29/11/2012 - Rolles Gracie Jr Seminar in Houston

Seminar #11
Rilion Gracie Houston, (BJJ), Rolles Gracie Jr, Houston, TX, USA - 29/11/2012

I don't know much about Rolles Jr (and I'm still not completely sure whether his father should be spelled 'Rolls' or 'Rolles', as I've seen both. I think it is the former, but then why is it 'Rolles Jr'?), except that he is probably the largest member of the Gracie family and has had a successful MMA career, despite that one slip-up the UFC. These aspects of Rolles would both feature prominently in the seminar, which kicked off with a refreshingly humble tribute to his uncle Rilion (who has influenced his teaching too: the style felt similar to yesterday). Rolles noted that it felt strange to be the teacher while his own mentor was stood a short distance away.

My last bit of training for the Texas trip kicked off with a takedown, where Rolles noted that he prefers the upright posture of judo. My groin injury meant I couldn't really take part, but there were still a number of handy details I could take away. The initial grip looks especially useful: reach over the back and grasp a clump of gi near their shoulder blade, then bring your elbow down past their shoulder. This gives you a brace that can prevent them driving in for their own takedown.

I can't remember the actual takedown very well, but from what I recall, drop down with your knee raised on the outside, wrapping their leg, still holding onto their gi. Pull on the gi as you drive and lift into the leg, corkscrewing them into the mat to establish side control.

Getting to the ground, the focus was on closed guard. Rolles commented that as a big guy, he found that people often clammed up in his closed guard, staying defensive with elbows pinning his hips,head in his stomach and knees tight. It is difficult be offensive when confronted by that lack of space, but Rolles has developed a solution.

For the armbar, start by grabbing their same side armpit to get a fistful of gi material, then clamp your elbow to your side. Your other hand goes into their collar, again on that armpit side. At this point, many people won't react as they don't worry about the choke until your second hand comes into play.

Your hips are stuck, so instead, open your legs and straighten them, then swivelling off their thighs, bring your knee on the collar arm side in front of them. Shove that up by your collar grip (or the other side of their head, if you prefer), bringing your other knee up as well.

From here, you can squeeze your knees and pull on their collar and armpit, trapping that side of their body. With the foot of your collar arm leg, push into their same side knee, just like the push sweep. This will put their torso to the mat, flat on their stomach. Due to your grips, it should also stretch out their arm.

Bring your armpit side leg up their back to pin their shoulder, mirrored by your knee on the other side (rather like Levo's pressing armbar). Switch your collar grip to your own collar, in order to secure their wrist. It is now possible to turn your top knee down to the mat past their shoulder and go for a belly down armbar. If they roll, maintain your grips and follow them, then complete the submission from mount.

If they are a bit more savvy and grab the foot of your collar side leg, to stop you pushing their knee out, turn towards the other side, pressing into their hip with your armpit side foot. This sets you up for a triangle. Swivel the leg they are holding around their grip (you should be able to beat their grip on this, though that becomes more difficult if they manage to slide their arm further down your leg), then move into a triangle as normal.

Finally from that position, you can sweep them over your head. This time when you've got your knee into position, they stand up. Pull them in, raising your elbows up by your head, then put your feet on their hips and roll them past your shoulder. Again, my injury wasn't up to this, so I just continued with the previous techniques from earlier.

The second half of the seminar was nogi, or more specifically, MMA. I wasn't expecting quite so much relating to working off strikes, but then I guess Rolles is known for his MMA, so that shouldn't be too surprising. The initial takedown begins with a few jabs to judge the distance, after which you move straight into the clinch, reaching through to their far shoulder. Shuck their shoulder (particularly if they push on your head) then slide to their back, gable gripping your hands together.

You want to control a little below their hip, twisting you lower hand to dig your forearm in firmly. This isn't comfortable. Move forward to put them onto their knees, so that you can then progress to attacking the turtle. You have one knee on the mat, the other leg over their back. Punch their head on the leg-down side to get them to cover with that arm, to create some space to insert your hook.

Your arm on the other side wedges inside their leg, effectively becoming a hook. Roll them over, then either establish your second hook, or go straight for the rear naked choke. A quick tip on that was to grab the shoulder with your choking arm, not releasing it until your second arm was most of the way into position. That's because it is harder to pull your arm down if you're grabbing the shoulder, as opposed to open because you're about to weave it by your other bicep.

If you can't get that initial hook with your foot, simply jam your elbow into the other hip, bring your knee out slightly on what would have been the initial hook side, then drag them into that space you've created. That should roll them, so you can now insert your hook and move on for either both hooks or the RNC like before.

Finally, should they attempt to escape your back control, Rolles did a body triangle type counter, which I definitely couldn't do with my injury, but I was able to follow the head and arm choke counter he finished off with. This was quite similar to John Will's technique, where from the seatbelt grip you pull your arm through and turn. Block their arm from escaping with your head (keeping in mind this only needs to be tight enough to block) until you can turn all the way. From there, sink down and jam your head in place, then cinch in the choke.

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. ;)

24/11/2012 - Raptor BJJ

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Control Point Theory

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sparring

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

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

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

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

20/11/2012 - Team Cooper BJJ

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

19/11/2012 - RCJ Machado, Dallas

Class #473
19/11/2012 - RCJ Machado Dallas (BJJ), Ryan & Adam Trees, Dallas, TX, USA

When I think Dallas and BJJ, I think Carlos Machado. That is not to say that there are no other good schools in the area - there are several, such as Pesadelo BJJ - but Machado is the pioneer. He arrived in 1995 at the behest of Chuck Norris, setting up shop on the set of Walker: Texas Ranger.

I've done some research into Carlos already due to my history piece on the RCJ Machado team in Jiu Jitsu Style Magazine #7 (back issues are available here, but they will eventually run out. There is also an iPad/iPhone etc app, plus various other digital options) and listened to lots of interviews, so it was cool to get the chance to interview him myself. His brother Roger was also there, as was his nephew (I think that's the relationship? John Machado's son, IIRC) Jean. Great stuff, which should hopefully be popping up in the next issue of JJS. :)

I also think Triin when I think Dallas, one of several friends I first met online who I was very keen to meet on this trip. She is an assistant instructor at RCJ Machado, which she somehow fits in between her kids and running my favourite gi company, Fenom Kimonos. Not only does Triin make brilliant female-cut gis, she also actively works to encourage and support women in jiu jitsu, with seminars, competitions and the like. There's more about what I did in Dallas in my full Texas write-up.

Clearly Triin has to be very organised to pull that off, which is reflected in her technical style of rolling and obvious interest in the fine details. Couple that with the considerate, mature approach to rolling I've noticed amongst many women in jiu jitsu along with the fact we're pretty much the same size: you then have an ideal training partner. It makes me wish I was training at RCJ Machado for a month, not just a day.

I also got to meet Triin's protege, Annemieke (interviewed over on the Fenom site here). She is a powerfully built woman, but at the same time is humble and conscientious. Describing her recent victorious competition, she did not crow over how she dominated her opponent: instead, she was more concerned with her much smaller opponent's safety. Which is awesome.

Her double-knee ride technique is also quite awesome, balancing both her knees on you, grabbing a leg and collar, then adding pressure. She was being nice when she demonstrated on me, but I can see exactly why she gets people to tap with that! ;)

The class set up was pleasantly informal, with no specific warm-up. Instead, people were using various methods of getting ready for class, particularly light rolling. That's what Triin and I did, which also gave me a chance to test out how my injured groin works in guard for the first time. I stuck to knee shield, as I was still nervous about using anything that would involve more torsion and/or pressure on my left leg.

I also played around with my favoured running escape: as I said when I last taught it, it's important to watch out for chokes. Triin's hand was sneaking around for chokes at several points, almost landing one later (I suspect she eased off, because I was able to spin out).

Getting on to the techniques, Adam taught us a tomoe nage sweep. Start by grabbing both an arm and a collar on the same side, then push your leg into that same side hip. Stretch them out to make them drive forward, also hooking under their other leg with your remaining foot. As they drive in, flip them over towards your shoulder on the gripped arm and collar side. When Adam demonstrated, he rolled through right into mount (though I kept ending up in half guard).

Next up was a loop choke, beginning from their attempt to do a standing pass. Get a cross-grip on their collar (so, your hand into their opposite collar), not overly deep. Use that to break their posture and pull them down. Chop your other over the back of their neck: your hands should form a loose 'X'. Raise the elbow of your cross-grip hand, and if necessary, weave your chopping hand under that elbow. From here, you can finish the choke.

While we were drilling, Ryan offered Triin and I a handy tip regarding finishing the choke when they seek an escape. If they try to spin out, follow their head with your own head. That should keep your body in the proper alignment, meaning you can still choke them. This is much easier than trying to think where to put your body, as your body will follow your head anyway.

I then did more sparring with Triin, who was continuing to be careful of my leg. We also got into several discussions, with Triin eagerly showing me a variety of cool technical details she likes. Some of that put into action what Carlos Machado had told me in the interview regarding visual cues he used when teaching. For example, 'holding the baby' when passing guard and keeping your elbows protected from spider guard. It makes me keen to take a private with Carlos some time, and until then check out his DVDs.

Triin also likes to trap their leg in between hers then sit. Another thing she likes to do, again as taught by Carlos, is keep her legs flat when under mount. That way, it is tough for the person on top to grapevine or otherwise get their legs underneath (e.g., I'm fond of Kev Capel's method for holding mount, where your cross your legs underneath their butt).

I played some more with the running escape, which opened up some other holes in my technique. Triin was in the middle of locking up a toe hold before I had any understanding of what she was doing. By the time I realised, she was already asking if it was ok for her to do a toe hold (presumably due to my injured leg). That's definitely something to be aware of under side control: as I would find out in a later Austin training session, to prevent it you need to be moving and 'running' with that escape, not staying too static as I often do.