09/11/2011 - Gracie Barra Bristol (Guillotine Defence)

Class #431
Gracie Barra Bristol, (BJJ), Nicolai 'Geeza' Holt, Bristol, UK - 09/11/2011

I'm not a fan of flashy gis: as I've said repeatedly over the years (summarised here), I like a gi that is plain, white and functional. However, I AM a fan of Scramble (awesome hoodies, for a start), so for those of you who do like a bit more bling in your gi, check out Seymour's review of Scramble's first entry into the gi market, here. It is unfortunately pre-order and limited release, but I think that is just until the gi side of Scramble becomes financially viable. The pre-order opens at 11:11 on the 11th November, either through the Scramble website for the UK, or Budovideos in the US, here (ignore what it says about being out of stock, the pre-order hasn't started yet).

I was a little bit wary of the lesson tonight, as Geeza was teaching guillotine defence. I haven't trained much over the last few weeks since injuring my neck and wrist, so this would be a test of how much I've recovered. I was hoping that three weeks was long enough.

Geeza began with a simple early defence. He described it as imagining there was a yellow rectangle drawn on your torso, with the corners made up of your hips and nipples. If you imagine the same thing on your partner, with a red line drawn down the middle of each, you want to keep those lines in the same place. In other words, don't let them get an angle to sit up and loop an arm over. So, cage their hips with your knees and elbows, keep moving to stay square on if they try to hip out, block their attempts to sit up with your hands, etc.

A 'middle' defence is to raise your head up if they do get an arm over, but haven't yet locked their hands. That should give you the space to work your head free. If you're a bit later and they lock their hands, they will also most likely have opened their guard. That means you can push down on their knee and hop over to side control, so that your head is now on their far side.

Reach underneath their head and drive your shoulder into their neck. Turn your body towards their legs, then keep increasing the shoulder pressure. This should either make them tap or let go, as the pressure immediately drops if they release their grip on your head.

There is a similar principle at work for the late defence, which is the one I'm familiar with. This time, the guillotine is fully locked on and they've also managed to close their guard. You're in trouble. With your same side hand, grab their wrist and free up some breathing room. Your other arm will loop under their head, so you can again drive your shoulder into their neck.

Come right up on your legs to increase that pressure, so your bum is now in the air. Continue driving forward, until the pressure either makes them tap or release their grip. You should then be able to pop your head free.

Sparring started off with a white belt I haven't rolled with before. He was mainly looking to get advice, so we had a pretty relaxed roll, where I went from positions he wanted to work on. I always relish the chance to get in more practice at teaching, so that was cool.

The next white belt was more active: normally I can just flop back straight into spider guard, but he immediately started running around to side control before I had the chance. As normally happens with more intense rolls, I go hyper-defensive, as I try not to try and match their pace when that happens (mainly because my fitness sucks and I'm lazy). That meant a lot of running escape posture, combined with going to turtle.

I'm still failing to use the running escape properly, as I'm not good at moving from the survival position back into guard. Normally I'll just end up back under side control. I was able to hook the leg once or twice for half guard, but almost always it was a crappy quarter guard, so they got their leg free again. I did finally catch it later on and recover full guard, then looked to work on breaking posture and get the overhook from there.

Going to turtle is quite fun, though I don't know a lot of things to do from there. My go-to is either recover guard by sitting through, or try and hook an arm and roll them. I'd be tempted to check out some of the more esoteric stuff, like Telles stuff, but that's probably a bit beyond me right now. Also, going to turtle isn't something I want to get too comfortable with, as I'd rather get better at quickly getting back to guard from there.

Unfortunately for my neck, lots of turtling under a more aggressive white belt is exactly how I injured it a few weeks ago. This time, I didn't make the mistake of driving their whole weight through my neck while trying that arm-grab reversal, but it still felt sore after sparring. It felt the same way last time, so I'm a bit worried it will stiffen right back up tomorrow morning. We'll see: if it does, lesson learned, and I'll leave it even longer before trying full sparring again. It would also probably indicate I should be less eager to turtle up. ;)

16/03/10 - BJJ (Beginner)

Class #294
RGA High Wycombe, (BJJ), Kev Capel, High Wycombe, UK - 16/03/2010

Callum interviewed Thelmo Calmon, a Draculino black belt who recently held a seminar at the Aylesbury location, for the main RGA Bucks website. Good stuff: check it out on the news page.

Fundamentals tonight was again relevant beyond the 'self defence' remit, as it was a basic Guillotine defence, from guard. Grab the choking arm with four fingers, while also using your other arm to reach over their far shoulder. After that, stand up and drive your shoulder as much as your can into their chin and neck. This should relieve the pressure on your neck, enabling you to pop your head free. If you need some extra leverage, come back down to your knees once you've loosened their grip.

Getting back to the main class, Kev kicked off with a basic ankle grab sweep (noting that feet on hips works as well as knees into their stomach, but is a bit slower), followed by the overhead sweep. For that, you start by opening your guard and putting your feet on their hips, then pull their elbows out and towards you. That should help bring them onto your feet.

Take advantage by pulling their elbows even further past your head (Kev described it like "putting on a big hat"), after which you can lift them with your legs. If you've got the technique right, they shouldn't feel heavy, meaning you can now drop them over your shoulder. Follow them and roll backwards straight into mount. If you're the person getting dropped, remember to tuck your head in drilling, so you don't end up getting piledrived into the mat.

Sparring guard passage with Howard didn't really go anywhere, as I was quite defensive, just looking to block or break his grips. That's the biggest stumbling block for me at the moment, as I don't feel safe standing up until I can strip those grips, or preven them being established. He did eventually get past, but time ran out. As ever, I need to force myself to stand up, though I did try the twisting guard break again once or twice. Once I get some income, I definitely need to do a private lesson on guard passing.

At one point, I also had to defend against an armbar. Recently I've been tending to step over their head to try and get free, which has worked once or twice in the past. This time, it did stop me getting armbarred, but I wasn't able to move through to a top position, ending up on the bottom instead. I asked Kev if it was a bad habit, but he reassured me it was a legitimate technique. The only thing to watch out for is footlocks (at brown belt: illegal before then), but they would have to release their grip on your arm first.

Underneath, I looked for the Shawn Williams Guard again, this time making sure I remembered to clamp my elbow over their arm. However, my other foot still isn't tight enough, and asking Howard afterwards, I also need to threaten more on both sides. I did briefly think about swinging my legs through into an omoplata position, but reacted too slowly.

Next up was a white belt. On top, I was a little lazy, because he was opening his guard quite often. That meant I could just keep slipping my knee through to half guard, then using a gable grip and shoulder pressure, get my leg free and pass. Still, that did at least give me a chance to look at the holes in my technique, as I started getting complacent, so about the fifth time I tried it, he managed to sweep me from half guard. I need to make sure I'm not being sloppy about my base, keeping that free leg in a good position. I also have to keep my bodyweight into their neck, so they don't have any mobility in their upper body.

Underneath, I was able to break his posture and wrap my arms over to keep him in tight. I crept out to the back, keeping in mind what Kev taught earlier about pressing my chest into their shoulder. It took me a while to feel sufficiently secure to base out on my elbow and start to spin to the back, but as it was a white belt, I had enough time to practice. I was a bit sloppy in that I wasn't able to properly secure hooks, but there was enough control to lock on a RNC.

Still, I'm sure a more experienced opponent would have escaped back to guard, or shucked me off the back. I also totally burned out my arms by holding him in close most of the time. After that, he passed a few times, when I was playing around with various submission attempts. My cardio clearly remains terrible, as I was knackered: that also reminds me to make sure I'm not relying too much on my arms, instead leaving more of the work to my legs.

01/11/2007 - BJJ (No-Gi)

Class #100



Roger Gracie Academy (BJJ), Jude Samuel, London, UK - 01/11/2007 – No-Gi

Unusually, Jude took the no-gi class today: that could be the start of a new trend, as I think I heard him say something about taking over a lot of Felipe’s classes for a while, because Felipe is doing an Open University degree (always good to see people getting back into education :D).

Unlike yesterday, there was lots of technique to go through. Jude started off with the single leg takedown we did a while back in a beginners class, also showing a variation if they resist. As you go for the single leg and they maintain their balance, shift your grip and stand up, so that you’ve got both arms underneath their leg. Then change the near hand (so the one further from their foot) to go round their waist, and finally sweep their lone leg with your same side foot, dropping them straight to the ground.

He then moved on to the guillotine from guard. Your hand dives around their head, palm up, with the forearm right into their neck, aiming to grab your own stomach or far side. Then use your other hand to grip round the wrist, making a tight hold, finally twisting your torso towards the knee on the same side as your first gripping arm. The choke comes from this swivelling motion rather than squeezing madly on their neck.

Another option is to do a guillotine from open guard. This time, one leg comes in underneath and against their stomach (a bit like the scissor sweep), while the other goes around their back. Using the same guillotine grip as before, twist towards the bottom leg for the sub. Jude showed it from your opponent attempting to escape side control by coming to their knees, whereupon you get under their neck, adjust for the guillotine grip, shoving your hips forward and then dropping back into the open guard.

Finally on the technical side, Jude showed us some escapes from the guillotine, noting that to free yourself from that particular submission can be both difficult and painful. The first option was if you hand an arm free: get that across their neck. Then bring up the same knee to whichever side your head is on, sprawling back with your legs and driving with your shoulder to put maximum pressure on their chest. Reach back to remove their arm, which should loosen as you drop your weight on them.

If your arm isn’t free, reach around their back instead. Push your head to the floor and drive forward, again thrusting your shoulder into their chest. This should also serve to loosen their grip until you can extricate yourself from the guillotine.

Like yesterday, I again found myself doing a lot of sparring. I started off with my drilling partner, Leo, who’s roughly my size, if rather stronger. He went pretty light, so I tried playing with guard and seeing if I could get any sweeps. While I could occasionally work my legs into position for an elevator, I couldn’t work out how to bring Leo forward: not having the usual grips made my sweeps even crapper than usual. I probably should have had a try at the sit-up, although I can’t remember if Leo sat back at any point.

I haven’t sparred Ben for a while, so had a roll with him after Leo. As always happens when I spar Ben, I found myself at the receiving end of armbars: I almost thought I might be able to bend my arm round the knee and escape, but Ben got my arm back too quick. He also put me in a triangle which I again felt I might have been able to get out of, as I had both arms in, but was squished into my own forearm. There was no chance I’d be able to resist the power of both Ben’s legs and his arms pulling my head down, so soon tapped.

I also found it tough under Ben’s side control, where I couldn’t make any space, and in addition failed to get my far leg over to try for half guard. That heel drag step over thing didn’t work under mount either: still, I’d like to work that technique more, as after all I’ve currently just been going off something I saw Johannes do at Belfast. Yet another thing I could ask an instructor next time I get the chance.

Next up was Christina, under whom I spent some time squished in side control, and also in her guard. I tried the elbows to hips tip she mentioned yesterday to avoid armbars, which seemed to help. I had no clue how to pass, as again, my passes are poor with a gi, so became even more useless without the grips. I tried to curl into a ball to maintain open guard, and also see if I could trap a leg to pass, but without much success. I need to shrimp more and perhaps keep my knees tighter when they’re trying to pass and give me enough space, as that could then lead to recovering my guard.

I was ready to sit out at this point, but Jude dragged me up to spar. The opportunity to roll with a black belt was a nice way to celebrate my hundredth lesson, and as you’d expect, Jude took it very easy and coached me through some escapes and submissions (like the kimura from guard). This again emphasised that I absolutely must shrimp more, with one of the few proactive things I did being that step over to half guard. As soon as I get that, I need to shrimp towards the trapped leg and then get my other leg into position for recovering guard.

Under Jude’s side control I felt pretty helpless, even though he was going light: I tried to bridge and make some space, but clearly I’ve got lots of work to do on effective bridging. In general I continue to move too slowly after bridging – I need to use that moment of imbalance on their part to shrimp. At the moment, I’m just sliding up, which isn’t helping to prepare my escape.

Annoyingly, I couldn’t find my gumshield before the session, so hopefully I haven’t lost that: will have to check at home. Final piece of news is that there is an academy Open Day on November 17th from 13:00-15:00, which is meant to be a chance for us to all bring down our family and friends to try out BJJ. My gf is away that day, so technically I could try and get some people down, but that depends firstly on if anyone would be up for it and secondly how far I’ve got with my updated writing (for which I’ll be having a meeting on the 20th, so possible that they'll ask for it before the 17th anyway).

That Compeed plaster fell off at some point during the training, but not sure exactly when. So, would appear it can only handle one and a bit training sessions, unless it fell off right at the end. Four more of them to go, which I can but hope will be enough for the burn mark to heal up.