07/07/2009 - Nova Força

Class #232



Nova Força Epsom (BJJ), Tim Radcliffe, Epsom, UK - 07/07/2009

At long last, I'll be heading to Turkey with my gf in a couple of months. I've been meaning to take her there since we started going out eight years ago, so very much overdue. Also given me the sufficient kick up the arse I need to finally try and brush up my rather terrible Turkish. Only downside is that the people I cycled past probably thought I was nuts, as I was loudly repeating Turkish from my language podcast on the way to and from training.

Tim went through two sweeps today, both of which I've seen before, but still can't perform very well. The first standing sweep begins when they stand in your guard and try to open your legs. Grab their sleeves, slip down their body and open your guard. Once you get to their knees, squash them together with your legs, locking your feet. This needs to be quick, as normally they'll put one leg back to begin passing, which prevents you trying this technique.

Using your sleeve grips, push their arms down and as far back as you can. This should put them off balance. You can now crunch your legs towards you and roll over one shoulder (as in the typical breakfalling drill). Keep pulling on the arms to end up in mount, aiming to end up near their hips.

I had some trouble getting this right. Locking the legs is straightforward, but I found pushing the arms back in combination with crunching your knees in and rolling over awkward. Aside from my general ineptitude, I also don't like techniques where I feel I lack control, which is the case with this one: momentum is a big part of it.

On top of that, when I rolled back, I was ending up too far forward in mount, which in sparring would provide my partner with the option to escape out the back. That was because I wasn't controlling the arms properly, or pushing on the sleeves as I rolled.

The next standing sweep is a variation on one of my favourites, the handstand sweep. This time when they stand up in your closed guard, you keep your legs locked around their waist. Grab a sleeve, then underhook their opposite foot with your arm. Drop your hips to their knees and twist: if their knees are closed, use your hips to dig your way between them.

Drive your hip against the knee of their trapped leg to knock them to the floor. Come up on top using the grip on their sleeve, with your legs in a hurdling position (i.e., one bent with the foot pointing back, the other straight, pointing diagonally away from their body). You're now well placed to shift into a strong mount.

Simon had a tip on the grip here, demonstrating what he feels is the most powerful method. First, get your thumb under the sleeve. Twist that up, wrapping your fingers around the top, continuing to twist. You should end up with a pocket of gi material held by your four fingers, thumb gripping outside.

In free sparring I started with Tim, quickly getting into the usual thing pattern of escaping side control to guard repeatedly. As before, I was concentrating on staying on my side, shrimping, and also trying to get my forearm to my thigh in order to block knee on belly. Need to be quicker with that, and also keep in mind the option of going to knees from under side control.

After briefly rolling with a beginner, which resulted in me showing them how to escape side control (which surprisingly they don't appear to have seen yet), I went with Simon. He's always really good for tips, though he tends to go at a harder pace than the other senior belts I've rolled with at Nova Força.

First thing was that I need to press forward when in someone's guard or I'll simply get knocked over backwards. That's especially true when starting from knees for sparring, as I'll tend to be passive and wait to see what they'll do.

Secondly, to defend the baseball bat choke (Simon said this was applicable to chokes in general too), I should press the elbow of their choking arm outwards, defending my neck with my other hand. As they need to close their elbows for the choke, that will give me room to turn towards them and shrimp out.

Finally, to escape mount I need to be proactive with my elbows. Rather than just staying tight and defensive, I have to really push on their legs and shrimp. Simon exposed the weakness in my defence by repeatedly moving into a mounted triangle, which is something that's happened before with other people too. So, more activity on my part under mount!

30/06/2009 - Nova Força

Class #231



Nova Força Epsom (BJJ), Tim Radcliffe, Epsom, UK - 30/06/2009

I've had a few weeks off due to a bunch of job interviews (none of which came to anything, unfortunately: just have to keep plugging away, like the massive horde of other people applying for the same jobs...), so good to get back on the mats. Ricardo is in Brazil at the moment, so instead class was taken by his top student, brown belt Tim (who incidentally won yet another MMA fight recently).

Tim kicked off with a gi choke. Start by pulling one side of their gi out of their belt (if its already loose, so much the better), then feed it around their back to your other hand. Shift your torso to that side, then change hands. This frees up your first hand to grip whatever material you can on the back of their gi, still on the same side (if you try to grip on the other side, your partner is likely to see it coming and defend). Finally, bring that arm over their head whilst maintaining your grip, then bring your wrists up for the choke.

Next, Tim demonstrated a basic loop choke. Grab their opposite collar, with a deep grip. Break their posture by pulling that collar towards you, while also pushing their head down and to the side with your other hand. Next, slide that other hand across the back of their head and under your own elbow, hooking with the back of your hand. Finally, raise the elbow of your collar-gripping arm for the submission.

Rowan Cunningham, who puts out the best free BJJ videos on the net (unfortunately not the most famous, as the Abhaya vids aren't heavily publicised or flashy), has a typically excellent demonstration up on YouTube, where he calls it an 'encircled collar choke'. I first saw this choke when Aesopian put up the Abhaya vids, probably on Bullshido somewhere:



Tim mentioned as he was walking around that you need to be quick with this, so its something to spring on your opponent if you have a collar grip but see they aren't defending their neck. Even if you don't get the choke, you're likely to still manage a sweep, as in order to avoid getting submitted they'll probably have to roll out. You can simply follow them and end up in mount.

Sparring today put me mostly under side control, which is good as I always like to try and improve my escapes from there. As per Saulo's advice (both in his book and DVD), I was concentrating on keeping my head stuck to the floor to prevent the cross-face, while also blocking their arm with my hand.

While I did ok getting that far into Saulo's 'survival position', I was rather less successful getting onto my side. I also wasn't preventing the knee on belly too well, as usual, but I think I managed to use my elbow and knee as a barrier slightly better than last time. The difficulty is getting them properly locked together, with forearm to upper leg, rather than just touching elbow to knee.

From knee-on-belly, I also couldn't avoid Mark's choke, so must have done Simon's defence wrong. I know you're suppose to swim your arms in and turn towards them, but forgot which arm went where.

With one of the white belts, I managed to get to my knees from side control, but couldn't then trap an arm in order to roll them. I was thinking about the wrestler's sit-out too, but didn't feel I had the space to get free: as their arm was ready to look for chokes, my neck felt exposed. In retrospect, I probably should have been less hesitant and just gone for something, as eventually I tried to spin to guard as they left some space, which merely landed me back under side control.

My last spar was against somebody fairly new, so I had a chance to play around with triangles. I'm still missing lots of important details, like proper head control, so even as a noobie they were able to slip out, but it was nice to confirm the 'trigger' position Ryan Hall talks about. Whenever somebody is trying to open your guard by driving their elbow into your thigh, you can open your guard and cause them to lean to one side. This leaves your partner vulnerable to the triangle, as you can now fling your leg over that arm and to their neck, locking your other leg in place.