29/01/2012 - Teaching (Open Mat)

Teaching #039
Gracie Barra Bristol, (BJJ), Can Sönmez, Bristol, UK - 29/01/2012

Reading the forums and Facebook, it sounds like the UK BJJ contingent at the Euros has been getting some incredible results. Top UK brown belt competitor Luke Costello didn't just win his weight category, he won gold in the absolute as well. More results have been coming in steadily over on the EFN, so I look forward to hearing more. In terms of the GB Bristol team, there were some great results there too: Geeza won the silver medal in the ultra heavy brown belt division, an age division or two below his usual, which makes it even more impressive. Well done Geeza!

As Geeza was busy winning medals, I ran the open mat today. That's the easiest class to run, as all you have to do is go through the warm-up, pair people up, make sure nobody crashes into each other, then stretch out at the end. It also meant I could get in a few rolls myself, which is always nice. I was intending to try and work some spider guard sweeps, as that's what I'm teaching next week, but once again found myself working from top half guard much of the time.

That seems to be my go-to position at the moment (or at least it is when I'm sparring someone around my size), but still plenty of kinks to work out. I forgot to follow my own advice at one point, when I went for the inverted half guard pass, but didn't take enough care to prevent the recounter. Mike got a smooth sweep on me off that, which is a good reminder to always be ready for them flipping you over as you try to pass to side control.

I sort of got a sloppy roll back sweep from half guard, after trying to scissor, but I think I had a kilo or two on my training partner (amazingly, there are a few people slightly smaller than me at the club), so I probably wouldn't have got it without that weight advantage. It's definitely something I want to practice more often in sparring, especially as that will mean I can teach the sweep much more effectively.

I also ran the nogi open mat, which was significantly smaller. Almost everybody had left, leaving just Ben, Martin and Dónal. Due to the tiny numbers, I used a specific sparring set-up I quite like from previous lessons: one person on the mat for six minutes in one position, with the other two cycling in whenever that one person achieves their goal. I started it off with the person on the mat staying under mount for six minutes, then guard (only closed or open, rather than getting into half) and finally back mount.

I didn't spar nogi myself, as no-gi is not something I normally enjoy. I never go to the nogi class, unless I'm needed there to run it. However, I was thinking about nogi recently, because I see that veteran nogi coach Nathan 'Levo' Leverton is codifying his own nogi system. He's calling it 'Leverage Submission Grappling' (nice play on his surname ;D), with ranks, affiliation options, seminars etc. Although I've never met Levo in person, he's earned my respect from the posts he's made on the internet over the years, which are always insightful, mature and intelligent. So, despite the fact I'm not a big fan of training nogi, I'm intrigued to see what Levo has come up with and how it develops. The new LSG website is here.

18/09/2011 - Teaching (Open Mat)

Teaching #020
Gracie Barra Bristol, (BJJ), Can Sönmez, Bristol, UK - 18/09/2011

There are two reasons I'm very excited about next week. The first is of course the ADCC, coming to Nottingham here in the UK on the 24th and 25th September (if you're not in the UK, Budovideos are streaming it here). A group of us are heading up from Gracie Barra Bristol. Judging by the ticket sales, most of UK BJJ is turning out to see this: it will be cool to catch up with some old friends, and perhaps make some new ones. If anybody wants to say hi, I'll be the weedy guy with big sideburns wearing a Gracie Barra Bristol hoody, and/or an assortment of BJJ related t-shirts (that's me failing to smile and in need of a shave on the left).

The second reason, which for me will be even more exciting, is that I'm cashing in my 30th birthday present. That means my girlfriend will be attending my class on Thursday, along with a female friend of hers. I think there are several other women coming along too, so hopefully that could mean a significant jump in the female membership at GB Bristol (presuming I don't scare them all off). At best, it will at least mean I can ask my gf and her friend what they did and didn't like, so I can get an idea of how best to encourage more women to join. If you're a woman in Bristol who fancies trying out BJJ, then Thursday should be a good time to do it. :D

Geeza is off competing, meaning that Miles ran the class on Friday, while Oli and I had the Sunday covered. I ran through the usual warm-up, then started pairing people up for sparring. There were quite a few beginners there, with one group who I think were from UWE (though they've been before, as I recognised the faces from GB Bristol Facebook pics ), along with a couple of Steve's friends from Bristol Uni. They were all willing to roll, so I made sure to pair them up with blue belts, both to help them with advice and to keep sparring fairly calm.

I got the chance to get in a few rolls myself, which was nice. As I'm currently teaching back mount, I was looking to get to the back. That didn't happen during most of the rounds, but I did at least get to work my guard recovery, which is always useful. I think on my next closed guard teaching cycle I'll focus on armdrags, as that's something I want to get better at myself anyway. Then there's Roger's nifty way of getting to the back, which is slightly different to the orthodox armdrag.

On Sundays, it is split into an hour of gi sparring, then an hour of nogi. I never train nogi unless I'm forced to by circumstance (e.g., if that's the only day I can train in a week), but before I left, I asked if anybody wanted to hang around to do some more gi sparring. Fortunately for me, a few people did, meaning I could get in a bunch more sparring while the nogi session got underway on the far side of the mat.

Rolling with Luke is always good fun, because of the way he stays controlled:hat gives me a chance to work my game. So, I finally managed to get around to the back, stepping a leg over into technical mount while looking to pass the guard, then rolling him over my leg to secure the back. There wasn't much time left, but I was pleased that this time I remembered to first bring a hand through the armpit and grab their collar for control.

It can be difficult to practice back mount in sparring because it is normally a struggle to get there, so we'll see if there is any specific back mount sparring next week (aside from my lesson, of course: if it's odd numbers or enough for king of the hill, I'll get in more practice then).

For my last roll it was working on maintaining the guard again. I still need to come up with a better solution to them putting a knee up when I'm looking to work my spider guard. I did practice some sweeps for exactly that situation a while ago, but I keep forgetting what to do. Possibly something I can focus on for my open guard classes in a few months, as I haven't yet decided exactly which open guard sweeps I want to teach.

12/06/2011 - Teaching (Open Mat)

Teaching #006
Gracie Barra Bristol, (BJJ), Can Sönmez, Bristol, UK - 12/06/2011

I headed off to London on Saturday for a friend's birthday party, getting up at 5am in order to wander over to the Megabus stop for about 06:45 (Colston Hall is about a 40 or 50 minute walk, which isn't too bad. I could have cycled, but I didn't trust that the bike would still be there when I got back at 9pm!). The party was at midday, so I went to my favourite place in London to kill time, the glorious National Gallery. I was surprised to get a call from Geeza while enjoying the section on the Italian sixteenth century.

After hastily speed-walking out into the hallway, it turned out Geeza was going to be away on Sunday and Miles was also busy (I think), meaning he wanted to check if I'd be ok to run the class. Sunday sessions are open mat, so that didn't involve too much on my part: just going through the warm-up, then organising sparring. Still, it meant I could play with a few more drills after we'd finished the Gracie Barra warm-up of star jumps and sit-ups.

In my Thursday classes, I've been adding in BJJ-specific drills, which I'm also trying to use as a recap of previous lessons. So far, that's been continuous side control escapes to knees, then one from mount, turning from side to side into technical mount as they try to roll free. Today I put in a third, a simple stand-up in guard. I had everyone do each one for about a minute each: I'll play around with timings to see what works best in future.

I also changed the shrimping slightly, to emphasise the application: rather than just shrimping down the mat, I put everyone into pairs. One person stands with their feet by their partner's armpits, while the other shrimps, then their partner walks back up into their armpits. That means you have to shrimp further and more accurately, as well as make more use of your arms against their legs.

There are two hours to play with on Sundays, as that is normally an hour of gi, followed by another hour no-gi. As I was taking the class, it was all gi (I don't have the Gracie Barra no-gi kit, given that I don't plan on attending the Wednesday evening no-gi class), so I used the first hour for specific sparring. There were only five people there, one of whom had to head off later. I could have two people down, everyone else lined up against the wall, including me when an extra person was needed. We went through side control, mount and guard.

At first I tried counting people off into two groups, of 1s and 2s, but that doesn't work so well with five (unless the fifth person is me, so it worked ok once there were only four). When the 2s are down, that's fine because there are three partners to cycle. However, that leaves three 1s, so even if I join in (as I did at points), there still aren't any spare partners to cycle. So, in that situation, better to just pick a pair, then perhaps have two people take it in turns to be in the pair that is down.

Alternatively I could have paired people up, but I'm keen to make sure people get a range of partners when working specific sparring, as that way they can deal with different pressures, intensity, body types etc. Having said that, pairing up for free sparring makes sense. Unless there is a considerable disparity in size or skill, there isn't normally that clearly defined and regularly occurring end point you get when doing specific sparring.

Free sparring took up the second half, where I think everybody ended up sparring everybody else, as there were only a handful of us. I divided it up into five minute rounds, then finished with the usual stretch out at the end. It was good to get in a few rolls myself: I've not quite worked out how to record my teaching on the training spreadsheet, as so far I haven't been counting it amongst my total training hours. I probably will eventually, perhaps with a separate teaching column or something. I can geek out about it later. :)