13/10/2013 - Study Hall (Closed Guard Posture Break & Side Control Chokes)

Class #529
Gracie Barra Bristol, (BJJ), Study Hall, Bristol, UK - 13/10/2013

I'm continuing with drilling offence from closed guard, attempting to develop a series that starts with breaking their posture into the gi tail control. If that doesn't work, I want to add the windscreen wiper sweep. Should I be unable to break their posture and they lean back to resist, I can switch to a sit-up sweep.

I'm still not quite sure how best to put those all together, but it's been helpful playing with it for the last few weeks in an open mat environment. I plan to teach something on the topic next week too, which should give me some further ideas. The sit-up sweep has been by far my most successful sweep for as long as I can remember, but strangely I haven't taught it yet in the two and a half years I've been an instructor, so that will be fun. :)

With the gi tail grip, I'm still having some trouble keeping their posture broken. People were standing up when I was doing that, though I found I could still finish the choke (although that might just be because I was trying it against somebody less experienced). More reps required. Also, I need to make sure I'm getting plenty of gi material, rather than snatching at it. If I can't get that grip and they're posturing up, I should be going into the sit-up sweep as before.

Geraldine wanted to work on side control chokes, which was perfect as that's what I wanted to work on too. She saw a specific step over triangle set-up that she wanted to try, from Jay Pages (IIRC). From a sort-of scarf hold position, he grabs their arm, then shoves his bottom leg into that arm. As he is still pulling with his grip, that should wedge their arm in place. His other leg then steps over to trap their arm in place, meaning he can then transfer his grip to hold on with his other arm.

From there, he can now step over their head with the raised leg, moving into the triangle position as usual. Drilling this with Geraldine reminded me to be careful of the neck. Especially when you're drilling this repeatedly, you have to watch out you're not twisting their neck into awkward positions, such as when you're adjusting your legs to lock in the triangle. I also played around with the chokes from the private lesson, but need to rewatch the video.

06/10/2013 - Study Hall (Closed Guard Offence)

Class #527
Gracie Barra Bristol, (BJJ), Dónal Carmody, Bristol, UK - 08/09/2013

Dónal was in charge tonight, but unlike previous open mats, this was more regulated. Rather than just everybody heading off to do their own thing, Dónal ran us all through a series of drills first. This was in keeping with what he's been showing over at Hit Fit, practicing various backstep motions related to passing the guard (like in Black Belt Requirements).

I don't think I'm remembering these in order, but the first one might have been where you're passing the guard, but they turn into you. Push on their knee, then replace that with your leg on their thigh, backstepping to move to the other side. They repeat the motion and you move back to where you started, re-initiating the loop. Same thing we did in a private a while ago. Another one, you're stood up, one hand on their hip, other hand into their same side knee. Push the knee away while still holding the hip so they can't shrimp out, then collapse onto them for side control.

If they are lifting you up and about to land the butterfly sweep, on the side they are hooking and lifting, turn your hips in the exact same motion from the first drill. You can then backstep off their hook and end up going straight into side control. That's the same thing Roy Dean shows. The final option I can remember is where they are in butterfly guard, they have one knee raised. Bring your same side knee up and use it to push their knee down. Your opposite hand goes onto their knee, turning the hand so you can stiff-arm into the crook of their knee. That stiff arm stops them recovering their position, so you can pass to side control or maybe even get right to the back.

The class was then split into drilling and sparring, so I naturally wanted to drill. My focus today was closed guard, particularly breaking their posture. I wanted to get them in the gi tail series, but if they resist and pull back, follow them and hit the sit-up sweep. With the gi tail, I think I'm relaxing the pressure on them too much so they can raise up. I could perhaps have a higher guard to bring my legs into it. I'm also not getting the gi tail deep enough when I initially pull it free, which means I don't have enough to grip properly.

When I'm coming up for the sit-up sweep, I need to be aware of the angle to pull back on their elbow/tricep to knock out their posting arm. If I don't, then I am going against their strong point. Could be I'm not bringing my arm up properly as I go for the sweep, because I'm thinking too much about the follow up techniques.

I finished off by playing around with various techniques from the Roy Dean DVD I recently reviewed, along with some baseball bat choke stuff (which I couldn't remember very well, so I must take another look at my notes from the private lesson on that).

10/04/2013 - Dónal Private: Windscreen Wiper & Sit-Up Sweep

Class #498 - Private #009
Gracie Barra Bristol, (BJJ), Dónal Carmody, Bristol, UK - 10/04/2013

As ever with jiu jitsu, the sweep I worked on today has several names: Andre Anderson calls it the 'Rey Diogo sweep' after his instructor. I first learned the windscreen wiper sweep from Ciaran Toal in Belfast, so I sometimes refer to it as the 'Ciaran sweep'. However, 'windscreen wiper' seems like the most descriptive term, which I therefore use most often.

Dónal was pleased when I mentioned I'd like to study this technique in more depth, as it is one of his favourites. He had various modifications to the versions I've learned before, beginning with his grips. Anderson grabs the elbow and pushes in. Dónal grabs the sleeve with his same side hand, grabbing just below their knee with the other hand. If you can't get any material, pull your legs inwards to knock them towards you and take their weight off their legs. That should enable you to get a good handful of cloth by their knee.

You don't just grip their sleeve with a typical pocket grip. Instead, Dónal used a principle similar to the grip on the shin when doing the knee cut pass. Grab the cloth then turn your hand inwards, pressing your knuckles into the side of their forearm. Just like when they sit on their heels and make the trousers too tight to hold, by turning your hand in their sleeve becomes tight and restricts their movement. They can longer easily circle their hand around to break your hold.

Remember the advice from Anderson's DVD about bringing your hips off the mat and closer to your partner. That way, they don't have as much space for a guard pass: you've taken it away, so to even begin a guard pass they have to first create that space. On the sleeve grip side, put your foot on the mat by their leg, keeping it tight so there is no room for them to wriggle. Anderson prefers to put his foot on the hip, but as I found during the Nic Gregoriades 'big class' on this topic, I think foot on the floor works better for me than foot on the hip. You could go straight for the windscreen wiper from here, but Dónal uses a combination instead: he starts off with a sit-up sweep.

For this initial technique, the sit-up is a bait. Angle your hips slightly towards your sleeve grip, then shove their arm into their other hip. Do the sit up sweep as normal, coming up diagonally towards the knee grip side and bumping into their hip. Their natural reaction will be to press forwards to prevent your sweep, which sets you up perfectly for the windscreen wiper. On the knee-grip side, kick your leg into their armpit, curling it around their back as you do. It's important that this leg stays tight to them, right from the moment you do a sit-up: imagine that leg is an arm, which you're using to hug them tightly.

You'll drop back slightly too. In order to do the hip bump, you'll have probably come up on your elbow. Don't drop straight back down. Instead, angle off in the direction of your knee grip, moving the shoulder of your posting elbow across. Your leg should end up across their upper back, the foot near their opposite shoulder. Kick the leg forwards to knock them over, thrusting up with your knee grip arm, then roll them into mount.

Keep hold of their leg and sleeve, also extending the sleeve forwards. Holding the leg makes it hard for them to bridge, while holding the sleeve and straightening the arm could lead directly into a submission, such as an americana. To further help with that, slide your knee up on the sleeve grip side, so they can't bring their elbow back to their side.

Keep in mind this is a combination: the option of completing the sit up sweep is also available, switching back and forth depending on where and how they resist. Sit-up diagonally, bumping with your hip, again shoving their arm into their other hip as you do. You also want to lock their arm in place with your sleeve grip side hip, pressing that into them.

If they don't lean forwards to resist (if they did, you'd go to the windscreen wiper), they will most likely post their arm on the knee grip side behind them. Let go of their sleeve and instead reach slightly below the elbow of that posting arm. Push it forwards and hook it, then continue the sit-up sweep/hip bump motion.

Bring your knee up to trap their arm again, for submission opportunities. Also don't let their other arm free: because you shoved it into their hip and clamped it in place at the other end with your hip, once you roll into mount it should be totally stuck underneath you. That means they can't use it to defend, putting you in a great position to attack.

21/06/2007 - BJJ (Beginners)

Class #65


Roger Gracie Academy (BJJ), Leonardo Leite, London, UK - 21/06/2007 – Beginners

My back was feeling it from all those takedowns, but its job wasn’t done yet. After scribbling down notes furiously while the beginners went through their warm-up, I joined in the class to be confronted by a series of throws. I’m not sure if Leo has a judo background, but he seems very keen on takedowns. Along with the basic trip, we also went through both the head throw and the hip throw. That does remind me I need to write those up in my technique summary at some point, particularly as I suck even more at throws than most other aspects of BJJ.

First technique Leo went through was the sit-up sweep. He emphasised pushing forward with the hips, and also coming up on the elbow and then basing off your hand, rather than doing one or the other as I’d previously thought was the case. As with every other time I’ve done that drill, the instructor followed up with the kimura from guard. Chris, as ever a helpful training partner, suggested that when feeding my arms through for the figure four grip, I should focus on the lower part of the arm rather than the upper, which makes it tighter according to Maurição. Seemed to work better. I also need to stop using a monkey grip (holding with the thumb wrapped round), instead clamping my fingers and thumb on top. Finally, I should break their posture more thoroughly when pulling them backwards, aiming to drive their head right into the floor.

I still have the same problem passing Chris’ guard, as while I can open it and start the pass, it always ends up with Chris coming to his knees. Its that old weight problem again, as I’m still not pressing down enough after I’ve gone to grip his head or shoulder. Same thing happened both on my leg pin pass and stack pass (which I still haven’t seen demonstrated in class, so should probably ask one of the instructors about soon). I did manage a sit-up sweep, however, which was good, although I think that was mainly because Chris was taken by surprise rather than my technique being particularly good.

Found myself in half-guard underneath, which gave me an opportunity to try the escape we learned yesterday. Or rather, it would have, if I could have remembered it properly. Vague images of grabbing peoples toes and knees sent me grasping for Chris’ foot, but I wasn’t in position. Another option, possibly more sensible, would have been to concentrate on recovering full-guard. Definitely a skill I need to work on, particularly if I’m in danger of relying on half-guard sweeps instead. That would be deeply stupid if I don’t have the more fundamental recovering guard sorted first.

Finally, side control sparring. I was able to get into mount on Chris, but kept getting swept. This demonstrated to me that I’ve been lazy in mount – previously, I was able to push my partner back down when they tried to sweep, but Chris either had better control of my arm, more strength, or a combination of both. Whichever, I have to be more careful of his hold on my arm, or I’m going to keep getting swept.

From underneath, I was mainly spinning round trying to avoid Chris getting North-South. While I could resist by putting an arm up, it felt like it was pretty much a matter of time before he got the position. I need to find a more solid method of defending – perhaps bridge more at opportune moments, or some other distraction to enable my knee to come through? Right near the end, I flipped right on top of Chris, but again I think that was more down to him trying not to neck crank me that an escape on my part.

Think my back is going to complain tomorrow, but hey – I’ve got until next Wednesday to recover, when its back to the advanced class. Chet kindly gave me a lift to the station in his car, which meant for the first time in ages, I didn’t have to sprint from Edgware Road to Marylebone to get my train back to Amersham. Nice. :D

29/03/2007 - BJJ

Class #46


Roger Gracie Academy (BJJ), Felipe Souza, London, UK - 29/03/2007

As with yesterday’s class, we went through the sit-up sweep and kimura from guard. One useful tip Felipe provided for the sit-up which I haven’t been doing previously was to come up on the elbow. Before, I’d always tried to come up on my hand: going from the elbow feels a little tighter, not to mention easier. However, I haven’t tried it in sparring yet, so will see if this method works better. Having yet to manage a smooth sit-up sweep (I always find myself straining, then either failing or having to really force it), worth a try.

Sparring went quite opposite to my rolls with Dominique yesterday, as I didn’t manage to complete any sweeps or passes. Mainly I was finding myself stuck in someone’s collar choke attempt. I didn’t have any real trouble resisting, but because my opponent was clinging on, I found it hard to do anything but defend. Against Mike, he eventually managed to get behind me for the RNC, while with Del, we ended up in a scramble and both standing up. Del is a little unusual, as he seems incapable of stopping – I get the impression that for him to acknowledge you’d passed or swept, he’d need to be lying there unconscious first!

Still, that doesn’t take away from the fact I’m still having trouble securing my position after I get a shin over their knee, enabling them to escape. That’s what happened with Mike, who found himself behind me after my pass attempt, as well as Del. I tried to hold on to a leg and grab an arm, but it was pretty sloppy. So, next time I need to concentrate on making sure I’ve got that knee isolated, grab the gi to keep them down, and leave my hook on the knee until I’ve passed.

As I’ve been whining for some time now, I really want to have more options when passing. At present, I have either the over the knee pass or the tailbone pass, only the former of which I ever get to work. I was thinking I could try going for the double underhooks again, as I used to have some success with that, but probably of greater importance is dealing with the root problem: breaking people’s guard. I should start digging my elbows in, and also use better posture when standing to facilitate the break – this was working ok against Dominique yesterday, but I had trouble making the space today, or perhaps I simply wasn’t pushing down hard enough on the hip.

In the guard – which I only had one chance at, having spent most of the rolling time on top – I decided to go for an elevator again. However, I think that Dicken (or perhaps Deacon? Uncommon name either way) was too far back, as he was able to pass over my leg. So looks like I need to better secure my opponent’s arm before attempting the elevator, or they’ll simply move into mount.

Even more than on Tuesday, it was the time after class that proved especially useful. I’d asked Oli after sparring how to defend the RNC, which he duly demonstrated. First, turn your head towards the elbow that’s choking you. Most important is that you prevent the other arm going behind your head – ideally, you overhook it and trap the arm against your side. Bridge up and drop your shoulders into your opponents chest, which should hopefully loosen up their hooks enough that you can remove a leg on the same side as the choking elbow, move round then turn over into side control.

I found that I had trouble controlling Chris’ arm while drilling this technique, so that’s something I’ll have to improve. However, I do at least now have something to try if I find myself in a RNC again.

Rest of that after class time I spent working the flower sweep, which we haven’t done in class for a while. I particularly wanted to try a variation I saw recently where you don’t have an arm around the knee. Instead, the process is to grab a tricep, with your other arm round the back of your opponent’s head. Then as normal, you bring the leg opposite to the isolated arm straight up under your opponent’s armpit, the other leg chopping at their knee, then roll them into mount. The problem with this tactic, at least judging by Chris’ reaction, is that your opponent can then continue that roll and end up on top of you. So, if I attempt this sweep I’ll need to be careful that I get control as I roll – IIRC the description I saw, that might be accomplished by keeping a firm grip on the head. Will have to give it a go in sparring.

Not staying at my sisters next week, so that’s going to be the last time for a fair while that I get to drill after class. Shame, but at least I got a number of useful looking techniques out of it.

27/03/2007 - BJJ

Class #44


Roger Gracie Academy (BJJ), Felipe Souza, London, UK - 27/03/2007

Among the many reasons I’ve heard not to train in BJJ, age comes up fairly often. Some people continue to believe that you can’t train in something like BJJ beyond your twenties, presuming that instead they’ll be forced to give their old bones a rest and take up tai chi instead.

Which is why Tony Penny is awesome. This gentleman is well into his eighties, but has recently received his blue belt from Roger Gracie. I just noticed the news on the RGA site – congrats to Tony, not only for his great personal achievement, but also the inspiration that a man of his years provides the rest of us. If you’re thinking “I’m too old for this,” or “man, my back is acting up today,” then take heart from Tony’s example – it’s never too late to start training.

Moving on to tonight’s class, Felipe went through the sit-up sweep and kimura from guard combination, which we last went through with Luciano on the 15th. Maurição was also present, and as usual was an attentive teacher, moving round the class correcting mistakes. On the sit-up sweep, it was important to note that the guard opens up before you rise to isolate the arm, and also that you make some space by scooting slightly backwards with your hips. It’s always lovely and smooth in drilling, but in sparring I tend to get stuck at the point where I’m raised up against them, due to my inability to push through my opponents resistance.

That’s where the kimura from guard comes in handy as a Plan B. Felipe went through the technique rather quicker than Jude, who seems to be a little more meticulous. I guess just a difference in teaching styles: I tend to find that I get something different out of each instructor, the multiplicity of perspectives being useful for producing a broader picture. Maurição added another detail, which was to turn you hips to make more space for the submission. Drilling with Chris, who as always was good at pointing out errors in my technique, reminded me that I need to lock down against the shoulder with my elbow. When he demonstrated what he meant on me, there was a huge difference in how much resistance I could put up if he left that shoulder free.

Sparring wasn’t king of the hill today, so I worked with Chris for the first spar. I’m still finding that the pass over the knee functions best for me, although I continue to leave my opponent too much space. That resulted in Chris twisting into various positions, at one point getting into a turtle: I went for his back, but after a bit of straining we stopped. Earlier in the spar, the positions had been reversed, but unfortunately as I was resisting, Chris hurt his knee while trying to flatten me out. Seemed ok the rest of the spar, so hopefully that won’t flare up.

Very unusually, as I went to spar with Anne, Oli G pulled me over. I assumed at first he meant I should spar somebody else in the class, but he actually meant spar him. Turned out to be useful, because as Oli is obviously far superior in technique, I could go slow, observe, and then ask what he did. That resulted in a simple but very important part of passing I realise I’ve been missing (this goes both for standing and what I call the tailbone pass): controlling the hip with one hand. I realise now that I’ve been tending to try and jump immediately into base, then struggled to open guard and often ended up getting pulled straight back down. Holding down the hip solves both those problems, as it makes my base much more secure, and also helps with opening the guard. Further proof that fundamentals are always important, even when you think you’re already sticking to the basics.

I ended up in position for an omoplata at one point, which was a useful thing to recap, but I think I’ll have to drill that again and review the Abhaya videos. As much as I try, I still can’t quite visualise the technique, so hopefully we’ll cover it in class again at some point.

Rather than having to rush off to Amersham, I’m staying with my sister this week, who lives in London. That meant that I could hang around after class for some drilling. Oli was helpful in going through triangle defence, which I worked with Chris. First, stick your hand on your head to make space. Then go for the knee near your head and grab it with both arms. Sprawl and push through, opening the legs and escaping the triangle. On top of that, Oli also helped me out with the triangle itself, with pointers like locking up the arm by pulling them in close and using my hips.

Chris noted I wasn’t pulling the arm in tight enough with armbars from guard, so I need to remember to drag that arm right up to my chest. I think I was getting a little lazy with the technique because I’m fairly happy with the drill: dangerous to ever get complacent, so that’s something I’ll have to watch.

Class finished with Anne finally getting her stripes – Maurição gave her a whole new belt, with I think three or four stripes on it. About time, as she had that year of experience in Belfast: definitely deserved, as judging by the times I’ve rolled with her, you can tell she’s at a higher level than most of the beginners.

On an entirely different note, Bullshido appears to be acting up and won't let me log in. Strange. Will just have to update my log on there tomorrow.

15/03/2007 - BJJ

Class #39


Roger Gracie Academy (BJJ), Luciano Cristovam, London, UK - 15/03/2007

No Felipe today, as he left after the advanced class, meaning I had my third ever lesson under a purple belt. Luciano ran a more fitness intensive class than Felipe, adding in a bunch of star jumps, sit-ups, press-ups, squats etc to the usual running round warm-up.

Technique-wise, however, things continued where Jude and Felipe had left off, focusing on the guard. After going through the double-leg again, Luciano showed us the sit-up sweep, which is always good to drill. Points I need to keep in mind are getting my arm-pit right up to their shoulder and pushing up with the hips. I almost never go for the sit-up in sparring, as I keep being too worried that I can’t raise up far enough and quick enough before I get passed.

Keeping the kimura (which Luciano demonstrated next) in mind may help me overcome that niggling fear of raising up. I must remember to push the arm out and away from easy handholds – Chris helped to drum that into my skull by grabbing onto my gi if I didn’t get his arm out far enough. I also found that I had trouble bending his arm: I kept putting the figure four on too loosely, and sometimes even forgetting because I was concentrating on getting the arm out to the side. Another tip is how to break Person A’s grip if they are holding you down in guard by both lapels: simply reach underneath with both hands and push upwards against the inside of their wrists.

Finally, Luciano went through the armbar from guard, which I’ll write down here again to remind myself. Person B isolates an arm, grabbing the wrist with their same side arm, then coming underneath Person A’s other arm to grip the elbow. Importantly, Person B then drags that arm right over to the opposite side. Next, Person B puts their foot on the same hip as the isolated arm, pushing off that so they can make room for their other leg. This pushes down on Person A, aiming to break their posture, so it becomes easier to bring the leg which was on a hip round Person A’s head, then secure the armbar, remembering not to cross the legs.

Luciano didn’t mention raising the hips by pushing off Person A’s hip, but that may be because he prefers a slightly different set-up (or perhaps he thought it was obvious).

Sparring was with just the one person, which I prefer. I started off with a guy called Jude (not the instructor, obviously!), who has a bit of a size advantage. This showed when he was in my guard, as I had real trouble pulling him down, meaning I couldn’t get off the scissor and flower sweeps I wanted to try. What I should have done was do that grip break Luciano showed us (coming up underneath and in-between the hands), then gone for a sit-up sweep and/or kimura. Alternately, I could have tried an armbar, but wasn’t brave enough: I absolutely must get more comfortable with opening my guard, as its acting as a hindrance to certain techniques.

I didn’t manage anything from the bottom, merely resisting for a while before getting passed, but I did have some success on top. Jude was really working for the ankle grab sweep when I stood up, but I didn’t have too much trouble maintaining base – it could just be us beginners haven’t sufficiently familiarised ourselves with standing sweeps, but so far I haven’t found it overly difficult to resist. I was eventually able to get round into side control, as Jude gave me sufficient space to move round his legs.

It seems I’m still waiting for mistakes when passing, however, when I should be forcing the issue. I need to work on my guard breaks, although I am at least standing up more readily now, so that’s progress from my previous hesitancy. Something else I need to be careful of is, conversely, letting my opponent too close I’m in their guard. At one point, Jude was able to put on a fairly uncomfortable crush against my face – though I managed to escape after some struggling, I can see that being a potential submission if I’m not careful and don’t remain calm.

I wanted to go against someone my own weight and build next, so made a beeline for Nathan. We had switched from guard-passing to side control sparring, where I had some success. As in the past, I was getting the Americana repeatedly, though I need to remember to shrimp away from the head, then grab the wrist with my hand nearest their head (I think: occasionally mix those up). At one point I thought Nathan was going to get out of it, but I kept cranking and got the sub. Not sure if that would have worked against somebody stronger, and I also think I need to think more carefully about how to get the Americana from a tighter twist, such as when my opponent has managed to turn to their side and brought their arm in close.

I wanted to try something else after getting the Americana, as otherwise I wasn’t learning anything. Unfortunately, my mind went completely blank when trying to remember any other submissions, though that meant I could go for the mount instead. As with the guard, I found I was waiting for mistakes, although I was able to maintain my position when Nathan went for sweeps.

Underneath side control, I attempted the push up and shrimp out escape. However, Nathan was good at stopping that by moving round quickly and going for scarf hold. He also attempted some kind of twisting collar choke that involved stepping round into North/South – this is something Jeff also went for some time ago. I was able to stop him (only just, though) by keeping a firm grip on his gi and moving round in the same direction, so the choke could never quite go on. Probably due to fatigue, Nathan left space each time, meaning that I was able to come to my knees the first time and push down into side control. On the second occasion I was much more sloppy: when I found some space, I basically rushed forward and ended up in Nathan’s guard. Not exactly sure how that happened, but it definitely wouldn’t work against anybody either stronger than me or good at keeping their weight down in side control. I also need to get better at stopping the guy on top moving round – I don’t think I was getting my knee in the way as much as I should, although grabbing onto a hip seemed to have some effect.

Plan to train again on Saturday, which means I’ll get in four lessons this week. More than makes up for the crappy trains last Wednesday, so I’m glad my gf’s travel arrangements mean I have the opportunity!

28/02/2007 - BJJ

Class #33

Roger Gracie Academy (BJJ), Jude Samuel, London, UK - 28/02/2007

I was going to go to a Ted Hughes seminar today, but as I had to miss ZSK yet again this week, decided against it so I could get some extra training in. Now that my shoulder seems healed up, I’ve been able to do padwork with my gf again, which I’m very pleased about. Also finally bought myself some flip-flops for wearing at BJJ – could have gone with my gf’s ones, but the pink floral design is too camp even for me! So, good ol Primark had some for a quid.

Today Jude moved back to guard work, having spent most of the recent lessons focusing on mount. For the first time at RGA, I got to see the scissor sweep demonstrated as well as the sit-up sweep, both of which I’ve been checking out on the internet for some time now. Unfortunately, I was in a three, which meant I didn’t get to drill as much as I’d like. On the other hand, Jude came over and talked us through the techniques, which was brilliant – always very handy to have the instructor watch while you drill.

Jude began with another sweep I’m keen to drill, the sit-up sweep. Person B bumps Person A forward to get them to put their hands on the floor, then rises up and brings an arm behind the opposite arm of Person A, coming high on the shoulder. Person B tucks that arm close in to their stomach, pushing on Person A’s elbow. Person B then twists up and to the side, using their other arm for balance (Jude emphasised that to get the necessary space, you had to come up on your hand as opposed to your elbow). Finally, Person B brings the opposite leg to the arm they’re gripping all the way across, ending up in mount. Here’s the vid of Rowan Cunningham demonstrating, which I’ve been trying to work in class for the past few months.

This was followed by the kimura from guard, which was especially useful as it functions as a Plan B if the sit-up sweep fails. Getting to the same sit-up sweep position as before, Person B finds that Person A has too good a base. So instead of struggling to knock Person A over, Person B grabs the wrist of the arm they’re isolating, gripping their own wrist with their other arm (which is already in position due to the attempted sweep). Person B drops back (having raised up for the sweep) then moves the arm away from their body (so Person A can’t cling on to a gi or a leg), clamping their leg across Person A’s back. Making sure they first bring the arm over their knee, Person B then pushes on Person A’s wrist, using Person A’s elbow as a pivot, resulting in the submission.

Jude then demonstrated the scissor sweep. Having looked at this sweep in detail on the net, I’ve seen a couple of different approaches, but one thing has been consistent – in their tutorials, Aesopian, Rowan Cunningham and Don Daly all wait for Person A to go up on one knee. It would appear that this isn’t absolutely necessary, as Jude went straight for the sweep. Person B grabs the opposite collar and sleeve of Person A, then rises up on their elbow to shrimp out to the other side. This provides the space to pull Person A towards them and get a shin into Person A’s stomach, hooking the foot round; Person B’s other leg drops down. Finally, Person B simultaneously pushes on the collar and pulls on the sleeve, while also pushing against Person A’s stomach and chopping with their other leg. This ‘scissors’ Person A’s base and spins them to the ground, where Person B moves into mount.

Again, Jude showed us what to do if that failed, which interestingly turned out to be what Aesopian refers to as the ‘stupid simple sweep’ (see his tutorial in the second part of this). Not sure what the most common name is, but I've seen it called a push sweep fairly often, so I'll use that. If Person A has too good a base, then Person B moves the chopping leg back, instead pushing on Person A’s knee, otherwise following through with the technique as before. Hopefully at some point we’ll also be shown the armbar Rowan Cunningham suggests as a Plan B in this video.

Although there weren’t many people in class, we once again did ‘king of the hill’ sparring, which was a shame. I’d have preferred to spar in a pair rather than from a line-up, so I could continuously work on technique, but I suppose that king of the hill does mean I’m forced to spar with people I wouldn’t normally pair up with. I didn’t have much success from the bottom, where I think I’m still leaving too much space. Hamid also mentioned that he thought I was attacking too soon – I can see what he’s saying, as I need to get better position first (e.g., control the arm, pull them closer to me etc). I went for a somewhat strange sweep I saw recently on Dominique when she stood up, but merely ending up getting passed – something that might be fun to try when we go back to the normal sparring set-up.

Passing was more successful. Mainly, I seem to be getting passes either when I’m escaping an armbar or when I manage to work my arms back sufficiently to go for double underhooks. This is exactly what I did with Paul (IIRC his name correctly), though I ended up using the shin to trap his leg instead. At first I stopped because I’d inadvertently stuck my elbow into his groin (not much use to me if I’m only passing due to pain rather than technique), but got the same pass when we restarted from our previous position. I could still do with switching my base quicker and keeping in tighter.

Against a big guy called Marvin (although not sure I caught that name right), I did the same pass, but I think he was fairly new. Jude was telling me to clamp down the leg, as Marvin kept going to open guard (either intentionally or through inexperience) – making sure my partner isn’t able to close their guard after opening it is something I need to work on. Through strength Marvin was able to effectively throw me over as I was passing, but I managed to scramble and ended up facing him with both of us on our knees. So, passed, but a little sloppy.

As my gf is in Bath this weekend, I’ll be able to train three times this week. That means I can make up for that class I had to miss due to the snow, which is cool.