So many of you know that over the weekend I went up to North Carolina for a Bullshido Throwdown. Some of you are aware that part of the reason I went was a challenge match between myself and Matt "War Wheel" Phillips. Those videos can all be seen on Bullshido via their Facebook page or checking out the Gong Sau threads. For most of my readers the more interesting video will be me rolling with a 315lb white belt. That's right THREE HUNDRED. He has about a year of training making him officially the most skilled super heavy that I've rolled with.
So, as usual I used my legs as much as I could to keep him from getting his weight down onto me. I was on top for a bit but seriously he was able to casually push my weight away as I tried to pass. If I were super serious about "beating" the guy I never would have given up top position even if it meant I spent 5 minutes hugging his leg, but this was a TD and is supposed to be a fun thing, so I'd rather play than grind out a non-existent win. At 1:10 or so I'm just holding him up and my legs are getting tired, so I switched to full guard, which was a mistake. With his height and weight he was able to just step over my leg to half guard and with a little patience he was able to lock up a Kimura. I tried a breakdance escape and he was just TOO BIG for me to pull off the flip. It's seriously just INSANE rolling with someone that big.
My legs feel like I was squatting trucks or something today. Very cool guy though, everyone at the TD was awesome.
If anyone else got videos of me rolling I'll throw them up here as well, I got smashed by a !180lb purple belt, and a ~150 Brown belt, and I had a bunch of fun going back and forth with some blue belts of various experience and fitness levels. Hit a Zapruder on one very cool ~140 blue belt from Team ROC, and got crazy phantom straight armlocked by another one.
The entire thing was a blast and anyone who didn't make it missed out on delicious chocolate cake and awesome jits. As well as a ton of free jiujitsu lessons. The Brown that schooled me showed me some tips for De La Riva guard and reverse DLR that are going to help a TON with me.
I'll post details for the date of the next one when it's finalized. So, mad props to Sifu Jason and Team ROC for a MONSTER awesome throwdown. You guys do good work.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Thursday, February 24, 2011
BJJ 2/23/2011
We had a visitor today, eternal purple belt Jeremy who previously trained with Casey was back in town. He's been a purple belt longer than I've been training and absolutely should be a brown, but just... isn't for some reason.
I've rolled with him twice before, once last year, and once the year before and thoroughly enjoyed it because he's about 145lbs and maybe an inch taller than I am.
Technique was continuing on with the lapel wrapups from side control. This time a different armbar setup, and a transition to the back. There might also have been a choke, but I was a few minutes late to class and missed it. Mostly though I'm seeing that there are a ton of options from that lapel wrapup and so I've added it to my list of things to practice regularly.
We went straight to gauntlets after that and my group was me, Antony, and Jeremy making for some fun and dynamic rolls. The very first time I ever rolled with him Jeremy hit me with what I considered a power move that only worked on noobs, he let me pass to side control, then flipped me straight over him. I was baffled, because I've stopped WAY bigger guys from doing that to me. I spent the next year with that in my head and again prevented a bunch of much bigger guys from doing it. Then I rolled with him again, got to side control thinking, "AHA! I've got him now!" and then FWOOSH. So for another year I worked on being able to hold that side control and again this time I thought, "AHA! I've got him now!" 4 seconds later, over I went.
The difference this time is that he demonstrated to Antony how he was doing it and a key detail emerged. He was grabbing my belt over my back and I NEVER FELT IT. Seriously, that's how pimp his timing was. He would get the elbow in under my stomach, then rock back a bit, upa into me and lift. I would feel the lift from his elbow, but that pressure disguised the pressure from him grabbing my belt and lifting. So, once again, I think I have a handle on it and can stop him. Next time I plan on keeping him in side control once I get him there. Then he'll have to bust out some OTHER sneak trick I can steal, cause I'm gonna adopt this one.
He also is phenomenal with his gi manipulation. Half the time I would know exactly what he was doing and move to block it, only to find out my own gi was tied around my leg or something and I couldn't get to the counter in time. And my favorite part of the evening, he caught me in a wicked tight bow and arrow choke that I fought for about 3 seconds longer than I REALLY should have and I almost went out as I was tapping. My entire body was tingling for a good 15 seconds after he let go.
GOOD TRAINING!
I've rolled with him twice before, once last year, and once the year before and thoroughly enjoyed it because he's about 145lbs and maybe an inch taller than I am.
Technique was continuing on with the lapel wrapups from side control. This time a different armbar setup, and a transition to the back. There might also have been a choke, but I was a few minutes late to class and missed it. Mostly though I'm seeing that there are a ton of options from that lapel wrapup and so I've added it to my list of things to practice regularly.
We went straight to gauntlets after that and my group was me, Antony, and Jeremy making for some fun and dynamic rolls. The very first time I ever rolled with him Jeremy hit me with what I considered a power move that only worked on noobs, he let me pass to side control, then flipped me straight over him. I was baffled, because I've stopped WAY bigger guys from doing that to me. I spent the next year with that in my head and again prevented a bunch of much bigger guys from doing it. Then I rolled with him again, got to side control thinking, "AHA! I've got him now!" and then FWOOSH. So for another year I worked on being able to hold that side control and again this time I thought, "AHA! I've got him now!" 4 seconds later, over I went.
The difference this time is that he demonstrated to Antony how he was doing it and a key detail emerged. He was grabbing my belt over my back and I NEVER FELT IT. Seriously, that's how pimp his timing was. He would get the elbow in under my stomach, then rock back a bit, upa into me and lift. I would feel the lift from his elbow, but that pressure disguised the pressure from him grabbing my belt and lifting. So, once again, I think I have a handle on it and can stop him. Next time I plan on keeping him in side control once I get him there. Then he'll have to bust out some OTHER sneak trick I can steal, cause I'm gonna adopt this one.
He also is phenomenal with his gi manipulation. Half the time I would know exactly what he was doing and move to block it, only to find out my own gi was tied around my leg or something and I couldn't get to the counter in time. And my favorite part of the evening, he caught me in a wicked tight bow and arrow choke that I fought for about 3 seconds longer than I REALLY should have and I almost went out as I was tapping. My entire body was tingling for a good 15 seconds after he let go.
GOOD TRAINING!
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Video Analysis - 2/22/2011
So I have two videos today, one of me starting from the bottom of side control against my instructor, Alliance black belt Casey Baynes, and one of me starting from top of side control against one of our purple belts. They both weigh in around the 215 mark meaning I'm giving up about 75lbs.
Rolling with Casey
Take note of my arms starting at about the 3 second mark and going the 12 second mark. I'm working to link them together both to protect them, and to provide a better lever for creating space. At the 17 second mark Casey senses my intentions and changes his position to stop me from shrimping and grabbing half guard. You can barely see my feet at the 22 second mark where I am preparing to get all spider monkey up in this thing. I slide my shin into the crook of his elbow and set my other foot up as support, then when he pops his hand free that gives me the opening I need to kick my self around and try to get my knees between us, he eases up the pressure some as I get close to success and lets me rotate through to guard. Against most people, that ease in pressure isn't needed, I just pop them up into the air a bit and spin through, but Casey could easily counter that and crush me.
From there Casey grabs me with his unbreakable steel grip and I work to keep some distance and try to free my legs. At the 49 second mark he cuts through my guard and I get squirrely and snag his leg for some desperation halfguard. At 1:03 I switch to a modified half guard that gives me a better ability to lift and move his leg, it doesn't do much good against Casey, but I find it very handy against anyone else that I end up on bottom of halfguard against. At the same time I'm defending a kimura attempt on my right arm and I take advantage of a momentary opening to rescue that arm and move it mostly out of danger.
Casey then pops past my halfguard and I try to shrimp to regain guard. He stalls me out and I turtle, he moves to my back and I slide down to my side trying to hook his bicep with my knee to give me some leverage. It doesn't work. I try a running man escape and he locks me down, then he makes the transition to my back. I fight off the RNC and at about 2:40 he lifts me to dump me forward to stop me from defending, I counter by curling me heels back to give myself support and bracing and manage to fight off the RNC until the end of the round.
This kind of overmatch is all about tenacity. I don't get intimidated by Casey and assume things won't work. I play a little more cautiously and look for ways to be extra sneaky, but I don't ever assume I'm about to be crushed. The reality is that I AM about to be crushed, but I don't let that affect my efforts and every small victory, like managing to spin through mostly back to guard, or fighting off an RNC for a few seconds longer than last time, shows me that I'm improving.
Rolling with Coe
This roll starts off very slow. I'm always cautious on top of anyone that is capable of just throwing me off of them if they get the chance. The first 25 seconds are me working on freeing his lapel so I can try to tie his arm up with it. I partially succeed which is when he makes his first escape attempt at 23 seconds in. He's trying to trap my arm with his legs, but i'm wise to his shenanigans and I avoid it and go back to the lapel. Again I come close to getting an arm tied up and he makes a move to escape. It's essentially a power move, using his superior size and strength to just sit up against me with a minimum of leverage. At 42 seconds you can see where I am braced on my knee and move to kick out his supporting arm, he adjusts to avoid it being hooked, but that's all I need to get his weight back and roll him over. You can see at 46 seconds how I am grabbing his knee to control his hips. I was using that same pants grip back at the 38 second mark to stop him from getting his legs involved and pushing me over the rest of the way. He's tenacious though and tries to lever me up again and I use that same grip and my head control to dump him over. at 1:10 he's working some gi related shenanigans and trying to choke me from the bottom of side control. It doesn't work, but it does give him enough of an opening eventually when I try to move to mount for him to start an escape. At the 1:50 mark I'm working on floating on top of him, making my body as heavy as possible as he tries to roll me directly over using the leverage on my head. I succeed in stopping that escape attempt, but again I move for mount when he turns into me and this time he catches my leg and keeps it. At the 2:02 mark I'm working to get past his knee, but he uses some strength to just push me back. We go through a scramble and I end up briefly in upside down guard. With Coe that's like having a fencepost driven through your chest, so I can't do much with it. He wraps me up as I try to spin to guard and I end up with desperation halfguard. He starts working some crazy lapel choke just as time runs out.
When you're on top of a bigger opponent the game becomes one of leverage. You MUST maintain enough leverage to counter their strength and weight or they can just toss you to your back and crushify you. Learning ways to make your body more difficult to move is an important part of that, knowing when to go rigid and when to be dead weight as well as knowing what support bits are the easiest to kick out when someone is pushing you around. And again, don't be intimidated by people. A purple belt with 75lbs on you? So what! If you do shit right it will work on them just like it works on everybody else. They know more counters, and more tricks, and you have to do it EXACTLY RIGHT to make it work, but it all still works.
As always, commentary is welcome. Tell me how much I suck, what a noob I am, etc...
Rolling with Casey
Take note of my arms starting at about the 3 second mark and going the 12 second mark. I'm working to link them together both to protect them, and to provide a better lever for creating space. At the 17 second mark Casey senses my intentions and changes his position to stop me from shrimping and grabbing half guard. You can barely see my feet at the 22 second mark where I am preparing to get all spider monkey up in this thing. I slide my shin into the crook of his elbow and set my other foot up as support, then when he pops his hand free that gives me the opening I need to kick my self around and try to get my knees between us, he eases up the pressure some as I get close to success and lets me rotate through to guard. Against most people, that ease in pressure isn't needed, I just pop them up into the air a bit and spin through, but Casey could easily counter that and crush me.
From there Casey grabs me with his unbreakable steel grip and I work to keep some distance and try to free my legs. At the 49 second mark he cuts through my guard and I get squirrely and snag his leg for some desperation halfguard. At 1:03 I switch to a modified half guard that gives me a better ability to lift and move his leg, it doesn't do much good against Casey, but I find it very handy against anyone else that I end up on bottom of halfguard against. At the same time I'm defending a kimura attempt on my right arm and I take advantage of a momentary opening to rescue that arm and move it mostly out of danger.
Casey then pops past my halfguard and I try to shrimp to regain guard. He stalls me out and I turtle, he moves to my back and I slide down to my side trying to hook his bicep with my knee to give me some leverage. It doesn't work. I try a running man escape and he locks me down, then he makes the transition to my back. I fight off the RNC and at about 2:40 he lifts me to dump me forward to stop me from defending, I counter by curling me heels back to give myself support and bracing and manage to fight off the RNC until the end of the round.
This kind of overmatch is all about tenacity. I don't get intimidated by Casey and assume things won't work. I play a little more cautiously and look for ways to be extra sneaky, but I don't ever assume I'm about to be crushed. The reality is that I AM about to be crushed, but I don't let that affect my efforts and every small victory, like managing to spin through mostly back to guard, or fighting off an RNC for a few seconds longer than last time, shows me that I'm improving.
Rolling with Coe
This roll starts off very slow. I'm always cautious on top of anyone that is capable of just throwing me off of them if they get the chance. The first 25 seconds are me working on freeing his lapel so I can try to tie his arm up with it. I partially succeed which is when he makes his first escape attempt at 23 seconds in. He's trying to trap my arm with his legs, but i'm wise to his shenanigans and I avoid it and go back to the lapel. Again I come close to getting an arm tied up and he makes a move to escape. It's essentially a power move, using his superior size and strength to just sit up against me with a minimum of leverage. At 42 seconds you can see where I am braced on my knee and move to kick out his supporting arm, he adjusts to avoid it being hooked, but that's all I need to get his weight back and roll him over. You can see at 46 seconds how I am grabbing his knee to control his hips. I was using that same pants grip back at the 38 second mark to stop him from getting his legs involved and pushing me over the rest of the way. He's tenacious though and tries to lever me up again and I use that same grip and my head control to dump him over. at 1:10 he's working some gi related shenanigans and trying to choke me from the bottom of side control. It doesn't work, but it does give him enough of an opening eventually when I try to move to mount for him to start an escape. At the 1:50 mark I'm working on floating on top of him, making my body as heavy as possible as he tries to roll me directly over using the leverage on my head. I succeed in stopping that escape attempt, but again I move for mount when he turns into me and this time he catches my leg and keeps it. At the 2:02 mark I'm working to get past his knee, but he uses some strength to just push me back. We go through a scramble and I end up briefly in upside down guard. With Coe that's like having a fencepost driven through your chest, so I can't do much with it. He wraps me up as I try to spin to guard and I end up with desperation halfguard. He starts working some crazy lapel choke just as time runs out.
When you're on top of a bigger opponent the game becomes one of leverage. You MUST maintain enough leverage to counter their strength and weight or they can just toss you to your back and crushify you. Learning ways to make your body more difficult to move is an important part of that, knowing when to go rigid and when to be dead weight as well as knowing what support bits are the easiest to kick out when someone is pushing you around. And again, don't be intimidated by people. A purple belt with 75lbs on you? So what! If you do shit right it will work on them just like it works on everybody else. They know more counters, and more tricks, and you have to do it EXACTLY RIGHT to make it work, but it all still works.
As always, commentary is welcome. Tell me how much I suck, what a noob I am, etc...
Sunday, February 20, 2011
It works because you do it RIGHT, not because you do it FAST
OK, so time for another philosophical post. This one is directed at mostly people who feel like they can TASTE that blue belt. You're sure that the only thing holding you back from it is demonstrating how awesome you are by tapping out some existing blue belts, or running a clinic on your white belt compatriots. I've got some bad news for you, you're sabotaging yourself.
I've seen this happen with some guys in our gym, guys who really do have the technical skill to be getting their blues very very soon, but won't. Probably they will have to wait for another year. Why? Because they are rushing. They rush through techniques drilling, hitting the techniques hard and fast as if they are in competition. As a result they screw stuff up and end up getting like 4 decent reps in and otherwise getting confused and flubbing it over and over again.
Then when we start drilling they rush. Instead of working the techniques we just learned from the starting position they move directly to their "A" competition game and don't learn anything new.
And finally when rolling they rush rush rush trying to pass guard, trying to get a sub, trying to escape. Everything they do is in a hurry. The result is a bunch of activity for very little relative result.
So for everyone who has ever spent 5 minutes running back and forth around some guy that looks half asleep, been choked out 20 different ways in one round by someone that seems to move at a snails pace half the time, or feels like they just got done with a track meet after they leave their jiujitsu class I want you to repeat after me, "It works because I do it RIGHT, not because I do it FAST."
That's my motto and I suggest you all adopt it. Throwing your legs up super fast and yanking on an armbar will not get you a tap if your legs are in the wrong place, and not pinched together, and your hips are too low.
Breaking your opponent down, getting your guard up high, isolating the arm, and swiveling for a proper armbar will get you a tap every time, no matter how fast or slow you do it.
If you feel like you CAN'T get the armbar without throwing up fast, then generally you need to back up a step or two to how you're setting up the armbar and re-examine it. That applies to ALL techniques too. Triangle chokes will not work if you throw them on super fast and your heel is halfway down the guys back and he has both of his elbows tucked down. He's got all the time in the world to escape from that no matter how hard you crank.
So I exhort you all to please SLOW DOWN and do things right. I promise you it will increase your success rate in the long run, because once you get used to doing it right, THEN you can do it fast.
I've seen this happen with some guys in our gym, guys who really do have the technical skill to be getting their blues very very soon, but won't. Probably they will have to wait for another year. Why? Because they are rushing. They rush through techniques drilling, hitting the techniques hard and fast as if they are in competition. As a result they screw stuff up and end up getting like 4 decent reps in and otherwise getting confused and flubbing it over and over again.
Then when we start drilling they rush. Instead of working the techniques we just learned from the starting position they move directly to their "A" competition game and don't learn anything new.
And finally when rolling they rush rush rush trying to pass guard, trying to get a sub, trying to escape. Everything they do is in a hurry. The result is a bunch of activity for very little relative result.
So for everyone who has ever spent 5 minutes running back and forth around some guy that looks half asleep, been choked out 20 different ways in one round by someone that seems to move at a snails pace half the time, or feels like they just got done with a track meet after they leave their jiujitsu class I want you to repeat after me, "It works because I do it RIGHT, not because I do it FAST."
That's my motto and I suggest you all adopt it. Throwing your legs up super fast and yanking on an armbar will not get you a tap if your legs are in the wrong place, and not pinched together, and your hips are too low.
Breaking your opponent down, getting your guard up high, isolating the arm, and swiveling for a proper armbar will get you a tap every time, no matter how fast or slow you do it.
If you feel like you CAN'T get the armbar without throwing up fast, then generally you need to back up a step or two to how you're setting up the armbar and re-examine it. That applies to ALL techniques too. Triangle chokes will not work if you throw them on super fast and your heel is halfway down the guys back and he has both of his elbows tucked down. He's got all the time in the world to escape from that no matter how hard you crank.
So I exhort you all to please SLOW DOWN and do things right. I promise you it will increase your success rate in the long run, because once you get used to doing it right, THEN you can do it fast.
BJJ 2/20/2012 No-Gi
Went to Taste of Athens today, so didn't do the fundamentals class, but got there at 7pm and Katie was there, so I went over a quick combo with her, armdrag, opponent counters, you let their arm go and kick the leg up for the triangle choke, they posture up, you switch to the armbar. It's a combo I use pretty regularly and it works pretty well. Only had time to drill it with her a few times, but got it in her head and I'll be introducing it in the next no-gi class anyways.
Main class was full of fun stuff. First tech was from side control and was directed at me personally. I'm really good at getting my knee wedged in from bottom of side and getting guard back, so when someone frames on your neck and pushes and drives that knee in, you reach under their arm to the back of their head like you're going for a darce, then step over their head with your top leg and then back step so that you are in side control on the opposite side, ideally with their arm tied up and them unable to turn into you.
Second tech, you wedge the opponents near arm down away from their neck a bit with your body, then push the far arm down a bit (We found that it was equally useful to fake a kimura attempt since it put both of your arms in the right place anyways and kept your opponents mind off of the next step) then wrap your arm back around under your opponents head like you are setting up for a guillotine. Move from side control to north/south, wedging your lat into the opponents neck, then slide down as far as you can, make a fist with your bottom arm, grab it and squeeze everything together. If it doesn't work it usually means you just need to slide further down.
Third tech was an alliance special. Ian McPherson uses this one and variants on it all the time. You are performing the second tech, but your opponent catches on and interposes his arm so that you can't lock your hands up to finish the choke and you can't slide down far enough to get any more pressure. So you grab the tricep of the interposing arm with your free hand (The one not under the opponents head) and move back towards side control, keeping that arm tight. Next you sit out and put your leg across your opponents stomach. At the same time stay locked around their head until you are secure and ready to finish. Next switch to a heel hook style grip on their elbow and lean back and arch your hips. Puts a ton of pressure on the shoulder really quickly. We did a couple of variations of that one, then went to drilling a bit.
Started with one player in side control, I pulled off the Americana from bottom of side control that Zapruder showed me a while back, ended up finishing it in bottom of guard as a half wristlock. The look of utter amazement as the guy tapped to it was priceless, but it's only good one time really. The same guy managed a REALLY nice reversal to my back a little later. Just pulled a move I completely didn't expect from him. After a bit of escaping and subbing folks we switched to rolling at which point I grouped up with Anthony and Kris and went on a No-Gi rampage.
Somewhere in the last couple of months with my improved top game and my increasingly dynamic guard game I've gotten over being gunshy about truly attempting submissions. I had no worries about getting passed if the sub failed, or anything like that. I just dug in, tossed them up, and worked the combos. I ended up landing a stupid quantity of subs in this class whereas normally I've just been working position recently and only taking subs as they appeared. This time around I was making the subs happen. I feel like I've taken another step up in my game and I have very high hopes regarding getting my purple belt this year. Especially if I can get out to Alliance HQ a couple of times a month for a while.
Main class was full of fun stuff. First tech was from side control and was directed at me personally. I'm really good at getting my knee wedged in from bottom of side and getting guard back, so when someone frames on your neck and pushes and drives that knee in, you reach under their arm to the back of their head like you're going for a darce, then step over their head with your top leg and then back step so that you are in side control on the opposite side, ideally with their arm tied up and them unable to turn into you.
Second tech, you wedge the opponents near arm down away from their neck a bit with your body, then push the far arm down a bit (We found that it was equally useful to fake a kimura attempt since it put both of your arms in the right place anyways and kept your opponents mind off of the next step) then wrap your arm back around under your opponents head like you are setting up for a guillotine. Move from side control to north/south, wedging your lat into the opponents neck, then slide down as far as you can, make a fist with your bottom arm, grab it and squeeze everything together. If it doesn't work it usually means you just need to slide further down.
Third tech was an alliance special. Ian McPherson uses this one and variants on it all the time. You are performing the second tech, but your opponent catches on and interposes his arm so that you can't lock your hands up to finish the choke and you can't slide down far enough to get any more pressure. So you grab the tricep of the interposing arm with your free hand (The one not under the opponents head) and move back towards side control, keeping that arm tight. Next you sit out and put your leg across your opponents stomach. At the same time stay locked around their head until you are secure and ready to finish. Next switch to a heel hook style grip on their elbow and lean back and arch your hips. Puts a ton of pressure on the shoulder really quickly. We did a couple of variations of that one, then went to drilling a bit.
Started with one player in side control, I pulled off the Americana from bottom of side control that Zapruder showed me a while back, ended up finishing it in bottom of guard as a half wristlock. The look of utter amazement as the guy tapped to it was priceless, but it's only good one time really. The same guy managed a REALLY nice reversal to my back a little later. Just pulled a move I completely didn't expect from him. After a bit of escaping and subbing folks we switched to rolling at which point I grouped up with Anthony and Kris and went on a No-Gi rampage.
Somewhere in the last couple of months with my improved top game and my increasingly dynamic guard game I've gotten over being gunshy about truly attempting submissions. I had no worries about getting passed if the sub failed, or anything like that. I just dug in, tossed them up, and worked the combos. I ended up landing a stupid quantity of subs in this class whereas normally I've just been working position recently and only taking subs as they appeared. This time around I was making the subs happen. I feel like I've taken another step up in my game and I have very high hopes regarding getting my purple belt this year. Especially if I can get out to Alliance HQ a couple of times a month for a while.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
BJJ 2/18/2011
The only person in the fundamentals class was Steven, he doesn't have a gi, so we worked through armbars from guard for no-gi emphasizing using the legs to control the upper body and sweeping to finish from the top.
Then I walked him through what to do when your opponent manages to yank his arm out. Showed the switch to the triangle choke, again emphasizing keeping the hips high and not rushing to the finish before adjusting everything properly.
Finished up with some Jiujitsu chess, again emphasizing thinking when you're rolling.
Main class started out with some standup work, hipthrows back and forth. Techniques were a continuation of the side control work we've been doing. Transitioning to the top arm under the far shoulder, then transitioning to the mount by pulling the far knee down.
We followed that up with options when the mount isn't available. The first option was catching the hand and pushing it away from the body and switching to a Kimura. Second option was for when your opponent manages to grab their belt or pants. Transition to north south, then attack with the kimura from there.
We started rolling from side control and I joined the heavyweight group. Rolling with Coe, Casey, and Johnny so I spent most of my time defending against wicked chokes and kimuras. Managed to finagle my way back to guard a few times from the bottom and wait out a few submissions with Casey and Coe. Johnny just BLASTS through my guard though, smashes me, and grabs a limb and yanks it around. If I play 100% defense and nothing else I can hold him off for a while, but the second I give him ANY kind of opening he'll smash right through it.
On top I was able to hold Coe down despite most of his efforts. He can't rely on powering me off of him and has to get tricky to escape. Casey I can hold down for a bit, but FWOOSH eventually he magically teleports me onto the bottom.
Johnny grabs a big handful of gi and just powers me far enough off of him to switch to a double leg and smashes me. I'm still working on figuring out what I need to do to slow him down, he's one of my favorite guys to roll with.
I did get a couple of videos from this one, one of me rolling with Casey and one with Coe. I wanted one with Johnny but ended up not getting any. So I'm not getting as smashed in the videos as I wanted to be for analysis. I'll have the videos up monday some time with some analysis.
Then I walked him through what to do when your opponent manages to yank his arm out. Showed the switch to the triangle choke, again emphasizing keeping the hips high and not rushing to the finish before adjusting everything properly.
Finished up with some Jiujitsu chess, again emphasizing thinking when you're rolling.
Main class started out with some standup work, hipthrows back and forth. Techniques were a continuation of the side control work we've been doing. Transitioning to the top arm under the far shoulder, then transitioning to the mount by pulling the far knee down.
We followed that up with options when the mount isn't available. The first option was catching the hand and pushing it away from the body and switching to a Kimura. Second option was for when your opponent manages to grab their belt or pants. Transition to north south, then attack with the kimura from there.
We started rolling from side control and I joined the heavyweight group. Rolling with Coe, Casey, and Johnny so I spent most of my time defending against wicked chokes and kimuras. Managed to finagle my way back to guard a few times from the bottom and wait out a few submissions with Casey and Coe. Johnny just BLASTS through my guard though, smashes me, and grabs a limb and yanks it around. If I play 100% defense and nothing else I can hold him off for a while, but the second I give him ANY kind of opening he'll smash right through it.
On top I was able to hold Coe down despite most of his efforts. He can't rely on powering me off of him and has to get tricky to escape. Casey I can hold down for a bit, but FWOOSH eventually he magically teleports me onto the bottom.
Johnny grabs a big handful of gi and just powers me far enough off of him to switch to a double leg and smashes me. I'm still working on figuring out what I need to do to slow him down, he's one of my favorite guys to roll with.
I did get a couple of videos from this one, one of me rolling with Casey and one with Coe. I wanted one with Johnny but ended up not getting any. So I'm not getting as smashed in the videos as I wanted to be for analysis. I'll have the videos up monday some time with some analysis.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
BJJ 2/16/2011 - A Rib Snapping Good Time!
I showed up a little early since the Judo class I was going to visit got cancelled, did some agility drills and vacuumed the mats to get random crud from the TKD classes off of them. Kris showed up a little early and we did some warm up rolling. He's still got the bad habit of trying to replace technique with speed/strength which is hurting his progress. He has a lot of potential, but his mindset is holding him back right now.
Ian ran through the basic warmup, then we drilled some armbars and omoplatas from guard. Casey showed up right as we were finishing that up and we went to work on techniques from side control.
Technique today was to have your normal side control, with one arm under the head and the other under the far shoulder, grab some gi on that far arm and lift as you switch your arm that is under the head to be under the shoulder. You should be nice and deep so your opponents weight is actually coming down on your forearm. Next move your other arm to block the opponents hip and step over the head. At the same time you want to pressure into them to drive their shoulder up off of the ground. If they are light enough or you are strong enough you can lift up on them to pull them up onto their side. Next you get the figure four grip on their arm, and now you put your knee in their ribs, sit on them, squeeze your knees, and sit back for an armbar.
The next option was the same, but their armbar defense looks to be too solid, so instead of attempting the armbar you go to the Kimura by putting your knee on their bottom bicep and popping the arm free by pulling up sharply.
Last option was if they are hiding their bottom arm as well, you scoot forward until your knees are pinching them at the midback and chest and then you keep the arm, drop to the side, cross your ankles and use a scissor on their neck. This was stupidly effective and I vowed that if anyone tapped me with a head scissors I would switch to Aikido and Catch Wrestling.
Drilling was with Coe, Casey, and Ian starting in Side Control. I was able to reguard against Casey the first time via some insane agility that ended us in some weird mutual headstand position before I was able to pop back to guard. Coe crushified me for a while but I can't remember whether time ran out on the drilling or he caught me with something.
Rolling was with the same group. Casey let me get past his guard a couple of times with minimal resistance and I worked to maintain my position on top and set up attacks. Being able to stay on top of Casey for ANY length of time gives me a lot of confidence in my top game now.
Starting on top of Coe I can maintain top position as long as I don't get over zealous with submission hunting. I was able to counter his escape attempts most of the time without tiring myself out. On the bottom with Coe it's like having a truck parked on me though. If he gets past my legs/knees it's just horrible. I spend 90% of my effort just trying not to tap to the pressure while I defend his sub attempts. He usually gets me eventually.
Ian I can hold down and hunt subs on from the top, and I can still trick him from the bottom most of the time and catch a sub or two. I managed to finish with the alternate grip collar choke and an armbar this time, but he damn near got me with that headscissors move we learned in class. If his legs had been adjusted slightly I would have had to tap to it, as it was I was able to relieve the pressure and work to escape until time ran out.
Working with the heavier guys is a blast, but it's a TON of work. I've learned that I REALLY don't like being on the bottom in Gi against anyone more than 30lbs heavier than I am that is also the same skill level. In No-Gi I don't mind as much because there's so much less friction that I can still maneuver, but in Gi the friction lock that their weight causes more than counters the benefit of being able to slow them down with gi grips. I definitely prefer to work from the top in Gi where I can still be mobile.
Ian ran through the basic warmup, then we drilled some armbars and omoplatas from guard. Casey showed up right as we were finishing that up and we went to work on techniques from side control.
Technique today was to have your normal side control, with one arm under the head and the other under the far shoulder, grab some gi on that far arm and lift as you switch your arm that is under the head to be under the shoulder. You should be nice and deep so your opponents weight is actually coming down on your forearm. Next move your other arm to block the opponents hip and step over the head. At the same time you want to pressure into them to drive their shoulder up off of the ground. If they are light enough or you are strong enough you can lift up on them to pull them up onto their side. Next you get the figure four grip on their arm, and now you put your knee in their ribs, sit on them, squeeze your knees, and sit back for an armbar.
The next option was the same, but their armbar defense looks to be too solid, so instead of attempting the armbar you go to the Kimura by putting your knee on their bottom bicep and popping the arm free by pulling up sharply.
Last option was if they are hiding their bottom arm as well, you scoot forward until your knees are pinching them at the midback and chest and then you keep the arm, drop to the side, cross your ankles and use a scissor on their neck. This was stupidly effective and I vowed that if anyone tapped me with a head scissors I would switch to Aikido and Catch Wrestling.
Drilling was with Coe, Casey, and Ian starting in Side Control. I was able to reguard against Casey the first time via some insane agility that ended us in some weird mutual headstand position before I was able to pop back to guard. Coe crushified me for a while but I can't remember whether time ran out on the drilling or he caught me with something.
Rolling was with the same group. Casey let me get past his guard a couple of times with minimal resistance and I worked to maintain my position on top and set up attacks. Being able to stay on top of Casey for ANY length of time gives me a lot of confidence in my top game now.
Starting on top of Coe I can maintain top position as long as I don't get over zealous with submission hunting. I was able to counter his escape attempts most of the time without tiring myself out. On the bottom with Coe it's like having a truck parked on me though. If he gets past my legs/knees it's just horrible. I spend 90% of my effort just trying not to tap to the pressure while I defend his sub attempts. He usually gets me eventually.
Ian I can hold down and hunt subs on from the top, and I can still trick him from the bottom most of the time and catch a sub or two. I managed to finish with the alternate grip collar choke and an armbar this time, but he damn near got me with that headscissors move we learned in class. If his legs had been adjusted slightly I would have had to tap to it, as it was I was able to relieve the pressure and work to escape until time ran out.
Working with the heavier guys is a blast, but it's a TON of work. I've learned that I REALLY don't like being on the bottom in Gi against anyone more than 30lbs heavier than I am that is also the same skill level. In No-Gi I don't mind as much because there's so much less friction that I can still maneuver, but in Gi the friction lock that their weight causes more than counters the benefit of being able to slow them down with gi grips. I definitely prefer to work from the top in Gi where I can still be mobile.
Monday, February 14, 2011
BJJ 2/13/2011
Fundamentals class:
Good class, Ian the blue belt brought his kid and one of his kids friends along and my buddy Will was there.We reviewed preventing the guard pass by pushing the head down and executing a technical stand, the we talked about receiving well when someone passes your guard or attempts to take mount. I had them drill framing against each other while they passed and then pulling the knee up to create a frame when one of them tried to take mount.
After working on that for a bit I had them do some jiujitsu chess trying to reinforce the idea of THINKING while they are rolling. Had a brief QA session at the end and went back over some off the no-gi attacks with the overhook from a few weeks ago.
Main Class:
We were all pretty much warmed up, so we moved right to techniques. Casey decided to teach a "What Fedor Did Wrong" themed class so first up was catching the opponents leg in halfguard when they move to mount (One of the options I had just shown, YAY!) and then getting the underhook, hipping out, and sweeping. Then going to deep half and sweeping by grabbing the foot with the top hand, driving forward a bit, then rolling back the other way. And finally halfguard where your opponent is laying across you working to pass and you frame on his back, and shrimp to a technical stand, or if they chase you, suddenly crossface and roll them.
We drilled from halfguard and I spent the entire time trying to reinforce to the younger guys that they need to use the stuff we JUST LEARNED because it works. They tend to be a little spazzy and apparently have the impression that techniques work if you go FASTER and TRY HARDER. I had to stop them a couple of times and make them just slow down and do the technique properly instead of just trying to move faster.
Rolling was a 5 man gauntlet with Me, Will, Ian, Coe and Casey. Somehow I ended up not rolling with Casey at all, but I was able to enforce my top game on everyone else, including Coe the 220lb purple belt. He initiated a scramble early on and I took his back, flattened him and worked the RNC for a bit, he defended it and tried to peel me off, I transitioned to side control, and then to north south, and generally kept him from putting anything together while I constantly threatened chokes. We'll see how that works out for me next week when he steps up the pace a little.
Good class though, teaching the fundamentals class is really making me think about those little things that make my jiujitsu work and it seems to be helping the other people that are attending as well.
Good class, Ian the blue belt brought his kid and one of his kids friends along and my buddy Will was there.We reviewed preventing the guard pass by pushing the head down and executing a technical stand, the we talked about receiving well when someone passes your guard or attempts to take mount. I had them drill framing against each other while they passed and then pulling the knee up to create a frame when one of them tried to take mount.
After working on that for a bit I had them do some jiujitsu chess trying to reinforce the idea of THINKING while they are rolling. Had a brief QA session at the end and went back over some off the no-gi attacks with the overhook from a few weeks ago.
Main Class:
We were all pretty much warmed up, so we moved right to techniques. Casey decided to teach a "What Fedor Did Wrong" themed class so first up was catching the opponents leg in halfguard when they move to mount (One of the options I had just shown, YAY!) and then getting the underhook, hipping out, and sweeping. Then going to deep half and sweeping by grabbing the foot with the top hand, driving forward a bit, then rolling back the other way. And finally halfguard where your opponent is laying across you working to pass and you frame on his back, and shrimp to a technical stand, or if they chase you, suddenly crossface and roll them.
We drilled from halfguard and I spent the entire time trying to reinforce to the younger guys that they need to use the stuff we JUST LEARNED because it works. They tend to be a little spazzy and apparently have the impression that techniques work if you go FASTER and TRY HARDER. I had to stop them a couple of times and make them just slow down and do the technique properly instead of just trying to move faster.
Rolling was a 5 man gauntlet with Me, Will, Ian, Coe and Casey. Somehow I ended up not rolling with Casey at all, but I was able to enforce my top game on everyone else, including Coe the 220lb purple belt. He initiated a scramble early on and I took his back, flattened him and worked the RNC for a bit, he defended it and tried to peel me off, I transitioned to side control, and then to north south, and generally kept him from putting anything together while I constantly threatened chokes. We'll see how that works out for me next week when he steps up the pace a little.
Good class though, teaching the fundamentals class is really making me think about those little things that make my jiujitsu work and it seems to be helping the other people that are attending as well.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
BJJ 2/11/2011
No one showed up for the beginner class, so chilled until time for the main class. Casey's schedule got jacked up again so he can't make it to class until 8 now. Class ended up being all kinds of small, just six of us around 8pm. I spent the first half hour playing upside down guard with folks while we rolled randomly. When Casey got there we worked a baseball bat choke setup using the lapel to tie up the shoulder or arm depending on how they defend, then a modification where the opponent defends early by grabbing the lapel, so you switch to an ezekiel. Then another variation where the gi tie up is too tight, so you switch to an ezekiel from the back with the other hand in the sleeve.
We rolled a gauntlet and again I spent some more time playing upside down guard and eventually concluded that I'm going to leave it as a transitory position instead of one where I hang out. It puts a lot of stress on my lower back that I don't like to deal with.
Rolled with Casey a couple of times and I can tell that I've made progress. The level of resistance he gives me now would have wrecked me six months ago.
Got stuck under Coe in an attempted inverted triangle thingy for most of a round, couldn't break his grip while I was transitioning and got stuck.
Nothing else particularly notable, though I can fuckin taste that purple belt.
We rolled a gauntlet and again I spent some more time playing upside down guard and eventually concluded that I'm going to leave it as a transitory position instead of one where I hang out. It puts a lot of stress on my lower back that I don't like to deal with.
Rolled with Casey a couple of times and I can tell that I've made progress. The level of resistance he gives me now would have wrecked me six months ago.
Got stuck under Coe in an attempted inverted triangle thingy for most of a round, couldn't break his grip while I was transitioning and got stuck.
Nothing else particularly notable, though I can fuckin taste that purple belt.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Handling the size disadvantage
Because it's such a common theme I continually end up in discussions about how to handle bigger guys when rolling and I see a lot of people looking to guys like Cobrinha and Marcelo Garcia for techniques to try. The problem with that is that those guys are so experienced that they have a highly developed game filled with techniques they've used thousands of times. Of course they can make their stuff work against an 80 lb advantage. But how did they get there? What does the beginning of a game that can handle that kind of weight disparity look like?
And before anyone accuses me of getting a swelled head, I'm not comparing myself to Cobrinha or Marcelo, that's the point. I'm not them. I'm not anywhere close to that level, but I am still able to control people that weigh up to 100lbs more than I do. So I shot three videos last week demonstrating how I roll against those guys.
The first video is against a 230lb white belt who has been training for just under a year.
Important points to notice in this video are as follows: Notice how active my legs and feet are? I use my feet as a second pair of hands. I try to keep most of my opponents weight on my legs because they are so much stronger than my arms.
At 1:20 I start working to get under him because he has stood up. If I can get under a standing opponent I can get their hips loaded onto my feet and sweep them, as you see I do at 1:28.
After that I move into my "mudslide" phase and concentrate on keeping as much deadweight as possible on my opponent. At 2:20 when he is trying to lift me and toss me away I concentrate on keeping my weight driven down onto my knee that is on his stomach and use my extended arm and leg as balance points only, no weight is actually on them.
Once I get to side control I focus on keeping a dominant position. Whenever he tries to push me away I pop to knee on belly. At 3:19 he attempts to roll away and I start moving to his back, however to avoid the chance of being tossed off and ending up on the bottom I don't go all the way to his back. I move to back side control, which proves a wise decision as he rolls back in to me and I end up on top of side control again.
In mount I make a minor mistake and move to "Monkey Mount" while my hips are still too low, which allows him to toss me off at 3:45. I surf on him to maintain top position for a while, then drop back to force him to play top game because I wanted to show some more control from the bottom.
Again look at 4:30 and how active my feet are. I always have my feet on his hips, or on his biceps, or some combination of the two. He is never able to successfully bring is weight to bear on me.
The next video is with a 180lb Blue Belt. This guy is intentionally trying to avoid using too much strength as he's working on improving his technique. I use a lot of the same stuff to keep from getting smashed though.
Ok, things to watch in this one: Again I try to keep my legs between me and my opponent. Feet are on biceps and hips constantly and my knees are always up.
At the same time I'm trying to attack his balance whenever I can.
At :55 he starts to pass on one side and I immediately push his head down and execute a technical stand, then re-pull guard. From there he drops back to LRH and I start working to pass guard,again with a mudslide mentality. He keeps his legs between us and at 1:49 is able to get my hips over his leg far enough that he can lift me over and dump me quite hilariously. My reflex is to pull me knees up and immediately get them on his hips to prevent him from taking advantage of it though and I push him off and return to guard.
At 2:20 from feet on hips spider guard I begin working a collar choke using my knees to keep his defending hands away. He reverts to pure strength for a moment to pull my hand off and I throw up a couple of triangles at the end. Nothing too special in this one, just another good example of using my feet and legs as a second set of arms.
The final roll is with a 215lb white belt that has been training with us about 6 months. He's shorter than the 230lb guy from the first video and so carries his weight in a more compact package which results in a slightly different method of controlling him.
Once again I immediately get my feet on his hips to stop him from bringing his weight down on me. I stretch him out a little while I have the sleeve grip which extends his arm so I can spin under him to attempt an armbar. Notice at :17 that I am not attempting a normal armbar which would allow him to stack me, but using my knees to pinch his arm and attempt the armbar. I could have cranked it here and finished it, but instead I go with his resistance and let him drop onto my leg. At :21 he's loaded for the sweep already, he tries to run away from it, but his weight is centered on top of me, so there's no way he can escape once I have his leg underhooked. This is a perfect example of how to use a bigger guys weight against him.
From there I maintain mount by extending my arms out. Once again I make the mistake of switching to monkey mount against a bigger guy and he's able to roll me. I move to closed guard, then return to me preferred guard with my knees between. Once I establish my feet on hips guard I start attempting to monkey flip him. He's able to keep his hips far enough back that I can't manage the full flip in this round, but I did land it on him in a later round.
The most important thing in this video is once he does manage to get good grips on my ankles and pin my legs to pass. I immediately turtle and roll through to regain guard. As he tries to move to side control I'm already getting on my side, getting my underhook, getting my knee between us and establishing a half butterfly hook. All before he even comes close to settling in to side. had the round not ended I would have been able to easily pop back to guard or even come out the side and attack again.
As always, comments are welcome. Tell me how much I suck and what a noob I am. It's all good.
And before anyone accuses me of getting a swelled head, I'm not comparing myself to Cobrinha or Marcelo, that's the point. I'm not them. I'm not anywhere close to that level, but I am still able to control people that weigh up to 100lbs more than I do. So I shot three videos last week demonstrating how I roll against those guys.
The first video is against a 230lb white belt who has been training for just under a year.
Important points to notice in this video are as follows: Notice how active my legs and feet are? I use my feet as a second pair of hands. I try to keep most of my opponents weight on my legs because they are so much stronger than my arms.
At 1:20 I start working to get under him because he has stood up. If I can get under a standing opponent I can get their hips loaded onto my feet and sweep them, as you see I do at 1:28.
After that I move into my "mudslide" phase and concentrate on keeping as much deadweight as possible on my opponent. At 2:20 when he is trying to lift me and toss me away I concentrate on keeping my weight driven down onto my knee that is on his stomach and use my extended arm and leg as balance points only, no weight is actually on them.
Once I get to side control I focus on keeping a dominant position. Whenever he tries to push me away I pop to knee on belly. At 3:19 he attempts to roll away and I start moving to his back, however to avoid the chance of being tossed off and ending up on the bottom I don't go all the way to his back. I move to back side control, which proves a wise decision as he rolls back in to me and I end up on top of side control again.
In mount I make a minor mistake and move to "Monkey Mount" while my hips are still too low, which allows him to toss me off at 3:45. I surf on him to maintain top position for a while, then drop back to force him to play top game because I wanted to show some more control from the bottom.
Again look at 4:30 and how active my feet are. I always have my feet on his hips, or on his biceps, or some combination of the two. He is never able to successfully bring is weight to bear on me.
The next video is with a 180lb Blue Belt. This guy is intentionally trying to avoid using too much strength as he's working on improving his technique. I use a lot of the same stuff to keep from getting smashed though.
Ok, things to watch in this one: Again I try to keep my legs between me and my opponent. Feet are on biceps and hips constantly and my knees are always up.
At the same time I'm trying to attack his balance whenever I can.
At :55 he starts to pass on one side and I immediately push his head down and execute a technical stand, then re-pull guard. From there he drops back to LRH and I start working to pass guard,again with a mudslide mentality. He keeps his legs between us and at 1:49 is able to get my hips over his leg far enough that he can lift me over and dump me quite hilariously. My reflex is to pull me knees up and immediately get them on his hips to prevent him from taking advantage of it though and I push him off and return to guard.
At 2:20 from feet on hips spider guard I begin working a collar choke using my knees to keep his defending hands away. He reverts to pure strength for a moment to pull my hand off and I throw up a couple of triangles at the end. Nothing too special in this one, just another good example of using my feet and legs as a second set of arms.
The final roll is with a 215lb white belt that has been training with us about 6 months. He's shorter than the 230lb guy from the first video and so carries his weight in a more compact package which results in a slightly different method of controlling him.
Once again I immediately get my feet on his hips to stop him from bringing his weight down on me. I stretch him out a little while I have the sleeve grip which extends his arm so I can spin under him to attempt an armbar. Notice at :17 that I am not attempting a normal armbar which would allow him to stack me, but using my knees to pinch his arm and attempt the armbar. I could have cranked it here and finished it, but instead I go with his resistance and let him drop onto my leg. At :21 he's loaded for the sweep already, he tries to run away from it, but his weight is centered on top of me, so there's no way he can escape once I have his leg underhooked. This is a perfect example of how to use a bigger guys weight against him.
From there I maintain mount by extending my arms out. Once again I make the mistake of switching to monkey mount against a bigger guy and he's able to roll me. I move to closed guard, then return to me preferred guard with my knees between. Once I establish my feet on hips guard I start attempting to monkey flip him. He's able to keep his hips far enough back that I can't manage the full flip in this round, but I did land it on him in a later round.
The most important thing in this video is once he does manage to get good grips on my ankles and pin my legs to pass. I immediately turtle and roll through to regain guard. As he tries to move to side control I'm already getting on my side, getting my underhook, getting my knee between us and establishing a half butterfly hook. All before he even comes close to settling in to side. had the round not ended I would have been able to easily pop back to guard or even come out the side and attack again.
As always, comments are welcome. Tell me how much I suck and what a noob I am. It's all good.
Sweep off of failed Guillotine
*EDIT* I've been informed that this is apparently the "100%" sweep referenced in Eddie Bravo's 10th Planet material. I've read about the 100% before but the descriptions of it never matched my visualization of this technique, so I never put it together. Apparently I've been using the 100% for years.
I discovered this sweep by accident a couple of years ago and have since then seen it in several different places, however I have no idea what the common name for it is so I haven't been able to find any videos of it when I want to recommend it to people. So, here is a sweep from a failed guillotine attempt:
I discovered this sweep by accident a couple of years ago and have since then seen it in several different places, however I have no idea what the common name for it is so I haven't been able to find any videos of it when I want to recommend it to people. So, here is a sweep from a failed guillotine attempt:
Friday, February 4, 2011
BJJ 2/4/2011
Fundamentals
Had two guys for the fundamentals class today, one of them is pretty much brand new to the Gi but has some no-gi experience. We warmed up with the Upa->Shrimp->Hipswitch->Turtle->Sitout->Repeat drill, then I went over different grips and how to break them and had them do some grip fighting back and forth to get used to the idea. Next I showed them the basic X-choke and one grip variation of it. After that I went over framing and escaping mount and side control again then I had them play BJJ Chess for about 20 minutes. Making one move at a time. It really shows you the difference between having trained for 4+ years and having trained for 1 year or less. They frequently had to completely stop and think for several seconds about what they should do next, whereas I generally already have 4-5 moves planned out and ready. Hopefully we'll see them improve their ability to think ahead as time goes by in the fundamentals class.
Main Class
Casey liked my warm up drill from the fundamental class, so the main class did it as well. After that it was more arm drag drills, different grip breaks to the armdrag setup and then various finishes from the back. Same stuff we've been working on the last few sessions, once again I really enjoy getting a ton of reps on stuff. Drilled and threw some people around, then rolled with some folks. I was filming some of the rolls, of course the roll where I hit an overhead sweep on 215lber wasn't filmed, but I got some good stuff out of it which I'll be posting monday.
What I've most noticed recently is that I'm getting more and more relaxed while rolling to the point where I just prevent my opponent from putting much together in the way of offense until they give me an opening and it doesn't seem to matter how hard my opponent is working, my intensity level never changes. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. I think I need to spend a few sessions working on cranking my intensity up.
Had two guys for the fundamentals class today, one of them is pretty much brand new to the Gi but has some no-gi experience. We warmed up with the Upa->Shrimp->Hipswitch->Turtle->Sitout->Repeat drill, then I went over different grips and how to break them and had them do some grip fighting back and forth to get used to the idea. Next I showed them the basic X-choke and one grip variation of it. After that I went over framing and escaping mount and side control again then I had them play BJJ Chess for about 20 minutes. Making one move at a time. It really shows you the difference between having trained for 4+ years and having trained for 1 year or less. They frequently had to completely stop and think for several seconds about what they should do next, whereas I generally already have 4-5 moves planned out and ready. Hopefully we'll see them improve their ability to think ahead as time goes by in the fundamentals class.
Main Class
Casey liked my warm up drill from the fundamental class, so the main class did it as well. After that it was more arm drag drills, different grip breaks to the armdrag setup and then various finishes from the back. Same stuff we've been working on the last few sessions, once again I really enjoy getting a ton of reps on stuff. Drilled and threw some people around, then rolled with some folks. I was filming some of the rolls, of course the roll where I hit an overhead sweep on 215lber wasn't filmed, but I got some good stuff out of it which I'll be posting monday.
What I've most noticed recently is that I'm getting more and more relaxed while rolling to the point where I just prevent my opponent from putting much together in the way of offense until they give me an opening and it doesn't seem to matter how hard my opponent is working, my intensity level never changes. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. I think I need to spend a few sessions working on cranking my intensity up.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
BJJ 1/30/2011
I trained last friday as well, taught the beginner class and took the main class, but I was too busy to post about them. Went over breaking the guard in Gi and did some passing and reguarding drills. Main class was continuing work on armdrags and different variants.
Tonight I had 3 people for the beginner class. I started out with a movement drill where you Upa, shrimp, hipswitch to turtle, then sitout and end up back on your back and repeat. For technique we worked no-gi guard passing using a tripod pass where you post your head on your opponents solar plexus, base up on your feet and keep one arm in their armpit and use the other to break the legs open and start your pass. After everyone had the basic idea we drilled doing the pass and the bottom person had to shrimp, hip switch to turtle, then sitout back to guard.
Next up we worked on the basic scissor sweep principles. Getting the underhook, loading the opponent up onto the shin, lifting the knee, and sweeping. Worked that back and forth and then did about 30 minutes of flow rolling with a clear emphasis on the techniques we had been working on as well as the escapes from the previous classes. So far folks have been staying relaxed and working well with the flowrolling. Not sure how much they are really working on thinking ahead, but it seems to be helpful so far.
Main class was more armdrags. Armdrag to the back for RNC as a warmup drill, then armdrag to a half crucifix RNC, then armdrag attempt, but they post a foot up, so you underhook the knee, keep the arm tight, and roll over backwards for the sweep. Then just for kicks Case showed armdrag to the back to a rolling calf crusher. Fun stuff.
Specific sparring was from butterfly guard. I hit a bunch of armdrags, and managed to hit X-guard and swing to the back and kick th legs out. Was pretty as could be. Generally worked on armdrags from the bottom and just passed guard on the top.
Rolling was a 4 man group with 3 of our more athletic guys, luckily two of them had just finished Muay Thai, so they weren't as crazily energetic as normal. I played relaxed and prevented a lot of passing, caught a couple of triangles and whatnot. One of the guys kept trying to footlock me, so I heel hooked him very gently a couple of times. Fun class and I'm having an easier and easier time of managing the stronger and more atheltic people.
Also, my new Megalodon Gi that Casey, Coe and Darnell chipped in on for my wedding present came in and it is absolutely sweet. I'm going to try to get a picture of the back up since it has the Megalodon and Alliance logos on it. Looks quite nice. It's a Judo style Gi with the shorter sleeves I prefer and it's in blue. Very sturdy and it came with matching pants.
Tonight I had 3 people for the beginner class. I started out with a movement drill where you Upa, shrimp, hipswitch to turtle, then sitout and end up back on your back and repeat. For technique we worked no-gi guard passing using a tripod pass where you post your head on your opponents solar plexus, base up on your feet and keep one arm in their armpit and use the other to break the legs open and start your pass. After everyone had the basic idea we drilled doing the pass and the bottom person had to shrimp, hip switch to turtle, then sitout back to guard.
Next up we worked on the basic scissor sweep principles. Getting the underhook, loading the opponent up onto the shin, lifting the knee, and sweeping. Worked that back and forth and then did about 30 minutes of flow rolling with a clear emphasis on the techniques we had been working on as well as the escapes from the previous classes. So far folks have been staying relaxed and working well with the flowrolling. Not sure how much they are really working on thinking ahead, but it seems to be helpful so far.
Main class was more armdrags. Armdrag to the back for RNC as a warmup drill, then armdrag to a half crucifix RNC, then armdrag attempt, but they post a foot up, so you underhook the knee, keep the arm tight, and roll over backwards for the sweep. Then just for kicks Case showed armdrag to the back to a rolling calf crusher. Fun stuff.
Specific sparring was from butterfly guard. I hit a bunch of armdrags, and managed to hit X-guard and swing to the back and kick th legs out. Was pretty as could be. Generally worked on armdrags from the bottom and just passed guard on the top.
Rolling was a 4 man group with 3 of our more athletic guys, luckily two of them had just finished Muay Thai, so they weren't as crazily energetic as normal. I played relaxed and prevented a lot of passing, caught a couple of triangles and whatnot. One of the guys kept trying to footlock me, so I heel hooked him very gently a couple of times. Fun class and I'm having an easier and easier time of managing the stronger and more atheltic people.
Also, my new Megalodon Gi that Casey, Coe and Darnell chipped in on for my wedding present came in and it is absolutely sweet. I'm going to try to get a picture of the back up since it has the Megalodon and Alliance logos on it. Looks quite nice. It's a Judo style Gi with the shorter sleeves I prefer and it's in blue. Very sturdy and it came with matching pants.
Friday, January 28, 2011
How to Be an Enforcer
At every school there is that Go-To person that always handles the noobs. Ideally it's someone not too big, who is always calm, but is tough enough to take some beats, and skilled enough to demonstrate to the super athletic, spazzy, "I R DOIN MMA!!" type noobs that whatever they are doing is ineffective and they need to chill the fuck out and pay attention to learning jiu-jitsu.
If the enforcer is a 250lb brown belt then the noob doesn't learn anything because, "The only reason I couldn't beat him is because he's bigger than I am!" is sitting in the back of their mind, so they just go twice as hard on the next guy their size. If the enforcer is the instructor then it can cause bad blood between the noobs and the guy who is supposed to be teaching them. The perfect enforcer is a senior blue or mid level purple belt between 135 and 155lbs. A little bigger is fine, but you definitely want your enforcer to be a demonstration of technique over strength.
If you find yourself being paired up with every 220lb spaz that comes into the gym, and you're a lightweight blue belt, you're probably on the list of Enforcers for your school. Since no one ever really sits down and tells you what you're supposed to do, let's explore that concept for a minute.
As an Enforcer your job is ONLY to demonstrate that pure strength and athleticism will not let the spazzy noob win. You don't have to completely dominate them, you don't have to sub them, you just have to make sure they know that what they are doing is ineffective. So here are a few ways to do that.
1. Invincible Guard: This is best used against people that try to elbow grind their way out of guard or apply submissions from inside the guard. To execute this technique lock your feet together and turn your knees OUT so that the backs of your knees are pressed against your opponent. This makes your guard much harder to break and lets you bump your opponent around a lot. Next put your hands behind your head and look around the room, hold a conversation with someone or give some advice to a white belt in a nearby roll. While doing this constant pull your opponent forward to break their balance. If they start to stop working make sure you encourage them to "Keep working!".
2. Mocking Maneuver: This one can be used in conjunction with any of the other techniques, but I prefer combining it with Invincible Guard. When your opponent is trying something that won't work, and refuses to abandon it, engage this Maneuver. "You know that won't ever work, right?", "If you keep doing that you're going to hurt yourself...", "I'm just wondering where you're going with this... keep on.", "I'm not sure that does what you think it does.". This is a way to subtly remind your opponent that they do not yet know WTF they are doing and should stick to working on things they've actually been shown in class, not things they half remember from UFC 57 or the latest Submissions 101 video.
3. Whirling Dervish: If your opponent is too big, or too strong, or you have a knee injury, or for any reason can't employ Invincible Guard this is an excellent backup option. Sit on your butt, get any kind of collar or sleeve grip to help spin you, and extend your legs so that you have a foot on the hip or between the legs or anywhere that you can use to help keep you lined up with your opponent. Now let them run themselves stupid trying to pass your guard on the outside of the circle while you use your grip and your hooks to make them carry you around the inside of the circle. No matter at what point they get frustrated and try to dive on you, you'll have them inside your guard still.
4. Levitation: This is a personal favorite. A lot of spazzy noobs will want to stand up to run around your guard or do other silly things, so get your feet on their hips and keep a deathgrip on the collar. Keep your legs socketted into the hip crease and nice and stiff and when your opponent stands up they will give you their hips, this leads to overhead sweeps and other comedy monkey flip style sweeps. As long as you keep your feet on their hips you can keep this option open.
5. Silver Bullet: This one takes some work to develop, so be prepared. The idea here is to get ONE technique, usually a sweep, up to black belt level. Practice it for 20 minutes before every class, drill it randomly at home, watch videos about it to learn variations, etc... Now use this sweep on your opponent 50 times in a row. I've hit a dozen scissor sweeps in a row on a spazzy noob and then they finally had the lightbulb go on that HULK SMASH!! was not going to win them any prizes. If you want to be a good enforcer you need at least one Silver Bullet, and frankly this is something you should be doing anyways.
6. Bait and Switch: This one is for particularly aggressive noobs and is the only technique on here that really involves subbing them. First engage invincible guard, second give them your arm to try to americana, third armbar them or take their back and choke them. You can offer them any other subs you think they will recognize if you have a solid counter to them as well, but the one I see most commonly is people trying to work the americana from inside the guard.
Notice that the one thing that all of these (Except for #5) have in common is that they will NEVER work on someone that has been training for a month. These are all tricks designed to get people to calm the hell down during their first 3 weeks and PAY ATTENTION.
Now for STORYTIME! As anyone that reads my blog here knows I weigh about 145lbs. I've been as heavy as 153 and as light as 130 during my time in jiujitsu. At the time of this story I was at 138 and had not started weightlifting seriously. A couple of 250~lb guys came to try the class out, both were backyard wrestlers and were decked out in tapout gear and clearly ready to go spazzy ape shit on people as was demonstrated when they went bonkers on their smaller white belt partners during the technique specific work. After that they got paired up with me and one of our 220lb blue belts. My guy clearly assumed he'd be able to manhandle me, and pounced on me with a quickness driving as much of his weight onto me as possible. I spent the next 5 minutes just not letting him do anything. Worked my way through most of the above list and by the end of it he was sweating buckets and gasping for air and I wasn't even breathing hard because I made him do all the work. His comment, "I had no idea it would be this much work."
And that's all it takes. All I had to do to show him that spaztard strength could not beat someone half his size was to make it a lot of work. I didn't sweep him a hundred times, I didn't take his back, I just kept him up and away from me and made him keep working the entire time to try to accomplish something. Being an Enforcer isn't always about riding KoB for 20 minutes until some ass hole pukes on himself, it's not about landing 20 subs in 60 seconds on a guy just to show him he's still a total noob, it's about emphasizing to noobs that they are in class to LEARN SOMETHING NEW not to show off how strong they are. All you have to do is make their strength ineffective.
If the enforcer is a 250lb brown belt then the noob doesn't learn anything because, "The only reason I couldn't beat him is because he's bigger than I am!" is sitting in the back of their mind, so they just go twice as hard on the next guy their size. If the enforcer is the instructor then it can cause bad blood between the noobs and the guy who is supposed to be teaching them. The perfect enforcer is a senior blue or mid level purple belt between 135 and 155lbs. A little bigger is fine, but you definitely want your enforcer to be a demonstration of technique over strength.
If you find yourself being paired up with every 220lb spaz that comes into the gym, and you're a lightweight blue belt, you're probably on the list of Enforcers for your school. Since no one ever really sits down and tells you what you're supposed to do, let's explore that concept for a minute.
As an Enforcer your job is ONLY to demonstrate that pure strength and athleticism will not let the spazzy noob win. You don't have to completely dominate them, you don't have to sub them, you just have to make sure they know that what they are doing is ineffective. So here are a few ways to do that.
1. Invincible Guard: This is best used against people that try to elbow grind their way out of guard or apply submissions from inside the guard. To execute this technique lock your feet together and turn your knees OUT so that the backs of your knees are pressed against your opponent. This makes your guard much harder to break and lets you bump your opponent around a lot. Next put your hands behind your head and look around the room, hold a conversation with someone or give some advice to a white belt in a nearby roll. While doing this constant pull your opponent forward to break their balance. If they start to stop working make sure you encourage them to "Keep working!".
2. Mocking Maneuver: This one can be used in conjunction with any of the other techniques, but I prefer combining it with Invincible Guard. When your opponent is trying something that won't work, and refuses to abandon it, engage this Maneuver. "You know that won't ever work, right?", "If you keep doing that you're going to hurt yourself...", "I'm just wondering where you're going with this... keep on.", "I'm not sure that does what you think it does.". This is a way to subtly remind your opponent that they do not yet know WTF they are doing and should stick to working on things they've actually been shown in class, not things they half remember from UFC 57 or the latest Submissions 101 video.
3. Whirling Dervish: If your opponent is too big, or too strong, or you have a knee injury, or for any reason can't employ Invincible Guard this is an excellent backup option. Sit on your butt, get any kind of collar or sleeve grip to help spin you, and extend your legs so that you have a foot on the hip or between the legs or anywhere that you can use to help keep you lined up with your opponent. Now let them run themselves stupid trying to pass your guard on the outside of the circle while you use your grip and your hooks to make them carry you around the inside of the circle. No matter at what point they get frustrated and try to dive on you, you'll have them inside your guard still.
4. Levitation: This is a personal favorite. A lot of spazzy noobs will want to stand up to run around your guard or do other silly things, so get your feet on their hips and keep a deathgrip on the collar. Keep your legs socketted into the hip crease and nice and stiff and when your opponent stands up they will give you their hips, this leads to overhead sweeps and other comedy monkey flip style sweeps. As long as you keep your feet on their hips you can keep this option open.
5. Silver Bullet: This one takes some work to develop, so be prepared. The idea here is to get ONE technique, usually a sweep, up to black belt level. Practice it for 20 minutes before every class, drill it randomly at home, watch videos about it to learn variations, etc... Now use this sweep on your opponent 50 times in a row. I've hit a dozen scissor sweeps in a row on a spazzy noob and then they finally had the lightbulb go on that HULK SMASH!! was not going to win them any prizes. If you want to be a good enforcer you need at least one Silver Bullet, and frankly this is something you should be doing anyways.
6. Bait and Switch: This one is for particularly aggressive noobs and is the only technique on here that really involves subbing them. First engage invincible guard, second give them your arm to try to americana, third armbar them or take their back and choke them. You can offer them any other subs you think they will recognize if you have a solid counter to them as well, but the one I see most commonly is people trying to work the americana from inside the guard.
Notice that the one thing that all of these (Except for #5) have in common is that they will NEVER work on someone that has been training for a month. These are all tricks designed to get people to calm the hell down during their first 3 weeks and PAY ATTENTION.
Now for STORYTIME! As anyone that reads my blog here knows I weigh about 145lbs. I've been as heavy as 153 and as light as 130 during my time in jiujitsu. At the time of this story I was at 138 and had not started weightlifting seriously. A couple of 250~lb guys came to try the class out, both were backyard wrestlers and were decked out in tapout gear and clearly ready to go spazzy ape shit on people as was demonstrated when they went bonkers on their smaller white belt partners during the technique specific work. After that they got paired up with me and one of our 220lb blue belts. My guy clearly assumed he'd be able to manhandle me, and pounced on me with a quickness driving as much of his weight onto me as possible. I spent the next 5 minutes just not letting him do anything. Worked my way through most of the above list and by the end of it he was sweating buckets and gasping for air and I wasn't even breathing hard because I made him do all the work. His comment, "I had no idea it would be this much work."
And that's all it takes. All I had to do to show him that spaztard strength could not beat someone half his size was to make it a lot of work. I didn't sweep him a hundred times, I didn't take his back, I just kept him up and away from me and made him keep working the entire time to try to accomplish something. Being an Enforcer isn't always about riding KoB for 20 minutes until some ass hole pukes on himself, it's not about landing 20 subs in 60 seconds on a guy just to show him he's still a total noob, it's about emphasizing to noobs that they are in class to LEARN SOMETHING NEW not to show off how strong they are. All you have to do is make their strength ineffective.
Monday, January 24, 2011
BJJ 1/23/2011 Main Class
Casey has decided to concentrate on arm drags for the next 6 weeks or so, which is awesome. I love when we get into a good groove on a technique and I really get to put in a bunch of reps.
We worked on a couple of different ways to break grips and control the opponents wrist, the Kung Fu grip release (AKA Wax On)is one I've always used, but the one where you kind of clap your hands together and grab your opponents wrist is one that I've seen, but seriously under utilize. After the grips it was all about getting a good deep drag, moving yourself as much as you move your opponent, and keeping control of the arm.
We practiced locking in the RNC, as well as transferring to an Armbar, and to an arm triangle. Very good stuff. I was working with one of our Ammy fighters, Brian, who has an extensive Muay Thai background but only starting working on his JiuJitsu in the last 12 months or so. He has a tendency to fall back on his supreme athleticism in BJJ and it has slowed his development some, but he's getting a handle on it now and is really looking to improve his technique. I spent some time helping him tune things up and showing him small adjustments that made things work a lot better for him than trying to hulk smash muscle everything. If he sticks to working his technique as relentlessly as he works on everything else then he should be ready to go pro MMA next year.
Rolling/Drilling was all combined today. Two lines, one big gauntlet, one side of the room starting with butterfly hooks and working to hit the armdrag. I worked it as best I could, but ended up using my opponents reaction to the armdrag attempt to sweep or sub in other ways most of the time. I did get quite a few successful armdrags out of it though. Definitely good trainin'.
We worked on a couple of different ways to break grips and control the opponents wrist, the Kung Fu grip release (AKA Wax On)is one I've always used, but the one where you kind of clap your hands together and grab your opponents wrist is one that I've seen, but seriously under utilize. After the grips it was all about getting a good deep drag, moving yourself as much as you move your opponent, and keeping control of the arm.
We practiced locking in the RNC, as well as transferring to an Armbar, and to an arm triangle. Very good stuff. I was working with one of our Ammy fighters, Brian, who has an extensive Muay Thai background but only starting working on his JiuJitsu in the last 12 months or so. He has a tendency to fall back on his supreme athleticism in BJJ and it has slowed his development some, but he's getting a handle on it now and is really looking to improve his technique. I spent some time helping him tune things up and showing him small adjustments that made things work a lot better for him than trying to hulk smash muscle everything. If he sticks to working his technique as relentlessly as he works on everything else then he should be ready to go pro MMA next year.
Rolling/Drilling was all combined today. Two lines, one big gauntlet, one side of the room starting with butterfly hooks and working to hit the armdrag. I worked it as best I could, but ended up using my opponents reaction to the armdrag attempt to sweep or sub in other ways most of the time. I did get quite a few successful armdrags out of it though. Definitely good trainin'.
Fundamentals Class 1/23/2011
I had to go take care of my horses today which made me a little late getting to class, we only had two people there for fundamentals though. My friend Will and Casey's daughter Katie were there. Continuing with the idea of Frames and Escapes we worked on escaping from side control by building a frame on your opponents neck and shrimping. Once again I talked about combining movements including the Upa in order to make space with the Frame, and to look for shortcuts to the escape. We also talked about what happens if you do get squished and can't shrimp away and reguard.
The second you feel that you aren't going to be able to get your hips away you swim for the far side underhook and reach across your opponents shoulders at the same time you kick over and trap their leg, then try to take the back.
We also talked about what happens if you get wizzered and squished after you have the underhook and the leg and I showed them how to ratchet themselves downwards using the arm and the legs together. Spent a little time talking about using your whole body to accomplish your goals.
I had them drill building a frame while the opponent was passing to get them to start thinking ahead. The goal was to build the frame and shrimp to reguard, then the opponent passes on the other side and repeat, then try to get some pressure on to stop the reguard. If you felt like you weren't going to get the reguard you had to swim and switch to the underhook.
That was all we did for the last 20 minutes or so of class was to practice framing and then swimming for the underhook. Both of them made good progress and I swear I'll have Katie stomping the lightweight guys by the end of the summer if she sticks with it.
The second you feel that you aren't going to be able to get your hips away you swim for the far side underhook and reach across your opponents shoulders at the same time you kick over and trap their leg, then try to take the back.
We also talked about what happens if you get wizzered and squished after you have the underhook and the leg and I showed them how to ratchet themselves downwards using the arm and the legs together. Spent a little time talking about using your whole body to accomplish your goals.
I had them drill building a frame while the opponent was passing to get them to start thinking ahead. The goal was to build the frame and shrimp to reguard, then the opponent passes on the other side and repeat, then try to get some pressure on to stop the reguard. If you felt like you weren't going to get the reguard you had to swim and switch to the underhook.
That was all we did for the last 20 minutes or so of class was to practice framing and then swimming for the underhook. Both of them made good progress and I swear I'll have Katie stomping the lightweight guys by the end of the summer if she sticks with it.
BJJ 1/21/2011
Casey was out of town with a couple of our Ammy fighters who were fighting up in North Carolina, so one of our Purple Belt's Coe taught the main class. We worked from the turtle starting with the fatboy roll, then a couple of different reverals including a different kimura grip than the one I normally use.
We did some specific sparring from the Turtle and I spent most of the time escaping to guard and choking people. I did take a brutal forearm to the nose which resulted in a fountain of blood for a few minutes. Got that under control and then we did a gauntlet with everyone. I worked on being patient and letting my opponent set themselves up for the sweep which worked nicely. I managed to sweep everyone except Coe and maintain top position. Fun times.
We did some specific sparring from the Turtle and I spent most of the time escaping to guard and choking people. I did take a brutal forearm to the nose which resulted in a fountain of blood for a few minutes. Got that under control and then we did a gauntlet with everyone. I worked on being patient and letting my opponent set themselves up for the sweep which worked nicely. I managed to sweep everyone except Coe and maintain top position. Fun times.
Fundamentals Class 1/21/2011
Only my buddy Antony showed up for the early class today, so while I went ahead and went over the posture breaking and hip movement stuff I was planning on for the fundamentals class we spent most of the time helping him work on holes in his game. We talked about using pressure to pass and not leaving space at the last minute for people to escape. Looked at some random DLR stuff, did some work on escapes, then flow rolled for about 30 minutes stopping occasionally to talk about stuff that came up. It was a really fun class for both of us.
Friday, January 21, 2011
BJJ 1/19/2011
We had two completely new people and a couple of guys who have only had a few classes tonight which is awesome because I love seeing the school grow. I'm hoping they all stick with it. I'm also hoping they will show up to the beginner class on Friday.
We started out the class drilling armbars from guard, and triangles, then moved to some more fun De La Riva guard stuff. I'm trying to use DLR a little more when rolling because it transitions pretty well with X-Guard and Spider guard, so I'm liking the current DLR kick.
First technique was swinging to the back, establishing essentially butterfly guard from the back and then kicking the legs out.
Second technique was a technical stand to single leg.
I also spent some time practicing the basic DLR sweep.
Drilled with the lighter guys and swept them all a bunch, passed guard, etc... Tried to let them work the stuff from the class but most of them just froze up when I didn't immediately smash them. I let one guy start one of the sweeps, but when he stopped like 3/4 of the way through I rolled to a kneebar on him, another guy I let get to the single leg, but then he just stood there too long, so I rolled him.
Both of those guys need to be in the beginner class more where they can learn to think while they are rolling, they'll have an easier time of executing stuff in the main class that way.
Rolling was a 4 man group with 3 of the new guys. Spent most of the time letting them work a bit, then sweeping and choking them. One of them is a former wrestler, so he tended to give up his back and do other wrestlery things, once he adjusts to the differences he should be a pretty solid training partner though.
We started out the class drilling armbars from guard, and triangles, then moved to some more fun De La Riva guard stuff. I'm trying to use DLR a little more when rolling because it transitions pretty well with X-Guard and Spider guard, so I'm liking the current DLR kick.
First technique was swinging to the back, establishing essentially butterfly guard from the back and then kicking the legs out.
Second technique was a technical stand to single leg.
I also spent some time practicing the basic DLR sweep.
Drilled with the lighter guys and swept them all a bunch, passed guard, etc... Tried to let them work the stuff from the class but most of them just froze up when I didn't immediately smash them. I let one guy start one of the sweeps, but when he stopped like 3/4 of the way through I rolled to a kneebar on him, another guy I let get to the single leg, but then he just stood there too long, so I rolled him.
Both of those guys need to be in the beginner class more where they can learn to think while they are rolling, they'll have an easier time of executing stuff in the main class that way.
Rolling was a 4 man group with 3 of the new guys. Spent most of the time letting them work a bit, then sweeping and choking them. One of them is a former wrestler, so he tended to give up his back and do other wrestlery things, once he adjusts to the differences he should be a pretty solid training partner though.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Fundamentals Class 1/16/2011
The first No-Gi fundamentals class had Casey's daughter Katie as well as my buddy Will and Ian back again. I wanted to talk about the difference between gi and no-gi grips and how you use the different grips for control. I started out with the Overhook grip and showed how to get to the Overhook by swimming when someone is posting on your hips and how to hook the back of the head. Also showed the tricep and collar tie grips to replace the sleeve and collar control in Gi. The bulk of the lesson was in how to use the Overhook and the back of the head grip to break your opponent down and hold them, then how to attack from that position. Again this is something that I'll be revisiting frequently because it's something that never gets explicitly addressed in the main class even though the grips are mentioned. I also went over mount escapes and holding mount with the feet on hips "Monkey Mount" position and talked about what to do when someone is strong enough to just lift you off of them from there. After that we practicing spinning when someone lifts you so that their arms cross and you come back down in side control. Then did some work with each other practicing the escapes.
Finally I introduced the concept of flow-rolling. We'll be revisiting that frequently as well since I want people to be able to roll by thinking and looking instead of just seeing who can throw their techniques the hardest and fastest. Flow rolling is all about just doing the correct next move. It's not about making it work by speed and strength, but by thinking it and implementing it. So when you are flow rolling you let your opponent succeed if they attempt the correct move and you flow to something else. It's about honing your ability to think while rolling just like the more intense rolling is about honing your ability to apply the technique against someone who is physically resisting you.
I skipped out after that because my wife had to study for an upcoming nursing test and needed some help.
Finally I introduced the concept of flow-rolling. We'll be revisiting that frequently as well since I want people to be able to roll by thinking and looking instead of just seeing who can throw their techniques the hardest and fastest. Flow rolling is all about just doing the correct next move. It's not about making it work by speed and strength, but by thinking it and implementing it. So when you are flow rolling you let your opponent succeed if they attempt the correct move and you flow to something else. It's about honing your ability to think while rolling just like the more intense rolling is about honing your ability to apply the technique against someone who is physically resisting you.
I skipped out after that because my wife had to study for an upcoming nursing test and needed some help.
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