31/07/2010 - BJJ (1st Class with Braulio Estima)

Class #328
Gracie Barra Birmingham, (BJJ), Braulio Estima, Birmingham, UK – 31/07/2010

If you haven't already, check out Chrissy Linzy's piece on teaching a women's BJJ class, here: part two is on its way for next week. Also, Matt has put up another great interview in his Grappling Dummy series, this time with Roger Gracie black belt Nic Gregoriades, one of my old instructors, who also runs the excellent Jiu Jitsu Brotherhood site. Finally in blog news, Meg Smitley’s site has moved to a new address, so update your bookmarks.

It has been a little over three months since I started training at Gracie Barra Birmingham, and while he’s been present a couple of times over that period, today was the first time I was part of a class taught by Braulio Estima. His young son was there too, which made for a refreshing family atmosphere: the giggling child was being bounced on his father’s feet in a game before class. Braulio was clearly enjoying playing with his son, even walking the little blonde toddler round the no-gi session to wave at all the students.

Class began with the usual running warm-up, though interestingly Braulio uses forward rolls instead of breakfalls (or at least did today). That moved straight into some stand up drilling: like Roger Gracie, it would appear Braulio likes to use throwing drills to get the blood flowing and joints loosened up.

His instruction was quite quick, focusing on principles, with the techniques tonight connected together. It took me a while to get my head round some of them, though that may be because he has been teaching these earlier in the week, so presumably a lot of the class had seen them already.

Braulio began by moving from north-south to wrist control. At least I think so: I had trouble with this one. The idea was that you start from north-south, having already got your elbows into their armpits. You switch around to their side, backstepping as your bring your far elbow back and your other arm around. The intention is to end up with either one of their arms pulled across their neck and the other gripped around the elbow, or the same position but with both hands around that elbow. However, I must have been missing some detail, as I had difficulty getting to the right place.

I found the next technique much easier to do. This time, you’re going to move from side control to scarf hold, as a counter to their escape attempt. They bridge to make space and swim under your arm, aiming to go to their knees and try for a single leg. Overhook their arm (with what’s called a ‘whizzer’ in wrestling, IIRC), then step over their head. Without ever losing contact with their arm, backstep to move to their other side, rolling your arm on theirs, ending up in scarf hold (you essentially roll your arm in place, using your elbow to keep control). Your other arm will settle into a grip underneath their far armpit, for a strong scarf hold.

The same principle can work as a defence to a single leg. If this time they’ve managed to get that grip on your leg, sprawl your leg back. Again you’re going to overhook an arm and catch it with your elbow. In this case, it will be the arm they’ve grabbed your leg with. As before, swivel and backstep, aiming to move into scarf. If you can’t get the leverage, you should at least be able to move to a stable position from which to attack their turtle.

You don’t even have to break their grip: if your sprawl isn’t quick enough, continue as before. Once you’ve backstepped around to their other side, that hold they have on your leg isn’t going to do them any good. From here, you’re in a relatively dominant position.

Sparring followed on directly, and like last week I started off with Christian. He wanted to work his game from inside somebody’s guard, which was fine by me: makes a nice change from under side control. It also reminded me that I still get rather stuck if the person inside my guard is being defensive and curled up: I need to work out how to pry loose an arm or initiate some kind of choke (I seem to remember that either The Guard or Strategic Guard have some options for attacking defensive posture).

Alex was down this weekend too, who I haven’t seen since he left for the Lake District (he kindly gave me a lift to my first lesson at GB Brum). I think he was taking it relatively easy, as we had a pleasantly relaxed roll. As with Christian I was in the guard, looking to attack. I played around with his lapel, wrapping it around his arm, then briefly considered trying to use it in a choke. That wasn’t going anywhere, but it did at least give me a bit of control.

I still need to watch my feet, as Alex went for a footlock, but fortunately I was able to grab his gi and step forward into it to free myself (though again, I don’t think he was going very hard, so might have been easing off anyway). That meant I could move through into side control. I noticed I had a leg by his armpit, so took the opportunity to wriggle into my favourite position from side control, the step-over triangle. Time ran out before I could do much with it, but it felt as if his head had some space, so he might well have slipped out. I was attacking to arm too, but again it felt like he had that covered, as I wasn’t getting it into the figure-four position I wanted.

Bradley was up next, which was a much more active spar, though it still felt flowing rather than lots of squishing and smashing. I was mostly under side control looking to spin free (thanks yet again to jnp’s ‘ ball technique’), concentrating on keeping my knees to my chest. That wasn’t entirely successful, as I kept finding I just had one knee up in time, but it did seem to help. At one point I found myself dangling from his head and shoulders as he sat up, but it wasn’t in the right place for a triangle. I’m not quite sure what I was doing, as I vaguely had an arm, without any real idea of how to capitalise.

Finally I rolled twice with a big white belt I recognise from the basics class. He’s polite and considerate, which is always good to see in someone who hasn’t been training long, even asking if his hand was hurting my back when he had it underneath at one point. I moved through to the top position a few times, getting into mount, but as ever not doing a whole lot from there. I moved through to a sort of technical mount a couple of times when he turned, but again couldn’t secure anything (I briefly tried to step into an armbar, but not tight enough).

During the second roll, I went to guard, and tried first for a triangle, then an omoplata. I failed to get the right angle on the first, and couldn’t flatten him out on the second, so he was able to slip free. However, I was pleased that when we moved into scarf hold, I got the chance to use a technique I’d seen on Renzo’s DVD a while back. That’s because my partner’s arm was bent and hovering by my legs, so I could push it down, hook it with my leg, then raise my hips for an americana.

I’ll be training again on Tuesday, and possibly Monday or Wednesday, depending on if my girlfriend can make it for a visit next weekend. Otherwise I’ll be going for Saturday again. That problem I’ve been having with trains and buses should be resolved soon, as GB Brum is moving to a more central Birmingham location, near Five Ways train station. It will cost a bit more on the train, but they are much more regular to Birmingham, and I won’t have to change at Dorridge or Solihull for Acocks Green.

29/08/2007 - BJJ (Advanced)

Class #83



Roger Gracie Academy (BJJ), Maurição Gomes, London, UK - 29/08/2007 – Advanced

I felt sufficiently ok for the advanced class, unlike a fortnight ago when I dragged myself home after the beginners. The first technique was a little confusing, but I think it was a defence against a single-leg. As they go for the takedown (with a leg and an arm wrapped round), you reach back between your legs and grab the trouser of the leg they’ve got curled around your limb. You also grab the back of their gi. Pulling up on their leg, fall parallel by their side, still holding their leg, then push on their knee with your outside leg. This will provide space to bring your leg out and round, so you can then move into side control.

Maurição then went through a variation where you press heavily on their leg with your knee, also pulling up on their gi collar. Drag their other leg behind you, then swing all the way over with the leg you had been using to drive down into them. Switch your base, finishing up in side control. That was then followed by a basic half-guard escape, if I recall correctly.

In specific sparring, which this time was guard passage, I just tried to keep posture and work my defence. I made some attempt at passing guard, with my favoured (but increasingly less successful) tailbone guard break, but generally worked to try and keep my back straight, head up and base solid. I also need to watch my arm, which I occasionally left too far forward, meaning I was very vulnerable to a submission. I was eventually swept each time, but hopefully it helped to some small degree in my sensitivity to submission attempts. Then again, I was sparring blue belts and higher, so they would have been going easy on me anyway.

I only rolled twice once we got the end of class sparring, but that was largely because the room was stuffed with people (though admittedly I’m prone to slacking if given the opportunity). First I sparred Dominique, as in the beginners class, and once again found myself mostly in half-guard, or alternately spinning about trying to recover guard. I had a go at the windscreen wiper sweep Ciaran showed me, but Dominique’s elbow wasn’t really far enough out, so I should have tried for a better set-up first.

I could do with practicing more sweeps from half-guard, given that I’m ending up in that position so frequently, or preferably, methods for recovering full guard from there. At the moment, I either try and just drive my knee through, bounce around attempting to make space or lie there waiting for an opportunity. I need to look back through my log to remind myself of the potentially useful related techniques we’ve been shown, like the sweep Maurição demonstrated where you lift them back into your closed guard.

At the same time, I mustn’t forget to work the basics, like the elbow escape and upa. While half-guard is a tempting position to try for, its pretty pointless if I can’t do the fundamentals, as that means as soon as I spar somebody good at passing half-guard, I’m screwed. Not to mention my half-guard is largely of the noobtastic ‘cling on desperately and hope’ variety.

Like in the beginners, my escapes from underneath side control and mount weren’t up to snuff, particularly when it comes to making space. Same thing happened with Nathan, when I spent even more time in half-guard, Nathan tending to dominate on top. Both he and Dominique are becoming much tougher sparring partners (not that I ever had an easy time against them, but its significantly harder now).

Might also help if I was more aggressive when pulling guard, rather than ending up in either half-guard or a sloppy open guard. Though that’s still better than the previous position I ended up in during advanced class, which was in somebody’s guard after which I immediately got swept. On the other hand, I could try being more forceful in driving for the top position: at present I’m heavily leaning towards guard and half-guard, so I need to be careful I’m not neglecting other parts of BJJ.