23/04/2014 - University of Texas at Austin (Open Mat)

Class #562
University of Texas at Austin, (BJJ), Austin, TX, USA - 23/04/2014

Today I got to meet another cool blogger who I have 'known' online for a few years, who has moved back to Austin from Korea. John runs the I Love Leg Locks blog and he lives up to that name, so I spent a lot of our roll being very careful of my feet. I decided to flail at a leg lock at least once, as it seemed I really should given the name of John's blog: unsurprisingly, he tapped me not long after. ;)

John is a brown belt who now trains at the University of Texas at Austin (where he is also studying for a masters degree). That fortunately means he has access to one of the matted rooms there, so we could get in a bit of sparring and drilling. After a quick warm-up, we got in a good roll, at a fairly light pace.

As ever I failed to do a whole lot from guard. Mainly I played around with grabbing the gi tail and sticking my foot in it, but I don't really know what to do with that position. I should probably have a look at some of the random stuff people do with 'lapel guard', though I suspect it is probably too complex for me. Could be fun to try though.

One thing I should have done is Kev's 'nappy grip' sweep as they go to knee cut. Iremembered to shove the gi tail under their leg, but didn't remember to then switch grips again. Also, as John metioned later, you will have trouble rolling them if they get their hip to the mat. At least I think that's what he said, meaning I need to get underneath them to complete the sweep.

Another tip John mentioned was on passing, especially useful because it built on something I already do. I try to stay low and tight with pretty much everything I do on top. When passing, John suggested I progress from that tight position to also using my head to finish the pass. Wriggle it down next to their head and use it as a sort of third arm. Sounds like a good plan, so I'm looking forwrd to giving that a go next time I'm struggling to pass (which is most of the time when I'm trying to pass).

My back escape remains too sloppy. I keep forgetting to implement what I learned from Dónal, so I think I'd benefit from lots of drilling on back esapes. When I get back to the UK, Artemis BJJ will have started its expanded schedule, including open mat time: I see copious back escape drills in my future.

Jesse was going to join us, but something important came up, meaning he didn't make it over until I was about to leave. Still, he did at least get to roll with John (who is a lot more beneficial to roll with than me: it would be interesting to take a class with him, as he's clearly a decent teacher).

22/04/2014 - Gracie Humaitá (Beginners Class)

Class #561
Gracie Humaitá, (BJJ), Paulo ‘Coelho’ Brandão, Austin, TX, USA - 22/04/2014

A photo posted by Can (Jun) (@slideyfoot) on Apr 24, 2014 at 5:45pm PDT

After being dropped off by my new friends from the Aces Jiu Jitsu Club session, I headed up to Georgette's office. The next destination was Gracie Humaita Austin, another beautiful facilitiy. I've read and seen so much of that academy through Georgette's blog that a lot of it felt familiar, especially the faces I saw later on during the sparring class. The focus tonight was on butterfly passing, which Paulo said was a signature move of his.

The first butterfly pass begins by sinking your base as low as possible. If they have both butterfly hooks rather than one ready to lift, you can box them in with your knees. Insert a knee behind their heel (if they have one leg raised, you want to put your knee by the other leg), then step out your other foot. Make sure you are stepping out rather than forward, to avoid giving them a chance to get underneath you and lift.

Using an underhook and driving with your head, spin their upper body to the ground. You aren't driving straight forward, you're steering them in a semi-circle. Basing on your head and the shoulder you have pressed into them (due to your underhook), pop your hips up. You can then knee cut across the leg where you put your knee earlier. If you need to, shove their leg to the mat with your hand.

I don't think I quite got the second variation. It starts the same, but this time they manage to initiate an underhook before you can complete your knee cut. With the arm they're trying to underhook, grasp their same side knee and clamp your elbow to your side. This is where I got a bit confused: move around (I think?), then as they try to shrimp away, cross face and complete the knee cut pass.

The main super-cool thing about tonight was finally training with Georgette. You can tell she'd be a good teacher as she's very focused on getting the technique right, regularly calling over the instructor to double-check the finer points. She also gave me a ton of useful advice as we were doing the technique, polishing specific movements, questioning grips and highlighting details. I'm keen to get in some rolling with her later this week.

I was less keen on getting in loads of rolling generally. So, I continued to be wimpy and sit out of the following hour of sparring, both because I'm lazy and I also don't want to injure myself this early in the trip. Not that I don't trust the control of the students there: I don't trust my own control, as I regularly hurt myself if I do any extensive sparring . ;)

22/04/2014 - Aces Jiu Jitsu Club

Class #560
Aces Jiu Jitsu Club, (BJJ), Austin, TX, USA - 22/04/2014

I trained with Mikal last time I was in Austin, back in 2012. At that time he was a purple belt at another club, occasionally teaching class and also regularly teaching kids. I had the chance to watch him teach kids during the previous trip and was impressed by his mixture of discipline (he has a military background) and humour. It was also obvious how much he cared about helping students progress.

Almost two years later and Mikal is a brown belt with his own club, launched in September of last year. Impressively, he already has a massive space with a hundred members, a wifi lounge and even a fully matted creche (there's a handy window for both baby and parents to see each other while training).

Like we do at Artemis BJJ, Mikal also has a theme for the month. For April that was leglocks, something I have avoided for most of my time in jiu jitsu. I have a vague idea of what a straight ankle lock is and I know to grab people and pull them in towards me as a defence if they grab my foot, but that's about it. Even more outside of my experience was he specific theme for this week: 50/50 guard.

Dónal would no doubt have been amused, as right before I left to fly out this year we were talking about my aversion to what might be called 'modern' jiu jitsu, for want of a better word. But meh, it's good to at least know how to avoid the position and escape it, even if I have no intention of getting into it myself.

First off was leglocks, with a drill switching between the straight ankle lock and the cross ankle lock. Presuming I understood it, the straght ankle lock involves putting their leg by your same side hip, bringing one arm under the achilles tendon, with the cutting part of your forearm (so, just below the wrist). Reach that hand to your chest, putting the other hand palm-down on top.

Mikal had a useful visual metaphor here, a hallmark of his teaching, likening it to a romantic gesture of holding your heart. That perfectly described the position. You'll also have your outside foot on their hip, the other under their other leg, squeezing your knee together. To finish, look up then thrust your hips slightly: Mikal calls this 'Megan Fox-ing', as she's known for looking over her shoulder and pouting.

The cross ankle lock is very similar, except that you pick up their ankle and pull it across your body, to your opposite hip. The rest of the technique is the same, wrapping up under the ankle, looking up and Megan Fox-ing.

Main technique for tonight was a 50/50 armbar, which was also a footlock escape. They have a straight ankle lock secured but not locked. Grab the elbow of the arm they have under your achilles. Pull that towards you and scoot forward, while also popping your hips around as if you were trying to take the back. Kick your trapped leg through, then triangle it with your other leg.

Next you want to pry their arm free. This has a bunch of options, but to keep it simple (the class was all white belts), reach inside and wriggle the arm out. With your opposite arm, grab on the side of the elbow (another image from Mikal here, saying it's where the joint would be if they were wearing plate armour), while your other hand reaches across to grab their opposite collar.

Pull them over and down towards your non-trapped leg, also yanking their arm in the other direction. Bring your non-trapped leg over their head, sliding your arm to their wrist. From here you can thrust up for the armbar, either using your hip as a leverage point or potentially your knee.

Before we got into technique Mikal and I had a flow roll, which largely consisted of me trying to avoid my feet getting entangled. He was going very light: otherwise he could have submitted me a number of times, such as the calf slicer he had at one point. We also filmed a quick technique video for his YouTube channel: I don't mind being on camera, but I declined the offer to also film myself teaching. That would need a lot more preparation on my part. ;)

Update Aug 2014: The video is now up, so you get to see some great techniques from Mikal, with lots of blinking and awkwardness from me. Hooray! ;)



Mikal also has an interesting variation on shrimping. Rather than pushing off a foot and pushing your hip out, Mikal steps his foot across, almost in a running escape type fashion. He then pushes off from that position for the shrimp. His reasoning is that this makes it harder for them to shove down on your knee to pass, because you're protecting one leg with the other.

After class we headed off to the park. Mikal's partner Marlana (who was responsible for the tasty meal we had back in 2012 and has since had a baby) recently came up with the cool idea of throwing some mats down on the grass to have a roll. It's a nifty advert, so I guess in future they'll have banners and the like to emphasise exactly why there are a bunch of people cuddling each other on some puzzle mats. ;)

That also meant I got to hang out and chat with some of the students, which was very cool. 'Mean' Marlene talked about her background in Mexico and aspirations as a fighter (she not only trains BJJ, but boxing and muay thai as well), while Lacey discused tattoos with me and her fantastic hair. Marlene and Dustin also very kindly drove me both to the park and to Georgette's office, in time for me to get a lift with her to the Gracie Humaita beginner's class.

24/11/2012 - Raptor BJJ

Class #475
Raptor BJJ, (BJJ), Jeff Rockwell, Austin, TX, USA - 24/11/2012

Jeff Rockwell is a name that should be familiar to you if you spend much time on the numerous BJJ internet message boards. I think I first heard about him in connection to Aesopian, as one of a group of instructors sharing and discussing technique with each other online. I did not realise he lived in Austin until I saw Marshal Carper's post about training with Rockwell. The approach described there sounded right up my street, so I was keen to check out Jeff's school during my Texas trip (full write-up here). As he is an awesome guy, he immediately offered me a lift to the club when I contacted him over on the Grapplers Guide.

Training at Raptor Jiu Jitsu resulted in yet another example of the incredible sense of community that BJJ can build. I arrived into Austin on Tuesday, meeting up with the fabulous blogger Georgette, then trained at Sean Cooper's gym with her husband Mitch a few hours later. While there I met a gentleman called Mikal, who later invited me to his home for dinner, provided by the wonderful cooking of his fiancee Marlena (she was also willing to drive me round Austin, because she's super cool).

Also present were Jesse and Susie, who I'd first met on Saturday training at Jeff Rockwell's school (they work for the Enlightened Warriors, a charity that reminded me of Future Champions in the UK). Five people who had never met before that week, sat in a room getting to know each other, sharing food and drink, brought together by jiu jitsu. BJJ is awesome, for so much more than just the physical training side of things.
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After the warm-up, Jeff moved into some useful drills for recovering guard out of turtle. They are on one side of you, pressing their knee in looking to establish their hooks. Grab the far leg with your inside/near arm. Your near knee then goes up onto their hip. Base out on your free arm, using that to slide your other leg in and go to guard.

The next one is from a similar position, except they have a grip over your back. Protect your neck with your far arm, reaching to your near side collar. With your near arm, grab inside their near knee, bringing your elbow to the outside of their hip. Base out with your free arm, then walk up on your toes. Come up until you can support yourself on your head and shoulder, meaning you can roll through like Dónal’s comparable drill.

They will probably have their head clamped by your hip (if they are using the blocking method John talked about), so you want to push that with your free hand (which was the basing hand originally). With the other hand, you should still be holding their knee: as you roll through to recover guard, this arm straightens out, but continues to push into their knee.

When you recover your guard, they are probably going to move straight into the double-underhook pass. Try to avoid them getting their hands locked, as that will make it tough to defend. The natural impulse is for them to reach their hand across to grab your collar and start stacking (when drilling, it is helpful if your partner indicates which hand by opening it wide and moving it slowly towards the collar). Once you see that hand moving, grab their wrist and elbow.

It is possible you may need to hook underneath the elbow if they are tight and pry it free. Either way, bring their arm across your thighs and shove their wrist into your hip. Keep pushing on their elbow, then move your wrist hand to base behind you as you sit up. Continuing to brace against their elbow, you should now be able to make enough space that you can recover guard.

Next up was a favourite technique of mine, the running escape, which Jeff does a bit differently. Unlike when I have taught it, Jeff uses this against the orthodox side control grips. Block their cross face with one hand, the other gripping around their shoulder blade (that should mean you can wedge your forearm under their neck). Bridge and turn away from them slightly, but only enough that your shoulder can get onto their chest. Make certain you defend your neck in order to protect against chokes.

That then progresses to something similar to the Braulio escape. Do a big step with your bottom leg, spin over, your other arm sliding underneath your body and to your side to block any potential hook they might look to insert to take the back. As you go to your knees, that arm comes up like in Braulio's version. However, unlike Braulio, you are looking to use it to grab around their back and then recover guard, rather than necessarily as a prevention to them taking your back (though it can work in that situation too).

Sparring with Jeff I was working a lot of guard retention again, avoiding the holes he was leaving for me to fall into. Similarly with the other people I sparred with it was mostly about maintaining my guard, working the spider guard to an extent. I’m still not quite sure what is best for my injured leg, but I at least didn’t seem to aggravate it during sparring at that school. Like John, Jeff is another senior belt who is good at adjusting his rolling to the level of his partner. I've been very fortunate to train with several black belts on this trip.

I later sparred with a purple belt called Jessica, who has excellent guard retention. Rolling with Jesse was cool too. Jeff has a great bunch of students and an accessible, detailed teaching style. It was an absolute pleasure training with Jeff, as well as chatting to him about his background on the drive over. I can definitely recommend Raptor BJJ to anyone in the area: he also teaches a class at the University of Texas. So, go check it out! :D

21/11/2012 - Bullshido Throwdown Austin (including Control Point Theory lesson)

Monolith Training Centre, (Throwdown), Austin, TX, USA - 21/11/2012

The Bullshido website has been very important to my BJJ. It was members of that site who originally encouraged me into the sport, giving me the push I needed to get started. It was also a thread on that site which set the tone for my future training. I would strongly recommend everybody who wants to train BJJ read it, here. The training logs section has been another touchstone, one of the best of which is written by the awesome John Palmer, posting as jnp.

I have been reading jnp's log for years, as well as his numerous other mature and helpful posts all over the Bullshido website. So when I decided to go to Texas (full write-up here), 'meet jnp' was high on my list of priorities. Without meaning to be too gushing, it was even better than I could have hoped. I already expected him to have great BJJ, but he is awesome company off the mats too. Genuine, generous and intelligent, John has led a fascinating life which he is very good at sharing in a series of engaging anecdotes. It was a pleasure to spend a day talking and training with him, as well as meeting his lovely family.

In terms of BJJ, I essentially got a several hour long private lesson with a high level brown belt (although as anyone who has rolled with John over the last few years can tell you, a black belt would suit him rather well ;D). John likes to do an introductory talk that he gives to students. It is something he has mentioned in various threads, but it was extremely cool to hear him explain it in person. He discussed alignment, relating to skeletal structure and where the strength of the joint resides, along with the importance of creating angles (using the analogy of striking). Virtually every attack from guard is more effective once you create an angle, so any time you're in guard you should always be trying to cut the angle.

Control Point Theory

Once we arrived and started rolling, John went into much more detail, as well as demonstrating both compliantly and then during the course of sparring. His theory of control points was interesting, which he splits into primary (head, shoulders and hips), secondary (inside of elbows and knees) and tertiary (wrists and ankles). He also emphasised the 'flow with the go' mindset popularised by Rickson, so if you're meeting resistance in one direction, such as when you're passing, go with that force and move around to the other side.

Update Dec 2012: John put up this link over on Facebook, where he goes into those conceptual ideas in depth.

Update Oct 2020: It turns out that this lesson from John was incredibly important to my BJJ development. Control point theory has since become central to my game, especially to the way I teach. For a quick summary, I teach my interpretation here

Along with principles, John showed me some specific techniques too. I have struggled with the Braulio escape from side control for some time. John uses a modification to that technique which I'm looking forward to trying out. When Braulio does it, he pushes into the armpit and sits up. In John's variation, he stays on the floor. He waits for them to bring their arm past his head while in side control, then immediately grabs that arm by the wrist and elbow. Next John shoves that arm right to his feet, curling his body.

Still staying on the floor, turn to your belly, so that your legs end up stretched out behind you, continuing to firmly grasp their arm. That should cause them to flip to their back, meaning you can come on top and establish your own side control. Drilling that, I need to remember to push the arm far enough: I kept stopping short, which makes it much harder to put them on their back.

After catching me with a leglock, John had some further helpful tips on defending the kneebar. Your initial reaction should be to grab their head, wrapping it with both arms and dragging it into your body. If you can't get their head, grab their near leg and pull that towards you, to prevent them closing their legs. Similarly you can try using your free leg to hook under their leg and lift, again to stop them clamping the submission in place. Triangling your legs can help too.

I'm continuing to play with the running escape, which resulted in some more good advice from John. He noted that whenever somebody tries to swing their legs through as in the Saulo finish I taught recently, he blocks their hip with his head, which immediately sets up the pass. Aim to get your elbow under your knee if possible and keep moving so they can't toe hold. Definitely don't try grabbing your own leg as a defence, as that will mean you arm is straight: they can then collapse your knee into your arm, trapping both limbs.

Sparring

I have rolled with a number of higher belts, but there are very few who are able to measure their pace as well as John. Many times when I've sparred a black belt, I find myself either staring at them as they wait for me to move, or just getting smashed. John found the perfect balance between the two, letting me move, anticipating my actions, but applying just the right amount of pressure to keep me moving. If he ever opens a club or regularly teaches somewhere, I would very highly recommend anybody able to get to Austin trains with him. Excellent teacher.

Hence why sparring was a great deal more useful than normal. I had the luxury of a talented instructor to roll with who was also willing to give me detailed and specific advice after we finished rolling. Although I am being wriggly with my legs when escaping, John recommended that I engage my hands as well, such as pushing into the head. Still on the topic of escapes, it is important to work out several techniques that flow together, particularly as I depend way too much on the running escape. So. I need to find another side control escape that follows on from the running escape. The failure of one technique should feed into the potential success of the next.

John noted that I was tending to pause briefly when I was put in a bad position. Instead, I should be working towards my escape right in that moment of reversal, rather than allowing that moment of delay. Partly that comes down to mat time, but it gives me something concrete to think about, especially when rolling with people better than me who keep putting me in those bad positions.

Due to the injury, I haven't been sparring much on this trip, but I did get in a roll with another member of the Bullshido website too, which was cool (he posts on there as daddykata), as well as chatting to various others, like blackmonk and Naszir (who took the pictures). I haven't been to a throwdown (the name Bullshido uses for these training meet-ups) in a couple of years. Today reminded me why I went in the past, as they're a lot of fun. :)

20/11/2012 - Team Cooper BJJ

Class #474
Cooper's MMA/Jiu Jitsu, (BJJ), Sean Cooper, Austin, TX, USA - 20/11/2012

I arrived into Austin on the 20th, finally getting to meet somebody I have been looking forward to meeting for four years now: the incomparable Georgette Oden. I'll be talking about her much more in my full Texas write-up, but I'll start with a brief summary here. We first 'met' online back in 2008, when she started training BJJ and talking about the experience on her blog. We later got emailing and connected on Facebook, with plenty of cross-blog traffic. Four years down the line, I am sat in her house typing this post, the extremely happy beneficiary of Georgette's incredible hospitality. :D

Georgette's husband Mitch also enjoys BJJ, so he took me along to the place he trains, Trainers Elite MMA. I'm not sure if they are sticking with that name, but either way, it's an excellent BJJ/MMA school run by black belt Sean Cooper. The school has a laid back vibe, stemming from Sean's friendly personality: he immediately made me feel very welcome (something of a theme on this trip: everybody is so nice!). Cooper's gym is affiliated to Cleber Luciano, whose logo could be seen all around the school as well as on the t-shirt I bought a few days later.

I wasn't able to do the warm-up due to my leg injury, so instead sat off at the side doing sit-ups and some of the exercises my physio showed me before I left on this trip. The first few techniques were takedowns, which again I couldn't really do due to my leg, though thanks to the care and consideration of my training partner Mikal I managed to slightly join in. He repeatedly checked to see if he was straining my leg, keeping everything gradual and controlled. Like Triin, he is also clearly interested in the fine details of technique. Also like Triin, he is an instructor, which perhaps explains that interest and his level of maturity.

Sean showed a simple counter to pulling guard, which also works in a few other circumstances. As they bring the leg up to push on your hip and pull guard, grab it and move the leg across your body. Continue the motion, stepping through to knee on belly. He added some little details he learned from Rickson as he wandered round during drilling, all about getting that connection with the opponent (e.g., keeping your elbows in and pressing into their pec with your fist as you grip up from standing).

He then progressed to several options against knee on belly, both starting on their back with your knees squeezed (which again my injury made difficult, but I could do the rest of the technique). Secure an over-under/harness/seatbelt grip, grab their wrist and pull it inwards, then shift your body off to the side of their turtle. Put your knee tight to them, locking in your elbow. Put your free hand out for base, then roll them towards you. You can then bring your knee over the top.

I'm not sure I fully understood that one, which has probably been further garbled in my head because I'm writing this up several days later based on what I said into a dictaphone. However, I have a better recollection of the next technique, which was an entry in the bow and arrow choke from turtle. This starts the same, with a seatbelt grip against turtle. Pull their collar out with your underhooking arm (so, the one looped past their armpit), feeding it to the hand you've threaded over their shoulder and towards their neck.

This doesn't need to be too deep, as it will be tightened when you finish the choke. Your underhooking hand (which should be free, having fed the collar) will now grab their same side wrist, using your elbow to pry their arm outwards. That should clear a space for you to insert your foot on that side, ready to establish your first hook to take the back. Switch the underhook hand from their wrist to their trouser leg. Roll through, essentially rolling backwards (I think? I said 'behind you' in my dictaphone note).

As you roll through, bring your leg across their body, preventing them sucking you into half guard. Your other leg should be looped around their same side arm, making it tough for them to defend. From there you can apply the bow and arrow choke, or switch to an armbar by pushing on their head and bringing your leg over their head.

I finished off doing some light sparring with Mikal (who incidentally also runs a blog, which we talked about later). I'm still trying to work out how best to roll without straining my leg, so ended up in a sort of modified knee shield mostly working on guard recovery. I also played with the running escape, because an instructor I'm visiting later had mentioned we'd be working that during his lesson. In Mikal's guard, I got to practice popping his foot off my hip with my elbow while gripping inside the knee, but I wasn't able to progress from there.

Again, I'll talk more about Mikal in the full Texas trip write up, as he's another amazingly hospitable member of the Texas jiu jitsu scene. There have been a lot of them on this holiday! :D