31/03/2014 - Bravo vs Royler Thoughts | Artemis BJJ (Escape from Mount to Deep Half)

Class #553
Bristol Sports Centre, (Artemis BJJ), Dónal Carmody, Bristol, UK - 31/03/2014

Metamoris III has been the talk of the town, with a lot of praise for Bravo. It's had a significant impact on his reputation, which has spilled over to a renewed appreciation for his school and system. However, it doesn't change my views on 10th Planet, as I still haven't seen anyone successfully use the system at a high level and win major titles. That will be the test. Unfortunately, some have already spun the result as "see, 10th Planet does work!", whereas it's more accurate to say "see, Bravo can make his game work!"

Nevertheless, even though this proves little about the efficacy of 10th Planet for the average student, it at least proves Bravo himself can use 10th Planet at a high level. You could quibble about age, but his performance was impressive. Bravo proved it already, as seen on his old The Twister DVD that compiles lots of his comp footage, but Metamoris III was a great reminder. There was a good breakdown by Alaina Hardie over on the Underground, where she argued that if there had been points, Bravo would have won 9-4. Of course, Royler would have approached a points match differently, so it's a moot point, but still interesting to consider.

Hopefully all of this attention and discussion will mean we get to see a high level 10th Planet rep against a current high level competitor from somewhere else at the next Metamoris. Bravo/Royler was a good start, which should help set it up. I guess it would be either Denny Prokopos or Adam Sachnoff, as they appear to be the most successful of the current 10th Planet competitors.
_______________

Unusually, tonight it was all blue belts, apart from Dónal and I. Dónal therefore decided to teach something a little bit more advanced, though still based off the mount. He began with some drills, for when they are almost preventing your pass. Raise up your leg, like you're a dog going for a wee, then bring that over their leg and push it into the side of their knee. Backstep with the other leg, moving around to side control on the other side. There was also a more acrobatic one, where the motion is similar, but you jump over and twist in mid-air.

The main technique was based around my favourite mount escape, the heel drag. Get on your side, knock them in the bum with your knee to make them lighter, then hook their foot with your heel and drag them into quarter-guard. If you find that at this point, the person on top has great base and you can't get up on your side to secure the half guard, you can instead switch into deep half and sweep.

The specific deep half sweep is I think what's commonly known as the waiter sweep. Although you can't finish your heel drag, you should still be able to twist their leg enough that there is a gap behind their knee, suspended above your hip. Reach into that gap, bumping them forward with the back of you hand and again knocking their bum with your knee. Scoot underneath to move into deep half.

Again using the back of your hand, reach behind their ankle and bend their leg around your own leg. Reach your free hand behind them and grip their belt, or their gi if you either can't reach the belt or it's too loose. Kick the leg you have pressing into theirs forwards, to roll them over and onto their back. Switch your free hand to underhook their other leg, maintaining the pressure as you move your body perpendicular (I think? I got a bit confused at this point). Bring your leg back to stop them securing half guard, getting them almost into a sort of 'banana split' type position, until the tension is such that you can pop your leg over and transition to side control. Here's how Tim Peterson from Robot BJJ shows it:



Of course, if like me you find yourself getting perplexed in the midst of this sweep, the simpler Homer Simpson option is there instead, where you just pull their knee outwards with your hand and spin on top. We followed that up with a bit of specific sparring, which I can't remember, then getting into the free sparring, I started by stalling looking for a pass again. I was looking for the half guard pass for a good while, then at some point ended up on my back.

It got even worse, as I was later fending off a back take. What happens quite often is that I vaguely get out and I'm looking to grab their arm and get my weight onto them, but it just turns into a stalemate for a while until I mess up my grip and they retake the back. That's definitely something I want to look into for my private lesson with Kev this weekend.

Next spar, I was able to pass to side control and was surprised to get that lapel choke I like, but only because my partner hadn't seen it before. I showed them what I did afterwards, so that should mean next time they won't let me get that grip as easily. Playing guard I was trying to go for the spider guard sweep Kev showed me and got into position, but I was missing a few details so failed to affect their base. I also tried the lasso sweep when they pass around to side control, but didn't have leverage: I think I hadn't lifted his leg and was relying too much on simply using the pressure on his arm.

17/06/2013 - University of Jiu Jitsu (San Diego, USA)

Class #505
University of Jiu Jitsu (BJJ), Rentao Lima Vieira, San Diego, CA, USA - 17/06/2013

My final training in California was at another beautiful facility, the University of Jiu Jitsu. I have admired the instructionals of the Ribeiro brothers for a long time and Saulo is a jiu jitsu hero of mine, meaning it was an honour to train at his gym and interview him.

This was all thanks to Dave Kim, the man who both originally pitched the idea of the BJJ Library to Saulo and now runs it (that includes filming, admin etc, so he's a busy man), having moved across the country to do so. He contacted me about reviewing the site some time ago, then when I mentioned I was coming to California, he immediately offered to drive me over to the academy and set up the interview with Saulo. I felt very lucky to get to chat to the man himself for almost an hour as a result.

The University is yet another stop Julia visited back in 2011 during her West Coast trip. Unlike that time, Saulo was not there to teach the class, as this was the early morning 09:00-10:00 session. The instructor was Renato Vieira (sitting next to Saulo in the picture above), who judging by Google and Facebook is associated with Rodrigo Pagani, one of Saulo's black belts. If you're on BJJ Library, Pagani is the guy who has the Curu Curu guard videos, although I haven't looked at those yet. Vieira led four of us through a standard warm-up of running round the room, facing in, knees up, shrimping and so forth. That progressed to a strongly judo influenced set of drills, with grip fighting followed by some takedown entries.

The technique for the lesson was a deep half guard sweep. You have half guard with a knee shield. Move your head and arm close to their non-wrapped leg, curling in tight. Stretch out their trapped leg with both of yours by straightening them, while at the same time shooting the arm you've brought near their other leg underneath it. Bump them up with that arm, bringing it past their bottom, as you turn your body. Your reaching arm now locks above their knee, while your other elbow stays hidden: the first thing they will try from top deep half is isolating that arm, therefore keeping it safe is a priority.

Hooking under their ankle with your leg and lift, using that to spin to the top and initiate your pass. When Vieira walked round to check on drilling, he added another detail for Dave and I. Normally deep half results in them having a leg behind your head, but sometimes they may be able to get it past your head. If that happens, switch your grips to instead gable grip and lock around the hip of that same leg. From there, you still want to lift up their ankle, but simply roll them backwards. Come up and use your control of their hip to transition into a single stack pass.

Sparring started with Dave at a fairly light pace, probably because he is both bigger and more skilled than I am. I was looking for the tripod and sickle sweep again when we were in open guard, but kept being blocked because Dave would crouch slightly and bring a knee forward. I need to develop a good follow-up sweep for when that happens, particularly as Dave was not the only person to do that to me today.

The next roll was with a green belt (an unusual rank for an adult in BJJ, but several schools use it, such as ATT and University of Jiu Jitsu), again a bit bigger than me. He also recently starred in a video where Saulo drains his cauliflower ear, which got a bit of traction on YouTube. They were talking about it before the lesson, although it appears Saulo did a good job as I didn't notice the green belt's ear being particularly messed up. I briefly had an attempt at the windscreen wiper sweep, but soon got passed.

He had little trouble squashing me under side control, where yet again I relied on the running escape to save me. My partner's response to it was stepping over the head, whereupon I went to turtle and tried to return to guard, but mostly just got stuck in the running escape. He would step back over to repeat the pattern, until the timer went. Like John said in Texas, I must develop a chain of escapes rather than 100% running escape, which has been an issue for a while now.

My final roll was with the six-month white belt who like me was visiting from out of town. Naturally I had an advantage given I've been training a lot longer than that, so could practice my top control and closed guard. For once I was able to successfully use the overhook from closed guard, then slowly work to a triangle. However, that again was very much down to the experience gap, not any skill on my part: in another six months, I am sure that roll would have been quite different as he wouldn't leave those gaps.

Saulo arrived after the class had finished: he is a lot bigger in person, with arms larger than my head. Saulo's passion for his latest project, the BJJ Library run by Dave, is clear. Saulo and Dave have a lot of plans for the site, which also came out in Saulo's interview, along with his thoughts on moving to America, teaching methodology, growing BJJ and numerous other topics. That will all be popping up in a future issue of Jiu Jitsu Style. (Update Feb 2015: The whole interview is now available here)

Thanks again to Saulo for the interview and to Dave for being such a great host. Dave welcomed me to San Diego from the Greyhound station, drove me around the city to show me the sights the next day, then brought me to Saulo's school for training a few hours before I flew out. :D

21/09/2011 - Gracie Barra Technique (Butterfly Guard)

Class #419
Gracie Barra Bristol, (BJJ), Nicolai 'Geeza' Holt, Bristol, UK - 21/09/2011

Due to the fact I've trained all over the country, I bump into old training partners on a semi-regular basis. Tonight it was Alex, who is the first guy I met from Gracie Barra Birmingham back when I first started training there. He has now moved to Bristol, though mentioned that the club he started up North - Lakes BJJ – is still going.

Geeza kicked off with the basic butterfly sweep (though Geeza refers to the position as seated guard). From closed guard, shrimp out, foot on their hip to make space, bringing the other knee through across their chest. This stops them from stacking you, meaning you have a chance to insert both butterfly hooks. You're also gripping their same side sleeve by the elbow, while your other hand shoots through for a deep underhook.

From there, lift with your foot on the underhook side, pulling the sleeve grip. Your other leg threads underneath the underhook side leg, as you continue to drive their weight through their knee. Bring them to the mat, then transition to scarf hold or side control.

Next, Geeza showed a counter, which moves into a butterfly pass. If they establish butterfly guard and are about to sweep, raise the knee on the non-underhooked side. Drive forward to put their back on the mat, putting your head next to theirs. On the elbow-gripped side, push your hand through for an underhook.

In combination with your head and shoulder pressure, that should give you good control of their upper body. Shove their underhook side knee to the mat, then slide your non-underhook side knee over towards the mat. When you have your knee over the top of their leg, switch your hand from their knee to their same side arm and pull up. Pass to scarf hold.

Continuing the flow, Geeza then demonstrated a counter to that pass, which becomes a deep half guard sweep. As soon as they try for the knee cut pass, grab their knee and shove it to one side. At the same time, swing your legs and dive underneath them. The aim is to get into deep half, with your inside arm holding their leg, your outside arm reaching past to grab behind them. Secure that with a grip on their belt.

Having got to deep half, move your hand from their leg to their ankle and bend it towards you. Kick up with your inside leg to initiate the sweep. During your roll to the top, maintain the grip on their belt. That will mean you've immobilised their other leg, so they can't close their guard. Therefore it should be easy to extricate your leg and establish side control.

Specific sparring from there emphasised something I already knew: my butterfly guard is rubbish. In terms of passing, I was making fundamental errors like raising both knees, which was asking to be swept. I need to make sure I always keep my hips heavy, and definitely don't raise the knee on the underhooked side. I also wasn't going for the technique we'd just learned, which is another basic mistake.

Underneath, I was looking to use Chiu's tips on positioning, but without much success. I'll have to go review my notes, as I think I forgot all the important parts. Also, Geeza reminded me that I need to keep my knee outside of his hips, or he can just squash my leg and move round to pass. As it seems to be such a weak position for me right now, I should start pulling butterfly guard (as I used to in the past, thanks to Kintanon's advice). I'm short with little legs, which I'm told is ideal for butterfly guard. Hopefully that will help me to eventually get the hang of it.

Tomorrow, my girlfriend is keeping her promise from my birthday to check out my class. Exciting stuff, although it does mean I've been even more extensive in my pre-lesson preparation. Probably a bit too much, but meh. ;)

14/12/2010 - BJJ (Advanced)

Class #369
RGA High Wycombe, (BJJ), Kev Capel, High Wycombe, UK - 14/12/2010

Fellow members of Bullshido have most likely been reading MrBadGuy's thread for a few years now, but I only just got round to checking it out. Entertaining stuff, and I imagine particularly amusing if you're from the Houston area. He writes about the various schools he's checked out, which would seem to be just about every school in the city, until eventually he was able to earn his purple belt in BJJ. Currently in two parts: part one runs through his time with Kuk Sool Won, a dodgy BJJ school (they do exist, though thankfully fairly rare) and a whole bunch of other random martial arts. Part two brings us up to the present: I'm guessing there will be a part three once that thread gets too huge. Particularly in that second thread, there is a lot of random stuff by other people to scroll through (mostly requests for updates), but you can always do Ctrl + F on "MrBadGuy" to skip past it.

In what has become something of a pattern, I wasn't able to make Thursday because I was in the wrong part of the country. That reminds me yet again that it is really cool Kev has a number of different payment options: per class, per month, or per block of classes. I'm on the third option, which works out perfectly for my geographically uncertain schedule. Kev normally closes down RGA Bucks for a couple of weeks around Christmas, so I should hopefully be able to get in a few sessions at Gracie Barra Bristol over the New Year, when I go visit my gf. She's still looking at a place to buy, so fingers crossed that works out and I can finally move down permanently in a couple of months.

Kev continued with the mount, but went in a completely different direction by combining an escape with a nifty sweep. To escape mount, turn to your side, using your lower elbow to push their leg back, the upper arm for defence. You're going to do a similar motion to the foot drag into half guard, but rather than trapping the leg completely, you just want to balance their foot on your lower leg. Use your other leg to lever that foot down, opening up a space by their knee.

Reach through that space with your upper arm, wrapping their leg, immediately swivelling as well as knocking them forwards with your legs. This will mean you can then go for a deep half guard sweep, which is the 'Homer Simpson' Kev showed a couple of months ago, from Jeff Glover's deep half DVD. Run your legs towards your head, then once you feel they're off-balance, roll back the other way to come on top. As I often get stuck there if anyone adds any resistance, Howard recommend I try to drive my head towards their chest, which facilitates the shift to half guard.

While walking round, Kev also showed Howard and I a deep half guard pass you can use if somebody puts you in that position. Grab their leg and walk around their head, swinging that leg over to the other side. At the same time, you need to work your trapped knee to the ground, meaning that you are then in a much stronger position, ready to attempt a knee slide pass.

For sparring, I was paired up with John, who is still carrying that knee injury: I'm small and tend to go light anyway, so I'm always more than happy to help people train around their injuries. Unusually, it wasn't free sparring tonight, but several rounds of specific, starting with mount again. Underneath was much the same as before, going a bit lighter than normal in order to avoid aggravating his knee injury.

On top, as earlier, I was looking to try feet in hips as well as the grapevine. Although I'm sure the injury had something to do with it, as that must have reduced his ability to bridge and general mobility, worked fairly well. I was able to climb high, and then pressure with my hips to try and open up an arm. That worked rather less well: although I can sometimes maintain the mount for a while, I still fail utterly to complete any attacks from there. MUCH prefer side control.

While I'm at least occasionally comfortable maintaining mount, I still struggle with back mount, which was the next position for specific sparring. Escaping was complicated by the injury, as I was worried I'd tweak his knee, but I could still practice fundamentals, like protecting my neck and Saulo's 'scoop' defence from Jiu Jitsu University. I very almost got caught with some kind of choke, which I wasn't paying enough attention to as I thought he only had the one collar. Dangerously complacent.

On his back, I continued to flail about ineffectually. However, again I was able to play around with some stuff I haven't tried in a while, like trapping his arm under my leg. That theoretically makes it easier to get the choke, as you then only have one arm to worry about, but I still couldn't get where I want. Interestingly, he kept on trying wristlocks as I attacked. That definitely make me more hesitant, so seems to be a good tactic.

The final round was from turtle, where again I was being cautious due to the knee. On top, most of the time I could at least get enough of a hook to move into top half guard, but I think that was directly because of the knee injury. He also tried a wristlock yet again, but this time from under side control, which surprised me. The dominant position meant I had enough leverage to wriggle free, but as before, it makes you a little more hesitant, so useful distraction. Possibly time to take another look at The Art of the Wristlock.

26/10/2010 - BJJ (Advanced)

Class #354
RGA High Wycombe, (BJJ), Kev Capel, High Wycombe, UK - 26/10/2010

After getting back home from Bristol, I was pleasantly surprised to find a new package from Roy Dean. This time, it wasn’t a DVD, but a collection of his four music CDs: this is the ambient soundtrack you’ll hear on his instructionals. I’m a fan of people like Kid Loco (or at least his first album, ‘A Grand Love Story’), so that kind of trip hoppy stuff appeals to me. I’m not sure you could make a direct comparison, as there isn’t the dense layering and samples: it’s a cleaner sound, mostly piano, guitar and drums. I've been giving it a thorough listen over the last day or two.

My favourite is Roy’s second album, appropriately called Second Sound, with tracks like ‘Strings’, a bit reminiscent of Moby, ‘Distance’ and ‘Alleluiah’, probably the best of the bunch. I was less keen on the ‘harder’ fourth album, End of Days (the fact there is a track called ‘Reznor’ implies what the influence was this time), but there were still a number of highlights there, like ‘Laver Blue’ (which is also cool, because I know Paul from the excellent K3 Academy in Poole).

The smooth, stylish production of Roy Dean’s DVDs is reflected in his music, with a sophisticated sound that works beautifully as a background for rolling in class. You can buy the four CD set, Arc and Shadow, from Roy’s site, here (scroll down to the bottom of the page).

The blogger map has also been growing steadily, so if you’re a blogger who wants to be on there and isn’t yet, let me know. You can get in touch with me via email on this page. Georgette has also kindly agreed to help out as a collaborator, which brings the total up to six. :)
____________________________________________

Progressing from half guard, Kev focused on the deep half during the advanced class. That adds to the introduction I had to the position earlier from Rob Stevens at GB Brum, who is very good at using it. Rob taught a class on entries and sweeps from the deep half in April, followed by how to pass it with Kevin Webb in May.

Kev (Capel, not Webb ;p) began by showing us how to move into deep half guard from a z-guard/knee shield position (like half guard, but you have your outside knee pressing into their chest). This should make them drive forward, which gives you the momentum you need to reach through and spin under their trapped leg. A common mistake is to go for the other leg: you want the leg on the same side as your knee shield.

Once there, stretch out their leg, with one arm around the outside, the other holding inside, facing away from their body. Kev said that you didn’t need to worry about being super tight with your legs, as they will find it difficult to move that trapped leg due to the awkward position.

You can now go for what Jeff Glover calls the ‘Homer Simpson’ deep half guard sweep, from his DVD. With their leg still in between yours, walk along the floor towards their other leg until you feel their balance is gone (hence the name: you’re running in a circle while lying down). Pull their knee over to the side, then spin over the leg you’re holding. You need to keep their leg in between yours, otherwise you’ll be walking straight into a triangle. Depending on their position, you can spin under and work for the back, or spin over the top and pass.



Note that once you get on top, they can get their leg in the way. The triangle isn’t much of a risk if you’re sitting on their leg, but it can mess up the pass: I kept getting stuck there when I last drilled deep half at Rob Stevens’ class. To avoid ending up in a sticky situation, drive your head to their opposite hip (although watch your neck: I think I was pushing too much with my head and forgetting about the rest of my body, so it felt a little sore the day after. Then again, that might have been from pushing too much with it on the sweep). From there you can do the switch pass Kev showed earlier.

Kev finished up with an escape from mount which puts you into the deep half guard. The idea is to escape as if you’re going to half guard (e.g., like Rob’s version). However, rather than working from there, you’re going to wrap their lower leg, so that their ankle is resting on your bottom leg, with their foot dangling off to the side. That means you can press on that foot with your top leg, which will pry up their knee. Use that space to shoot your arm in, spin under and go to deep half.

There was just one round of sparring, again from half guard. I was with a tall blue belt I don’t think I’ve seen before, called Simon. On top, I essentially bored him into opening his half guard, staying low with my leg sprawled back, like I did with Howard earlier. However, Simon wasn’t using the knee shield in the same way, which made all the difference. Later, I was trying to attack the far arm to act as a distraction, but couldn’t quite sink that kimura. I’m getting closer, but need to make more effective use of my head as a third hand, also making better use of Roy Dean’s lockflow from the 2009 seminar.

Underneath, my legs were getting squashed to the side too much. I need to keep my legs active, knocking my partner’s posture forward, pushing into their armpits and sides. I also need to remember to use my legs in conjunction with my arms, which is a central principle of BJJ. I’m getting better at it, but there are numerous positions where I’m still letting that concept slip my mind.