20/10/2013 - Study Hall (Closed Guard Passing & Side Control Chokes)

Class #530
Gracie Barra Bristol, (BJJ), Study Hall, Bristol, UK - 20/10/2013

Dónal wasn't able to make it to Hit Fit this week, so study hall was my only bit of training, aside from teaching on Tuesday. That only happens once a month though, so hopefully I'll be able to work something out so I'm at least getting in two classes rather than just the one.

I continued working on the closed guard, this time passing rather than from the bottom, trying to maintain my posture and practice grip breaks. I'm teaching them next week, so I'm still attempting to work out the best combination of techniques. I will probably put grip breaks and posture in the first section, then opening the guard from the knees. The question is whether to also add in a pass: I think what I'll do is show the guard break, then tell people they can drill that, or stick around for a passing option.

Practicing the grip breaks is useful, though I still feel with the two-handed sleeve grip break I'm not ending up with their sleeve in the optimum hand. Something I can keep playing with. The one-handed 'y' grip break doesn't work too well for me, but I'll continue playing with it anyway. I'm also not sure about the hierarchy of grip breaks: e.g., if they are holding both my collar and my sleeve, I am tending to break the collar grip first, but perhaps I should be dealing with the sleeve first.

Moving into the guard break, the kneeling option works fine in drilling, but in sparring I will often get knocked off balance or my grips get stripped. However, getting in reps is valuable: I don't want to get into the resistance part too early, as simply doing lots of reps is productive too. I feel fairly confident once I can get a grip around the head, but at the same time, I don't want to get sloppy about the legs and try to crush through.

With regards to the side control chokes, I'm continuing on with the options from that private a while ago. The breadcutter puts a lot of pressure on the neck, so I want to work on that being a blood choke, not a simple pain compliance type thing. Interestingly, it worked better as a choke when I was practicing on somebody bigger, but that might have just been a more careful application on my part.

I struggle with the second grip for the baseball bat choke, which was too shallow a number of times today. I also tried using their gi lapel for the first grip, then for both grips. It was more effective when I used it for both grips, acting as a anchor so I could squeeze into the neck with my forearms. Apparently I was easing off at one point, so I'll need to be careful I'm not letting off the pressure.

After that, I ended up doing a bunch of teaching, but that's cool as I enjoy practicing that too. It's useful to try and work through problems people are having and see if I can come up with something of use. Speaking of which, Geraldine told me that she managed to get the step-over triangle twice in nogi, which is awesome as that's what we were working on last week. :D

01/09/2013 - Study Hall (Breaking & Passing Closed Guard, Side Control)

Class #520
Gracie Barra Bristol, (BJJ), Study Hall, Bristol, UK - 01/09/2013

I was intending to train on Thursday, but as my gf had a bad day at work, I stayed at home so we could go out for a meal (as I've said many times before, BJJ is great fun, but I think your loved ones should always be the priority :D). Today I was looking to get in more work on passing the guard, continuing with the kneeling break. I'll also normally use study hall to practice the techniques I teach, which next week is side control escapes. Fortunately for me, those two things are exactly what my training partner Geraldine wanted to work as well.

I started off with the same guard break, encountering the old problems: keeping that lead hand in place, then getting enough distance to pop the ankles open. It also brought up a common issue that crops up after you've opened the legs, as they will frequently get their knee in their way. This happened to Geraldine in a competition a while ago, IIRC, so I showed her my preferred options for passing the knee shield.

I continued kneeling guard breaks with Berry, whose approach to countering them provided useful pressure-testing. He likes to bounce his hips out the way, as well as trying to break your grip on the hip, rather than the forward arm by their chest. That makes it tough to create the necessary tension to open their ankles, because their hips are free. On the plus side, I can still maintain my posture, because I have the arm on the chest: that gives me the opportunity to reset.

Therefore a key aspect I want to improve is maximising the weight I can drive through their hips. I'll need to experiment with arms positions, grips and also where I'm putting my head. It's possible I'm leaning too far forward or back, so I will keep a closer eye on that next time, to see if it is reducing the efficacy of my hip control when attempting to open the guard.

Through some light resistance, we worked out that switching my arms to the other side can be effective, although that gets a bit tiring. Having said that, the person on the bottom has to work harder, so they will probably get tired before you do. Either way, I don't like getting into battles of attrition, because that comes down to stamina rather than technique. I'll keep trying it, along with working out the right point to switch from kneeling to standing.

Sparring with Geeza helped that further, as he was mainly looking to see if I would flop to my back. I was keen to work on my passing, attempting to return to either combat base or some kind of open guard passing posture whenever I got knocked off balance. Geeza noted that I was using lateral motion, but need to combine that with more forward motion. I was getting stuck on his leg a few times, trying to do a big step over the top, but not pushing forward enough.

Arm control is something important to keep in mind as well. I played around with trying to get them to give me an arm from the kneeling break, which I could then try and pin to their hip. Geeza stopped me at that point to share a handy controlling position. He says cross-grip the arm you want to pin to the hip, then put your other arm across the top, clamping the knuckles of your pinning hand against the wrist that's over the top.

When I was underneath with Berry, I attempted to create angles to slip around the strong pressure of their arms. I also played around with different grips to prevent them posturing back up, which helped slow that process, but didn't open much in the way of submission opportunities, taking the back or sweeping. Or rather, I didn't combine my guard offence well enough.

Finally, I also worked on side control with Geraldine, keeping in mind what I wanted to teach next week. On top, I was focusing on connection with hips and control of their far elbow if they turn away (at one point I failed to control that far elbow, enabling her to spin to turtle). When she turned towards me, I switched to a cross-face, both my normal method and the version Donal suggested, where you just bring the arm in place and turn the elbow upwards.

Underneath I looked to reverse engineer what I'd done on top. I want to break the hip connection, starting with a bridge to make space, then wedge a frame in place (in my case, that's generally getting an elbow to their hip). I managed to partially turn away a few times, but Geraldine did a good job of keeping me under control. The stiff arm escape worked once (Braulio's version, shoving into the armpit and rolling them over), which was cool as I normally mess that up. So, I'll emphasise bridging and frames next week when I'm teaching side control escapes again, as well as the importance of staying tight and remaining calm.

25/08/2013 - Study Hall (Breaking & Passing Closed Guard)

Class #519
Gracie Barra Bristol, (BJJ), Study Hall, Bristol, UK - 25/08/2013

Fairly small turn-out today, but still enough for me to get in plenty of drilling on passing the closed guard with a couple of different training partners. The first thing I did was that grip break I saw on BJJ Library, which I think Dave has also put onto YouTube so everyone can see it. When they grab your sleeve, circle your hand underneath theirs. Spread your thumb and index finger, then jam the 'v' shape that creates by the bottom of their hand (just by the start of their palm). Being with your arm bent, then thrust it forward firmly to knock off their grip.

That seemed to work quite well, though sometimes I didn't thrust my hand forward firmly enough, meaning they still had their grip. I'm also not entirely sure I'm putting the 'v' of my hand in the optimum place to generate leverage. I'll keep playing with it, but I think I'm now confident enough that it's functional to add it to the 'preparing the pass' class I'll teach next week. I've taught it before, but will reduce the content a bit, so it becomes just pointers on posture and staying safe in somebody's closed guard, along with some grip breaks.

I then ran through the sequence from the closed guard break and pass private with Dónal earlier this week. It was useful to not just drill it with light resistance, but then also have them try to resist, until finally they did it on me. Especially with Jamie, that brought up several details for me to consider. Drilling with both Luke and Jamie, I felt relatively secure once I had opened the guard and got the cross-face (I just need to make sure I control the far elbow as I pass, so they can't turn away). The danger is mainly earlier on.

To initially get that tight grip on both collars makes it difficult to break their grips, because my hands are already engaged. However, if I have that arm in place near their chest, then their grips aren't as important, because it becomes much harder for them to break my posture. Wriggling back to get the guard open can be difficult, but when I've got it open, I need to kick my foot forward immediately and also watch out for their knee coming across (you can still pass if it does, but it means you need a different pass).

Controlling the hips is an area I've found hard whenever I've tried this pass in the past. The idea is that the hand you have pressing down into their hip helps on that front. Perhaps I just need to focus more on maximising my downwards pressure? That would still seem to leave the other hip open, which I could block with my knee, but I need my need for driving into the tailbone. Again, something to keep practicing in drilling.

With Jamie, he tends to open his guard when he senses you've got into a good guard breaking position. That's a good idea, as you always want to open your guard on your terms. It means I need to react before he does, but also be ready to switch to an open guard pass rather than closed. Jamie's preferred method is probably what I'd do: he aims to break open the closed guard, then immediately pop back and grab the knees, moving into a bullfighter style of pass.

Something else he mentioned, when showing me how he likes to do the break, is that rather than the collars he grabs the belt. The reason I don't normally go for the belt is that if it comes untied you're stuck, but it remains a handy grip when it is tied. That way I don't spend any time fiddling with collars: I'll be giving the belt grip a try too, rather than dismissing it out of hand like I was previously.