidentally, although I'm not taking part in that competition, I'm only £10 off my personal target, if anybody wants to help me reach it. :D
Seymour has done a write-up too (here), for which he has loads of good snaps (the ones in my post almost all come from GB Bristol member Bruno): if you check out the Meerkatsu Facebook page, you'll see a few of them. Also, considering I'm quite sleep-deprived at this point, I'll probably need to update my post for mistakes and typos anyway. ;p
There were several people there who had direct experience of meningitis. For example, Martin was hospitalised for a month with viral meningitis, which still affects him today: he rolled for forty-eight minutes. People kept coming up to me to talk about uncles, sisters and cousins who had either survived meningitis or sadly passed away. That demonstrates how many families are affected by the disease. Hopefully the money we raised at the GrappleThon will help make sure those stories become less common.
If you would like further information on meningitis, take a look at the Meningitis UK website. You'll want to pay special attention to the symptoms: meningitis can kill in less than four hours. Speed is of the essence, so see a doctor immediately if you have even the smallest suspicion that you or somebody you know might have contracted meningitis.
Update 26th Sep 2012: Steve has put together a few highlight videos. He's got more on the way, and once I get hold of the main footage I'll most likely throw a few up on Facebook. To start with, here's one of the beginning and end, with a bit of the middle:
Then here is a speeded up version of Maeve's mammoth sixty rolls (three hundred and sixty minutes!):
__________________________________ Class #470 Gracie Barra Bristol, (BJJ), Nicolai 'Geeza' Holt, Bristol, UK - 22/09/2012
In regards to the actual training, it was essentially an extended open mat. Geeza kicked things off at 09:00 by running through some flow drills, while the first pair were sparring in front of the MUK banner. Like I said above, I did thirty-one rounds of six minutes, but spread out across the whole event. About half of that was with two people, due to an hour long roll with Maeve and a thirty minute session with Andrew.
I had a chance to practice clearing an arm from the back with Marcus, putting what I teach into practice. Pulling up when they are grabbing an arm to get them to pull back down worked initially, as I could sweep the arm down and bring my leg over the top. However, I wasn't able to get it behind the back, meaning it was rather less secure by Marcus's hip and stomach: IIRC, he eventually worked his arm back under.
A number of times over the course of the GrappleThon I was looking to get past somebody's knees while in their guard, due to some variation or other of the knee-shield/z-guard. I am still tending to flop down and aim to slide past the knee, but that relies too much on them making a mistake rather than pro-actively working around the knees.
I'm also continuing to be far, far too passive with spider guard. This is my default guard, especially when I want to be lazy (which was all the time at the GrappleThon, because I was worried about blowing all my energy early on). I can get into spider guard, pushing on the arms and hips to keep them away. But that is about it: I have been shown sweeps from there, the details of which I normally forget.
The same goes for closed guard, where I'm stalling too much, either in a high guard, a 'normal' closed guard with tight head control, or an overhook. I did land a few triangles, but that's heavily mitigated by the fact I mostly rolled with white belts and was almost always fresh by comparison to my training partner.
On top, I managed to maintain the position ok. My focus was locking down in top half guard, mount and side control by reaching under the head and gripping the cloth by their far armpit. That way, I can use my shoulder to immobilise them on one side, while pulling tightly on the armpit-cloth stops them moving on the other side. Their legs are still a danger, but if I can get that upper body trapped, I can at least stabilise.
However, as with spider guard, I'm just maintaining and not submitting. On the other hand, I did go for more submissions than normal, with a few kimuras and that nifty little gi choke Matty Burn showed me a while back (although I wasn't really feeding enough of the gi tail, so the subs were a bit sloppy).
I also had a play with something I learned more recently, from Kev, who in turn learned it from Felipe Souza. I don't normally find myself attacking the turtle all that often, but I had a few opportunities during the GrappleThon. So, it was time to pull out the clock choke, but not the typical one. I suck at the typical one. IMO, Felipe's version is a great deal easier to apply: in basic terms, after you've got the collar grip, you just brace your free elbow on the other side of their head, drop your weight and move through.
Sparring with Seymour was cool, because we haven't rolled in a while. I think I was still a blue when we last sparred, but I'm not certain. Either way, Seymour noted afterwards that my game seems quite different, as I now clearly prefer the top: back when he rolled with me as a blue, I was in guard, but not really doing anything with it. It's good that my top game has improved a bit, but looking back I unfortunately can't see all that much has changed with my guard (possibly my spider guard is slightly harder to pass than it used to be, but not by much). I've said it before, but I need to refocus on getting some reliable sweeps in guard.
Annoyingly, there seems to be something amiss in the inner thigh of my left leg. It has been feeling tight for a while now. I thought it was just sore, but as it feels like it's been that way for ages, could be time to check in with a physio. Still, the only time it really hindered me was when I was looking to practice the windscreen wiper sweep: whatever injury I've got makes that technique awkward.
Special mention to Tony, who as always was an awesome training partner. Very relaxed, controlled and technical. Like last time I was playing around with gi grips, seeing if I could do anything with them, without much purpose. Tony has a lovely double-knee sweep that is hard to pass, so it was an interesting challenge to try and avoid that. The only time I managed to pass it was just swinging my leg off as fast as I could, so that's not a reliable method.
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GrappleThon Aftermath
The fundraising has continued since the GrappleThon, meaning that the total donated, as of 11th February 2013, was £3,015! :D
Aside from this write-up, other participants wrote up their thoughts too. I've already mentioned Seymour's summary, then there is also Rich's post. We got a mention on BJJ News too, linked here and here.
We've also had further press coverage, starting with the Meningitis UK site, here. Martial Arts Illustrated also followed up with another story in their November 2012 issue. Seymour namechecked us in an interview he did with the German site, Grapplers Paradise. There is also a short report in Issue 11 of Jiu Jitsu Style, plus a brief mention during my article on 'BJJ: Martial Art or Sport?' in the same issue.
Class #468 Gracie Barra Bristol, (BJJ), Nicolai 'Geeza' Holt, Bristol, UK - 14/09/2012
Some of you may have noticed this site was a bit intermittent a couple of days ago. That was due to the mass outage caused by a DDoS attack on GoDaddy. As it turned out, that's a good thing, because all the media attention meant I learned quite a bit more about GoDaddy's business practices. Previously, I'd just followed the advice of a friend who works in IT when it came to setting up a custom domain: I hadn't realised GoDaddy were fans of the despicable advertising described here and here. Hence why I've now switched to a different company. So, thanks to the Anon hackers on that one. :)
Also, the GrappleThon is next weekend! Fundraising is going well, as we've reached over £1300, but I'm still hoping to get to my personal target of £350. So, if you can help, please throw some money towards a good cause, here. Remember, with JustGiving you can donate from anywhere in the world, so US readers can help too. ;D
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The theme for this fortnight is passing the guard: tonight focused on a few principles of passing posture, in a Gracie Barra Fundamentals class I last saw Geeza teach a little over a year ago. The self defence bit was a takedown from a headlock, where you turn your head towards them, grabbing their hip and pushing your other hand into the back of their knee. Step backwards and take them down into side control, basing out with your hands immediately. Shift a knee up to their head, stepping the other leg over and bringing it tight to their hip. Make a frame on their neck with your hands to push up and free your head, finishing with an armbar.
The main technique discussed proper posture in the guard. You begin in a poor position where they've already broken your posture, controlling your head. To recover your posture, first stay safe by clamping your knees and elbows to their hips. Put one knee in the middle of their butt cheek (if you bring it too close to the tailbone, they may be able to sweep you), sliding the other knee outwards. Circle your head out in the direction of that slid-out knee, returning to a good upright posture.
Grab their same side collar with each of your hands, then swinging your head like a pendulum, use the momentum to come to your feet. You stay in a sort of horse stance or crouch, your elbows resting on your knees, head slightly forward, pulling on their collars. This is a very stable position: it is difficult for them to sweep you from here.
To actually get the guard open, if they don't open it already in order to go for a sweep, release one collar and raise up, tucking the elbow of the other arm inside their leg (to avoid offering them a triangle). Reach back with your free hand, inserting it by their locked feet. Turn your body and bring your arm under their leg, aiming to pop their legs open. Keep twisting and grab their far collar or shoulder. From there, you can move into the standard smash pass, driving through their leg until you can slip through to side control.
Sparring was the same as last time we did this lesson: the person on the bottom was just looking to keep their posture broken, while the person on top was looking to stand up with posture. Unfortunately for me, class was divided by height rather than weight, so there were quite a few guys my height or less, but about twice the width! ;p
So, that meant trying to escape their grip was an interesting challenge. With Arnaud, I tried to move into the tailbone break, but I think I misjudged and basically ended up ramming my knee into his balls. Admittedly effective, but for all the wrong reasons. So, I'll need to be more careful with the angle of my knee next time, using leverage to open the guard rather than the natural instinct to protect your testicles. ;)
Underneath, I was looking to wrap up the head, possibly getting an overhook. That sort of worked, but I should have also attempted to establish a deep collar grip too. Knowing that your partner only needs to stand up to end the roll changes the dynamic, as normally I'd be quite happy to switch to open guard. This is therefore a good drill to ensure that you don't give up your closed guard so easily.
Class #465 Gracie Barra Bristol, (BJJ), Nicolai 'Geeza' Holt, Bristol, UK - 27/08/2012
Another big class this Monday, though a couple of people short of the biggest ever last week. Self defence was the technical stand-up, blocking their kicking leg (which is normally the one they have back) by putting your elbow to your knee, kicking into their other knee with your free leg. Last time we did this one I forgot which side to kick, which I may have done again this week: Geeza did mention that my partner was doing it wrong, but from what I could tell he seemed to be following the same drill as everyone else. Still, very possibly I could have missed something, as self defence training makes your eyes glaze over. ;p
Next up was the basic pendulum sweep. Grab both their sleeves, just behind the elbow: Geeza recommended gripping the seam to take out slack. They then try to stand up. As soon as they raise a knee, swivel towards that side and underhook that leg with your same side arm. Still on the same side, kick your leg up into their armpit to knock them over while lifting with your arm. As you come up, remember to curl the other leg back so you don't throw them onto it: otherwise, you'll get stuck while trying to shift into mount.
That was followed by the triangle from guard, which Geeza wants us to keep working for the next two weeks. That should prove interesting for me, as my triangles are rubbish: so, good opportunity for me to take another look at them, given it's something I hardly ever use. Given this was the first lesson of triangle fortnight, Geeza kept things very basic. They have one arm in and one arm out. Lock your feet and grab their head to break their posture (Geeza said that this is the only time he laces his fingers together, as he feels that's the strongest grip to use in this situation).
Swivel to their free arm side, adjusting your legs if you need to. To finish the choke, Geeza prefers the Ryan Hall method, where you're kicking into their neck using your quads, rather than squeezing your abductors together. Hall talks about this at length on his DVDs: his perspective is that you should be using the most powerful muscles in your legs, rather than comparatively weedy ones, which makes sense.
There wasn't any time for sparring, but then it is only an hour class, so that's not surprising as self defence etc takes up a good bit of time.
Class #464 Gracie Barra Bristol, (BJJ), Nicolai 'Geeza' Holt, Bristol, UK - 20/08/2012
Due to an increase in my writing workload, it's been a few months since I last made it to a Monday or Friday class. Those have always been the busiest days: I'm not sure if that is because those are the longest established, or the ones advertised as 'Gracie Barra Fundamentals'. Either way, Geeza is clearly doing an incredible job of getting the word out, as tonight there were almost fifty people on the month. The number of children training at the club has increased so much that Geeza is able to offer a separate kid's class, which his son Oli is currently running (although I think he is off on a work placement or something soon, so Luke will be taking over. Which is cool, as Luke is a good teacher).
It was also good to see about five women on the mat too, although the upstairs changing room hasn't been designated as the women's changing room yet. Hopefully that will happen soon, as even two women is too many for the current small shower room allocated to Gracie Barra Bristol's female members. Perhaps in future there might even be enough for a separate women's class, which would be great, as that's a good way to help build up the numbers in a less intimidating environment (e.g., like the classes Chrissy used to run at her club in Virginia).
Geeza was busy, so passed the warm-up over to me. I've never run a warm-up with a class of almost fifty people, so that was an interesting experience. For a start, I couldn't just say "do breakfalls down the mat" as normal, because due to the numbers it wasn't as obvious when everybody had been: my classes tend to get between six and twelve people, so this was around five times as many students as I'm used to. ;)
It has been a long while since I've made it down on a Monday, so I'd almost forgotten that the fundamentals class always kicks off with some self defence. As I've mentioned many times before, that's by far my least favourite part of BJJ, because I find it neither interesting nor useful, given that self defence techniques are never tested against resistance in a sparring situation. Still, I should probably start to pay a bit more attention, as apparently some people do like learning it.
So, I'll try to start noting that part of the class down more often. Today, the self defence situation was that they've grabbed your neck from behind with both their hands. Reach across to grip the fleshy part of their opposite hand, then turn and twist. You're aiming to put them into a typical aikido style wristlock, pushing their palm towards their arm, bringing them to the ground: exactly the same thing as you would see in any TMA type class.
Once that was out of the way, we got onto the more useful material, continuing with the back position. Geeza covered a standard escape from the back, beginning with the simpler option, when they have only gripped your lapels rather than locked in the seatbelt (one arm over the shoulder, one arm under the armpit). Bridge, get your head over their shoulder, then wriggle your shoulders to the mat. Pop their hook off with your hand, step over with your leg, then grab their other leg with your nearest arm (pant leg or underhook behind their knee). From there, shrimp and move into side control.
If they do have the seatbelt grip, fall towards the open side, so their armpit arm. Again, try to wriggle your head to the mat followed by your shoulders: if your back is on the mat, it is impossible for them to occupy that space. Continue as before, grabbing their leg, shrimping, then turning towards them to establish side control.
There was also a simple escape from turtle, where you've gone for some kind of takedown but they've sprawled, so are now position in front of your turtle position. Grab for their opposite leg with your arm (otherwise they'll just spin to your back), also putting up your leg on the same side as that grabbing arm for base. You can then slide your other leg through and move into guard.
To finish off we did some king of the hill sparring from turtle, switching position if you were able to either escape or take the back. I have carefully avoided turtle for the last six months or so, as last time I went to turtle I messed up my neck. It's never been a strong position for me, but I can generally work my way back to guard. However, I'm terrible at attacking the turtle, as demonstrated by today's sparring.
I barely got anywhere, except with one person who was trying to spin to guard. That gave me the chance to move to the back and get my second hook using the Marcelo Garcia back extension. Aside from that sole success, I most tried to keep my weight on the side, but soon lost control as they re-established guard, or even worse, managed to somehow get on top as I fell off and ended up on my back.
Hopefully I'll now be able to get back into my old pattern of Monday, Tuesday then teach on Thursday. Once I've re-established that, I'll see if I can add in Friday or Wednesday, with the odd Saturday.
Class #458 Gracie Barra Bristol, (BJJ), Nicolai 'Geeza' Holt, Bristol, UK - 08/06/2012
I've been even more intermittent with training (in terms of being a student, rather than teaching) recently, so it was good to get in at least one session of being taught rather than being the teacher. I love teaching, but it inevitably reduces your drilling and sparring time, so it's important to also get in some time learning from somebody better than you.
Tonight Geeza continued the theme of side control transitions from yesterday, focusing on knee-on-belly. That started off with a nifty drill for knee on belly, which also proved to be a tough workout for the legs. You start off in knee on belly. They turn towards you, whereupon you lift your knee slightly, keeping the instep of that knee curled in close to their body. They then bridge straight up: again, you ride it out. Finally, they turn away forcefully. This is the hardest bit. With the leg you have up, move that right around their head. Keep on going under that leg is by their stomach. Put the knee on belly on that side, so that you other leg is now up instead. Repeat.
Next up was a transition from knee on belly to mount. Begin in side control, then move your hand nearest their legs to their far hip and grip. You other hand is going to grip their far collar, so that your forearm is across their neck. Hop up to knee on belly. Once you've secured the position, switch your hip hand to the outside of their far knee, gripping the gi material of their trousers tightly.
They again try to forcefully turn towards you and bridge you off. Go with the motion, sitting back on your raised leg. Use your trouser grip to shove their knees to the mat, on the side nearest to you. Kick your other leg (so, the one which was on their belly) straight forward, a bit like you were doing a muay thai teep kick over their body. Use your kick to grip their far hip with your heel, then drive through into mount.
Geeza finished off the technical section with a third technique: there was a bit more time tonight, as he merged the beginner and advanced classes, so it ended up being a bit under two hours total. This time, he demonstrated a near side armbar from side control. The grip you start off with is unusual for side control, as you want to reach under their near side armpit with the arm furthest away from that armpit. It is important that their arm then ends up underneath your armpit, so you can clamp it to your body. Keep reaching with your hand, to grab the back of their collar.
It is a weird grip, which takes a bit of set-up because their arm isn't normally in that position. If they are wise to this technique, then it will be even harder to get the grip. However, as Geeza said, you can trick them into giving it to you. Reach under their armpit, then start moving to north-south. That should make them extend their arm, so that you can then clamp it and move back to your original perpendicular alignment.
Either way, once you have that grip, reach over with your free arm to grab their far sleeve. Pull it towards you to roll them up on their side, passing it across your body, bringing your leg over their head. Make sure your armpit and collar hold stays tight on the first arm. Bring your other leg over their body as well, sliding your grip up from their collar towards their elbow. Their arm should still be firmly clamped, enabling you to lean back and put pressure on their elbow for the tap.
I haven't done an extended session of sparring in a while: it was good to get back to it tonight. We did a good forty minutes. I started off with two relatively light rolls, with a white belt and an orange belt respectively. Given I'm pretty weeny, the orange belt is actually bigger than me, but still young, so I had a strength and experience advantage. That meant I could practice my transitions, trying to use what Geeza had just shown us about knee on belly and that grip set up. The white belt has a lot of experience in judo, so it was interesting trying to attack her back. The natural judo reaction is to turn flat to the floor on your stomach, which is quite different to the typical BJJ scenario.
That was followed by a completely different kind of roll, as next up I went with Geeza, who is both much bigger and much better than me. I therefore took it as an opportunity to work my defence, trying to dig my way out of his side and back control using my elbows and knees, spinning and squirming whenever I could find some space. I'm ending up with my back taken far too often, possibly because of my instinctive reliance on the running escape. Rolling with Miles was similar, as he is also bigger and better than me, so I did pretty much exactly the same thing.
By this point I was knackered, so my final roll with a smaller blue belt was very lazy. I fought to get on top of half guard, then settled into my usual control: elbow pressed in the back of the head grabbing the back of their gi, while the other arm reaches under their armpit and clamps tight. We stayed there for a long time with me trying to catch my breath from the previous rolls. Eventually he was able to put me in guard, where I switched to first using my legs to try and keep him away, then going to a very defensive closed guard for the last few moments of the spar.
Capoeira classes being launched at the academy, which could be interesting. I haven't been to a class of that since my second year as an undergraduate back in 2001/2002, so I may well pop down on Sunday to check it out.
Class #457 Gracie Barra Bristol, (BJJ), Nicolai 'Geeza' Holt, Bristol, UK - 21/05/2012
For years now, I've been saying I want to go to the USA and meet up with some of the many awesome BJJers I've got to know online. I've always had five states in mind: California, Florida, Texas, Virginia and Oregon, based on the people I want to train with in each of those states. Canada is also somewhere I want to go (or rather, return to, as I went way back in 2002). I'm intending to visit all of them over the next few years, though I've no idea how long that's going to take. My girlfriend wasn't keen on doing a long haul flight this year, so I'm saving California and Florida: I think those are the two states she would most enjoy, possibly Virginia too, due to the landscape, sunshine and beaches (well, not so much Virginia on the latter two ;p).
That meant that this year, I've decided to go to Texas. My flights are booked, so I'm leaving on the 17th November, then coming back on the 30th November. At the moment, the only two places I'm definitely going are Dallas and Austin, with Houston being a likely third destination. So, if there are any BJJers from Texas reading this, let me know your suggestions. Though I should note I'm a bit weird in that while it would be fun to train with big names (Carlos Machado is the main one I'd like to check out), I'm a lot more interested in meeting fellow bloggers. :D
Speaking of big names, well-known BJJ film maker Hywel Teague is looking for contributions to his first full-length project, where he will be interviewing several red belts. The amount of first hand historical knowledge these guys possess is unmatched, so if you want to help out (the film will be freely available online, by the way, so this isn't a profit-driven project), go here.
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Getting back to training, tonight will be the only session I get in this week. That's because it's my girlfriend's 30th. Every other evening is going to be dedicated to her instead. Should be fun, as I have a short trip planned, along with an outing to Phantom of the Opera (she's a big fan, so this will be the fourth or fifth time I've been with her in the eleven years we've been together). Hopefully I'll be able to get back into my Tuesday training pattern after that: there has been a lot more teaching recently rather than training. Of course, I do enjoy teaching, but it's important to still get in some drilling and sparring time for myself too. At least I'm not feeling as run down as last week, meaning I should be back to normal soon.
Geeza focused on guard passing basics tonight, specifically opening the guard. He began with a drill he's taught before, which tends to get a few laughs as it looks a little odd. The idea is to use cats and dogs as a guide for your back positioning. You're on your hands and knees, starting in the 'dog' position: head raised, back curved down, chest up. From there shift into the 'cat', where you arch your back and dip your head slightly.
The application is posturing in somebody's guard. Your back should be in the 'cat' position, though not too pronounced. One hand is in front of the other, with each hand gripping both collars. Twist your hands so your palms face up, also using your skeletal structure to make a solid rod of your forward arm. If they try to grab your elbows and pull you forward, that forward hand can brace against the ridge of their sternum. If they keep trying to drag you towards them, they're merely going to rub a raw red mark on their chest where your knuckles dig in. Which incidentally can make this a bit painful to drill more than a few times. ;)
You also want to make sure your head position does not shift further forward that your lead hand. Otherwise, they'll have an easier time breaking your posture. They are eventually going to get frustrated and stop trying to yank you forwards by your elbow. This is when you shift to the more orthodox posture, turning your lead hand palm down, but still gripping both collars and keeping that skeletal structure in play. Your other hand presses into their same side hip: although this is difficult in practice, you want to use that to prevent them moving their hips.
Next, put your knee into their tailbone, then step back with your other foot. Aim to slide your hip into their linked feet, until you can break them open. As anyone experienced will know, this is tough, especially if they have long legs or are simply stronger than you. However, passing from the knees is 'safer', in that you're less vulnerable to sweeps, though arguably you're more vulnerable to submissions.
So, most likely you're going to have to stand up. First you need to trap one of their arms, pressing it into their stomach. If you don't, then there is a much higher danger of them controlling your legs and getting a sweep. Geeza likes to use his head as a pendulum, so he swings it one way in order to lift his leg on the other side. Twist your other leg and stand. From there, simply shake up and down until gravity forces them to open their guard. Geeza used the metaphor of shaking a ketchup bottle to get the contents out, which is apt.
We did a bit of specific sparring at the end, which this time was very specific. Starting in the guard, all the person on top had to do was open the legs, while the person on the bottom was supposed to just maintain their position, no subs or sweeps. It's a good drill, as that enables the top person to really focus in on balance and the mechanics of popping open the legs. On top, I was generally able to open the legs by standing up and shaking, but I doubt I would have been successful if subs and sweeps were in play. I'm still leaning too far forward and I'm also continuing to grip too long on their collar, meaning my posture is hunched and weak.
On the bottom, I mainly just bounced my hips over each time they tried to insert their tailbone. I also took the opportunity to practice bringing them down as soon as they tried to stand up, by sucking my knees into my chest. Each time I did eventually get my guard opened, but it was as ever a good exercise. The more specific sparring, the better. :)
Class #456 Gracie Barra Bristol, (BJJ), Nicolai ‘Geeza’ Holt, Bristol, UK - 07/05/2012
I was pretty ineffectual tonight, but then that’s jiu jitsu: some days your game feels great, other days you feel like a white belt. I couldn’t even remember blocking kicks from technical stand up properly, which as much as I find self defence very boring still isn’t something I should be forgetting.
The main technique for tonight was the pendulum sweep. Geeza likes to hook under the leg when they lift it off the mat, which helps set you up to swing your leg and hips out. Keep your head close to the hooking hand, then kick into armpit and tuck your swung leg underneath. From there, you can also switch to an armbar from guard, or indeed use your grip on the leg to finish up in a mounted armbar.
During sparring, I had a chance to play in guard, so there were a couple of basic sweeps I wanted to try. That mainly involved grabbing the knee, which isn’t something I’ve done much in the past. However, I’m looking to expand my guard game from “sit there and wait”, so sweeps seemed a good area to revisit. I did land it once, but that was against a fairly small white belt.
When passing, I tried to follow my own advice and stand up. I also made sure to grab an arm first in order to make their sweep counters more difficult. However, my posture is still far too bent forwards, as I’m tending to linger too long with the grip on the collars, rather than getting upright and thrusting my hips forwards.
I also had the common experience of a big strong beginner, who was going all out with strength. The goal for the person on top was to simply open the person on the bottom’s legs, which he did with relative ease. Now, in that situation I feel a bit silly telling somebody they shouldn’t rely on their strength: after all, from their perspective, it just worked great. Still, I think it is useful to advise people that by using strength you’ll blow your energy quickly and also struggle against anybody as strong or stronger, so I mentioned it anyway.
Class #454 Gracie Barra Bristol, (BJJ), Nicolai 'Geeza' Holt, Bristol, UK - 20/04/2012
I was intending to train on Tuesday this week, but like last week, my gf asked if I could shift my days around, so again I was in on Friday. Should be back to the normal schedule of training Tuesday next week, though: I'll be interested to see if Dónal has made any adjustments now that the gi class is only an hour, followed by nogi.
Tonight Geeza discussed the transition between side control and mount. Unusually, he demonstrated mount to side control, which isn't something you'd typically expect: on the one hand, that's dropping down the positional hierarchy, which isn't normally advisable. However, if you're about to lose position, it makes sense to go for one almost as solid before you fall even further down, such as into guard or half guard.
Another interesting comment Geeza made was that he feels that side control is preferable to the mount if your opponent is going nuts trying to escape. If you'd asked me which I prefer a year ago, I would have said side control, no question. More recently, I've been feeling increasingly comfortable in the mount, so now I'm not sure (although on the other hand, on the rare occasions I do submit somebody, it's almost always from either side control or top half guard and pretty much never from mount).
So, if you find that they're about to escape by turning and bridging, then you can switch from mount to side control by swinging the leg (on the side to which they're turning) over their head. Turn your body to face the mat, swinging your other leg around in the process. You can then reverse by swinging back over their head, to land in s-mount (particularly if they turn towards you after you've just spun to side control). Essentially, you're breakdancing on them, which looks awesome if you get it right, but it's a risky move.
A safer transition is the standard side control to mount. Secure a solid side control with one arm under the head, cross-facing, while the other goes under their far armpit. Prying their near elbow open with your near knee, bringing that in tight to put their near arm out of commission. Crawl up towards their head with your far side hand, then slide your knee across their belt line. Once it's far enough, turn your body slightly to slap the side of that foot on the mat (to avoid getting stuck in half guard), then secure the mount.
We finished up with a bit of specific sparring. Geeza put an interesting twist on it, as you could start in either side control or mount, but the goal was to make at least two transitions. That was good for the person on top, as it forced them to work their mobility rather than clamping down in a static hold, while the person on the bottom could work on timing their escapes with those transitions.
On top, I tried starting in both side control and mount, generally going for side control with the less experienced training partners, as mount seems almost unfair in that situation. I didn't with everyone though: one of the blues quickly punished my sloppy attempt to switch to mount from side control by catching my leg in half guard. It's always good to get a reminder of the danger that comes with trying to rush that transition.
From mount, as Geeza said, it's easier to make that transition, because you're starting in a more dominant position. It also gave me a chance to practice holding mount against someone much bigger. My tactic of loading up my weight on one side by putting my head in the opposite direction when they roll (something I learned from Roger, IIRC) wasn't quite enough when the size difference is really big, or rather, I need to pull it off perfectly when the discrepancy is that large. Another good lesson to keep in mind.
Underneath, the person on the bottom almost had the advantage, as the person on top had to move. It was mainly a matter of waiting for them to start shifting their weight, or baiting them into motion. I like the drill, so something I'll look to incorporate into mount lessons in future. It would combine well with the Saulo side control, as that's a fluid position. Also, I'm not sure what criteria Geeza uses, but I got a stripe.
Class #453 Gracie Barra Bristol, (BJJ), Nicolai 'Geeza' Holt, Bristol, UK - 13/04/2012
Tonight was also my first chance to test out the Gracie Barra Premium gi I got for my birthday (my parents paid £90 from GB Shop Europe, with about £7 shipping). I'm not a fan of being restricted to an official uniform, but if I have to wear a GB gi, it might as well be comfortable. Judging by tonight's first outing, the Premium is an improvement over the basic model, but that may be more down to getting an A1 rather than my previous A2 (which is still a little large on me for my liking). My main concern is the shrinkage: I don't mind too much if I end up with a tiny gi, but hopefully it won't shrink too much (especially as I always wash gis at 30 degrees Celsius and hang dry).
The advanced class follows straight after the fundamentals, and kicks off with a bit of specific sparring from closed guard. That was a good reminder of how completely rubbish my guard is, both on top and bottom. Underneath, I spent most of the spar with head control, badly attempting three things: trying to either push their arm across to get my chest to their shoulder and take the back; push their arm over my leg to set up the kimura; look to get their hand to mat and overhook. Didn't get anywhere. My elbow problems didn't help, but still, I really need to come up with a better selection of options to work towards. It might be time I tried to get back to the flower sweep, which is something I never really worked out despite spending ages on it at white belt.
On top, I did at first try to stand up to keep working on my base, but as soon as my partner looked to go for sleeve control to disrupt my position, there was a shooting pain up my arm so I sat straight back down. Nothing much happened from there, except some attempts to get to combat base. I also tried to stay in a low crouch and get hold of the collar, but it was pretty much a stalemate. I eventually managed to get to top half guard, but that was off a scramble, so not at all technical.
The technique for the advanced class was, usefully, escaping technical mount. The key is getting either your arm or your elbow inserted into any space between the back of their knee and your torso. Your other hand (so, this will be the arm you have closest to the floor) needs to be grabbing your opposite collar tightly, as otherwise they'll have a clear route to choke you. Once you can get through arm into the gap behind their knee, reach through and grab your gi trousers, by your knee.
Start moving your legs towards your head, until there is an opportunity to shove their leg between yours and switch to deep half guard. From here, you can continue to run towards your head, then quickly turn the other way: this is what Jeff Glover calls the 'Homer sweep'. If your partner is wise to that and adjusts their weight accordingly, you may still be able to pop out the back.
I was a bit wary of sparring due to the complaints my elbow was making, but one of the advantages of training at GB Bristol is that Geeza is more than happy to accommodate injuries like that. So, I was able to train with two of the women present: as I've said many times, women tend to be more mature, considerate and helpful training partners, meaning they're perfect for rolling when injured. I had a relaxed roll with somebody who I think started that night (but she's also a 2nd dan in judo, so no stranger to judo), then Vikki.
As I'd failed miserably to do anything in guard earlier that class, I wanted to be a bit more varied this time, so attempted to move into butterfly guard (not very successfully, but I'll get there in the end if I keep trying it). I'm still keen to get better at that guard, as like I've said in the past, I don't think spider guard is going to be good for me long-term, given what Chiu told me about it completely mashing his fingers. Improving my closed guard is important too, along with my basic foot-on-hips guard, where I can keep working my tripod/sickle sweep combination.
Class #452 Gracie Barra Bristol, (BJJ), Nicolai 'Geeza' Holt, Bristol, UK - 13/04/2012
If there is anyone else who has been having trouble getting certain blogs into their RSS reader, I just realised there is an easy workaround (at least for a blogspot blog). If you don't care and are thinking "make with the training already!", click here. ;)
If you're still with me: all you need is the blog ID number. I understand almost nothing about coding, but with a decent browser (i.e., Chrome or Firefox), you can just right-click on the blog in question, then in Chrome, click on 'Inspect Element'. That will make a mini-window with lots of code appear at the bottom of your browser.
Chrome has a handy 'search elements' bit in the top right of that mini-window. Look for 'blogid', which should be accompanied by a long number. Once you have that number, you can put it in the middle of this url, replacing '###' with the blog ID: http://www2.blogger.com/feeds/###/posts/default?alt=rss. Then voila, you should have a working feed to paste into the 'subscribe' bit of Google Reader (or whatever RSS reader you use).
This makes me happy, because for many years, I haven't been able to put one of my favourite blogs (Dagney's BJJ Training, by a cool female brown belt who trains in San Diego) in my Google Reader. As I read everything via that, it also meant I kept forgetting to check Dagney's site, so would never be up to date. BUT with this workaround (which results in this feed for Dagney's blog), I can at long last add her to my many other blog subscriptions (also why she's now in my 'blog feeds' bit to the left of my blog, which I reserve for my absolute favourites: the full list is here). Awesome! :D
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I haven't been to one of Geeza's classes in ages, but tonight I had an opportunity to pop down, as my girlfriend had a couple of old friends over she was looking to catch up with. Unfortunately my elbow is still a bit knackered, and got worse over the session, but it was useful to at least test it out again. Annoying that I have no idea how I did it a couple of weeks ago, though: at least if it was from an armbar or something like that, I'd know I just needed to tap earlier. ;)
Anyway, class was going to focus on a submission I've been trying to get for years but never quite manage, the ezequiel choke from mount. Geeza's version was a little different from what I'm used to, in regards to the finish. It started as usual, getting one arm under their head with the bicep tight to their neck, grabbing inside your opposite sleeve. However, rather than emphasising getting that bit of loose cloth into the other side of their neck, Geeza focused on attempting to get your free hand across to grab your other sleeve, then close off the gap around their neck.
He had a few other tips on stopping their hands getting in the way, which is always the most frustrating part of setting up an ezequiel. First, you could try getting both of your knees over their elbows, to stop them getting their arms in place. Second, if you can only get one arm that way, it still gives you more scope to attack. Finally, you can try dragging one of their arms across and trapping it under your chest, again increasing the vulnerability of their neck.
We then did some king of the hill sparring from mount: I'm assuming the idea was to keep going for that ezequiel rather than another submission, but even if not, I took it as a chance to keep on doggedly going after the same choke when on top. However, I wasn't able to properly clear the neck. I tried Saulo's option of reaching through the crook of their elbow, then dragging their arm back to their side to pin it, also staying tight with my head. Each time, I wasn't able to keep it tight enough, as my partner was able to keep working their hands back into a defensive position.
On the plus side, I was able to maintain the mount for a good long while. Unusually for me, I wasn't just relying on grapevines to stay rigidly in position, but crawled my way up into a higher mount, pressing the soles of my feet into their side with my knees out wide for base. Come to think of it, that may have hindered my ezequiel a bit (as normally the low grapevine mount is a better place for that attack), although I think it was more down to my inability to get past those defensive hands.
Underneath, I was mostly relying on my usual foot drag escape. I did try to think about the normal elbow escape too, given my own personal resolution to use a greater variety, then later I went for the stiff-arm their hips and pop to butterfly. However, I don't think I would have got that against a heavier training partner.
Class #434 Gracie Barra Bristol, (BJJ), Nicolai 'Geeza' Holt, Bristol, UK - 25/11/2011
My neck is still sore, but as my gf was off on a work do, I thought I'd take the opportunity to get in another class tonight. After some self defence (following the Gracie Barra Fundamentals as usual), Geeza ran through the basic side control escape to the knees. One arm is under their forearm, the other hand by their hip. Bridge up, in order to make space to circle the neck arm around to reach for their back. Swivel, tucking your elbow so that you can move into the turtle position.
Adjust your grip to their leg, with your head on the other side (be wary of guillotines, as your head is on the outside). Step up your foot on the same side as your head, then pulling their other leg towards you, while driving with your foot and head, push through to side control. I rarely use this escape, and at the moment it is completely out of the question for me. Anything that involves turtling is off-limits, as I've busted and re-busted my neck whenever I've spent any length of time in turtle over the last two months. Almost certainly something flawed with how I using the turtle, but for now, I've banned myself from going there.
Specific sparring was from side control, which is good for me as it meant I could stay on top. I normally go for the orthodox side control, arm under the head with the other arm under their far armpit. However, tonight I wanted to try to avoid starting from there, as that's my comfort zone: it also has more likelihood of involving my head (e.g., for base if they try to roll me). Instead, I began from the position we used for drilling, where you have the arm nearest their head over to the far side, under their shoulder, with your other hand blocks their near hip.
It was interesting playing with the grip by the near hip, trying blocking with the hand, grabbing the gi material by their butt, or hooking the leg. That isn't a control I use all that often (as my hands are usually much higher up their body), but I found it helped the transition to north-south, which I was also doing a lot during sparring. I was looking to isolate an arm for the kimura at one point, but didn't clamp it to my chest quickly enough, so they were able to defend well by grabbing under their leg.
I also had a go at the gi choke Matt Burn showed me, where you feed your lapel under their neck to your other hand, then walk round in order to bring your head to their opposite hip. I got the lapel under their head and secured the grip, but I'm not sure I quite had it right. I also didn't do a good job of controlling their hips, as they could pretty much follow me round as I moved my head to the opposite hip. Something to play with nonetheless, as I'd like to expand my range of side control submissions beyond 'Americana' and 'north south kimura'.
Class #431 Gracie Barra Bristol, (BJJ), Nicolai 'Geeza' Holt, Bristol, UK - 09/11/2011
I'm not a fan of flashy gis: as I've said repeatedly over the years (summarised here), I like a gi that is plain, white and functional. However, I AM a fan of Scramble (awesome hoodies, for a start), so for those of you who do like a bit more bling in your gi, check out Seymour's review of Scramble's first entry into the gi market, here. It is unfortunately pre-order and limited release, but I think that is just until the gi side of Scramble becomes financially viable. The pre-order opens at 11:11 on the 11th November, either through the Scramble website for the UK, or Budovideos in the US, here (ignore what it says about being out of stock, the pre-order hasn't started yet).
I was a little bit wary of the lesson tonight, as Geeza was teaching guillotine defence. I haven't trained much over the last few weeks since injuring my neck and wrist, so this would be a test of how much I've recovered. I was hoping that three weeks was long enough.
Geeza began with a simple early defence. He described it as imagining there was a yellow rectangle drawn on your torso, with the corners made up of your hips and nipples. If you imagine the same thing on your partner, with a red line drawn down the middle of each, you want to keep those lines in the same place. In other words, don't let them get an angle to sit up and loop an arm over. So, cage their hips with your knees and elbows, keep moving to stay square on if they try to hip out, block their attempts to sit up with your hands, etc.
A 'middle' defence is to raise your head up if they do get an arm over, but haven't yet locked their hands. That should give you the space to work your head free. If you're a bit later and they lock their hands, they will also most likely have opened their guard. That means you can push down on their knee and hop over to side control, so that your head is now on their far side.
Reach underneath their head and drive your shoulder into their neck. Turn your body towards their legs, then keep increasing the shoulder pressure. This should either make them tap or let go, as the pressure immediately drops if they release their grip on your head.
There is a similar principle at work for the late defence, which is the one I'm familiar with. This time, the guillotine is fully locked on and they've also managed to close their guard. You're in trouble. With your same side hand, grab their wrist and free up some breathing room. Your other arm will loop under their head, so you can again drive your shoulder into their neck.
Come right up on your legs to increase that pressure, so your bum is now in the air. Continue driving forward, until the pressure either makes them tap or release their grip. You should then be able to pop your head free.
Sparring started off with a white belt I haven't rolled with before. He was mainly looking to get advice, so we had a pretty relaxed roll, where I went from positions he wanted to work on. I always relish the chance to get in more practice at teaching, so that was cool.
The next white belt was more active: normally I can just flop back straight into spider guard, but he immediately started running around to side control before I had the chance. As normally happens with more intense rolls, I go hyper-defensive, as I try not to try and match their pace when that happens (mainly because my fitness sucks and I'm lazy). That meant a lot of running escape posture, combined with going to turtle.
I'm still failing to use the running escape properly, as I'm not good at moving from the survival position back into guard. Normally I'll just end up back under side control. I was able to hook the leg once or twice for half guard, but almost always it was a crappy quarter guard, so they got their leg free again. I did finally catch it later on and recover full guard, then looked to work on breaking posture and get the overhook from there.
Going to turtle is quite fun, though I don't know a lot of things to do from there. My go-to is either recover guard by sitting through, or try and hook an arm and roll them. I'd be tempted to check out some of the more esoteric stuff, like Telles stuff, but that's probably a bit beyond me right now. Also, going to turtle isn't something I want to get too comfortable with, as I'd rather get better at quickly getting back to guard from there.
Unfortunately for my neck, lots of turtling under a more aggressive white belt is exactly how I injured it a few weeks ago. This time, I didn't make the mistake of driving their whole weight through my neck while trying that arm-grab reversal, but it still felt sore after sparring. It felt the same way last time, so I'm a bit worried it will stiffen right back up tomorrow morning. We'll see: if it does, lesson learned, and I'll leave it even longer before trying full sparring again. It would also probably indicate I should be less eager to turtle up. ;)
I headed down to Geeza's class straight from the private lesson. I was especially keen to attend to today, as Geeza said in his text message he was covering one of my favourite techniques, the tripod sweep. I'm always interested to glean more details on techniques I teach in my own classes, so was hoping Geeza would have a different take (which he did). Which means I can add that into the class I'll teach tomorrow.
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