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This website is about Brazilian jiu jitsu (BJJ). I'm a black belt who started in 2006, teaching and training at Artemis BJJ in Bristol, UK. All content ©Can Sönmez
Showing posts with label Aylesbury. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Aylesbury. Show all posts

23 November 2019

23/11/2019 - Kev on armbars, RGA Bucks

Class #1203
RGA Bucks, Kev Capel, Aylesbury, UK - 23/11/2019

Armbar drill, then ezequiel with bottom knuckle to artery, drive hips and hook leg they're trying to push. Armbar, under elbows, cross their arms right over (maybe wristlock), grabbing elbow and pulling in, leaning back. Can then pick your moment. İf ezequiel blocked, can do the same motion, get under elbows, back to that armbar set up.

Rolling, first keV's son, nothing going from open guard, framed a bit. Running escape, left too much back open, slow motion seoi nage out. Almost exact same thing with keV after. Tried to swivel for Lepri, couldn't get underhook in and leg too far away.

07 July 2018

07/07/2018 - Kev Turtle attacks Class

Class #999
RGA Bucks, Kev Capel, Aylesbury, UK - 07/07/2018

The sequence begins from a standard roll over against turtle, where you pull them by the corner to move into the back. Right away from there, kimura grip an arm. Maintaining the grip on their wrist, you can then push down the other arm and trap it with your leg.

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To finish, there's the single arm choke. İf they bridge into you and clear your leg, swivel that cleared leg under (as they've given you space), establishing a crucifix on their arm. Switch your legs before you do (you already have a leg round their arm due to your previous technique of trapping their arm).

On the crucifix, you can single arm nogi choke with a squeeze, or go for a collar choke. İf they manage to dip down and roll backwards to escape, be ready to push their head into a reverse triangle. This will catch people unawares, as their arm is likely to still be stuck by your legs due to needing that base for the backward roll.

You can then either pull on their trapped arm and squeeze your legs to finish the choke, or focus on the other arm instead, going for a pressing armbar etc. After training, lots of great art in London, checking out the Courtauld Gallery for the first time. :D

05 March 2018

05/03/2018 - RGA Bucks | Mauricio

Class #957
Artemis BJJ (MYGYM Bristol), Can Sönmez, Bristol, UK - 08/03/2018

Training with Mauricio, having had a cool weekend with my Australian Instagram friend, Melanie. Although I'm writing this up in November 2018, I fortunately still have the notes I recorded on my dictaphone app from this class. Mauricio kicked off with headlock escapes, as he likes to add in the self defence stuff. Bring your hips in, grab their arm to stop them punching you, Big step back, grabbing their hand, keeping your head out. Push their hand up around their back. If you can't get your head up, dive under, roll through and get on top that way. Usual hands in front of head, bring foot over and armbar.

For passing, Mauricio was talking about staying really tight. When you're stepping in towards their guard, always step in with one leg forwards, in that low crouch position I like. Keep your head up, posture solid. When they have a grip on your sleeve, grab their belt and pull in tight.

Bring the other leg out, turning it away, pressing in from there. If they manage to catch onto your foot, walk it away slowly. Particularly for half guard, Mauricio brings his arm in early, underneath, swivelling it back to stop their hips from following you.

In sparring, keeping my balance on top. On the bottom, mostly got squished and clung on, trying to push gi under leg. Need to be framing, get the head down.

28 October 2017

28/10/2017 - RGA Bucks | Takedowns, Von Flue choke, double underhooks pass

Class #914
RGA Aylesbury, (BJJ), Dan Lewis, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, UK - 28/10/2017

For the double leg takedown, get your standard judo grips, grip a collar and sleeve. Step back and pull them in towards you, raising your elbows. Then immediately drop, putting the knee on the collar-grabbing side on the ground between their legs. Step your other leg up on the outside and put your hands around the back of their knees, but not trying to link your hands. Your head comes up, then you also step up with your other leg. Do a little sideways run, away from your head, in order to bring them down.

They will often grab your head in an attempt at a guillotine, then land under side control, meaning they have a not particularly functional grip. If they insist on maintaining that grip, you can do what's known as a 'von Flue choke', presumably named after some guy. You establish the cross face as normal, but driving your shoulder into their neck. Your other hand goes underneath their gripping arm, linking up with your other hand. Make sure your cross-face hand is palm down for the gable grip (palm to palm). Move around to exert pressure for the choke. Either you'll get the submission, or they will let go of their grip.

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Dan then ran through a double underhooks pass, drawing on the method Mauricio showed earlier that week (very awesomely, Mauricio is now teaching every Monday lunchtime at RGA Bucks). Roll their collars together to start (like Donal showed me a few years back), fighting off their hands if they try to stop you. It's worth taking the time to get that super strong grip. Your collar gripping arm isn't completely straight, there is a slight bend so you're not straining, ready to engage if they try to sit up.

Open their closed guard with the usual kneeling break, then get your shoulder behind their knee. Rather than immediately reaching for the collar like I'm used to, you instead rely on gripping your wrist to create a frame. Your arm that would normally go for the collar instead just wraps tight around their leg. Your other hand comes in tight, grasping the wrist of your outside arm. Driving forward off your toes, start to stack them, keeping your head up, driving with your hips too. Once they are stacked, that's when you go for the collar.

Grab their opposite collar (or shoulder, if it's nogi or you can't get the grip you want) with one of your hands, sliding your fingers inside. Bring your knee behind their bum to maintain your stack. It is important to keep maintaining heavy downwards pressure throughout this pass. Keep pushing until eventually you drive past their leg and transition to side control: don't raise your head, just keep pushing until you slide past, nudging with your shoulder if necessary.

If they bring their knee across to block that, by your neck, you can switch to something else. Grip their other leg (that isn't against your neck), low on their trousers. Step over the top of it, so you're in a kind of half guard. Your head then goes onto the leg-stacked side hip, driving across towards that side. Head stays low to avoid the reverse triangle, then you bring your other arm in for the cross-face. Walk your legs back toward the side your head is pressing into, as that shift back around should make it tough for them to keep control of your leg.

Good roll with Stu as always, where I again tried to fit in that single leg x and shin on shin guard, but not getting it where I want it just yet. I'll keep trying (naturally it's rather harder on brown belts like Stu!).

25 February 2017

25/02/2017 - RGA Bucks | Standing Guard Sweeps

Class #806
RGA Aylesbury, (BJJ), Dan Lewis, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, UK - 25/02/2017

Dan took us on a trip down memory lane today, specifically the book Royler, Renzo and Danaher put out almost twenty years ago. That book was a warm-up for Danaher and Renzo's seminar Mastering Jujitsu, with a similar history section. It was called Jiu-Jitsu: Theory & Technique. The layout was haphazard, but including a sequence of three closely related techniques for when an opponent stands up in your closed guard: the ankle grab sweep, handstand and star sweep.

For the first one, as they stand up, if you've got a grip on their collar or head, maintain it in order to keep their posture bent forwards. At the moment you let go of that grip (if you have one) and they try to reach an upright position, grab behind their ankles (around the outside: if you grab around the inside, there's an injury risk).

Open your guard (when they stand, they are looking to open it and pass. It's better if when you open your guard, it's on your terms rather than theirs). Usually when I've seen this taught, the idea is to bring your knees together under their chest. You can also put your feet on their hips, depending on their height and how much leverage you need. Either way, drive those feet or knees into them. That should knock them over if they aren't prepared for the sweep. One advantage of the knees is you can keep squeezing your legs into their sides, which can help you use their momentum as they fall back (but be careful you don't get your feet under them too much, or you might hurt yourself as you hit the floor). Dan did it a little differently, as he focused instead on pushing with the back of your legs against their thighs.

After they've hit the mat, before they can react, come up on your hand and same side knee. Bring your hips forward on that same side. It's much easier if you move in a diagonal direction, rather than trying to go straight forward. Slide your knee on that side to the mat, keeping your hips low, also grabbing behind their head (or collar). From there, you could go to mount, s-mount, side control etc. It is an awkward position, so takes a bit of getting used to. I used a hip thrust drill during the warm-up to help: you can do a technical stand-up from here too if you find that easier, keeping hold of their leg and passing around to the side.

A good follow up to the double ankle grab sweep is another option that works off wrapping an ankle. This one is normally known as the 'handstand sweep', though invariably there are lots of other names for it. As your partner stands in your closed guard, keep your guard closed, wrapping an arm around their same side ankle. You're looking to get the crook of your elbow behind their ankle: for further control, you could try reaching through to grab your own collar. For power, range and balance, put your free hand on the floor, as if you were doing a handstand (hence the name).

To complete the sweep, you need to bring their knee out sideways. Their foot has to be immobilised for that, or they'll be able to adjust and maintain their balance. To turn their knee out, bring your hips sideways, pushing into the inside of their knee (don't go above the knee, you need to stay either next to it or underneath). Once you've pushed it far enough so their leg swivels, that should knock them to the floor. Dan's option was to bring the hip right onto the knee to push it from facing forwards to face sideways instead, which worked well (at least on one side, I had real trouble doing it on the other side). Your guard stays closed throughout, opening at the last moment to adjust into mount.

However, that still leaves them a hand with which they can post out and recover. To prevent that, you can cross-grip their sleeve. This is what Xande calls the 'muscle sweep', because their ankle is by your 'muscle' (i.e., bicep). The set up is the same as before, but this time, you don't use your free hand to push off the floor. Instead, you grab their opposite sleeve, thereby both preventing them from posting out, and also providing you with an easy way of pulling yourself up into mount.

The difficulty is the decreased leverage at your disposal. Now that you can't use that hand to push up, you instead have to really push into their knee. Make sure your grip around their leg is tight, pulling their foot right up to your shoulder. You will also use your grip on their sleeve, pulling their arm to help you. This is tougher to pull off than the handstand, but it makes the transition to the top much easier.

Dan finished with an old school final option, the star sweep. This is one I used to try all the time nine years or so ago, but have fallen out of the habit. From the handstand sweep, kick your leg so that you swivel around the leg you're hooking with your arm. Stay close, kneeling next to that leg, facing parallel, head low. Lean back to knock them to the ground. You need to be careful you aren't too explosive with this one, in order to avoid tweaking their knee. I was ending up too turned a few times, meaning that I ended up in a poor position once (if) they fell down.

The last one is an omoplata, from that handstand sweep position. You have the cross-grip on their sleeve, pass that to the hand you have around their leg. Grab their collar and pull them down with your now free hand. Turn your hips out and bring your leg over their head, like you're clamping for an armbar. Knock them down, then you can transition into an omoplata. Dan doesn't triangle his legs, as that can give them a footlock: instead, he just squeezes his knees together.

24 December 2016

24/12/2016 - RGA Bucks | Half Guard

Class #791
RGA Aylesbury, (BJJ), Kev Capel, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, UK - 24/12/2016

I am not normally in Aylesbury in time to do the xmas eve training at RGA Bucks, but this year I managed it. Very useful, as I had annoyingly missed the session I wanted to go to in November because Megabus messed up. I like to check in with Kev at least six times a year, this final 2016 session marking the sixth (I think?).

Half guard tonight, starting by grabbing their wrist and pushing it between their legs. They've underhooked your other arm, meaning you need to wriggle your legs into play (this part I found tricky: I wasn't sure if you should let go of their wrist, or try to swim your leg inside your arm). That sets you up for a triangle.

You can also attempt a 'tee pee' triangle, where from that position you reach underneath both your legs and extend them. Switching to the reverse triangle is another option, meaning your legs are locked the other way.

In rolling, I got crushed under Sandeep's side control, which is what always happens with him. The only difference is how long I hold him off. Tonight I was still trying to save my fingers and avoid gripping too much, which appeared to make Sandeep's pass even quicker. He's very good at grabbing a sleeve and a leg, then bringing that inside to drop his shoulder and pass. I guess more grip breaking might help, though I don't want to get into a grip breaking battle with a strong wrestler like him. ;)

Sandeep also landed a nice footlock on me later (pressing the other foot into the hip, compared to what I'm used to). I recognised it, as I know from following Instagram posts that he learned it from a certain Mr Yang down in Borehamwood. ;)

I then got squished by a big white belt, where I stayed defensive. When I attempted to move into deep half, he got a lovely spin through, I think to my back? Either way, it looked smooth from where I was. Finally, the important roll, with my instructor Kev. I'm continuing to work on framing, grabbing the collar and scooting back Ryan Hall style.

He said it is improving: the trouble I have is once he gets that grip around my back and holding the opposite collar, it is extremely tough to maintain my guard. That's something I shall play with more. Of course, Kev is an experienced black belt, so it's not like he has to try very hard to pass my guard. ;p

23 October 2016

23/10/2016 - Private with Kev | Open/Closed Guard Maintenance

Class #775 - Private #026
RGA Aylesbury, (BJJ), Kev Capel, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, UK - 23/10/2016

To mark my approaching ten year anniversary in BJJ, I thought I'd book another private with Kev. Open guard has continued to be the weakest area for me, so we focused on that. Kev started off by sharing a few guard retention drills he's found useful (both to practice and to teach). They're related to the series he taught a long while back, but I think this version encourages more hip rotation, which is useful.

You've established a basic open guard, feet on their hips. They grab your ankle and pull it across, the beginning of a leg drag. Turn your hips in order to bring your other leg across, then push off that to recover square on. Then they go a bit further, so you push into the knot of their belt, again recovering to guard. The reason you go for the knot is that too far in either direction could lead to footlocks, them dislodging your foot and passing, or the Estima footlock (there's still a risk of that, but it's less). As you swivel, you yank your other leg free by pulling your knee to your chest.

If they manage to get to the knee cut pass, there is a counter you can try (a little like the ones from Leuven). Ideally you want to get your knee shield in, that's the most powerful defence. If you've missed that, first grab their gi collar, your fist into their neck. It's important your palm is facing down, that makes it harder for them to knock that hand out of the way. Your other elbow goes behind, to give you enough base to scoot away and get your knee shield in, then recover guard.

Playing open guard generally, Kev recommends getting a grip on their same side trouser leg first, as that tends to be the hard one to get. Shin-on-shin is the quickest guard to establish, making sure you keep your shin engaged. If you aren't actively pushing that into their shin, they can simply whip their leg around. Similarly, you need to keep your other leg pressed into their knee, constantly pressurising them.

Kev prefers sitting guard. Again, after you've wrapped your leg and arm around, keeping the pressure on their other leg with your free leg. If you don't, they'll squish you with their knee. From here, you can kick up to knock them past your head, or sweep your leg back to go into a single leg. There's de la Riva and x-guard entries from here too, but as neither of those are main guards for me, I can save those for a later date.

If they get strong sleeve grips, Kev suggested moving into spider guard to help reduce the power of those grips. He doesn't tend to sweep much with that (apart from the push on the floor one to knock them towards his head and then sweep), instead using it to set up closed guard.

From closed guard, there was another handy tip. The first thing Kev does is grab the meat of their hands by the thumb side, twisting both of their hands so they face upwards. That makes it really hard for them to get any kind of grips. Their reaction will indicate the next move. Kev likes to move an arm across and pull them in with the knees, to get that strong position where they are collapsed over their own arm.

That leads into what Nic Gregoriades randomly (but memorably) calls the 'chimp, chump, champ' series. The words don't entirely fit, but the idea here is that a 'chimp' won't react, so they just sit there in that position. Grabbing their lat, you can move into a back take. A 'chump' will make the mistake of putting up their leg on the non-trapped arm side. You can then hook that with your same side leg and sweep them. A 'champ' puts up their leg on the other side: that gives you the opportunity to move into an armbar.

My preference is the shoulder clamp grip, which Kev noted would be something to move into if they try to move their arms out to recover their hands. You can capitalise on their focus on their hands to pull them in and thread into a shoulder clamp.

Finally, in terms of passing open guard, there is another hand grip that's handy: you're also grabbing the meat of the hand, but the other side (i.e., under the little finger), forcing their palms down. As with the closed guard option, that makes it hard for them to establish grips. You can then step your same side leg behind their knee, moving around to a perpendicular angle.

Once you've got that angle and can drive your knee in behind theirs (into a sort of knee-led leg drag), you 'land the airplane', coming in low to lock up the pass. I think that was the last technique, hopefully I didn't forget anything on my way to the train. Before I left, Kev popped a fourth stripe on my purple belt, which is always nice.

24 September 2016

24/09/2016 - RGA Bucks | Half Guard | Knee Shield

Class #769
RGA Aylesbury, (BJJ), Kev Capel, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, UK - 24/09/2016

Kev kicked off with a method for wristlocking when somebody is pushing your chest. Grab their hand with your opposite hand, locking that to your body. Your other hand grabs behind their elbow as you step towards them. Put your head on their shoulder and switch both hands to their elbow. You can then apply pressure for the wristlock. The competition application is when they grab your collar. Again, grab their hand with your opposite hand: aim to knock across, to create a bend in their wrist. Then it's the same as before, to get the wristlock.

Moving into groundwork, as they try to pass your guard, grab their far sleeve (i.e., the one on the side they're passing) with your opposite hand. Secure a good grip, then with your same side hand, grasp the meat of their hand. Use those grips to create a bend in their hand. Insert your knee shield, using that and your grips to pull them back into closed guard.

Alternatively, stretch them out with your knee, switching to pushing with your foot. Kev described this as a sidekick to their hip. Gradually transfer that pressure to your other foot, pressing into their other hip. At the same time, you're going to use the grip you have on their sleeve to do an arm drag, then take their back.

If you get your knee shield and then go for the sleeve, they might be savvy and pull it back. To do that, they are invariably going to bring their weight back slightly. Keeping your knee driving firmly into their hip, turn your torso completely away from them, so you're looking in the same direction they are. Walk back on your hands, until you end up knocking them over. You will probably find yourself in a sort of half butterfly. Grapevine your hooked leg to stuff their sweep attempt, bringing your other leg over the top of their knee. It's then a simple slide into mount.

Related to that, Stu made an interesting point when we were sparring. I tried to shin-on-shin sweep him repeatedly, but he kept getting his balance back. He explained that he was just walking on his hands until he could re-establish some base. That then enabled him to untangle his legs while still maintaining his balance. In terms of sparring, he also recommended combining the knee cut with a leg drag, by pulling them legs across if you can't land the knee cut. I think Donal might have shown me that years ago, but I've not been trying it: good reminder!

Sparring with Kev, he had a potent counter for the opposite side half guard pass I like to do. Before I switched to the other side, he was able to get a grip around my lapel, locking his arm to my back. To prevent my cross-face, he made enough space to jam his forehead into my arm (in my notes, I said 'eyebrow to armpit', to be specific ;D), so I couldn't drive my shoulder into to his jaw or neck. Bringing my hip down onto the ground, he moved smoothly into an ezequiel. He finished it with a fist, sliding that in as I bridge to turn. In the process of bridging, I opened up my neck. Normally the fist finish to an ezequiel is vicious, but Kev did a very technical version, it was on immediately without any of the usual nasty grinding. Black belt skills. ;)

02 July 2016

02/07/2016 - RGA Bucks | Open Guard | Countering the Double Underhooks Pass

Class #749
RGA Aylesbury, (BJJ), Kev Capel, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, UK - 02/07/2016

It was a flying visit today, as multiple family birthdays on both my partner and my own side meant I was rushing up and down the country. I was determined to get in a class at RGA Bucks either way, to make sure I'm touching base with Kev at least every couple of months on average. After July, I don't get back up to Bucks until at least September, so it would have been a long wait if I didn't make it for July (and it's my middle niece's birthday, as well as my father's). ;)

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The theme today was countering the double underhooks pass. As they come in for the double under pass, have your arms ready by your legs. Once their arm is in range and before they can lock their hands together (this is important, it will be a great deal harder to prevent the pass if they lock their hands), bringing your same side arm underneath theirs, locking your own hands together in a gable grip. That position should block the pass attempt, plus you can now move into submission attempts.

Keep pulling on their arm until you can bring it away from their body. Your top arm comes over the top of their arm and shoulder, to grab their wrist. With your other hand moving underneath, grab your own wrist. You can then do a reverse kimura. If they manage to straighten their arm when you do that, bring it to your head and clamp to your ear. A pressing armbar is waiting for you at this point. Kev likes to get the wrist flat on his neck, which he finds puts their elbow in the right spot. If their arm slips out of that too, grip their tricep and pull the arm across, moving into a triangle.

A more complex option arises if you can't get their arm away from their body in the first place. Bring your leg over the top of their bent arm, then triangle your legs to lock that in place. Switch your arms, grabbing your own leg. This puts on a bit of bicep slicer pressure, so be careful (especially if you're in a competition that doesn't allow bicep slicers for lower belt ranks). Turn, rolling them all the way over, unlocking your legs in order to avoid throwing their entire weight on top of your foot. Keep on turning, which will then apply a shoulder lock. This is a little like the rolling omoplata.

I had lots of good rolls as always, especially with Kev. I played with the stiff arm from open guard again, along with escapes. I couldn't get into position for knee cut counters, though speaking of those, Kev had a nice detail. When he grips around the back, he turns his palm outwards, which straightens the arm into the back and makes it tougher to collapse. I also tried what David Morecegao showed me about pushing the head away from open guard, though I think I still might not be doing that enough. I kept my other arm tucked back, like Dan Lewis showed at RGA Bucks some time ago (based on a David Onuma seminar). It felt like I wasn't as sore as normal after sparring, which is good if that means I'm using less force and being more flowy.




09 April 2016

09/04/2016 - RGA Bucks | Side Control | Reverse Triangle

Class #709
RGA Aylesbury, (BJJ), Kev Capel, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, UK - 09/04/2016

A photo posted by Can (Jun) (@slideyfoot) on


After my private lesson, in the normal class Kev focused on side control. He started with some basic escapes, with the guard recovery. He has a little tweak I haven't seen before, in the last part where you're getting back into guard. Rather than wrapping the arm over the top and reaching for your other shoulder, he prefers to make a frame against their shoulder and bicep. That enables you to push yourself away, then move into either open guard or wriggle into closed guard.

Kev upped the complexity next, with reverse triangles. Having escaped, the leg that was previous by their hip now kicks up diagonally, past their opposite shoulder, straightening your leg. If you have long legs, it might be tricky to manoeuvre it in place, but I don't have that problem. Put that leg across the back of their neck, then the other leg comes up to lock over the shin, as with a normal triangle. You are essentially putting yourself underneath side control: the same technique will work if you're starting out from side control too, though the setup is a little different (you'd push their head down towards your leg).

It can be difficult to finish the triangle, but their near arm is vulnerable. You can attack with pressing armbars, kimuras and even americanas, due to locking that shoulder down so they can't relieve the pressure. If you're having trouble, straighten out your leg that's over their neck, to push their head down further. Turn your hips, then the leg that was across the back of their head becomes the leg that locks over the top. The legs are switching, changing the triangle configuration. The hard part is getting the lock in tightly enough by the shoulder, especially as you can't see what you're doing.

I was taking it easy in sparring, as I had the GrappleThon to go to later. I mainly tried more maintaining open guard, attempting to pull them into closed guard like Kev had taught me in the private.

09/04/2016 - Private with Kev | Open Guard | Leg Lock Defence, Calf Crush & Open Guard

Class #708 - Private #022
RGA Aylesbury, (BJJ), Kev Capel, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, UK - 09/04/2016

I know very little about leglocks. I don't really care about being able to attack with them, but I am keen to nail down the defence. Rolling with Seymour at the GrappleThon, I kept ending up in 50/50 without much idea of how to get out, while he went for my feet. The last proper look I had at leglock defence was when John Palmer went through a few options with me, way back during my awesome 2012 Texas trip. Leglocks aren't something that feature in the vast majority of my training, so rolling with Seymour was an eye-opener. I had been planning to work on leglock defence in this private anyway, but that confirmed why it was important. ;)

Fortunately, it wasn't as complex as you might think. There are three basic principles that run through most defences, which I knew already, so that's good. First, 'put on the boot': pull your toes back and straighten out the leg that's being attacked, as if you were struggling to get on a boot. Second, you need to pull them towards you (e.g., grab their gi or head), as they need to drop back to apply most footlocks. Finally, stand up, because they're going to have a really tough time getting anything once you get the sole of your foot on the ground and can bring gravity to bear.

That applies to both orthodox footlock set-ups and stuff like 50/50. Kev added in some more specifics for 50/50 defence, which starts off with the usual putting on the boot, grabbing the gi and standing up. After you've done that, 'hula hoop' to put their locking leg in front of you, then grasp their knee and the bottom of their trouser leg. You can then shove that leg down and begin your pass. If the 50/50 is too tight, Kev suggested grabbing the locking knee, stiff-arming then shifting your hips away. I think I must have missed some details though, so I'll double check that with him next time.

You can also get in some early defence, such as getting a spider guard push into the arm they want to use to underhook your leg. Grab their same side arm, push into the crook of the elbow and use that to free your elbow. Sometimes you might need to hook under their leg as you're escaping, such as when you push their foot down and pop your hips over (I don't remember all the details on that, so will need to drill it some more).

As much as I don't intend to attack with footlocks, it is useful to know a few. Kev shared a nasty calf crush with me, interestingly entirely legal for white belts under IBJJF rules (as ever, that is just one rule set, but it's relatively widespread these days). From your usual straight ankle lock position, drag the arm you have underneath across the middle of their calf, aiming to pull as much calf up on the side as you can. Maintaining the tension, bring your other arm under, pushing the calf even higher. Lock that hand (thumb up) against the calf, then bring your other arm around the first, like you were trying to rear naked choke their calf. Squeeze, while also turning your shoulders away from the leg (i.e., towards their other leg). This comes on quick, so do it with control.

We also ran through some open guard maintenance again, as that's still my weak point. Kev did some light sparring, after which he said my approach is ok, but added that I should be pulling them into closed guard (because I said that's where I want to end up, progressing from the shoulder clamp etc). To do that is simple, you just need to yank them towards you when you feel their weight coming forwards. You can also do it like a guard pull, with a foot on the hip, grip on the collar, then pulling and swivelling from the floor. I'm also not setting up my ankle pick sweeps as effectively as I could. Kev suggested coming in closer and hooking the leg, IIRC.

There was a funky worm guard sweep too. In closed guard (or open, but closed was how we started), pull out their lapel. Get that underneath your same side leg, for which you'll need to open your guard, but keep your foot on their hip. Feed the lapel to your other hand. They will probably stand up at this point. Continuing pulling the lapel, yanking it behind their leg and again feeding to your other hand.

You're now going to do a final hand switch, so that you're grabbing the lapel with your same side hand, palm down. Bring your free leg on the outside of their wrapped shin. To finish, do a technical stand-up. That should knock them over, whereupon you can move through to pass or possibly even mount (you'll need to let go of the lapel for that).

Finally, Kev also got back to me on something I mentioned a few years ago (I was impressed he remembered!) about the 'cat' and 'dog' position with the back when inside somebody's closed guard. When you pop out your back ('dog'), that enhances your posture. It also makes it tough for them to climb their legs higher up your back. When he demonstrated, it put me in mind of Jason Scully's 'eat the belt' guard break: I should use that posture more. Good reminder. :)

27 February 2016

27/02/2016 - RGA Bucks | Side Control | Escape to Guard

Class #696
RGA Aylesbury, (BJJ), Dan Lewis, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, UK - 27/02/2016

A photo posted by Can (Jun) (@slideyfoot) on


This weekend marks my first 2016 trip to my instructor's academy, RGA Bucks. Kev was away judging BAMMA, but as usual Dan was covering. His class was fantastic. I've mentioned a few times that I need to work on open guard, based around the Ryan Hall 'Defensive Guard' DVD. That is pretty much exactly what Dan covered, based on a recent David Onuma seminar. Judging by this, I really need to get myself down to an Onuma seminar: detailed tweaks on the basics, my absolute favourite stuff to learn in BJJ! :D

Dan kicked off with one of those tweaks, related to maintaining open guard as they look to pass with a knee cut. Block with your near arm, bent at right angles to make a frame. To generate base, pop up on your other elbow. I thought that you would need to come up to your hand, but that actually doesn't help you in this situation. I do this all the time, which can work against less experienced people, but higher belts will eventually grab that basing arm and pull it.

Instead of coming up on your hand, stay on your elbow. Make sure that your shoulder is in front of your elbow. This alignment makes it much harder for them to accomplish their inevitable attempt at yanking your basing arm. Use that frame to get your near foot onto their hip, push to create distance, then re-establish guard.

At this point, there was another very handy tip, which I will be implementing immediately into my classes. Once you have the closed guard and want to break their posture, you don't have to bring your knees to your chest to do it. That's a powerful option, but it does take some energy. A considerably more efficient method is to drive your heels into their lower back instead. That achieves the same goal of knocking them forwards, while also saving your gas tank.

When it comes to escaping side control, they want to dominate your near arm. It puts you in a rubbish position if they manage to isolate it. To get your arm back, bring your heels close to your bum, then turn to replace your elbow block inside their hip. Rotate the hand of your other arm (never bring the arm past their head, that's asking to be americanaed), grabbing their shoulder.

From here, don't drive it up. Bring your elbow out, twisting your forearm into their neck and jaw. Walk your feet towards their head, then bring your knees in to recover guard. If they manage to get such a tight underhook that you can't free your neck-pressure arm, grab your far hip instead.You can then turn to apply a weak shoulder lock.

It won't be enough to make them tap, but it will make them think. Don't bring your knees in to guard yet, get that turn first. Then you can bring your knees in, continuing to apply the pressure on their shoulder. This puts you in a great attacking position. You've got the option of the overhook guard, as well as pressing armbars and shoulder clamps.

Great sparring today: the mat was a sea of purple, along with two white belts, a brown belt and a black belt. Needless to say, there were no easy rolls available! I started off with Stuart, probably my favourite guy to roll with in the whole club (apart from Kev himself, of course). Stuart is about my size and he never goes super hard. That makes for a fun spar, with plenty of movement. I was going for the kimura grip, along with trying tips from Ryan Hall. The additional tweaks from today's lesson are going to be a big help, I think.

I then had a short roll with Dan, where I was looking to attempt that knee cut counter AJ Sousa showed on BJJ Library, but didn't get into the right position. My old training partner Liam was up next. We started training at roughly the same time, but he's improved rather quicker than me, meaning while I'm still purple, he's a black belt. I imagine he wasn't going very hard, nevertheless I had a bit of a confidence boost in that I felt I held my own (he did catch me with a pressing armbar from the top of half guard, so I need to be careful of that arm in that position).

He also had some tips for holding the top position in half guard. At one point I was able to get on top and move through into a cross-face. I was trying to get the Ribeiro super-hold (cross face and underhook), so I could then bring my shin over his leg and start to pass the half guard. I think he reversed me at some point, but regardless, the tip he gave was to bring both arms under the head. That might initially feel vulnerable, but as he demonstrated, when you then drive your chest into their head, it's tight!

I finished up with two bigger purples, where I took the opportunity to work on my defence. In the first roll, I spent a lot of it with my knee driving into their and pulling on the sleeve, to stop them progressing from side control to any kind of attack. I guess it did work, but I should have probably attempted to move into some kind of escape instead of holding that so long. I was getting pretty tired by the final roll: next time, I definitely want to stick around for the yoga. I'll be back in April, when there won't be a niece's birthday to rush off to. So, yoga time! :D

The next day, I did my usual art trip. The exhibition picked for this visit was Delacroix at the National Gallery. I already knew there was a lot of it I wouldn't like (as I'm not fond of most Impressionists, especially Cézanne and Gauguin). Due to that antipathy it only took 45 mins, but assuming you don't have an allergy to Impressionism, I'd say leave about 1.5hrs to do it properly.

A photo posted by Can (Jun) (@slideyfoot) on


However, I do like Degas. It was cool to see some more Moreau too, as I enjoy the Symbolists. I also enjoyed Frederic Bazille, who I wasn't familiar with before. Plenty of bigwigs today, like Van Gogh (not a fan of his work either, except the early stuff). It was still worth it I thought (on my father's membership at least, I wouldn't have paid full price), although the exhibition felt a little flabby. In my opinion, it lacked a sufficiently coherent narrative. It bounces between landscape, religious painting, portraits and others. Then again, the intention is to show Delacroix's influence on modern art, so I guess it needs to be broad for that. Note you aren't allowed any photography, even without flash: the pics I'm using are from a book.

24 October 2015

24/10/2015 - RGA Bucks | The Back | Escapes & Taking the Back

Class #673
RGA Aylesbury, (BJJ), Kev Capel, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, UK - 24/10/2015

Kev started with taking the back against turtle. Open up their collar with one arm, feeding that to the other, making sure you don't reach it so far that they can hook your elbow. Move around to the opposite side of your gripping arm and roll them into the back. You can move straight into a choke from here, where for some reason I got confused about which hand goes where. I think it was the same thing Kev was showing during that private last month, where you do the collar choke on the weak side (i.e., on the side you have your arm under their armpit), switching to a RNC with the arm by the neck if you can't get that.

Next was an escape, as Kev often likes to show both sides of a position when he teaches. For this back escape, grab their arm and pull it over your head, locking it by your shoulder with one arm. Move away from that arm with your legs, clearing their foot off your hip and walking over it. Once you have cleared that leg, grab their remaining leg, to prevent them swinging over into mount. Pushing off your feet, get your weight onto them, walk your feet around to side control, then finish by turning towards their legs.

The last technique looked perfect, as it was a knee cut counter. I get stuck there all the time. Kev did it from de la Riva, but I think it works from other places (e.g., IIRC, Bruno Matias did it from half guard at the BJJ Globetrotter Summer Camp a few months ago). It also comes with a flowery name, 'kiss of the dragon': Kev has the same view of fancy terminology for techniques as me, so said that with a wry smile. It certainly wouldn't be his choice of name, nor mine. ;)

Anyway, from de la Riva, switch hands to grab their ankle with your other hand (i.e., switch from your same side hand to opposite hand). That means you can pull their heel against your bum and lock their foot facing outwards. This should make it tough for them to turn their leg in order to do the knee cut. Your knee comes in place to block into their leg, again to hinder their ability to turn their knee in for the pass. Slide your free hand behind their other knee, back of the hand against the back of their knee. Use that as a guide to swivel your body and pop through their legs.

From there, you can just grab their ankles and knock them over. There's a chance you might be able to rotate your legs to the back of theirs, making it possible to flick their legs out and take their back. If not, knocking them into turtle may give you the opening to jump onto their back and lock on a seat belt. At worst, you should at least be able to get into top half guard. All of those are much better than getting your guard passed. :)

Sparring involved lots of guard passing attempts, where it took me most of the round to get past the first person's guard, then I had an americana locked on just as the timer ran out. I think I was underneath too and almost got my back taken at one point, so that was probably from side control. I have a bad habit of leaving my back exposed when escaping from there. Risky! I also missed a chance to try Chelsea's 'crazy dog' pass against a lasso spider guard in the last round, must remember to do that next time.

With a purple belt (who eventually got an americana too), I was trying out the sit-up escape type stuff again, blocking into his shoulder. Sort of worked, but he then got my basing arm and knocked me down, just like Kev warned in his private. Like I said before, I need to rewatch that Ryan Hall set where he talks about that, as I am sure he's got a counter to try. At the end of class, there were a few stripes given out, including one for me. Always nice, especially as it's been a few years. :)
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I've been looking forward to my next visit to Aylesbury, as there is a particularly good art exhibition on at the National Gallery right now, covering one of my favourite painters. 'Goya: The Portraits' has come at the perfect time for me, because my head is full of his work after my recent trip to Madrid and the accompanying research I did (for fun: I'm weird that kind of thing makes me happy).

It was a pleasure to see so many of the portraits I'd been reading about spring off the page. Three in particular stood out, 'The Family of the Infante Don Luis' (normally in Parma), 'Self Portrait with Doctor Arrieta' (from the Minneapolis Institute of Art) and best of all, the famous Duchess of Alba where she points at the ground.

She is rightly featured as the poster for the whole exhibition. A number of other sources I've read/watched interpret the fact that she's pointing at the words 'solo Goya' ('only Goya') on the ground as an indication of a romantic connection. The theory goes that it's Goya mooning over a younger woman and trying to 'claim' her in painting, like Rossetti arguably attempted with his endless images of Jane Morris. Another plausible explanation was offered by the audio guide, where the curator Dr Xavier Bray (who also notes it took a decade to get the exhibition sorted, apparently) says it is probably just Goya saying only he could paint the Duchess so well. Her potent presence is usually restricted to the Hispanic Society of America, based in New York, so as the audio guide said, it was awesome to get a chance to see it in person. Well ok, the guide didn't say 'awesome', but that was the gist of it. ;p

It was also really cool to see lots of other paintings that live in the US: the Duchess was just one of them. I've been earmarking various galleries in the States to see the work of my favourite painters, including a number of the Goya portraits that appear in this exhibition (works belonging to Washington and New York especially). Naturally that won't put me off going to the New York and Washington galleries: rather it acted as a delicious taster of what awaits me when I finally do make it out there (should be in 2017, during my next big BJJ trip).

There's a video done by the National Gallery introducing the exhibition embedded below, plus a few more over on the sponsor Credit Suisse's website.

26 September 2015

26/09/2015 - RGA Bucks | Open Guard | Koala Guard Sweeps

Class #667
RGA Aylesbury, (BJJ), Kev Capel, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, UK - 26/09/2015

Kev began with a takedown off the usual grips. From there, press down on the arm that's gripping your collar, leaning on it until you can reach for the leg. Grab that leg and pick it up, which they will normally defend by certainly their leg to the outside (if they don't do that, take them down with a single). When they circle to the outside, step your other leg inside, posting it behind their non-circling leg. Drive and trip them, moving into your pass. As with the ankle pick sweep, keep your weight back so you don't fall forwards into a guillotine.

We then progressed into the main part of the lesson, covering various options from what Mackenzie Dern calls koala guard. It was the same sequence I taught during open guard month recently. I can therefore copy and paste most of that.

From sitting guard, immediately scoot in, hooking the leg you have on the ground around the back of their leg. Your collar-gripping arm goes around the back of their leg. Jam your head in tight against their leg, on the inside (or you're at risk of guillotines). You don't have any grips on their sleeves, meaning your sweeping options are slightly reduced.

There are plenty of strong options remaining though. Perhaps the simplest is a mini technical stand-up, basing off your free hand and other foot. Posting on your outside leg and your basing hand, lift your bum slightly off the ground, then scoop their leg with the leg you have behind theirs. Maintain a tight grip, then move into side control.

For even more control, it's useful to grip their sleeve with the arm you have behind their leg. Failing that, you can also grab their belt or their gi lapel. If none of that is available, you can just grab your own gi. Be aware of their knee positioning. You want to try and stay on the side of that knee. If they are able to drive their knee into your chest, that gives them a chance to set up a pass, crushing your back down onto the mat.

If you can get a grip on their sleeve, then you can feed that to the hand you have behind their leg. Get your free arm high around their back (you may well have to pull down on their collar first to put them in range), reaching around the outside of their head so you are 'pre-establishing' your cross-face. Roll them over, knock them down and go straight into side control, or mount (if you can angle your foot positioning to step straight through).

Finally, there was the roll under sweep, from the same starting position with a grip on the arm. Note this will be hard if their leg is far away from you, time it appropriately. Push with your foot into their thigh, they grab your foot and step through to pass. That puts them in position for you to dive underneath, reaching with your arm for their thigh and roll through.

Immediately get a grip as you come up, hooking your hands around the top of their belt and pulling it in tight (like Kev showed in my private lesson earlier). With your other hand, you're pushing their knee back to help the pass. If for whatever reason they are able to post (i.e., you haven't got control of their sleeve), you might find it easier to go for the back instead.

In sparring I worked on koala first, but wasn't getting far enough around the leg. That meant they could crush their knee down and flatten me out, starting their pass. The 'present the dish' cross-face concept was fun to play with, as well as trying to pull the gi across the mat to get their shoulders to the mat. That proved to be difficult, but still, felt good when Kev did it to me so I'll keep trying it.

Rolling with a fellow purple, I was looking to get on top with those new cross-facing ideas. Pulled out his gi, but I waited too longer and he was able to wriggle back into half guard. I kept trying the knee slide, then each time he adjusted his foot position with a kind of 'reverse lockdown', enabling him to turn whenever I attempted to push through for the knee slide. Bit like shin-on-shin, I think? I'll have to try it: effective on me! ;)

26/09/2015 - Private with Kev | Half Guard | Passing

Class #666 - Private #021
RGA Aylesbury, (BJJ), Kev Capel, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, UK - 26/09/2015

It has been a while since I last saw Kev, as he has been recovering from a knee injury. I made sure to get some time with him for my visit in September, booking in another private lesson. Previously, I have come in with a clear idea of what I wanted to work on. As any reader of this blog will know, I like to be prepared.

This time, I took a different tack. I've already been through my major problem areas with Kev (back escapes and open guard), and I didn't think I had progressed sufficiently far with what he showed me before to warrant another specific lesson on those topics. So instead, I asked to just spar for a bit, then Kev could point out any tweaks that might help.

The first thing he suggested was something he did to me, with a back attack. I tried to move to the non-choking side and get my head under his, but he locked in a sliding collar choke. When I moved to the choking side to relieve the pressure, Kev said that actually makes it harder to finish the sliding choke. However, it sets him up perfectly to switch into a RNC, which he did. To block that choke, he uses his chin, but not the classic white belt chin tuck. Instead, his chin is on the other side of your attacking arm, so the chin is underneath that side of the arm.

The majority of the tips focused around half guard on top. I have for several years been using Dónal's tip on grips, when you can't get the underhook. Instead, gripping their lower collar, drop your elbow and use that to maintain control. It has worked for me in the past, but with Kev, he easily rolled me over every time. He suggested the safer option of wrapping around their back, locking your elbow in to achieve your control.

On the cross face, Kev simply puts his hand on the mat by their head and drives his arm into the side of their face. That makes for a strong barrier, it is easy to adjust and reapply, and best of all it won't mash up your fingers. JT Torres taught another variation at RGA Bucks a while ago, which Kev wanted with me. Torres calls it 'presenting the dish'. With your palm up, press that into the middle of their shoulder blades. Your elbow goes high and pressed into the side of their face. It doesn't feel like you're doing a lot, but it is a surprisingly powerful grip.

I have also been playing with several lapel attacks from half guard. They all involve pulling out your opponents gi lapel, then either pushing that over or under their arm. Underneath presents a brabo choke option, over the top is an americana and choke. However, Kev notes that with somebody who has a good half guard, they are going to be hard to get. It is better to focus on getting your knee free, then progressing into either a knee cut or a switch to mount, depending on their reaction.

For the mount, you drive into quarter mount, getting an underhook on the non crossfacing side. Keep walking that up high, until it is right against their head. You can then use your crossfacing arm to grab the triceps and lock it to their head, like on that side control to mount transition. Your other arm goes on top of their head, then crush through to mount. That can a little mean on their face, especially the nose, so be careful when you do that in class.

Pulling out the gi does have some uses, such as helping you flatten them out. Drag that gi way across, so it acts as a pin on their shoulder. On the brabo, it can work, but if you try and do it from half guard, when you switch your hand across to grab by their neck, your arm is in a similar position to that low elbow control. Therefore there is that same risk of getting rolled. Better to go from a more secure position like knee on belly, or mount.

When I pass the half guard with a knee cut, I have assumed that basing out is a good idea, to give you stability. On the contrary, Kev recommended bringing that free knee in tight to their hip (but don't lock your legs, or they can move you as one unit and take your back). Also, if they are hooking underneath your leg with theirs, on the leg that is raised, cut your knee underneath their leg. You almost put yourself right into a leg drag, moving straight into mount.

The last couple of things were locking in grips on the top of their belt in side control, to realling immobilise their hips. Finally, sparring with the sitting guard, Kev did that thing I can remember from Ryan Hall's DVD where he grips arounds the waist and uses that to prevent the guard. I can remember Hall had a defence to it on Defensive Guard, so I'll give that another watch. Awesome! More great stuff to bring back to Artemis BJJ. :D

18 July 2015

18/07/2015 - RGA Bucks | Closed Guard | Sweeps When They Stand

Class #653
RGA Bucks (BJJ), Dan Lewis, Aylesbury, UK - 18/07/2015

At RGA Bucks, the class goes through more techniques and with less drilling time: although I wouldn't teach that way myself, as a student and given I only get up to RGA Bucks every two months, it's perfect for me. It means there is lots of technique when I visit, plus I get plenty of sparring time to make sure I can roll with everybody I want to (priority is old training partners, along with people around my size).

Dan taught three options for when they stand in your closed guard, which fits in nicely with the month of closed guard at Artemis BJJ in June. Each one was predicated off a slightly different reaction by your partner. In the first scenario, after they've stood, they are trying to get their knees under your bum for a guard break (apparently a lot of people at RGA Bucks have been doing what Dan called the 'table top' position, because JT Torres taught it at a seminar recently).

First you want a cross grip on their sleeve. You might get that before they stand, but normally they will break the grip before beginning to rise up. Once you have that, you also want a collar grip. This is to stop them being able to sit back into that 'table top': if you're pulling down on their collar, you should be able to use their broken posture to keep them where you want.

Open your guard and slide down to their knees, reclosing around their legs. For the table top attempt their feet have to step in close together, setting you up for a sweep. Extend your legs, then lift slightly, turning them over to the side of the cross-gripped sleeve. Stay tight. Depending on where you land, you can either drive your knee forwards to secure mount, or squash them as you pass to side control.

Second option was the usual handstand sweep (like I taught last month), starting with the version where you grab their sleeve. As Dan noted, the sleeve grabbing one can be hard, as they can turn out their foot and resist. That's when you add the extra leverage from pushing off your hand into the handstand sweep.

The final technique was an omoplata. You've attempted the handstand sweep, but it isn't working. Instead, feed the cross grip over to the other hand, under the leg. Take time to establish that grip, pushing it in tight with both hands. Then grab their collar and pull down. Walk you leg up over their back, into the armpit. Don't try to immediately leap into the omoplata leg position, as they can potentially shrug that off and posture up.

To make it more gradual with greater control, bring your free leg over their head and push down at an angle, like you would to control their posture during an armbar. Bringing them down to the mat, maintaining your sleeve grip. Switch your grips, then the hand that was grabbing the leg grabs their belt. Push their arm around your leg, then you can disengage the sleeve grip, get up onto your elbow and switch the belt grip to their far hip. You can sweep from there too if you don't get the positioning, locking your legs and rolling through, making sure you lift your arm out of the way.

Sparring started off with Chris, my white belt drilling partner. It was cool to hear that he has been reading my blog for a while: always great to meet somebody who reads this blog! :D It was specifics from closed guard, meaning I was looking for underhooks to get into the collar clamp position I've been playing with since last month. I got the angle, pressing on his head, where we stayed for a while (he did a good job of staying patient, looking for an escape).

I went for the omoplata once I got my leg past his shoulder, but my body was a bit squished up preventing me from extending properly. I managed to turn it into a triangle by swinging around, a combination I don't normally get but should work on more. As I've gotten into this underhook thing, that should mean the omoplata becomes a much bigger part of my game.

On top, I was being a bit lazy, sticking with kneeling passes and seeing if I could get Jason Scully's sideways variation on the tailbone break, along with his 'eat the belt'. Couldn't get either, as Chris had decent control of my arm. I eventually got through with the normal kneeling break.

Then in free sparring, I went with Gareth, a purple from New Zealand who has been down to visit us at Artemis BJJ. He's a bit bigger than me, so I immediately looked to get on top and stay heavy. I wanted the breadcutter, moving to north south. I had the arm under, but getting the right positioning by the neck was causing me trouble. I should have remembered to push on the far arm and move into an armbar. Eventually I got rolled over, into the typical "getting squashed during pass attempt" position, same as what happens with Chris J back at Artemis BJJ. I need to work on 'walls' in open guard, maybe sit up more? Koala guard is another option, also breaking grips more actively.

There was a lot more motion with Stu (another purple, who runs RGA Milton Keynes with his partner Hayley, who is also cool: she wasn't feeling well and sat out of sparring, where I had a good chat with her to catch up), probably because he's smaller. He was going for my neck and back. I just about wriggled free, looking for knee cuts. I mostly tried for the kimura, but not securing it from good positions: e.g., I had it during his pass, under side control, when he was moving to my back, etc.

As he kept turning to turtle, I got into the crucifix, but forgot about getting the collar with an arm around the neck. We ended up in reverse mount, most unusual, then he was able to gradually catch me with a bow and arrow right at the end. I popped out of the first attempt, but then he got it tighter and I couldn't manage to get his elbow. Nicely done! :)

11 April 2015

11/04/2015 - RGA Bucks | Mount | Escapes

Class #637
RGA Bucks (BJJ), Dan Lewis, Aylesbury, UK - 11/04/2015

I was in London on Friday, in order to (finally) sort out some bureaucracy at the Turkish Consulate in the morning. As they proved efficient, that left me most of the day to go and check out some culture. Given it's not far from the Consulate, I decided to wander through the Victoria & Albert Museum. It isn't my usual kind of thing, as I prefer paintings (though the V&A has a number of them), but it was interesting nonetheless. Still, I found the organisation too haphazard for my taste: for example, the route I took jumped from church relics to a cabinet of armour and then a bunch of doors. All interesting individually, but I like to have a sense of narrative when I go to a museum or gallery.

Thankfully that's exactly what I got at my old favourite, The National Gallery. There is currently an exhibition on Impressionism down in the Sainsbury Wing, which wouldn't normally tempt me as I don't like the Impressionists. For a start, as I find you need to step back from the paintings to appreciate them fully, it's difficult to do that in the confines of a typical gallery space. However, just like the Turner exhibition last year (another artist of whom I wouldn't count myself a fan), the carefully coherent structure made it enjoyable even for non-fans.

At 'Inventing Impressionism', it wasn't really about the Impressionists, but rather about the art dealer that can be credited with a large part of their success, Paul Durand-Ruel. The paintings exhibited were chosen to illustrate his grand plan and innovative business strategies, such as his habit of buying paintings in bulk, offering a money-back guarantee (he frequently bought paintings back after selling them) and the first ever solo shows for artists.

So if like me you're not enamoured of the Impressionists, it's a great way to look at them from a different perspective. It runs until the end of May.

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After the Consulate I headed back with my father to Aylesbury, ready to train the next day at RGA Bucks. Unfortunately Kev wasn't there today, so I couldn't touch base with him, but there are of course loads of excellent training partners at RGA Bucks (and there was still a black belt on the mat, the redoubtable Sahid).

Dan took the session today, starting off with a useful recap of a fundamental scarf hold escape. The situation is that they've managed to control your arm, so you're going to lock your arms around their back. I've been shown this one a few times before, where the instructor has talked about finding a magic spot on the floating rib. I've always found that a bit tricky.

I therefore much preferred Dan's straightforward take on it. Rather than talking about floating ribs, he concentrated on the bridging motion. The key is to bridge up into them, then without putting your hips back down, swivel to the other side and roll your partner over.

Next was my favourite mount escape, the heel drag. The details I took away were firstly that when defending under mount, if you cross your hands over your neck, then that tends to mean your elbows rise up, making it easier for your opponent to move up into a higher mount. It's therefore better to go for the 'Home Alone'/Shirley Temple defence, with your hands on either side of your neck.

Finally, there was a more complex variation on the escape to butterfly. Having made the space to get a leg free, drive that up the middle, bringing your outside foot around and pushing into their hip. From there, you can go for the simplest single-x guard sweep, hooking under their leg to trap it to your shoulder and doing a technical stand-up.

Alternatively, bring their foot over to the other side, where you could go for a foot lock (unless you're me, as I steer well clear of lower body submissions, because I'm anxious about blowing out somebody's knee). The final option is a sweep into a leg drag.

Lock their leg in place by grabbing around the outside, holding just above their knee to stop them standing up. Maintain distance by pushing on their other knee, as well as their same side hip. You then want to twist towards their trapped leg side, aiming to knock them onto their bum. Basing off your free hand, you can then sit up, press their trapped knee to the mat and move into a leg drag position for the pass.

Specific sparring from the mount was mainly me trying to go for low mount, then getting gradually dislodged by larger purple and brown belts (my one stint on the bottom started with a quick heel drag on a blue belt, then a taller blue belt going into some kind of rolling back take when I tried to heel drag them).

It was still useful though, as I asked one of the brown belts - who stayed in the whole king of the hill round on the bottom - what they were doing to beat the low mount. I'm normally fairly confident about my low mount, but he blew threw it without too much difficulty.

The secret is using a leg swing motion, much like the one you do to escape north south. He uses that to make some space for his elbow, which he can then use to scoot under into half guard or deep half guard, moving into the sweep. You have to be careful you don't get your back taken (I almost managed that once, but wasn't tight enough), but looks to be a handy tactic.

I had to rush off to a family photo shoot my sister had organised, but I still had time for a roll with my training partner, another brown belt (who incidentally is among my original set of training partners at RGA HQ). He's busted his MCL, but could still spar from the back. So, we did a round from back control. The first time I managed to escape using my usual approach, but the second attempt wasn't as successful: he blocked my head and also kept me from getting to that side, then secured a good grip on my collar. I tried to reach back to pull his elbow and make space, but he managed to reaffirm the grip then get me belly down, finishing a strong choke.

Good stuff: I look forward to catching up with Kev next time. I'm keen to get in some quality training time with him, as it's been a few months since we've sparred. :)

28 February 2015

28/02/2015 - Private with Kev | Open Guard | Sitting Guard, Shin-to-Shin and Single Leg X

Class #630 - Private #020
RGA Aylesbury, (BJJ), Kev Capel, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, UK - 28/02/2015

Just a short one this visit, as my brother-in-law's flight getting delayed in the US, combined with a mortgage call they were dealing with, meant that the birthday plans for my younger niece got moved around. Rather than being able to train until 2pm, that meant I was needed back home for 12:00. Fortunately I'd already booked a private lesson, so could still get in about an hour of valuable training with Kev.

For this twentieth private lesson, I wanted to continue refining a path Kev had sent me down with an earlier private back in November 2013. I have always liked the tripod and sickle sweep combination from open guard, resulting in my open guard being built around those sweeps. My starting position was initially just sitting up with a stiff arm, based on Kev's lesson.

I've since been able to refine that, after buying Ryan Hall's Defensive Guard during a Black Friday sale. For me (and my friend Seymour agrees) it is easily Hall's best DVD set, which is saying something as his instructional sets are among the best on the market. I drilled my way through the DVDs with Chris last year and it's had a significant impact on how I approach seated guard.

Armed with the stuff I've learned from the DVDs, drilling with Chris and what I've been doing during open guard sparring, I ran through it with Kev. He suggested a few tweaks, plus some helpful additions for scenarios I haven't had much of an answer for (especially when they come in close to your shin). As a result, I've now got a coherent plan of action from open guard, based around that sitting guard position. As I'm finishing this write up on the 9th March a day after the GrappleThon, I've got details from rolling at that too (you can still support Equality Now and donate, here).

* Sit up, base an arm behind, grab their opposite collar. Keep a strong line through your shoulders and expand your chest, like Ryan Hall shows.

* Keep the foot of my raised knee outside theirs. If that knee starts to angle inwards, they can crush it down and pass, similar to the principle with knee shield passing.

* If they move to the outside of my raised knee foot, go for a collar drag and take the back. Remember to scoot around their near leg as you do.

* If they move to the inside, look for the loop choke, bringing your outside leg over their back as well. You'll tend to end up with the other knee pressing into their stomach, to clamp them in place as you go for the choke. Also, be sure to get the grip and pull down, rather than just flailing. I'm still tending to snatch at this choke rather than securing it properly, something I want to focus on.

* If they stay in the middle and with their head up, especially if they start to move backwards, ankle pick sweep them.

* If they come in close and they're standing, put your foot on their hip and move into the tripod/sickle combination.

* If they come in close and start to sit with their knee on the ground, shift into shin-on-shin guard. I've never used this, but basically, just put your shin in front of their same side leg. With your other leg, push on their knee. That will normally make them post their arm. Grab their sleeve, then simultaneously pull on their sleeve and lift their shin for the sweep. Even better, pass their arm under their leg to your other hand. With your passing hand, grab around the back of their gi, then in combination with your shin lift, sweep them. It's much the same as the basic de la Riva sweep I was taught at GB Brum.

* If you try the shin-on-shin sweep but they put their arm out of range, continue reaching for that arm. Make them think you are going for that, then switch your legs so you are hooking their rear leg with your forward leg. Grab the side of their knee and drive forwards, a bit like an ankle grab sweep.

* If they stand up from the shin-on-shin, move into single leg x and double ankle grab sweep. That one I'll need to review, as I don't think I quite got it. From what I remember, you lift up with your shin, pull their leg around (almost as if you're pulling mount), bringing your other knee behind their leg, just above their knee. You're still holding the foot (and collar, ideally I think), so can lift your hips and drive forwards to knock them over.

Interestingly, Kev said he's moved away from the nappy grip he showed me back in 2013, as it isn't high percentage enough when you're up against somebody who gets wise to it. Nevertheless, it's still a useful last resort: I haven't generally had a lot of success with it myself, though it worked pretty well last time I was in Bucks last November. I also got it a few times at the GrappleThon, although that was mostly during the long flow roll with Mike, so he wasn't putting up much resistance.
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As always, visiting my parents meant art, this time the day after training. My father took me along to the Rubens exhibition at the Royal Academy, which is titled 'Rubens and His Legacy'. I have to agree with some of the critics who reviewed the show. While I don't think it's fair to complain that there isn't much Rubens, given that "and his legacy" is part of the description, there is an issue with a number of the comparisons. An exhibition based around a work's influence on both contemporaneous and later artists is something I could enjoy, but it quickly becomes frustrating if the original influences being discussed aren't there in some form.

That was a recurring problem here. Often, the text would say "and the influence of blah blah painting by Rubens can be seen in the blah', but that original painting would simply be referred to by its name and date. Even if there was some small monochrome reproduction, that would have been something, but nothing at all means the comparison is meaningless (unless of course you already know the paintings in question well, so my father didn't mind). Sometimes there was a copy of the original painting, which was better than nothing but still disappointing. The rather sparse audioguide didn't help.

I can understand it's not always easy to get hold of paintings, but I think the exhibition would have been greatly improved if they focused on the paintings they could get and build it around that. So although there were lots of excellent paintings, it felt like I had walked into the middle of a film and missed the start. Having said that, splitting it into themes (e.g., 'compassion' for his religious art, 'lust', 'violence', etc) was a good idea, showing the range of Rubens work. The 'violence' paintings were particularly good, my favourite being 'The Fall of the Damned' (at least I think that was in the 'violence' room. Either way, it was cool). Sadly the original wasn't there (though the replacement they found at least gave a good idea), but with the magic of the internet I can reproduce Rubens' painting here.

22 November 2014

22/11/2014 - RGA Bucks | Closed Guard | Scissor & Combat Base Sweep

Class #604
RGA Aylesbury, (BJJ), Kev Capel, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, UK - 22/11/2014

I'm liking the pattern that I've settled into now. On a family birthday, I head up to my parents place on a Friday. I do some training at RGA Bucks the following morning, after which my parents treat me to an art exhibition and a posh meal in London. On the actual birthday I'll get yet more tasty food and catch up with my sister and nieces, before heading back home to Bristol. Awesome.

The art in question this time was perfectly targeted to my taste, a National Gallery exhibition dubbed Rembrandt: The Late Works. As my father is a member (one of the first, as that scheme is quite new at the National Gallery, compared to the Tate and Royal Academy which have had memberships for a long time), it didn't matter that all the tickets were sold out, as members can just wander up and show their cards.

Like I've mentioned before, my favourite period of art is 1450-1700, especially Mannerism, the Northern Renaissance and the Dutch Golden Age. Rembrandt is arguably the pre-eminent example of that third category. Even so, £16 is rather steep, given that despite my habit of staring at paintings a really long time and going through every single caption and audio commentary, I was still done in less than two hours. Fortunately I didn't pay anything, but worth keeping in mind if you're paying full price. Though it did work out well, as I only had just under two hours before the restaurant booking anyway.

Strangely, there are no descriptive captions in the exhibition space. Instead, those are all in the booklet you get given before you go in. For me that's positive, as firstly it maximises space for exhibits, secondly it means you end up with an informative memento of your visit. Hence why I'm armed with way more facts about the exhibition than I would normally: in total, there are 91 exhibits (5 of which are from The National Gallery itself) across seven small rooms. Of those 91, 33 are oil paintings, the rest are etchings and ink drawings.

The audio guide (£3.50) was a little sparse for my liking. It covers 24 of the exhibits (19 paintings and five of the etchings/drawings). Given that there were only 33 paintings in total, I felt there could have been more (although to be fair, some of the commentary did cover two paintings at one and multiple drawings, plus there were a few "click play to hear more" moments). It wasn't as good as the Turner audio guide from last time, as there was far too much pretentious waffling about Rembrandt's 'love of humanity'.

By contrast, the Turner guide talked about the nitty gritty of constructing the painting, so materials, technique, framing and so forth, with some historical context. The Rembrandt guide wasn't devoid of that, but I found myself rolling my eyes at some of the pontificating about the painting's meaning. Pointing out references and providing convention is useful, such as how Margaretha de Geer's confident pose and commanding gaze might relate to her sharp business sense and formidable personality, as she took over her husband's company after his death. Talking about 'feeling' is rather less helpful.

Any quibbles are forgotten when you're stood in front of the incredible paintings, which is of course why you bother going to the exhibition in the first place. Rembrandt is endlessly fascinating, achieving so much with just a few brushstrokes, innovating right up until his final painting. At first I was a bit disappointed that two-thirds of the exhibition was etchings and drawings, but here the audio guide became especially useful. It was enlightening to learn how Rembrandt had continued to fiddle with the original plate after he took prints from it. For example, when he got to fifty prints from one of them, there was quite a bit of wear to the plate. So he almost completely changed the scene before continuing to take prints.

There are a number of famous works in here too. Aside from the National Gallery masterpieces regular visits will already be familiar with, you get to see great works like 'The Conspiracy of the Batavians under Claudius Civilis' (loaned from The Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Sweden), 'The Jewish Bride' (from the Rijksmuseum) and 'The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Joan Deyman' (from the Amsterdam Museum, also recently discussed on a BBC Four documentary all about anatomy). So perhaps a bit overpriced, but if you've got the money and you're a Rembrandt fan, well worth checking out. It's on until January, IIRC.
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Training at RGA Bucks focused on sweeps from guard, something I'm keen to improve. Kev teaches lots of technique on a Saturday (I don't know if that's a Saturday thing or if his classes are now normally like that), with three different options increasing in complexity. First off there's the basic scissor sweep. Start by getting a deep grip on their opposite collar, then with your other hand grab their same side elbow. Alternatively, you can grip their wrist and pin it to your chest.

Rener makes a clear distinction here, as he suggests grabbing the sleeve if they are pushing into your bicep, grabbing the wrist if they are pushing into your chest. Either way, your intention – and this is true for lots of sweeps and reversals – is to prevent their ability to post with that hand. That makes for a straightforward test for whether or not what you’re using is effective: can they put their hand on the mat and prevent the sweep?

The next step is to put your foot on their same side hip (or the floor, depending on your preference) and shrimp out slightly, to make space to insert your knee. Slide that knee over, once again to that same side, until your shin is across their stomach. Hook your instep around their other side. Another option is to angle your knee towards their shoulder, which can act as an entry into the triangle.

A key detail is to then raise your elbows towards your head, so that you're pulling them onto your shin. The aim is to load them onto your leg, which in turn means that their weight is no longer on their legs. Extending your torso back, rather than remaining curled up, may help that weight transfer.

This should make them lighter: drop your other leg to the mat, chopping underneath them as you bring your hooking leg over, rolling into mount. Ryron has two handy tips here. Firstly, use the heel of your hooking foot to swivel and clamp to their side, becoming a leverage point to assist your shift into mount. Secondly, bring the elbow of your sleeve gripping arm further backwards, to put your opponent even more off balance.

The sweep shouldn't require much strength, so if you're having to strain, you probably haven't pulled them forward enough first. You can also get this sweep if they raise a knee up, which is the classic way to teach it. Drop your same side knee towards their opposite hip, then continue the sweep as above. If you're finding that when you try and chop their leg they simply step over it, raise your chopping leg slightly. You might even try hooking behind their knee with it, as that will immobilise the leg, although it may also make it more difficult to get a smooth chopping motion.

If for some reason you're having trouble chopping out their leg, you can switch to a push sweep, which is very similar to the scissor sweep. Everything is the same, except that you don't chop the leg. Instead, move your head back in line with theirs, so your torso is square on, then slide what would have been your chopping leg backwards. You now have room to use the foot of that leg to push into the side of their knee. Tracing a semi-circle, you're then going to shove their knee straight back, which will knock them off balance, whereupon you can roll through to mount as before.

That was followed by the reverse scissor sweep, which I taught a class on a few years back. When you try to hit the scissor sweep, you may find that they shift their weight to block it, or try to grab your knee. Either way, that means you can then change to a reverse scissor sweep instead. Your shin is either across their stomach for the scissor sweep, or as Kev recommends, going higher and angling the knee up into their chest. You've also got a grip on the collar as well as their same side sleeve. Rather than pulling them onto you and chopping out their leg, switch your sleeve grip to their opposite sleeve, then yank it across their body. The elbow of your gripping arm can be used for base.

Next, release your collar grip arm and reach around to their opposite armpit, bringing them in tight. As when you're trying to take the back, you need to press your chest into the back of the arm you pulled across their body, so they can't pull it back out. On the same side as the arm you've trapped, put your back on the mat, which should enable you to fling them over in that direction with your braced leg (this should feel effortless: if you're straining, then adjust, as without good leverage you could hurt yourself) and move into side control. You should also end up in a great position to cross-face.

John Will uses a slight variation, on his Mastering Sweeps DVD (which I bought from him at his excellent seminar a few years ago). Rather than gripping the collar and sleeve, he advises gripping and then pushing your palms inwards, rather than leaving any slack. This makes it a bit easier to switch their arm to your other hand, as you already have a grip, rather than having to use your collar grabbing arm. Will comes up on one arm, then as he falls back to lift them, he switches the posting hand to instead reach through their arm. This is so he can end up reaching past their armpit into the collar.

Finally, Kev showed us a nifty option against combat base. Sit up, then reach your arm on the outside of their base, going under their raised leg. Feed their far collar/lapel to that reaching hand. That is enough to sweep them, but to make it easier, you're going to break their balance. If they are driving in towards you, pushing your inside foot to their same side hip/knee. To knock them forwards, kick that leg out, which is normally going to make them base on their far arm. You can now grab that arm and drive for the sweep. Put your inside knee to their hip, cutting their knee out of the way, then slide through to mount.

I had the pleasure of being smashed by a big purple in specific sparring, and that was with him being nice, waiting for me to react. It was from guard, where I am still weak: I need to keep looking for angles and pushing for some kind of offence. On top I was trying to keep my balance and failing. Each time I went for the kneeling break, he easily broke down my posture or simply sat up, whether or not I had an arm into the chest to try and keep him down.

He also got a really tight triangle, though strangely the choke wasn't on (he eventually rolled me into mount with it still in place, so we reset). I think it could be something silly, in that I'm just a bit small for his frame! My neck was a little sore: I'm still not sure on the best balance between staying safe, while also helping your partner by not tapping too early. Neck was ok later, so hopefully I judged that right.

Later on, I though about that again, as I overheard Kev giving a pep talk to a younger student. That teenager had gotten slightly injured earlier in class. Kev made the excellent point that sometimes you have to let stronger people have certain things. It's not worth the injury risk to strain against somebody way more powerful than you, so give it up, looking to make up any lost ground later. Something I always try to keep in mind, but well worth reminding yourself, especially if you're a smaller grappler (like me and indeed Kev, so he's speaking from long experience).

In free sparring I continued having issues from guard with my first partner, a strong white belt, again because I'm ending up too square on. I'm still failing to angle off in closed guard and I need to improve that Relson grip, so they can't just swing their head under and out. I have a clear goal from most positions now, but closed guard keeps getting stuck into a repetitive cycle of break posture, grip, they get posture back, break posture, grip, etc. Or they manage to pass. The gi tail grip over the back is another handy goal, so I should be trying that more, though again I'm not angling off properly when I do get it.

Update November 2014: Thanks to lots of drilling with Chris back in Bristol, I think I may have finally cracked it in regards to my guard approach. We'll see how that goes, but the drilling has been massively useful so far! :)

The next round went better, with a blue belt, as I finally managed to mount some offence (though only once it moved into open guard, my closed guard was equally stale). It's also the first time I can think of that Kev's mawashi grip worked well for me, resulting in a few sweeps. The difference was an extremely basic bit of advice Kev mentioned when I said how I'd had trouble getting much off the grip: sit up. I realised that I've been trying to do it with my back too near the ground. Sitting up made it much more effective.

I managed to land the north-south kimura and mount was working well for me too, landing a few cross-chokes. I'm teaching the cross-choke on Monday, so it was very helpful to hit it a few times in sparring, in terms of establishing what elements of the technique are important to get it to function (for me at least: one of the best things about teaching is that it forces you to think about doing a technique using a body other than yours). Of course, this was against less experienced people who aren't too much bigger than me, but still handy to practice.

It was also cool to meet another of my blog readers: if he's reading this, as you asked about the details for my club, it's called Artemis BJJ. I teach in two places. The main one is Bristol Sports Centre/MyGym in the centre of town, over in St Paul's just off Portland Square near Cabot Circus. I also run a class in Kingswood, on Thursday, with an open mat on Saturday. Everything is up on the website, here - hope to see you and/or your Bristol family on the mats some time! :D