24/01/2015 - Earn A Meerkatsu GrappleThon Shirt | Artemis BJJ | Open Mat | Open Guard

Class #625
Artemis BJJ (PHNX Fitness), Open Mat, Bristol, UK - 24/01/2015

Meerkatsu's GrappleThon shirt design is ready! The ONLY way to earn one of those is to set up a fundraising page on MyDonate for Equality Now and get in some donations (full details of how to do that here). All donations, no matter how small, would be very welcome: please help us reach our £4,000 target for charity! Any amount gratefully accepted, and it's all for a great cause. Head over to the MyDonate fundraising page to send your pennies (or dollars, yen, whatever, you can donate from anywhere in the world), here. :D

I'm especially excited about the prospect of someone over in the US setting up a simultaneous GrappleThon (like this). I've tried to get that going before but it unfortunately didn't happen. Still a goal of mine, so it would be super cool if anyone managed to run a GrappleThon for Equality Now at the same time as the Artemis BJJ GrappleThon here in Bristol. Keep in mind that if you do that, then as long as you set up a fundraising page and join the team, you're in with a chance of getting a shirt. ;)

Should you still be unclear on any of the details for the GrappleThon, everything you need to know can be found on the main event page, here.
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My return to sparring continues, as I risked free sparring with some of the bigger, stronger guys that pop along to open mat. That meant I got in both gi and nogi sparring, which is unusual for me. In the gi, I was using the stiff arm guard yet again. I think I'm still not pushing my chest out enough, though I feel like I'm starting to get the transition into my favoured tripod/sickle combination sweep. That worked for me a number of times, but I wasn't coming up to capitalise. Following my own advice, I need to concentrate on controlling that foot so they can't pre-empt me by coming up first. Using the sleeve or collar for additional momentum would help too. I'm hampered by my injury on that, but should still control the leg much more than I did today.

I ended up on the back a few times, having worked on crawling around from guard a few times unsuccessfully (thinking back to where I was before the injury, more side guard required). I always go for the seat belt as that's the most secure grip, but the old double lapel grip came in handy today, enabling me to retain control. At the same time, I need to be careful my position isn't too far forward as they try to fling me off their back when they're in turtle. My neck and face got smushed into the mat as he rolled through. I maintained control, but that could be risky for my neck (fortunately it was fine, I could tuck my head in, but I did scrape my face along the mats).

Speaking of the stiff arm guard, I used the stiff arm escape from side control a bunch of times too, but didn't maintain control properly there either. However, it did enable me to recover back to guard a number of times, so that's still handy. I am finding that one more and more useful, so will definitely try and teach that during side control month in May.

In nogi I was again using the stiff arm guard, in conjunction with some of my preferred nogi grips. I'm feeling a lot happier about nogi from guard than I used to, as now I go to the shoulder clamp. If I can get the head, that's fine too. Either option means I can combine it with the butterfly sweep, though I was perhaps too single-minded about the butterfly sweep. There's other stuff I could be trying from that position. Still, all in all an enjoyable re-entry into normal sparring for me. :)

28/02/2012 - GB Bristol (Butterfly Sweep & Back Take)

Class #447
Gracie Barra Bristol, (BJJ), Dónal Carmody, Bristol, UK - 28/02/2012

Tonight Dónal tackled the guard in which I'm probably least comfortable: butterfly guard. It is supposed to be good for small guys with short legs, but I've yet to get a handle on the position. Geeza calls it seated guard, similar to yet another term is sitting guard, which can also refer to a quite different guard. Like I've said before, BJJ terminology is very unreliable, as it can vary from school to school, or indeed (as is the case here) between instructors at the same school. ;)

Dónal began with the sensible plan of helping people learn how to maintain butterfly guard, which is certainly something I need help with. Chiu did a detailed lesson this a few years back, but I think a lot of it went over my head. Dónal kept things relatively simple, which boiled down to several useful points.

First put your arm on the outside of the knee you have up. That will make it more difficult for your partner to push your knee down: if they can get both your knees squashed to the mat, that puts them in a great position to pass. Second, keep your bum back and your head up (to avoid guillotines). If you get too close, it becomes easier for them to push you over, so scoot back slightly to improve your base.

Third, grab their knee on the non-underhooking side. For this version of the butterfly, you want grip low enough on the gi material that you are actually grabbing by their knee, not just above it. An easy way of checking that is to get your partner to stand up: you'll then immediately see whether or not you were in fact grabbing the knee.

That was followed by an option Dónal showed a little while ago for taking the back. Lean back slightly in order to make your hooking foot light, so you can extract that and kick it through (there is a possibility of getting passed, but your other leg is in position to at least take half guard if something goes very wrong).

Pull them past you with that belt grip, also twisting your arm over so that your shoulder and elbow are pressing into their upper back (almost a ghost is putting you in a kimura). That should enable you to move through to their back. It is a bit like an arm-drag, but a sort of 'belt-drag' instead.

During sparring, I was again reminded that I'm not finding myself underneath anywhere near as much as I used to. That's probably because I'm mostly with less experienced training partners who are either around my size or smaller. However, that's great for working my top game, which previously has always been a weakness.

On the other hand, I shouldn't forget about escapes. Once I can finally get back into normal training, I'll need to make sure I try starting from bad positions more often (speaking of which, I must stick to butterfly: I kept instinctively shifting to more comfortable guards, like spider). It would be a bit silly to at long last develop a top game, only to find that my escapes had gone to crap. ;)