12/10/2010 - BJJ (Beginner)

Class #350
RGA High Wycombe, (BJJ), Kev Capel, High Wycombe, UK - 12/10/2010

The Ultimate Fighter (UK viewers can see it on Sky Sports, and it is also up on the TUF website), does not normally get my attention, as all I ever hear about is lots of smack talk, irritating behaviour (carefully edited to make it even more annoying) and lowest common denominator sensationalism. However, this season they have something worth watching: John Danaher. I was very intrigued to not only see and hear from the great man himself, but also what kind of impact he would have on the team.

The coaches match up is in classic pro-wrestling style, with a heel (Josh Koscheck) versus a face (GSP), both men doing a good job of playing their allotted roles. Koscheck even talks about “not wanting to lose to a bunch of nerds,” while there are snippets showing GSP talking about how he used to get bullied at school. Despite the obvious tactic, it works, as it does make me keen to see Koscheck’s team lose (although at the same time, I was rooting for the sole Brit, Aaron Wilkinson, who hilariously gets subtitled due to his Mancunian accent).

Without Danaher, it would be difficult to maintain my interest. After all, there is a lot to dislike about the program, such as the way that in every single episode, they make sure to zoom in on the ring girl’s cleavage and backside. There will probably be some equally idiotic antics in the house later on too (fortunately not much so far, but I’m only at the fourth episode). Hopefully Danaher will start to get some more screen time (they do talk about him a bit in one of the ‘Aftermath’ shows) and make it all worthwhile, and there’s Dave Camarillo too (a big fan of Danaher).

I also wanted to mentioned that Chiu, one of the instructors from Gracie Barra Birmingham, is going to be teaching a class at the University of Warwick on Sunday 17th October. Shame I’ve already left the area, as that would have been cool. Hopefully that might eventually lead to a formal BJJ class: check out the Warwick BJJ Facebook group for more details.

Getting back to tonight’s class, things kicked off with an armbar from guard. Normally, you would grab the same side arm, but in this variation, you reach over for the other arm instead (known as a ‘cross-grip’). Your same side arm is instead going to reach for their opposite collar, which means you can now clamp your elbow down on their arm, giving you extra control. The armbar then proceeds as normal, with your same side foot going to their hip (on the side of the arm you’re attacking), swivel and kick your other leg up into their armpit, then bring your hip foot up over their head. Note that to clear their head, you may need to push it back with your hand, or alternatively shove into their neck.

Kev then showed a neat little trick, for when their gi is loose. On the same side as the arm you want to attack, pull their gi underneath the arm, then wrap it over the top and feed to your other hand. Pull this across and down, which will give you even greater control on their arm. You won’t be able to keep them there for ever, but it should give you a little more time to land the armbar.

The flower sweep combines well with the armbar. If they manage to block you bringing your leg over their head, switch your grip on their sleeve: most likely they’ll be leaning forward and your arm will be under their head or torso, so you’ll probably be in position to easily switch your grip on their arm already. Your other arm either reaches behind their same side knee or grabs their gi trouser leg, then kick up with one leg and chop with the other, rolling on top into mount.

Kev finished off with a basic standing guard pass. Get the usual double collar grip, then grab their same side sleeve and shove it into their hip. Step your leg up on that side, let go of the collars and yank their arm up, bringing your other leg slightly back. Having stepped back, you can now push down on their knee and break open their guard.

As soon as their guard is open, drop down to combat base, where you have one knee up in their guard, your other foot by your heel. Reach under one of their legs (it doesn’t matter too much which, but feels more natural to go for the leg opposite your raised knee) and bump it up to your shoulder. With the same hand, reach through for their collar, or if you can’t grab that (or it’s nogi), their opposite shoulder.

Making certain your other elbow is inside their knee (otherwise they might try for a triangle), drive forward and walk your legs around to the side. Keep the pressure on until you can slide past their leg and move into side control. You might also find it helpful to grab the back of their belt with your free hand and raise their hips up, making it difficult for them to use their hips.

Sparring was specific from the guard. On top, I was looking to use Colin’s pass, where as soon as they grip your collar, you grab that sleeve with your same side hand and stand up, then break their guard. It worked, but I wasn’t reacting as quickly as I should: at one point I had stood up and broken the guard open, but stayed where I was, rather than shoving a leg down and doing a big step over the top to start the pass.

A lot of the time I was finding that I am still accepting half guard, rather than driving for the full pass. From there, I kept on trying to attack the far arm, but I was too obvious about it, so they had little trouble grabbing onto some cloth to stop me easily bringing the arm out for a submission. However, it’s a good habit to get into, as that helps distract them from my efforts to get my leg free.

Underneath, I was playing around with various attacks. I need to be more careful with the scissor sweep, as I’m still tending to just end up opening my guard and helping them initiate a pass, rather than staying tight and breaking their posture properly first. I wasn’t doing enough with spider guard, as I had the arms extended but didn’t progress to a sweep, and I also totally messed up the omoplata sweep: I ended up just rolling them on top of me and giving them side control.

I did manage to get an omoplata later on, but very sloppy. I started off with my legs in completely the wrong position, underneath their head rather than out to the side. Not quite sure how I ended up there. Eventually I got them free and out to the right side, then worked into the submission, but against anyone more experienced I would have just lost the position.

19/07/2007 - BJJ (Beginners)

Class #74



Roger Gracie Academy (BJJ), Maurição Gomes, London, UK - 19/07/2007 – Beginners

I’ve been having a very absentminded week. Started off by leaving my flip flops in Birmingham, then almost missing a bus despite leaning on the bus stop. I proceeded to sign the kids register, then today I forgot to pack my rash guard, so could only make the beginners session tonight. At least I remembered to bake that cake yesterday…although my mum did kinda take over (probably out of frustration at seeing me plod through a recipe she’s been doing long before I was even born).

Anyway, onto the BJJ. It’s a shame I had to miss the no-gi, as Maurição was teaching. However, on the other hand that did mean I was fully rested for the beginners, so could really concentrate on what he was saying. This lesson reminded me once again of Jude’s description of his teacher Maurição as a fine wine: one of the great things about training at RGA is the opportunity to learn from world-class people like Maurição.

First technique was the basic pass under the leg. I don’t think I have ever used this in sparring, as I pretty much always go over the over rather than under, which is apparently fairly common. Maurição mentioned how this was a very traditional pass which many people didn’t use because they assumed they’d get caught in a triangle. However, that’s only if you do it wrong: Maurição emphasised that its very important to first get the leg right up onto your shoulder, and secondly make sure the elbow of your other hand stays on either their inner or outer hip and does not get dragged across your opponent’s body. If your partner manages to get hold of the arm and start pulling, or is just very strong, then you can resist it by pushing through with your shoulder, meaning your whole body comes to your defence.

Another major part of the technique is to drive through and really stack them. As BJ Penn mentions on his site, the aim is to either get your shoulder right into their face, or squash their knee into their head. Staying on your toes is also essential, walking round and maintaining that downwards pressure, eventually pushing past the leg into side control.

Maurição went through this in meticulous detail: its rare that an instructor can describe a single, fundamental technique in such depth that its difficult to remember the full explanation. Just as he was about to tell us to go practice the pass, someone spoke up and asked about how to break the guard. This proved to be a fantastic question, as Maurição then, once again in fine detail, went through two breaks.

First was the one I’ve been using from BJ Penn’s site. Grab them by the belt, elbows in tight. Push back with your arms, knees coming back, with one pushing out to the side. That should eventually stretch their legs out and open the guard.

If that doesn’t work, then the second break is to stand up, then sit back down again. The integral detail here is that you shove your knee right into their cocsis before you sit down, so essentially impale them on your kneecap. Done right, that pops the legs apart straight away, leaving you with a knee in between their legs ready to start the pass.

However, I had some trouble finding the right spot, so will have to work on getting the positioning right. Still, very handy to have another option for breaking the guard, as previously I was feeling pretty limited.

Next technique followed on from the pass. Maurição noted that a lot of people were making a serious error, which was putting both hands through to the other side as soon as they got past the leg. That makes it possible for the other person to shrimp and recover guard, or potentially even take your back. Instead, you should keep a hand by the leg to stop them shifting their hips like that.

If you do find yourself in side control with both your arms over, then there is a transition to scarf hold and then back to side control you can do. First get an underhook on their arm, then switch your base and move to scarf hold, grabbing their arm and pulling it across your stomach. The leg near their head points straight out, the other is drawn up towards you, keeping your weight pressed down on them. Having secured that position, you then switch your legs back, trapping that arm that was by your stomach in the process and pushing it into their neck. One arm goes under their head, the other goes down by their hips.

Sparring was a little unusual, as often seems to be the case in Maurição’s classes. It was guard passage, but starting from open guard rather than closed. This was in order to have a chance to work that pass, which turned out to be more difficult than it looked initially. On my first attempt with Tamvin (who is close to my weight at about 63kg), I found that while I could get my shoulder to his leg, he could secure a solid grip with his legs which made it difficult to pass. I eventually got through, but what I should have done was stacked him more, coming up on my toes and pushing down, meaning that I’d be able to really put my legs into it.

On the second try, worked much better. I went a bit faster and drove hard, stacking my partner and slipping round. I still think I’m leaving too much space, however, as I should by pushing into the leg until I slip round. At the moment, I feel I’m still tending to bring my head around the leg and drop down instead, which gives my opponent the opportunity to shrimp and get to their knees. This happens pretty much every time I get in that position with Chris: his size and strength advantage no doubt helps, but the main problem is my sloppy technique.

Switching round, I had an interesting experience working open guard. I wrapped up Tamvin’s arm by getting my leg over his inner elbow and then a foot into his inner thigh, which stopped him pushing through effectively. I also went for a few elevator sweeps, getting it a couple of times the usual way (looped round the outside of one leg and the inside of the other), as well as from butterfly guard (both feet on his inner thighs). I found that I could relax in open guard and keep my partner neutralised without too much effort, but I think that was firstly because Tamvin isn’t used to open guard, and secondly because he was using his arms to try and work his way through rather than his legs. Nevertheless, was good to get a chance to play with some positions I don’t often have an opportunity to explore.

Next week I’ll be staying at my sisters, so I’m hoping to finally get a more hefty schedule of training. I’d also like to give the early morning class on Wednesday a go, which would make for an interesting change as it’s a mixture of beginners and advanced. Tamvin also tells me its pretty small, meaning that you get personal attention from Nick G, which would be cool.

20/12/2006 - BJJ

Class #14

Roger Gracie Academy (BJJ), Jude Samuel, London, UK – 20/12/2006

Session went pretty much as well as it possibly could have for me tonight, so I left class happy. Over the past month and a bit, I’ve been focusing my efforts on developing options for sweeps and passes, and its paid off.

Jude didn’t run as fitness intensive a class today, perhaps because there were less people around due to it being near christmas. Unusually from my limited experience under him, he started off with technique drills, going through the basic standing pass and counter that I learned during my first session back in November. Its always useful going over the basics, particularly with a different instructor, as Jude added a few details I either missed or forgot from when Felipe showed the same techniques earlier. Firstly, when standing from the pass, Person A releases one of the collars they’re gripping with one hand, pulling up on the remaining collar instead, keeping their back straight. This unbalances Person B by twisting them over to the side. Secondly, Jude pointed out that the pass finishes differently depending on if you loop your arm under the leg or if you simply push the leg off your hip. When looping the arm, Person A then reaches round the leg for Person B’s opposite collar and pushes down and round. When pushing the leg off the hip, Person A traps Person B’s leg with their shin, then switches their base in order to pass.

As has happened quite often the past few sessions, I worked with Dominique, which provides me with a reassuring sense of continuity as she’s the first person I ever drilled and rolled with. Its also been a useful way of marking my progress, as I can measure how I do against her in rolling. This time round, I got exactly what I wanted: scissor sweep. Thanks to Aesopian and Rowan Cunningham’s tutorials (found by Aesopian, so he deserves two helpings of thanks), I managed to get this on both Dominique and the next person I sparred, a long-haired Asian guy called Herman. As I mentioned earlier, I’ve been working sweeps and passes for a month and a bit now, carefully reading through info on the flower sweep, sit-up sweep and scissor sweep, as well as looking at videos. I’ve also had the chance to use the first two before in class (though I’ve only ever got the sit-up sweep to work before), with additional drilling on the flower sweep at the Bullshido throwdown a couple of weeks ago.

Even more satisfying was that I managed to pass both Dominique and Herman. On Dominique, I think it was the basic pass, which took me a while to get, but I did eventually get through. With Herman, something Marcio taught me at the throwdown worked out perfectly. I was trying the tailbone pass again, but as Marcio had said, you don’t have to complete it, just get enough space to underhook the legs with both arms. That’s exactly what I did, pushing forward to grab Herman’s gi, pulling myself round for the pass. I’m also pleased that I now have at least three options to try from the bottom (flower, scissor and sit-up) as well as two from the top (basic and tailbone).

However, there are unsurprisingly still plenty of aspects of those sweeps and passes I need to work on. With the scissor, I wasn’t pulling my partner on to me like I should, as demonstrated by Rowan in his Abhaya vid and Aesopian, where he mentions using ‘judo elbows’. I also didn’t come up on one elbow like Rowan demonstrated, or at least its not something I was thinking about as I should have done: I did get the sweep, so either I did it those times without realising, or got lucky. Also worth noting that there is a bit of a size difference between Dominique and I (though I’m fairly small, so its not too much), and I think Herman is effectively a beginner – I didn’t quite get what he said, but IIRC, he did BJJ eight months ago but hasn’t been able to go back since, so not entirely certain as to the extent of his experience.

What I want to work on now, besides improving the scissor, flower (thanks GoldenJonas for that link) and sit-up sweeps along with the guard passes, is to build on options if I don’t get the sweep. During rolling tonight, I shifted between the sweeps (trying both left and right) when they didn’t work at first, and also tried the armbar follow-up from Abhaya, but will need plenty more practice before I get them drilled in. Aesopian's ‘Stupid Simple Sweep’ off a failed scissor also looks worth drilling, so I’ll keep that in mind too.

The class was rounded off nicely by Jude calling out my name at the end, to receive my first stripe. He got my name wrong, but that’s to be expected – its written ‘Can’, which any reasonable person would read as the ‘can’ in ‘tin-can’. Its Turkish, so actually pronounced like the ‘jun’ in ‘junction’, but that’s certainly not clear from the way its written!

Felt good to go up and get applauded, with a handshake from Jude, then congratulations from the rest of class. I’m still not entirely sure whether the stripe thing is based on ability or simply on time spent at the club: I’ve heard conflicting reports, but either way, I was smiling. May only be a stripe, but really put the icing on a successful bit of rolling.

Tomorrow I’m going to try and go along to both the day and the evening class, as I’m not working Thursday. Pippa mentioned that there is also going to be a class on Saturday, which I didn’t realise, so I’ll try to make that one too. Another option has cropped up recently near where I am in Birmingham, on the MMA side of things rather than BJJ. A guy on Myspace randomly messaged me several months ago about a wrestling club, the times of which I unfortunately couldn’t make. He said there should be another class starting up, so I emailed him again two days ago to check if it was running yet. Apparently not, as he got injured, but he did instead give me the details for the MMA place he trains, which as it turns out is a short walk from my flat! Met the instructor yesterday, so should be trying out a class at F’s Freestyle on 13th Jan (they’re closed over christmas, and I’ve got an anniversary meal on the 6th). Hoping to tempt my gf down, which would be very cool, though she’s going to take some convincing.

To finish on a random comedy note, just came across this from last year (so may well not be new to people, but it was to me): only really makes sense if you’re from the UK.

13/12/06 - BJJ

Class #12



Roger Gracie Academy (BJJ), Jude Samuel, London, UK – 13/12/2006

By the way, would be good if some other people who train at Roger Gracie’s could add their thoughts to the Bullshido Dojo Review I put up a few weeks ago. I’ve only been at RGA a month, so not exactly got a great deal of experience to go on.

I hadn’t expected to train today, as last night my gf and I went to the KPMG Christmas Ball, meaning that the day after was going to be spent at Madame Tussauds, museums etc. However, my gf has the misfortune to suffer from crippling hangovers, another of which smacked her in the stomach this morning. We finally got out of bed at around 2pm, her health quite clearly not up to wandering to much further than onto the train home. That left me with rather more time than I’d planned, so I decided to pop down to training.

Jude ran his usual fitness intensive session, and I don’t think presented anything I hadn’t seen before, but he taught it in a slightly different way to Felipe. As before, drills were alternated with specific sparring, so I started off with Dominique. If she can be used as a marker of my progress, seeing how she was the first person I ever sparred at RGA, then I seem to be improving. She managed to pass me a couple of times, but I also managed to sweep her – IIRC, it was the basic sit-up sweep, but I’m not quite sure. I still can’t get the tailbone pass, as my opponent can normally move up onto my knee or simply resist my wimpy attempts to push against their legs. Nevertheless, good to have the opportunity to at least try it every now and then.

10 hip throws later, I switched partners to Misja (or however its spelled: pronounced Mezhdi, so I think I’ll spell it like that from now on so I can at least pronounce it properly when I next see him). I struggled without a great deal of success, but did at least prevent him from sweeping and passing me too often, though he did eventually get both a couple of times. With both Mezhdi and Dominique, I was able to move into position for a flower sweep, but they tended to get one or both arms free, enabling them to then sit back again. I think I need to reach the point where I can run through the sweep more quickly, or I’m not going to succeed with it. Mezhdi also complimented me that I was far better than the last time we rolled (about a month ago on 18th November), which was encouraging. However, I’m having trouble standing up to pass, perhaps because I’m being too cautious and sitting back down again to resist grips on my legs. I need to be faster and more confident on the pass.

This proved to be my last roll of the session, as after 10 neck throws, Jude moved on to technique. First, he covered off the basic standing guard pass Oli G had shown me in my intro (which reminded me I haven’t actually tried it in sparring since my first few lessons). Person A grips both Person B’s collars with their right hand, twisting it over to the left, grabbing the fabric by Person B’s right hip with their left hand. Person A then steps up onto their bent right leg, then brings up the left leg, maintaining a good base and standing up. As they stand up, Person A lets go of Person B’s right collar, pulling up on Person B’s left collar. Person A then pushes Person B’s right knee off their hip with their left hand, reaching under and pushing forward with their left shoulder. At the same time, Person A reaches for a deep hold on Person B’s left collar by their neck, moving round with their left knee as they do so. Person A pushes Person B slightly by their belt, raises their hips and slips round into side control.

The next step is for Person A to switch their base (so kick their left leg under their right) then swing the right leg over into mount, pushing Person B’s knee out of the way as they do so. Rowan Cunningham shows it like this (no-gi, however).

Jude followed his demonstration of the guard pass with the upa escape from mount. Person B isolates Person A’s right arm, also trapping Person A’s right leg with their left foot. Person B then thrusts Person A forward by jerking upwards with their hips, then using their right elbow, Person B turns to the left and rolls over into Person A’s guard.

Also finally got to meet Roger Gracie, though I didn’t realise who he was at first. It would appear he came down for a quick photo shoot, going round first to shake the hand of all the beginners waiting for the session to start. While we were rolling, I noticed he was sat on the step up to the matted area getting pictures taken – not sure if that’s for a magazine, or just promotional material for the Academy.

Should be training again tomorrow, then off to Birmingham for mini-christmas with my gf. Might also take the opportunity to train at the Vie Gym class in Farringdon next week or the week after, if times work out.

11/11/2006 - BJJ

Class #3



Roger Gracie Academy (BJJ), Felipe Souza & Jude Samuel, London, UK – 11/11/2006

Once again, I’m glad my father drilled punctuality into me from a young age, as it means I tend to leave loads of time when heading anywhere. The line from Amersham to Marylebone was down, so I had to get to Beaconsfield instead. Fortunately, I’d left at about 11:20, so that gave me loads of time to make it to Marylebone. Next thing that went wrong is that the Edgware Road entrance I used last time is closed on Saturdays: again, I was lucky, as the main entrance isn’t too far off, round the corner.

Eventually made it to class with about 30 mins to spare, the very loud kids session in progress. Presumably due to said loud kids, that class ran over, so the adult beginners started (I think) about 10 minutes late. Not that this mattered, as I was totally knackered by the end of the session as usual: could be that a few extra minutes were added on, but I forgot to check (yeah, I’m the kind of person that would want to know). Saw Dominique as I came in, who was there to bring her kids to class, but told me she wasn’t training herself today. There is a club competition on Sunday, so she’s saving her strength for that: bit soon for me after only one week of training, so I won’t be going tomorrow. Not to mention there’s a guinea pig to feed back in Brum!

Warm-up went as normal, going back to breakfalls and shrimping rather than throws, although that same old hip throw came up next. However, good thing that it did, as I clearly still need a lot of work on it. For the first time in drilling, I was paired up with a guy considerably bigger than me, called Diagul (if I heard him correctly, having asked for the spelling: apparently, its pronounced ‘Jergal’). He’d been coming for about a month, I think – not sure if English is his first language, judging by the accent, which may explain the lack of conversation. Nevertheless, seemed a nice enough guy, though I had real trouble throwing him. Kept on simply pulling him in front of me rather than getting him over my hip. I improved slightly later on, but still only getting one of his legs off the ground. Bleh.

As with the previous two lessons, the next drill was sweeping from the closed guard against a standing pass attempt (like this), then following through with the basic standing pass itself. This time, Felipe demonstrated the standing pass I’d been initially shown by Olly, in which you reach back with your arm and take one leg rather than two, then maintaining downwards pressure, sprawl and circle round until you can quickly push round the leg past your head, making sure to leave as little space as possible, finishing in side control. Another useful tip was to pull your arm right back, still gripping the gi, in order to avoid the triangle. I found this much easier than the two-leg version from Wednesday and Thursday. In fact, so much easier that I had the small victory of finally passing someone’s guard, though Diagul otherwise dominated me from both his guard and on top.

Switching partners, I then found myself against the slightly less heavily built but taller Milos, who I presume has been doing it a little longer as he had one stripe. I got absolutely nowhere with him, but as soon as I asked him for a tip on resisting the collar choke – which I still keep finding myself in – he went into teacher mode and gave me lots of good advice. First he said I should grip both collars in one hand. He also noted that I need to defend my neck more carefully (though I may have misunderstood him on this: think he said by putting my hands nearer my neck, but not sure). Keeping good posture was another pointer, which should aid me in resisting those collar chokes. He also coached me through a pass, and kept talking throughout. I had a go at landing a triangle, but stopped once I realised I was getting nowhere and simply wasting energy, using strength rather than technique. Think Milos would have preferred if I’d continued straining, but I’ve no desire to let pride stop me getting something more useful out of rolling.

Finally I rolled with a woman called Katie, who gave me another new experience in that she was the first person I’d sparred who had less experience than me (albeit only slightly: this was her first lesson and my third). I passed her guard easily the first few times, so the fourth time, decided that was getting rather repetitive and not especially helpful for her, so simply tried to resist her sweep instead (which she got). Despite being a beginner, she was able to give me some tips on the collar choke and sweeping, so clearly she was paying close attention that class and during her intro session. Felipe must have gone at some point, as another black belt had taken over (Jude Samuel, I’m guessing, but maybe not). He came up to Katie and I and talked her through a collar choke, which made her a bit harder to pass: at one point, I had her leg squashed against her face while she was still holding onto my collar. I couldn’t break her grip, so we let go and started over. Also managed to land a sloppy triangle, but I think she only eventually tapped due to discomfort rather than getting choke.

Next time I’ll be training will be on Thursday, due to aforementioned Warwick Open Day. Tonight, I’m off to an uni friend’s birthday party, so typing this up at my sister’s, who very handily lives in London and often lets me stay round. I’m all mapped up, so time for the drinking, which appropriately is at a Brazilian bar.

08/11/2006 - First Lesson of BJJ

Class #1
Roger Gracie Academy (BJJ), Felipe Souza, London, UK – 08/11/2006

Having been incapable of training since my intro class with Oli Geddes, there was no way I was going to miss tonight’s lesson. I even skipped ZSK earlier in the week to make sure the illness had a chance to lift. I was still feeling a bit sniffly this morning, and I could feel the vestiges of a fever as I slept on the way down to Marylebone, but seems ok at the moment.

I got to Westbourne Park far too early, as I’d been worried sod’s law would fuck me up by delaying the train down from Birmingham or something like that. Eventually got to the Academy itself at about 17:45, which gave me a chance to hear the children’s class. There weren’t seats available to actually watch it, so I went into my usual introvert mode of sitting quietly out of the way. I had thought Ben would be along again this session, but presumably he’s either come down with something or couldn’t make it this time round.

Class started with running round the mats. At various points, Felipe threw in some exercises, with one of the (presumably higher: I couldn’t tell) white belts calling out the numbers. 20 star jumps, 20 squats, 20 alternating arms and legs (sure that has a name, but can’t remember it), 20 lunges (as in pushing as far as possible with one leg bent, the other almost into a kneeling position), then a few exercises incorporated into running round the room (facing out sidesteps, facing in, knees up, heels to arse, sprints down one side of the room). The warm-up finished with breakfalls. In two lines, we went down the room over each shoulder, then from the back, and finally shrimping.

That meant it was time for the first technique, which turned out to be the same hip throw Oli had shown me in my introductory class. I was paired up with the only person in the whole class shorter than me (though I’m pretty weedy, so there probably wasn’t too much in it weight-wise), a woman called Dominique. She’d been doing this two months, along with her husband and two children, which was kinda cool – a BJJ family. The throw was next put into a ‘self-defence’ setting, which was a grab round the waist. This necessitated drawing the hips back and pushing the attacker away, then back into the hip throw.

Felipe followed up with work on the closed guard. Person A was on the bottom, holding the other in their guard. Person B stood up, holding onto both collars. Person A raised up their hips, squeezed their knees together and pulled on Person B’s ankles, aiming to push them over and get into mount (which I'll call the ankle grab sweep - see below for how Rowan Cunningham shows it). This then switched to the counter, which was to have Person B hold a strong base (legs apart, knees bent) pushing forward with their hips maintaining a firm grip on Person A’s collars, circling their arm’s behind to break Person A’s closed guard, then forcing themselves down onto Person A’s legs until they’re effectively sitting on them. Finally Person B pushed aside Person A’s legs to move into side mount (video here).



While doing this, I realised that I’d misinterpreted last week: people weren’t taking a break, they had simply come to the end of Felipe’s repetitions. He tended to tell us to repeat 10 times on the more basic move, then 5 when it got more complicated. I preferred to get as many tries as I could, but at the same time I wanted to chat to Dominique: I don’t know anyone at class yet except Ben, so will be good to try and socialise a bit. Always makes it more enjoyable if you feel a part of the group and get on with your training partners.

Specific sparring was next, which this time was to have Person A on the bottom and Person B in their closed guard, as with the drill. The objective was for Person A to pass the guard and Person B to sweep. This proved rather educational: I’ve rolled before, but its been brief and spread over three years. Importantly, I’ve never rolled in a gi before, which made for a lot of changes. I spent most of the roll struggling against collar chokes from Dominique, as well as trying to free my left arm, which was crushed against my chest due to Dominique grabbing the sleeve.

Dominique gave me some advice on trying to defend, suggesting that I attempt to push my forearm into her throat to make her uncomfortable, and also use my arms to try and break the choke: I had been trying to use them to pass the guard, at which I failed miserably. I think what I should have done is resisted less and simply accepted I was in a collar choke, rather than straining uselessly – would probably have been more productive to tap out sooner and try the guard pass/sweep again, as I was supposed to be doing. I’ll have to concentrate more tomorrow.

I noticed that my left shoulder didn’t enjoy the roll much, so hopefully that isn’t going to flare up again. I also ripped some skin off my big toe, but I’m fairly used to that from ZSK – will see how my toes are tomorrow. Also ground my right knee into the mat, which resulted in slight mat burn. Again, will have to watch that, but I imagine these are all things that will come with conditioning, not to mention the experience needed to stop trying to put muscle in so much. That’s especially ridiculous on my part, as I barely have any muscle – I need to focus on technique, as there is no way I can rely on strength.

Also provides a small sample of BJJ’s effectiveness. Dominique has been training for two months, is not a big person and hasn’t taken martial arts before now. However, she was able to pass my guard with ease and had no trouble incapacitating me with the collar chokes. An untrained person of roughly the same weight (with a significant discrepancy in strength and size, no doubt things are different) has little chance against even a fairly novice BJJer, going by that experience.

The one downside I noticed to class (I was already expecting the helpless frustration, which hopefully won’t become a problem, especially once I’ve been there a few months) was that the changing room was way too small for the amount of people training. You basically had to queue to get to your stuff, then had to wait again for the showers, of which there were only three. An unfortunate side-effect of popularity, but perhaps like Oli said, the classes might be split up into an additional intermediate level to try and reduce overcrowding. We shall see.

I should be training again tomorrow, and I’ve got a friend’s birthday party on the Saturday, so can make another session then. For the moment, I’ll be making Wednesday and Thursday and the odd Saturday: quite a few social things happening over the next few weekends, which should translate to a fair few Saturday sessions.

26/10/2006 - BJJ Intro Class (Oli Geddes)

Class #0
Roger Gracie Academy (BJJ), Oliver Geddes, London, UK – 26/10/2006

After much dithering, I found myself walking through the hallowed doors of a Gracie Barra gym. Of course, I managed to walk straight past them the first time, not realising that the entrance was a small door, set in a building with formidably barred windows. However, backtracking once I realised I’d got lost (very regular occurrence with me indeed), I soon saw the big ‘Roger Gracie Academy’ sign. Takes roughly 20 minutes by foot from Westbourne Park (on the Hammersmith and City line), though should be faster if unlike me you know where you’re going and aren’t checking a map every few minutes.

I introduced myself to Pippa (I think that was her name), the secretary, who gave me a waiver (first time I can remember signing one of those, although Paragon Kickboxing Gym might have made me sign one too back in 2004). My intro session was to be taken by Oli, a friendly looking blue belt, who directed me to the changing rooms so I could get changed into my embarrassingly new (and therefore starchy and oversized) gi. I ordered it for £20 from the university judo club last year, where I got injured before I had a chance to wear my thrilling new purchase.

Oli started off by quickly asking what previous experience I had – he assumed I had a bit of ground knowledge due to the gi, though I quickly corrected him that my knowledge of teh gr4pple was woefully lacking. In total, I’ve got about 10 hours of judo (most of which were spent with a judo black belt friend of mine rather than a formal class, so don’t really count) and about 26 hours worth of MMA, spread across a four year period from late 2002 until now.

We went through the basic breakfalls – front, back, side, and back roll (I’m not sure what the official names are: the one where you roll over your shoulder forwards, followed by falling backwards and slapping the ground, then raising a leg in front and falling to the side whilst slapping the ground, finishing with a backwards one again but this time with a backwards roll over the shoulder). For some reason, my performance made Oli inquire if I’d ever done aikido.

Come to think of it, I have done one session (which put me off aikido for life), but I mainly learned my breakfalling from a few sessions of ‘Samurai Jiu Jitsu’ (the Warwick branch of the Jitsu Foundation, now renamed simply ‘Jitsu'), a little Kempo Jiu Jitsu (the old Yawaru-Ryu club at Warwick) and the whole 2 formal judo classes I took before getting injured. We finished off that section with shrimping, something again I was slightly familiar with from MMA, also having been shown more recently by a BJJ friend (who posts on Bullshido as Jinksy).

Having gone through the necessary precautions, Oli moved on to a throw. I wasn’t expecting to be doing any throws, which just goes to show my ignorance of BJJ. Oli demonstrated a hip throw, which I assume has some funky Japanese name in judo – it’s the one where you grab an arm, pull them in to your back with your feet fairly close, hold them round the neck then throw them in front of you using your hip. As that left you with a grip on the wrist, I assumed we’d be moving into an arm bar, which Oli duly did, after which he told me to combine the throw with the submission.

Next up Oli went through the basic positions (guard, half-guard, side-control), deciding not to demonstrate full-mount or back-mount, as he assumed correctly I was familiar (at least on a very simple level) with them from the little bit of MMA I’d done. This progressed to a guard pass, something I’ve never been able to manage properly, so was handy to get the beginner demo.

Starting in his guard, I was to grab both the left and right collars in my right hand, twisting it to the left for better grip, keeping my back straight. I was then told, whilst keeping pressure on his right hip with my left hand, to rise up on my right leg, then my left, maintaining a good base. My left hand was then to move up to his knee and push it off my hip, slipping my left arm underneath as I did so.

Keeping as tight as possible and aiming to crush his leg into his body (shifting my shoulder into the back of his knee), the next step was to manoeuvre round with my legs until I was perpendicular to him, still keeping his leg down onto his chest.

Without leaving too much space, I then had to move my head around to the other side of his leg, into side control (putting one hand underneath his head to link up with my other hand, which I think is called scarf hold but I’m not entirely sure). Here's a fairly thorough video by Marcio Feitosa.




That proved to be the last bit of martial instruction for my intro, which all in all took about 20-30 minutes, I think. Oli then invited me to ask him any questions I might have, so we chatted a little about the age, fitness, skill and size range of the students (mixed, with white belts ranging from complete beginners to around 9 months, according to Oli), the instructors (always at least a brown belt teaching, usually black) and the possibility of the Farringdon lesson mentioned to me by Mungkorn Dam over on Bullshido (I was deferred to Nick, one of the brown belts who would be taking those lessons, who was at that time finishing off a private lesson in another room). Turns out that Oli knows PsychoMongoose from Bullshido, and has apparently posted on there somewhere himself, but hasn’t been back for some time.

The physical side of things over, I was directed back to Pippa, to give me the sales pitch. Classes are £90 a month, paid by direct debit, or £18 a session (meaning its not really worth it for just once a week: this was intentional, so that people training there weren’t of the ‘turn up a few times then never show again’ type).

There was also something about a ‘blue belt package’, which included the first month of training (worth £90), a gi (worth £90 again) a year membership worth £50 (which provided insurance, a manual, belts and certificates) for a total value of £254. If I join today, I also apparently get a Roger Gracie T-shirt worth £18 and a Gracie Magazine worth £6. If I join within 1 week, it costs me £150.

However, I can’t say I was too tempted: I’ve already got a gi (albeit a crappy one), and I don’t especially need Gracie merchandise. Then again, another gi would be handy, as that would make washing them easier, not to mention if I do the £150 thing, its only £10 more than I’d get for paying a month and the membership anyway (assuming the offer is still valid next week). I think what I’ll do is try out another lesson (which will cost me £18 a pop), after which I’ll decide on paying the £50 membership and £90 per month direct debit.

My problem is that at present I’m only in London on Thursday nights, as I work remotely in Birmingham on Monday, return to London for the Thursday, then take a 19:30 train back up to Birmingham on the Friday. That would mean I could only make 1 lesson a week, which would mean very slow progress and a lot of cash.

The Farringdon club which is starting up soon might be an option (according to Nick, its going to be on 122 Clerkenwell Road, with sessions of both beginners and above starting at 18:15 from Mon-Thu), but that depends on their pay structure. Nick said it may be pay-as-you-go, but nothing has been confirmed yet: the classes wouldn’t be any more convenient for me to get to than those at Roger Gracie, so probably worth my while sticking with the latter.

Therefore, I think my best option is probably to come down from Birmingham earlier on the Wednesday, in time for the 18:30 class. The only problem with that is I don’t want to upset my girlfriend, as that means she won’t get to see me Wednesday night. She didn’t sound too thrilled on the phone just now, but I’m hoping I can convince her over the weekend. Coming up earlier on the Friday night instead of staying late on Wednesday might work, but we’ll see.

So, hopefully I’ll be training regularly on Wednesdays and Thursdays at Roger Gracie’s from now on, but can’t be certain yet. After all, £1140 is a lot of money, even if it is spread out across a year. I’m pretty sure the quality is worth it, but depends how things turn out.

[Note: Obviously I did decide to join RGA: the next time I attended is here, although I was ill, so just watched. First proper class was in November, here. In case you're wondering, the photo of the academy is from 17th Jan 2008, after they'd painted the walls. ]