28/11/2012 - Rilion Gracie Houston

Class #478
Rilion Gracie Houston, (BJJ), Rilion Gracie, Houston, TX, USA - 28/11/2012

The next stop on my Texas training trip was Rilion Gracie Houston, taught by Rilion himself. I had a chance to rest on the Tuesday, using it to get some typing done, then on Wednesday Conor drove me down to train at Rilion's academy (Conor also took some pics, so I'll be adding those in once he puts them up). If you haven't heard Rilion's name before, he is probably best known for two things: Rickson once said he had the best guard in the Gracie family, and Roger trained with Rilion at a pivotal time in his BJJ career. He is known to be very technical, which always gets me excited as I love learning more about the fine details.

The warm-up was fairly standard, running round the room followed by some star jumps, press-ups and sit-ups. Rilion runs a relaxed class, although there were quite a few people in official Rilion Gracie gis with their name written on the collar. I had thought that was a Gracie Barra thing, but perhaps it's just an old school Brazilian thing (Roger does it too, and I think Renzo as well, but then they both have ties to GB).

Rilion's teaching was every bit as thorough as I had hoped. His process was to run through the whole technique once, with plenty of emphasis on details, then run through it again in even more detail. He also regularly paused to note that if you didn't grip a certain way, you were liable to get swept or lose your control. He described it as 'invisible jiu jitsu', something most commonly associated with Rickson but I've also heard Braulio use the term (he had a video series with the same name).

The technique was actually several techniques in sequence, beginning with a takedown. From standing, you grab their same side collar and go into a low stance, elbow tucked in. Pull on the collar and step, so that they will naturally step as well. You are waiting for the opportunity to drop to their collar-side leg for the takedown, depending on their footwork. Generally they will leave that leg trailing. When the moment is right, drop down into a sort of kung fu stance, with your same side leg bent, the other stretched out horizontally.

Wrap up their leg with your arms, hooking around the back of their knee with the outside arm, then behind the ankle with the inside arm. Jam your head by the inside of their knee. Pull their leg back as you drive forwards to put them on their back. Immediately move forwards to sit on the leg, so they can't simply pull it free by turning away from you and wrenching. You still have your arm wrapped behind their knee.

At this point, the technique moves on to passing butterfly guard, as most likely they will now insert a hook and try to sweep you. To prevent that happening, wrap around the outside of their other leg with your arm, below the knee. That enables you to provide enough counter-pressure that they can't lift you up with their hook. To being the pass, reach through to the bottom of their trouser leg with your other arm and grab the material, taking out any slack.

Drive your head into their chest to put them flat on their back: if you go off to either side, they may be able to establish some kind of control, so keep your head in the centre. At this point, there were a couple of variations to complete the pass, so I may be missing bits, but I think you next grab the collar, then move forward to crunch their knees towards their chest.

Move around to the collar grip side while shoving their knees with your hip. You also need to make sure you are still grabbing the bottom of their trouser leg and stretching it out. This should prevent them from shrimping out. Keep moving until you can establish side control. IIRC, Rilion also showed the option of popping your hips up and pressing down into the trouser legs in a bullfighter pass type motion.

Sparring was light, due to my injured leg and Conor also has a dodgy knee. He did a few takedown entries, then we played around with some positions on the ground, mostly side control and guard. I had an opportunity to work more top side control, focusing on trying out the Relson style some more, along with using my head to control the hips and getting my elbows into armpits for control. I was also grabbing the back of the trousers quite a lot, which was another useful grip to test out.

I wasn't able to do much in terms of passing, though I had a go at the technique we'd just learned. There was also lots of maintaining open guard, which has been a theme this trip (and tends to be something I do a lot when visiting a new academy, as I don't feel as comfortable trying to immediately drive forward and pass to side, not that I'm any good at passing anyway ;D).

Conor reminded me that when I'm in the running escape I have to be very careful they can't drive a knee across the bottom leg as then you're stuck. This is what Sahid does to me, so I need to work out a defence to that, or simply be aware of that control and keep the leg out of range. I attempted to block that control with my other leg a few times, but that potentially leaves me vulnerable to something else.

He also mentioned a simple arm drag type motion that can be done off an initial collar grip where you have your arm posted behind you. This is a position I find myself in quite often, but I haven't been using it to arm drag (or 'collar drag', which is more the case here). You simply move to the side and pull them down into the space you just left. Something I should be trying more often.

27/11/2012 - Revolution Dojo

Class #477
Revolution Dojo, (BJJ), Jeff Messina, Houston, TX, USA - 27/11/2012

I met up with Jodi again in the morning, as she kindly drove me over to get some tasty breakfast before heading to the day class at Revolution Dojo (the first time I had taken two classes at the same place during this Texas trip). Jeff was a little late for the warm-up, so Jodi ran the class through the usual running round the room and the like, followed up by the basic push-through triangle set up. Once Jeff arrived, it was straight into more triangle options, beginning like last time with something relatively fundamental before moving into the advanced set-up.

The basic approach for today was the spider guard triangle. Start off pushing one foot into their hip while gripping their collar, the other knee pressing outwards into the crook of their elbow, your free hand gripping the sleeve of that elbow-arm. Shift to pushing the crook with your foot, then place the foot on their shoulder. When the moment is right, slide your foot over their shoulder and pull them in, then lock up a triangle.

For more advanced students, Jeff demonstrated a triangle counter to deep half guard. They’ve established deep half and are looking to sweep. Underhook their far arm, sliding your free knee under their head so they end up essentially lying in your lap. Due to that underhook it should be difficult for them to turn, so you’re now waiting for the chance to pull your trapped leg out. You can either force it by pushing with your other leg (my injury meant that wasn’t possible), or wait until they loosen, then point your toes and pull the leg out.

Once the leg is out, curl that leg around the underhooked arm and roll backwards a little. You don’t want to roll right into guard, because in a competition setting, they will get sweep points if they can escape the imminent triangle. Instead, roll just enough to get space to swing your other leg around to lock the triangle. It is possible to submit from there, but if you need extra pressure, base on your free hand then lift your hips, moving forwards.

Sparring with Jodi was similar to yesterday, though I was trying more actively to get into half guard without much success. Jeff then offered to roll, which isn’t an opportunity you turn down: black belts generally have enough control to avoid hurting you even with a niggling injury. Like you would expect he controlled me easily, but without aggravating my hurt leg. I got caught in a choke again, so still not being careful enough of my collars, and I also got armbarred, so should watch it on extending my arm when I try to roll through to escape.

I think I’m relying too much on defending the pass with a frame, where they sometimes end up balancing on my arms giving me space to bring in my knees. I need to remember to combine that with moving my hips and getting my knees in the way. Jeff and John both passed my frame quite easily, moving around my hands as if they weren’t there.

26/11/2012 - Revolution Dojo

Class #476
Revolution Dojo, (BJJ), Jeff Messina, Houston, TX, USA - 26/11/2012

For the next part of my Texas trip (full write-up here), I met up with yet another awesome blogger, Jodi, straight from the bus station. I’m really enjoying having the opportunity to talk at length to all these amazing people, who without fail have been incredibly nice to me. Jodi drove me around without complaint for what must have been hours, not only going to the station, but from there to the gym and then onwards to Conor’s house, which she repeated several times over the next few days. Thanks for being so generous with your time and petrol, Jodi! :D

Jeff Messina likes to have a theme for his classes, which is something I wish was common to more schools. The theme while I was there was the triangle, so the warm-up drills were focused on that as well as the techniques. I sat out much of the warm-up due to my injury, as did Jodi, who has unfortunately hurt her knee. I joined back in a bit later, with an interesting triangle drill from inverted guard, which also works hip movement.

Lie on the floor with your head pointing towards them. Grab both of their sleeves. Swing your leg up into their opposite armpit, then use that to swivel around, making sure you spin towards them. Kick the leg through, using it as an anchor point to pull yourself into a triangle, the other leg going into their neck, after which you can lock up the submission. I could only do it on one side, unfortunately, but a great drill either way.

Next up was a relatively standard triangle set-up, where you use a scissor sweep motion to move into the triangle (similar to what Scott McVeigh showed in Glasgow a while ago). Grab their collar and sleeve on the same side, then still on that side, also push their hip with your foot. Bring the other knee across their other arm, as if you were going for a scissor sweep. Use the combination of that leg pressing with your grips to dislodge their grip on your jacket on trousers, swivelling the leg around so that it wraps around their neck. This should also pull them forward and break their posture, particularly as you’ll also be pulling their collar and sleeve. Use that broken posture to bring your other leg into play to lock up the triangle as usual.

The next set up was definitely not standard, building on the warm-up drill. This time you have a lasso spider guard. You have the lasso and are grabbing both sleeves. Switch grips, so that you pass the lasso sleeve to your other hand. Grab their collar with your free hand. Just like the earlier drill, spin through, kicking your lasso leg for the triangle. Keep your other leg so the shin is up on their thigh, pushing off that for the rotational energy. You want that knee to be there as a barrier, so they can’t drive forward.

Once the leg is up, you can control the back of their head with your knee before swivelling it into place over the back of their neck to cinch up your triangle. Jeff then showed the same motion, but this time in half guard with a spider guard grip. The technique is the same, except that you first have to free you leg from between theirs, by making space with your grips.

I finished off with some light sparring, for which Jodi was the perfect partner. We're both injured, so neither of us was going hard. Once again I was working my guard retention, as well as playing a bit with top side control, including the ‘Relson grip’ Mikal had shown me the day before while I was having dinner at his house. I didn’t try the heavy cross-face Mikal also demonstrated (as per pic: your bicep goes into their jaw line, to make certain they can't turn their head towards you), but showed it to Jodi afterwards as we were talking about side control grips. Jodi had some nifty passing and made me aware I need to be careful of my collars. She wasn’t far off choking me, so I must always be cognisant of that danger. ;)