03/12/2009 - BJJ (Beginner)

Class #267



RGA High Wycombe, (BJJ), Kev Capel, High Wycombe, UK - 03/12/2009

Tonight Kev started things off with a basic standing pass. First, get a grip on their sleeve, while securing the usual double-collar grip with the other hand. Stand up by first stepping your same side foot up to their hip on the sleeve grip side (though Kev said it didn't matter too much where exactly you put that foot), bringing the other leg back. It's important they can't hook that foot, so you want to keep it out of harm's way.

Posture up, still holding their sleeve. Push their knee off your hip on the other side and trap their lower leg with your shin. Switch the grip on their sleeve to behind their leg: this is to stop them bridging and rolling you during the pass attempt. Finally, swing your back leg all the way over, then switch your hips again to move into side control.

For the person on the bottom, Kev showed a triangle from the overhook. I frequently try to land that overhook grip from guard, so it was helpful to have another lesson on the topic. First, you need to remove their grip from your collars, which will also give you the opportunity to control the arm for an overhook.

Your opposite hand grabs their sleeve, while your other hand slips underneath their arm, holding your other wrist, resulting in a figure four grip. Yank upwards, circling your same side elbow out as you simultaneously use your earlier sleeve grip to pull their arm down by your head.

Once you've circled your elbow free, you can now lock in your overhook, reaching through for their collar. If you can't get their collar, grab their own: the important thing is to bring your overhooking elbow tight to your side, to stop them slipping their arm free.

From here, there are lots of possible attacks: you could grip with your free hand by their shoulder to go for a choke, swivel to an armbar, or possibly an omoplata. For the triangle Kev demonstrated, begin by sliding your free hand down to their same side wrist. Shrimp out slightly in the other direction, so you can insert your shin into their bicep (so, reminiscent of the triangle set-up on Gracie Combatives).

Next, you want to wriggle that leg through until the foot is on the bicep. Push through, and immediately lock your ankles on their back, ready to progress with the triangle. Raise your hips to bring their arm across, then grab your shin. Push off their hip with your other foot, then lock in the triangle. From here, finish the submission. You could also underhook their free arm to create a better angle, which will enhance your choke.

Specific sparring brought up lots of things to work on, as Callum completely destroyed my posture from his guard. After asking him and thinking about it, my main mistakes were not posturing up enough, leaving my collar gripping arm too far forward, but most importantly, failing to get good control of his hips.

I was looking for the guard pass from Tuesday, but each time I established a grip on both his collars, Callum immediately climbed up my shoulder for the attack. From that point on I was defending, every time. My other hand was normally far back enough that I could avoid the triangle and armbar, though he did surprise me with a kimura at one point, which I'd forgotten about in my focus on the armbar defence.

I think that possibly because I kept on establishing that collar grip first, I was leaving his hips free to shrimp and attack the exposed arm. It might be better if instead I went to control the hips first, then grabbed that collar grip. Leaving those hips mobile leaves me wide open for submissions, as there is nothing to control the person on the bottom.

A couple of times I was able to back out slightly and shift round to the side, initiating a pass. However, Callum was always able to get a knee in the way, then generally either sweep me or take the back. What I should have done was grip the back of his trousers and collapses his knees together, with my bodyweight. I could then have worked the pass from there.

Underneath, I was able to break down his posture, such as by bringing my knees to my chest as he tried to stand. However, I wasn't able to capitalise on that broken posture. I'd get head control, usually bringing my arm over the head and grasping gi material by the other armpit, but Callum eventually got free and postured up.

12/01/2009 - BJJ (Intermediate)

Class #209



Roger Gracie Academy (BJJ), Maurição Gomes, London, UK - 12/01/2009 - Intermediate

Tonight was concentrated on guard passing, which continues to be my worst area. Maurição stuck with the basics, beginning with a straightforward standing guard pass. Post your hands on their chest, spring up to your feet, also grabbing one of their sleeves. Push their knee on the other side off your hip, bouncing to help dislodge their hold.

Once that limb is loose, immediately clamp their knee to the floor, bringing your own knee over the top to pin their leg. Swing your other leg behind you, then put your nearest hand by their hip, in order to block them. Shift your first leg under the other, staying sprawled out: don’t bring your knees up to their side yet, as that gives them a window of opportunity to get their knee through and escape.

If they put up resistance when you try the leg pin pass - e.g., block your knee, shrimp onto their side etc – then you can switch to a different guard pass. Get your same side arm under their leg, grabbing their opposite collar (palm down, so your fingers are on top). From this position, you can either move around past that trapped leg, shifting your hips and keeping the pressure on to slip through, or try moving round the other side.

Specific sparring with Justin was rather one-sided, as he had no problems at all either passing my guard or sweeping me. I attempted the hook sweep as usual, though need to be careful I’m not too exuberant when disengaging closed guard: I ended up flinging myself right off and Justin simply used gravity to go straight to side control.

I tried my favoured (but almost always ineffectual) kneeling guard break, but wasn’t able to open up Justin’s guard. Nick G stepped in at this point, noting that its difficult to keep control of their hips with that technique, especially if they have a size advantage. He suggested I should instead be trying to stand more often, and also briefly demonstrated another kneeling option. Your posture stays low, grabbing the gi material on their sides, after which you gradually work your knee through: Nick noted that you have to be very wary of chokes when doing that.

Next up was side control, this time with Liam. Again, on top I was being flung off or reversed with ease: I kept overbalancing, and I’m still not mobile enough in transitioning. I had a go at the knee-on-chest Maurição showed us last week, but not getting that knee in right yet. I’ll keep practicing, as I’m keen to establish an option that doesn’t require you to get their elbow clear first, along with the typical pass which does.

Underneath I was more comfortable, shifting around and following Liam to prevent the pass, but nothing more than that. I was simply holding him off rather than getting near to escaping. That continued into free sparring, which unfortunately today was a continuous line-up rather than picking our own partners. I spent almost the whole of that thirty minutes in half-guard, which was ok if my partner wasn’t too big, but I got smashed when trying that against the beefy Polish guys.

In the midst of that smashing, the second of the Poles was looking for a guillotining, but ended up face cranking me instead. I didn’t want to tap to that, as its not going to help him against anyone his size or bigger so bad habit to get into, but on the other hand, I probably should have just saved myself some pain and restarted. Eventually slipped out, but my face and neck were a little sore at the end of class.

Most useful tip was when I went with Nick. He disdainfully looked at my “flop on the floor” approach to sparring from the knees, advising me that I have to ensure I establish some grips, even if I’m planning to pull guard. I also need to prevent my partner from getting grips: I’m way too complacent when going from knees, as I pretty much assume I’m going to be defending for the majority of the spar, so don’t pay much attention to their opening grips. Something to rectify.

Finally, Nick also had some advice for the mounted triangle. He let me get to mount in order to see what I’d do, but noted that once I’d got a leg under their head, I was raising up my other leg in order to lock on the triangle. That’s a mistake, as it gives your partner the chance to escape: you should keep your hips down and weight low all the way through the technique. So instead of lifting your leg to try and get it around your foot, pull your ankle back enough that you can slot it into place behind your other knee.

Should be training again on Wednesday, but I have some preparation to do for a job interview next week, so may stay at home in order to work some more on that. Depends how far I get tomorrow night.

04/06/2008 - BJJ (Advanced)

Class #151



Roger Gracie Academy (BJJ), Jude Samuel, London, UK - 04/06/2008 - Advanced

Finally had a chance to watch HookNShoot: Revolution, a DVD I've been waiting to watch for several years now (similarly waited for ages to see The Smashing Machine). The DVD covers a momentous event in MMA history, in 2002: the first ever all female MMA card. There were names in there I'd heard before (mainly because I went through a stint on Wikipedia where I was adding in details of female MMA fighters), like Debi Purcell of FighterGirls.com fame or the powerful ex-bodybuilder Mayra Conde. I'll be writing up a proper review later, but for now, I'll just say that its well worth picking up. Decent event, and great extras too.

My knees and shins are still a bit sore, but I wanted to try out some of the techniques and tactics I've been watching on Roy Dean's Seminars Year One DVD, specifically the open guard portion with Roy Harris. I'm starting with the first half of what he calls the basics of open guard, which I'll write out to help get it clear in my head

In the initial part of his seminar, Harris goes through three sets of defensive pushes: the hands (heel of the hand between thumb and fingers to the neck and jaw line; web of the hand between thumb and fingers against their biceps, or if they power their arm through, switch to triceps and push round; if they power through your hand to jawline, shift to an elbow into their armpit); the feet (push on the crook of their arms, swimming over or under depending on what they do with their arms; push their hips; push their knees, on the outside or the inside, especially in combination with grips); the knees (knee and shin into the shoulder if their head is down, where your foot can be down or up; into the top of the chest, somewhere between nipple line and clavicle; into the hip, bringing knee up to attack the arm if they try to sprawl).

After that, Harris moves on to grips, which he associates with the offensive portion of open guard. However, I want to get the defensive side of things down first, so I'll try concentrating on that before moving on. I had wanted to work this last week too, but the opportunity doesn't always present itself. E.g., if in sparring I'm mainly on top, or trying to escape side control and mount, or king of the hill guard passage, which means I normally only get to try (and fail) to pass, rather than go from my back.

Christina was in early as usual, where there was a group of us having our usual chat. I mentioned to her that I wish we could work the basics more, to which she made the very suggestion that we've got time and space before class, so lets go for it.

That gave me the opportunity to work on my woeful guard passing, starting with the basic standing pass. Points to emphasise here are stiff arming their hip to stall motion on their part, driving forward with your own hips as much as possible after standing, and keeping your head raised and looking up for posture.

Christina also wanted to go through a bunch of open guard passes. The first one involved gripping the fabric by their knees, on the inside facing part of the legs. Step to the side and then push down one of their knees. Step through with the near leg on the side you want to pass, immediately moving to knee on belly. The proper way to do that is to lay the shin across their stomach, foot off the ground, then sit on your own foot. That puts plenty of pressure onto your opponent.

Another pass, if I remembered rightly, started with you reaching through their leg, grabbing the other one, then sprawling on top of their knee (meaning both their legs were pressed together and to one side). Create pressure with your shoulder, also driving your head into their floating rib, pressing your hips down as much as possible. Finally, walk round slowly into side control.

Christina also tried to show me a half guard sweep, which from what I can recall involved grabbing their free leg, bumping them forward on their trapped side with your same side knee, then using that momentum and your grip on their knee to move through to the top position.

Technique tonight was a bit complex, so I'm not entirely sure I've remembered it accurately. The first part is the same for both open guard sweeps I'll be putting down, and is a response to the leg pin pass. Their leg is press into your thigh: you raise up and grab around the back of their knee with both hands. Bring your outside foot underneath their instep, and use that to lift up their leg. At the same time, pull their knee towards you, aiming to force them to stand up.

The next part I'm less certain, but I think you then grab their trouser leg. Wrap that arm around, feed their opposite sleeve through to the hand now by their leg. Push their knee away with your foot, then raise up and pull their other leg to knock them to the side, coming up to pass.

From the same position, you can also go for an x-guard sweep. The set-up is as before, except that once you've got them to stand up, they move their leg closer to your head. Swivel underneath and bring their leg to your shoulder, then switch your legs to x-guard. I had a bit of trouble remembering where my feet were supposed to go for this, but I think your far foot hooks under their far leg, while the knee of your other leg goes behind their near leg. That leaves the foot of that leg hooking around up near the thigh of the far leg, if I'm remembering correctly.

Once you have that x-guard position, you can then lift them up. At the same time, pull their near sleeve with your far arm between their legs (I think: could well be getting mixed up here), then drop them to the side. I felt a bit like I was on a fairground ride at this point, as your body follows them up, but the eventual finishing place was a little erratic for me: side control, half guard, between their legs facing the wrong way etc. Clearly this is something that is going to take a great deal more getting used to on my part!

Guard passage put me up against a brown belt and a purple respectively, so went as you'd expect. For free sparring, there were lots of women in the class tonight, so that meant I was spoiled for choice in terms of good rolling partners.

Things kicked off with Indra, where I had a go at using the open guard principles from Roy Harris. I still need to get used to them, but I think it helped, at least in terms of getting me to raise up and make better use of my arms to try and recover guard or go for the back. I spent most of the spar trying to attack from top half-guard and side control, although found it difficult because Indra was turned up right on her side. I made an attempt to step over her head and go for a kimura, but couldn't quite get it.

Next up was Pippa, where I again had the opportunity to work half guard. I was initially crushed by her shoulder, but eventually worked through to the 'paw' position. I could then push her arm and grab it with my other hand (which was in an underhook position). That set up the arm sweep Indrek Reiland shows in his instructional video, which seemed to work as I'd hoped (i.e., roll them over so you end up on top in half-guard).

My third spar was with Joanna, where I again had the chance to work open guard. I was trying to time my defences so I could work those Roy Harris principles. I think I just about got into position to push with the hand, but later I ended up basically shoving Joanna in the hip, which was rather sloppy on my part. Still sort of worked, but I had meant to go for her arm or armpit as per the DVD. I also found that I've perhaps been obsessing too much about getting the grips for spider guard: simply pushing with the arms and legs, as in the DVD, proved a useful exercise.

Finally, I went with Yasmine, where I think I once again found myself in that top half-guard position. I think it was from there I must have done something very wrong, as I found myself underneath a very high mount, but was able to pop out the back door and got for top half-guard a second time. I'm having difficulty passing from there, though I have been trying to the step-over kimura too. I eventually got past to go for scarf hold, but time ran out.

Unfortunately Christina aggravated a hamstring injury she sustained earlier this week, so I hope she recovers ok. Would be cool to do some more basics drilling with her again some time, but most important is that the hamstring sorts itself out: looked like a nasty strain.

10/10/2007 - BJJ (Beginners)

Class #95



Roger Gracie Academy (BJJ), Jude Samuel, London, UK - 10/10/2007 – Beginners

My normal train was cancelled, but I was able to take a Euston train instead, so that worked out ok because the Virgin train is faster anyway. I wasn’t going to be doing the advanced today, as I wanted to make the social – due to that work presentation, I could only stay briefly at the start, but still thought it worthwhile. I’ve been hoping for an RGA social ever since I began training here, so certainly wasn’t going to miss this opportunity even if I couldn’t make the whole night.

Its been almost a year now since I started, and while I don’t think there’s a specific year syllabus, tonight’s class wasn’t too dissimilar from the first sessions I attended. We began with the basic standing pass, where you stand up and push the leg away, then drive your knee through, swing the other leg over and switch into side control.

That was followed by a kneeling pass using my favoured tailbone break. Jam your knee into their tailbone, bringing the other knee out at a right angle, cutting your hip into their crossed ankles to break the guard. You then have two main options (that I've been shown, at least), the first of which is to do the same leg pin pass as when standing. Alternately, you can go underneath the leg (making sure your knee is up and you put your arm low: putting your arm up high near their foot is likely to put you in a triangle). Once you have the leg, reach round for their lapel and press your forearm into their throat, pushing a knee toward their head, while bringing your other foot tight into their bottom to both raise and trap their hips (meaning they can’t shrimp properly). Having got them in that vulnerable position, you can move round into side control, driving your hips forward with your back straight (don’t just lift your head: have to push with hips) to make the space.

Jude also showed us the proper way to pull guard. With the usual grip on an arm and lapel, put your foot into their hip. Drop down to the floor and swivel in the direction of your foot, pulling them down as you do so. Bring that foot back and then back out, securing closed guard. The swivel seemed to help, though the natural tendency is to simply fall back: presumably that swivel gives you more control or something along those lines. In drilling it did feel as if that foot gave me a bit more control, but may have been imagining it.

Finally, Jude ran a useful drill where one person pulls guard, whereupon their partner immediately does a standing pass. This was intended to get us used to passing as someone was trying to pull guard: much easier to pass when they only have it partially secured.

Sparring was guard passage once again, where I started with Dominique. I wanted to try and work the flower sweep from an armbar set-up, but didn’t have too much success. Instead, I ended up working my open guard, trying to defend against the passing. Went ok, as I was able to test my hip mobility and getting my arms in position to hold off the pass, though I generally was passed eventually. Did end up in a strange stalemate with Dominique at one point, where she had a collar choke locked in, but I was past her legs. Eventually we just let go: not quite sure what I’d do if that happened in competition. Jude’s advice was that I should keep driving with my hips to loosen the collar grip and pass.

On top, I didn’t have too much luck, still relying too much on the tailbone break (with which I’m ever less successful). Having said that, I am making sure I at least attempt the standing break, but that’s currently even more sloppy (though at least I’m not getting swept repeatedly or just knocked back down when standing up, which has happened plenty of times before). With Chet, I was able to fling him right over and pass, but that’s only because he was knackered and is still comparatively new.

I also had a roll with Grant, which underneath was fairly similar to the open guard against Dominique. On top, I was completely unsuccessful, getting swept in a variety of ways. I did manage to escape some kind of armlock thingy he was going for (or perhaps triangle?) by curling my arm round and moving with it, though that merely put me back in guard rather than resulting in a pass. Grant also mentioned that I’d got that sweep he showed me last week wrong: hopefully he’ll stick up a comment so I can correct it in my earlier entry.

With Chet in my guard, I had a go at the kimura: he slapped my back, which I thought meant it had somehow gone on early, so released immediately. Turned out he was just trying to get a grip on my back to help his escape – nevertheless, definitely far better (at least in class) to let go of a sub attempt too early rather than too late. Chet asked how he should be escaping the kimura, to which Jude responded that you need to sit back up, twisting away in order to free the arm.

Not many people appeared keen to head to the club straight after. I asked around the changing room, but none of the beginners who trained that session were going direct. So ended up just being me, having very helpfully got some directions off Pippa (who had a quick look on Google Local). When I arrived, Greg and Radek were already there, so got to have a good chat with them (Greg in particular has had a pretty interesting career background in sound engineering). Everyone else started trickling in rather later, meaning I also had a chance to talk with Joelma, Ben and then right near the end, Joanna and Pippa. To my surprise Roger got there comparatively early (some time around 22:00, I think), with Jude arriving just as I was leaving (by which time most people had got there). Real shame I couldn’t stay longer, but giving a presentation tired and hungover in front of a large international group of colleagues wouldn’t have been much fun. ;)

04/04/2007 - BJJ

Class #47


Roger Gracie Academy (BJJ), Maurição Gomes, London, UK - 04/04/2007

I had planned to make yesterday, but nobody was around to give me a lift, so as I’d got home earlier to bring a bike back rather than take the train straight down to London, couldn’t make training. However, that was more than made up for with Wednesday’s lesson. I’m a year closer to thirty today, and I got the rather excellent birthday present of what was almost a private lesson from Maurição. For some reason, only three of us turned up today (me, Owen and the Ben that isn’t from Bullshido) – its half term and there is apparently some football match on, but still that surprised me.

The warm-up was a little tougher as usual with Maurição, going through the dive-bomber press-ups and the like, moving on to trips and throws. First groundwork technique of the day was a pass into mount – I’m not sure what the right name or categorisation would be, as its not quite like anything I’ve done so far. There is a pass over the knee involved and switching base, but the process was fairly unfamiliar apart from that. Person A begins by placing their hands on Person B’s chest and jumping up. In order to break Person B’s guard, Person A grips one collar with the knuckles pointing towards Person B’s head, then drives those knuckles into Person B’s neck. At the same time, Person A pulls down on the other collar, aiming to choke Person B. The idea is not necessarily to submit your opponent, but to get them to open their guard, after which they will probably put their feet into your hips in order to push you away from their neck. Before they can get their feet in, Person A pushes against the inside of a leg with an elbow, driving it downwards, then securing it by putting their knee on top and pushing that knee right to the floor. Person A shifts their grip to behind Person B’s head, then brings their other leg around behind the first. The leg which was on top of Person B’s thigh now moves tight and underneath (to stop them attempting to get half guard), after which Person A grabs Person B’s far knee, then swings over into mount.

Next up Maurição demonstrated the proper technique for an armbar from mount. Having got one arm around the elbow you’re going to go for and the other arm inside, you walk your knee right up to Person B’s head. Your other knee comes up, and you place your foot tight into Person B’s side (again to prevent them trying to go for half-guard). Putting far hand on the floor, you maintain control with your other arm, then bring the knee you’ve moved up high over Person B’s head (using the hand you have on the floor for balance), then fall back for the armbar. Important point Maurição noted here was that you drive your heels in, with your feet curled back: this tenses up your calves, which Maurição said helped your grip.

Unusually, we then did specific sparring from open guard. Equally unusually, there were only three white belts in the class, meaning I sparred a blue belt, Tran. He had the rather major disadvantage of not being allowed to use his arms (which were tucked into his belt), but still managed to keep me at bay just using his legs. This was excellent training, for me at least, as I’d had such trouble when faced with Owen’s open guard a while back. Maurição was watching intently, meaning that he could offer plenty of tips. First, he advised that you should grip your opponent by the knees (not the foot, as I’d thought, because this gives your partner more options), with your arms inside and elbows tight to your hips. Secondly, Maurição recommended I to try passing around the legs, rather than going through them, which is what I’d been unsuccessfully attempting to do. I stood there for a while looking to pick my moment, then with Maurição urging me along, I threw the legs to one side and went round to side control. Of course, Tran couldn’t use his arms and was going easy on me, but still felt like I’d accomplished something.

Maurição assumed the long pause was due to a lack of confidence on my part, and said I should believe more in the technique and myself. There’s probably some truth to that, but I responded by saying that what concerned me was expending a lot of energy – I didn’t want to go for a move that looked to rely to a certain extent on strength, in case I messed up and therefore ended up wasting the little muscle I have. However, Maurição made the very sensible point that this is specific sparring: your opponent knows what you’re going to do, so they’re waiting for it. Hence you’re going to have to expend some energy. I most likely need to be more aggressive anyway, though I’m keen to develop technique. At the same time, there is no such thing as a magic technique that’s guaranteed to work every time effortlessly, so I’m going to have to get used to applying a certain amount of force. I guess the skill is in knowing when to use it.

Finally, Maurição got us to spar from side control. In the process, he gave out further handy pointers. Firstly, bunching up your knees in side control gives the other person space – much better is to sprawl out and go on your toes, as this means you can stay closer. Secondly, Maurição recommended I have both arms on the same side, one under the head and the other down by Person B’s side, ready to prevent them trying to get their leg round into side control. I was able to swing up into mount on Tran, but then the handicap on his arms was even more of a hindrance to him this time. Otherwise, I’m sure he would have been able to reverse me easily. As it was, I tried to stay in tight and went for chokes, but couldn’t get a sufficiently solid grip on his neck.

I can but hope people will fail to show up more often – impromptu semi-private lessons are awesome! Just opened some of my presents (waiting for Saturday when my mother gets back to go through most of them), and very happy to finally get my hands on a copy of Pumping Iron: started looking for the book after I first saw the documentary a few years back, so will enjoy salivating over this.

13/03/2007 - BJJ

Class #37


Roger Gracie Academy (BJJ), Felipe Souza, London, UK - 13/03/2007

Long day today, as my gf and I got up at 06:30 in Spain, caught our transfer at 07:15, then a flight to Stansted at 10:15, Stansted Express at 12:00 and finally I arrived back in the office around 13:30. I wasn’t technically in work, I’d just locked up my laptop etc there, so I did a bit of writing in one of the hot desk rooms – need to get stuck into it as the deadline is the 24th April.

This marks the first time I’ve ever made a Tuesday class, though should hopefully be making a few more now, as the second term of this academic year is about to finish. Felipe showed us a guard pass, which was pretty much the same as the basic standing pass, except that you didn’t stand up. Instead, the guard is broken from a kneeling position with one leg driven into the opponent’s tailbone, after which it was the same process of underhooking a leg and bringing it to the shoulder, sprawling, then stacking your opponent until you can push past the leg into side control.

My partner, Owen, was of the opinion that you don’t want to bring your knee up, as Felipe demonstrated. His point was that if you do that, you’re pushing your opponent’s knee right into your own leg, something which Rowan Cunningham also points out in his video of the same technique. However, Cunningham shows how you simply put your leg further back so that you can push your partner’s knee straight to the floor: that would seem to follow what Felipe demonstrated. Will be a useful variation to try in sparring next time.

Next up, usefully, was the relevant guard pass defence, which would presumably have some functionality against any pass coming under the leg. When Person A has underhooked the leg and is about to push forward, Person B pushes on Person A’s arm and also their ribs, both on the one side. Person B then uses this to shrimp out, getting one leg by the opposite side of Person A’s head, while the other drives into Person A’s stomach, as if you were setting up for a scissor sweep. Pushing down with the leg by Person A’s head and keeping tight with the one by their stomach, along with the grip on the arm and ribs, means that Person B can then adjust as necessary when Person A tries to move round into side control. Picking the right moment, Person B then pushes off from the arm and brings out both legs, returning to full guard. Felipe emphasised that it was very important to get both legs out at the same time, otherwise Person A would be able to complete their pass.

Sparring was ‘winner stays on’, but split into two groups – above and below 85kg. I wanted to work on maintaining good posture and keeping my head up, which I think I just about managed, although occasionally I did find myself pulled down in tight. At the same time, I wanted to try and stay calm and not waste too much energy, as I gassed far too quickly last time. This also seemed to work, as I wasn’t quite so knackered at the end of class – of course, that could have been laziness on my part.

I found that I was in position for my favoured pass over the knee, but was still having trouble finishing it. Firstly I wasn’t always able to exert enough force to push the knee right down, meaning that my partner recovered guard as I was pushing or just after I’d struggled to pin their leg. Secondly, I found that even when I did get the leg down, I got stuck in half-guard. Oli G gave me a useful tip as I was attempting to pass the half-guard, which was to use a grip in which I’m underhooking one arm and then also underhooking the head. This is more secure than the grip I had across the throat, which left me vulnerable to sweeps.

In general, I need to improve my positioning so that I’m using technique and body-weight rather than attempting to bring my very meagre strength to bear. Breaking the guard remains something I’m having considerable trouble with, which has resulted in an occasional reliance on the other person going for an armbar or something along those lines, thereby giving me space to attempt a pass. That can succeed, but also risks getting submitted, not to mention its relying on their mistake rather than being proactive and forcing the issue.

When I did pass, it was due to the trapping the leg, and I also remembered to isolate that leg by gripping with my hand, which better facilitated the process (as per the second of two Rowan Cunningham videos showing the standing pass over the leg, here). Last time I tried that, I ended up getting triangled, so this time I was more careful.



Sweeping proved difficult – I only got it once, from half-guard, against somebody who I think was still in their first few lessons. Nice to get, following the usual trap an arm and leg and then roll principle, but I doubt it would have much effect against somebody with more experience. I also tried for the elevator sweep, but was possibly too wary of the pass: the opportunity was there, as one leg was stretched out so could have been hooked. If I get the chance again, I should go for it and see what happens. Better still, we’ll drill it in class, although I should really get a handle on the sweeps we’ve already covered before trying something new.

If all goes as planned, should be an intensive week of training, as I can potentially make tomorrow, Thursday and Saturday. Great opportunity to get some in depth work on guard passing again, presuming later classes resemble today’s syllabus.

Final note to anyone who has been walking back from the Academy to Westbourne Park: take the 23 bus from the stop to the left on the other side of the road. Much quicker, even if you have to wait a while. I finally tried out the route, which appears to stop at the zebra crossing near the station. At the moment, I have a travelcard anyone, so no extra cost, but will have to weigh up speed versus cost once my Young Person’s Railcard runs out (though I think its only like 70p to take the bus with an Oyster card).

20/01/2007 - BJJ

Class #23



Roger Gracie Academy (BJJ), Jude Samuel, London, UK – 20/01/2007

Having done the warm-up and the ten hip throws, Jude went through the basic standing pass and counters again. Unlike last lesson, it was just the one counter this time rather than three, but still good to work them. As I was drilling with Param (not sure on the spelling: Iranian name), he gave me a very useful tip, which was to keep my legs closer together. This would serve me well later in sparring, which Jude interspersed throughout class (hasn’t done that for a while, unless its just Saturdays he likes to really knacker people out).

As I’ve been telling myself repeatedly over the course of the past couple of weeks, I had to stand up to pass. So, forced myself to do so today, and it really paid off. For the first time, I was repeatedly passing during sparring, not just the odd lucky break. The way I kept getting it on Param (though he did have fingers strapped up, which might have made it easier), who I sparred twice (I think I passed him about three or four times in total, but might be exaggerating) was to stand-up, then when he pulled me down (which happens often), I drove my forearm firmly into his neck. This seemed to help loosen up his closed guard, meaning I was able to push off one of his knees, bring my leg through than gradually work the other leg free for mount. The second time (or it might have been third), I waited until he opened up his guard going for some move or other, then raised back and grabbed hold of his trousers, keeping my elbows in as I’d been instructed before. I wasn’t able to chuck them to the side, but I did create enough room to get my knee through (which has proved a very useful lesson from Marcio at the Brighton Throwdown), then as before working the other pass. On one of the passes, he went for a triangle, but left enough space that I could get my arm into the gap, open up his guard and pass round to side control.

I’m not sure if I managed to sweep him, but I did at least manage to try a series of sweeps rather than just doing one, failing and then getting into a stalemate. At one point, seeing his was about to push my leg free, I intentionally opened my guard and got one leg underneath. I wasn’t sure what to do next from there (haven’t checked out elevator sweep things yet), so basically just tried to use it to lever him up and past me. This didn’t go quite as planned, but did leave me in position to roll him over. I can’t quite remember what I did, which is annoying, so I’ll have to concentrate more carefully next time.

So I was now feeling pretty good about myself, until I went for my third and final spar with Hamid, the new guy I mentioned earlier. As before, I stood up, grabbed the gi and drove my forearm into his neck…and was then stopped by a purple belt (Steve, I think), who told me never to drop my head forward like that when standing or to grab the gi. So although it had worked for me against Param, it would appear it’s a bad habit to get into: Steve then demonstrated by getting me to try and stand up in his guard. What I should have been doing was standing with a straight back, gripping either the belt or the trousers, looking up.

I put this into practice against Hamid, and managed to pass his guard a few times by doing the orthodox standing pass over his leg. In short, stand up, push his leg off, trap a shin with the knee, switch base and go round for side control (Rowan Cunningham demonstrates here).



However, as Hamid had been watching, he was waiting for it, so put up plenty of resistance. He also managed to pass me when we switched round, though in slightly bizarre ways. At one point, I somehow ended up behind him with a leg through, but in such as way as it was clear I couldn’t do anything else and didn’t have control of Hamid, so reckoned that counted as him passing (after checking with Oli G). Not long before the end of class, Hamid was getting close to passing my guard, but I managed to get him into half-guard. Just as I did so, my leg calf cramped up – I thought I might have to stop due to the pain, but was able to shift my grip to a sort of triangle on his leg, stretching out my left leg. Not sure what I would do if I got cramp like that in competition – still a bit sore now, so hopefully it is just cramp.

I don’t think I got any sweeps against him, but again tried switching through my usual flower, sit-up and scissor, none of which are working too well for me. So bit of a difference in sparring this time round, as normally I might manage a sweep or two, but get nowhere near passing. So things to work on are better positioning for sweeps, being careful of keeping my feet closer together when trying to pass, and avoid leaning forward when standing up, also being careful of my grip. I’m hoping I’ve made a positive move forward with passing today, but then I felt like I’d had a breakthrough on sweeps a month ago, which unfortunately hasn’t lasted.

At some point during the spar (might have been when I accidentally poked him in the mouth), Hamid bled on me. That meant I had a blood polka-dot pattern across my right shoulder. So, when the class ended with all the students shaking each other’s hand, I kept having to tell people “not mine!” Hamid made me look rather more hard core than I am.

As I’d hoped, the Just 15 tickets are now valid on any train leaving London for Birmingham after 12:00, which means I didn’t have to wander round London until 19:00 like before. Next training should be ZSK on Tuesday – there is a taster session tomorrow, but I don’t think they need me for that as all the black belts should be coming up.