30/11/2010 - BJJ (Beginner)

Class #364
RGA High Wycombe, (BJJ), Kev Capel, High Wycombe, UK - 30/11/2010

I arrived back from Germany late last night, which made for a pleasant short trip, plus some very tasty food courtesy of my grandparent's Diamond Wedding Anniversary in Maastricht. Unfortunate that all the art galleries in Aachen appear to be closed on Mondays, but still, bunch of other stuff to see: write up here, if you're thinking of a trip there yourself.

If you're interested in winning some Scramble gear, check out the new competition Matt is running, in conjunction with a bunch of other sites. Also, I think I've mentioned the Robson online seminar already, but either way, they've now got a podcast up about it, here.

Kev started off with a cool open guard drill, building up through increasingly difficult positions. All of them had one person doing a basic bullfighter pass, stepping to your side, and then you readjust to recover guard. The first stage, they don't step particularly deep. So, you can bring your outside foot to the inside of their nearest leg, then use that to square back up in open guard. Make sure you hook with that foot, or they'll be able to easily step out and continue to pass. If you're got a hook secured, you'll follow them when they try to move.

The next stage, they've gone a bit deeper, so their foot is by your hip. Now, you will have to shrimp a bit before you can hook, pushing off their leg with your hands. You can then proceed as normal, again hooking and squaring up. If you're very flexible, you could try hooking without the shrimping motion, but it isn't advisable.

For the final stage, they've passed to knee on belly. This time, you hook around their knee with your near hand, then step the foot nearest their legs right over your own body. You're aiming to turn your hips, so that you end up with your bum in the air, both feet past your head. You then push off your feet and roll back into guard.

On an interesting terminological note, when I mentioned the similarity to Saulo's running escape, Kev said he'd also seen Jean Jacque Machado use the same escape, except that Machado called it the coffee grinder. Well, I found it interesting. ;p

The first full technique was the tripod sweep, which we've done a few times before (although I referred to it as a cross guard sweep last time). You can also see it on page 228 of Theory & Technique (though they use the term 'hook sweep' instead). In short, you have a cross-grip, grabbing their same side heel with your other hand. Push on that hip with your same side foot, while simultaneously hooking and pushing behind the other leg. Come up from there and slide past into side control, stepping over their leg with your other foot.

Kev moved on to another technique demonstrated in Theory & Technique, the sickle sweep (page 226): as I mention in the review, the organisation of that book is completely random, so these two basic techniques are in the brown belt section. They combine together very well, as Kev showed. You're going for the tripod sweep, but they angle themselves to the side, avoiding your hook and stepping that leg back. Rather than trying to wriggle into place to try again, you can instead switch the position of your feet.

So, you will remove the foot your had on their hip, replacing it with your hooking leg. The foot that was on their hip now goes behind their other foot. As before, you push on the hip and yank back with your hook, knocking them to the floor. The main difference is that when you come up to pass this time, your other knee will be up, so you'll need to make sure to shove their leg down and step over, enabling you to complete your knee slide.

The third option wasn't demonstrated, but said in passing, because some people were stepping too far during drilling. If your partner steps way back so they're very side on, then they've basically given you their back. You can now take their back, using the De La Riva technique I've seen previously.

Sparring was from open guard, and I started with Kev. On top, I wasn't able to do much, so tried to drive my hips forward and attempt to grab his leg with both hands, yanking it up and then sliding down to side control. Every time I tried that, he just turned to his knees. So, I'm definitely doing something wrong there, as he had loads of space.

Underneath, Kev advised that I need to break his grips, which is a relatively simple technique. Reach behind their grip with your arm, grabbing your own gi if you require additional leverage. Then kick out to strip the grip. However, don't do what I did, which was kicking out to the side: that cunningly gifts them a pass.

I also tried that spider guard grip again from Braulio, which I got, but as I was looking to move into the triangle attack, Kev had already circled his hand behind my leg and initiated his escape. Finally, I had a go at reverse De La Riva, but as Kev said when I asked him afterwards, I was forgetting the key detail of both grabbing the heel of their trapped leg and swivelling to hook the other hand behind their other leg. If you don't do that, they have all the time they need to push your knee to one side, because they're not under any threat.