Tapping like Riverdance

Good vibes

2010-02-20T13:06:00.000-08:00

Ive been stuffing my face with pizza and takeaway the last 2 weeks, felt abit shit at training (an incentive to eat well!)but was mystified at somehow losing weight. Am now 67kg. Ive noticed two things of interest recently:

Been using the cross choke from guard and mount a huge amount, practically every single roll multiple times and have been getting it quite tight. My hands are feeling pretty strong, hopefully if I can get some more climbing wall practise itll get even better.

The other note of interest is the psychological aspect. I was successfull a few times and some people gave me some compliments and it gave me a massive unconscious boost to carry on with that tactic. Which has led to me improving it through practise and now forms a big part of my arsenal. All down to positive reinforcement really. So give a training partner a compliment on something they did well and see what effect it has. Ive made it a habit of always trying to give a compliment on something they did well after every roll. You run the risk of sounding condescending but the good vibes are worth it I think as these are the things you draw on when you are at a low point.

My instructer doesnt give compliments very often but when he does they hold more gravity. I very specifically remember the first time I got to roll fully, Id been waiting for a long time and was very determined. Landed a triangle quickly on a larger opponent. After the roll my instructer told me I did well, very simple and understated but I still carry that with me.

We put alot of effort into taking care of our physical health so that we can train but the mental aspects are just as important. If you attack every less experienced partner with the aim of submitting them as often and effortlessly as possible then you are gonna kill their confidence, which may hurt their ability and even their enjoyment of the art. Which is unforgivable.

Let me know if you see any interesting effects after giving someone some positive feedback.

(http://www.jamesjean.com/)

Jiu jitsu brotherhood wisdom

2010-01-28T10:19:00.000-08:00

"To maximize your potential as a jiu-jitsoka, it’s not enough to just head to class every day and go through the motions. You need to approach your training from several angles.

I have a particular system which has worked for my students and I. It’s called the A.C.T. Model. This stands for Attribute Maximization, Conceptual Understanding, Technical Knowledge. This article will provide a general overview of this model. " -

Very interesting concept from Nicolas Gregoriades who has just stuck it up on his website: Jiu jitsu brotherhood (goto the link to read the whole article) . Ive mentioned Nic on here before and I quite like his cerebral approach to the complex problem of grappling. I think Ill hit him up for a private lesson one day just to get a better insight into his way of thinking,which may or may not be for me. I tend to think quite alot about BJJ and Ive often found it as much as a hinderence as an advantage.

Matt Benyon over at Martial farts has been churning up some super awesome hyper mega material that makes me want to headbut a horse with creative jealousy. Go there, buy his shit and support him so I can be regularly entertained and inspired.

Havnt been able to train as much as Id like due to Woking (where I live) roadworks which add another 20 mins onto my journey and make me late for my train. I dont want to ride there on the motorcycle because itll end up being a one way ticket to a private with helio. Its getting lighter though so perhaps soon.

Now thats more like it

2010-01-18T12:25:00.000-08:00

Finally got in a good solid week of training, around 7.5 hours including a private I had with Andy. Felt quite achey at the end of it but felt it was definitely a good start to 2010.

Private wise I didnt cover anything really specific just some niggling things:

Keeping them flat on their back when passing (turns out this was alot more important than I gave it credit for).
A tighter omoplata sweep ( I was getting the sweep but not keeping the position).
Knee on pressure (Break the habit of planting the foot on the ground)
Side control shrimping towards opponent (Ive been going the other way and its been working but it wont in the future.)
A bjj version of Baz Lurhmans "wear sunscreen", its gonna be awesome.

With a few rolls inbetween for good measure. I put this into practise following the next sessions and even though quite small adjustments to stuff I was already doing it made a considerable difference I felt. Especially the first one, I felt I was limiting their ability to move considerably.

I got raped in the no gi class, by pretty much everyone. My no gi really does suck. Was good to see Ryan back as I love our mad scramble fests, high lights were him getting a scissor takedown. Then trying it again where I imagined to jump and sit on on him like a balance ball. Then he got me in a banana split/crotch ripper. It was an hour and a half of pure sparring pretty much from many positions.

The no gi class did help teach me a good lesson about wrestling though, as Ive been very complacent with just turtling and moving from there, but as people have improved that shit just doesnt fly anymore. Way to much effort now. So my new strategy was to stay on top and give them impression I wasnt gonna pull guard, once I stuff their attempts to get on top most people seem to switch to a bottom game (path of least resistance I guess). I should add that some people have the EXACT same idea...and are better wrestlers than me. Ive been using alot of guard recently so getting back to a proactive passing style felt good.

Future thoughts are on more passing and sweeps. Got alot more to write about but Im gonna split it into a few posts.

Tapping 10 000 times on the road to blackbelt

2010-01-04T11:56:00.001-08:00

Just found this interesting youtube vid, I normally dislike submissions 101 but Keith Owen is bonafide blackbelt. I mention it here to further highlight the importance of tapping.

Let me know what you think.

Injuries and brazilian jiu jitsu

2010-01-03T11:12:00.000-08:00

Brazilian Jiu jitsu is a martial art that practises full resistance training with a strong emphasis on competitions, with a great deal of focus on how to render someone unconscious or broken. So injuries will inevitably happen. Control and a relaxed manner are advocated as well which makes it as safe as it is possible whilst still training with full resistance i.e someone trying to stop you and submit you with all their ability.

Recently Ive heard and seen a couple of injuries. Almost all are freak accidents, like this recent one in new Zealand where young guy had a serious injury to the neck, where some of his vertebrae were broken whilst being stacked. One of our very own guys at the club had a freak injury as well where he landed badly on his head during a throw, he has had an operation and last I heard was doing well. So hopefully he will be back on the mats soon, so send Matt Jackson your positive vibes. Get well soon big guy.

Ive been lucky and have never suffered a broken bone or serious injury, closest was in kent where my elbow made some rice krispy noises but no lasting damage. Ive been choked out a few times and that was kinda fun and was alot more enjoyable than you would think...

So what can you do to help prevent injury?

Train with people you trust, if you are brand new then typically the higher grades should have more control and be relaxed.
Be relaxed and controlled yourself, if you spaz out they might think thats a go ahead to spaz out to.
TAP, if you cant defend or escape TAP, dont wait for the pain or to be pushed to the limit. Even if nothing breaks that damage will add up if its often enough. TAP, snap or nap as the saying goes.
Be aware, sometimes legs,arms and fingers get tangled if you roll the wrong way something could pop. And there is often other people rolling right next to you who you might not notice.
Sit without leaning back on straight arms, if someone rolls into the back of them it will hurt.
Be a good training partner if you injure your training partners no one will want to train with you, no slams! dont knee them in the face! dont sandpaper their face! dont crank subs on. Control at all times.
Hygiene be clean! I dont want your staph, MRSA or ringworm. Cut your fingernails and toe nails!

If you have a serious injury obviously listen to your doctor if its just a sore joint or muscle then theres a couple of things you can do:

R.I.C.E - Rest, Ice, compression, Elevation. It helps alot.
Take care of yourself, try not to over train. Take your vitamins, some people advocate fish oils and glucosamine for joints. Make sure you sleep right and eat right.

The most common injuries Ive seen are mostly elbow and knee related. Especially knee's as they can often put you out and can happen very suddenly, just the slight wrong angle and to much pressure at the wrong time can lead to something giving it seems. What Ive also seen alot is people coming back to early and training to hard on the injury. Be very carefull and let your partners know, as you are running the risk of putting yourself out for even longer.

Like I said before accidents do happen but they arnt that often if you train with good people and do it right.

Happy new year!

2009-12-31T17:35:00.000-08:00

Catch up.

2009-12-21T03:36:00.000-08:00

Trainings going well, been paying attention to my reactionary thoughts while grappling. I used to notice an "arg to much effort" feeling when I was in someones closed guard. Now I notice a much more positive feeling of "you better do something special bucko because Im gonna pass, and Im gonna crush your soul while doing it". Obviously it doesnt always turn out that way but I certainly wouldnt be to annoyed if someone jumped guard on me now. Bottom game is feeling better as well, spending abit to much time under half guard and very little open guard. In my next private Ive chalked up "improve closed guard". Typically on bottom I find myself transitioning between full guard, half guard ( with preference to deep or long half guard), turtle and x guard. Plenty of kimura's Im spotting at the moment, the basic setup being a small explosive movement to get them to base with a hand, and then snatching that up for the kimura when they do.

Underneath side control Im still continueing to attack from with a combo of reverse triangles, kimura's and sweeps. With my favourite being a kind of bottom crucifix position where I have trapped one of their arms between my legs. Severly limits their ability to transition or attack and opens up some interesting options depending on their response.

Big congrats to our James Hardy (I used to call him spider noodles for the long time readers)who got gold in his division at the Abu Dhabi UK trials just gone, one of my favourite sparring partners who has a great approach to the game and is definitely one of our best. Also big congrats to Daniel Agard who I met a while ago on my travels, who won the absolute!. Young lad to, cant wait to see what he accomplishes.

Heres some cool stuff Ive seen since my last post:

True and funny!

Jacare vs Matt Lindland available on http://www.mmascraps.com/.

Not bad Jeff :)

awesome.

Training and catch up

2009-11-29T12:05:00.000-08:00

Been busy the last 2 weeks so not as much training as I would like. On the plus side Im now Archery leader qualified under GNAS. Archery and BJJ? why not. Im also now riding a motorbike, a brand spanking new Yamaha 125YBR. My first vehicle of any kind so have been trying to gets to grips with that. Lots of adventures already.

Had a great training session just gone, lots of stand up throwing practise and full stand up sparring. Recently remembered the strange grip seoi nage setup Micah at Novagen taught and I think Im gonna carry on working on that as I think it gives a nice option when I dont think the tomoe nage is a great idea. The grip relies on them gripping my lapel, I then grip their lapel over their arm on that same side with my other hand gripping their gripping arm sleeve. The throw then works with the same seio nage mechanics of stepping in and twisting, it bends their elbow up at abit of a funny angle which I think helps break down their defense.

Another move that Ive seen pop up recently is the reverse triangle, probaly due to Braulio pulling it off against Galvao. The setup Im liking is when they go for a single underleg pass and you slip the free leg under, grip the offending arm and then as they pass the leg link up the triangle while creating room with your hips. I find it harder to finish than a normal triangle though even with pulling the leg and rolling into a reverse mount position.

Cardio has dipped slightly from the break but am feeling alright. Have a private with Andy that Ive had since April! need to have a proper think about some stuff I need to work on and use it.

Thoughts for this post:
Listen to your instructer!, even if something is working well for you if he/she says its not good then listen!. It might work now but it will probaly cause issues for you later, something they can see but you might not.

Big congrats to Jude Samuel who won his first Pro mma fight!

Video link

POSTURE

2009-11-01T06:23:00.000-08:00

Posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture
posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture posture

Seriously, posture.

So incredibly simple but so easily over looked. Andy gave us a really good lesson on saturday focusing on posture. Using your core and keeping your hips close to theirs, it seems most people naturally try and make a gap whilst in guard. But this just results in compromising your ability to keep good posture. Why is posture so important? well it means they cant even begin to set up most attacks let alone you try and escape them. In fact I find if I try attack someone in my guard with very good posture that I cant break I end up helping them to pass if anything.

Made a point of concentrating just on posture in sparring, and I felt a big difference in myself and my opponents. No more getting triangled for me!

Roger Gracie visits the clinic

2009-10-29T11:24:00.000-07:00

For those on facebook you will need to view this post at http://www.jadonbjj.blogspot.com/ to see the pics.

Last saturday we had the honour of hosting Roger Gracie as visiting instructer. For those unfamiliar with Roger heres a quick bio from wikipedia:

"Roger Gracie Gomes (born September 26, 1981) is a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner. He was recently promoted to 2nd degree black belt by Carlos Gracie Jr. He is a member of the Gracie family, the son of Reyla Gracie (who is the daughter of Carlos Gracie) and Mauricio Motta Gomes (one of the six Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belts of Rolls Gracie). His most notable achievement to date is winning the ADCC Submission Wrestling World Championship in 2005, taking first place in the 88–98 kg and Open-weight categories by submitting all eight opponents—a feat that had not previously been achieved. He has also won the BJJ World Jiu-Jitsu Championship (the Mundials) a record 8 times including 6 time in this weight class and twice at open weight. "

Ive met him on a few occasions and his always had a smile and a handshake for me (and everyone he meets).

So there we were milling about and Roger steps and blows us all away with his chi:

He taught a very nice judo outside trip and then a variation where you fake the trip and go for an osoto gari (major outer leg reap). According to Olympic coach Mark Earle who I trained with a while ago, osoto gari has the highest instances of knockouts. Because when properly executed with full force and momentum the uke lands on the top of his shoulders, neck and head....which would suck.

Did some drills instead of some sparring with Sid who was abit injured, always a great partner with lots of usefull advice and observations.

He then taught a arm drag manuver. In the next lesson we focused on the knee through standing pass in ALOT of detail, pressure! PRESSURE!.

We then did a fair amount of sparring.

I felt pretty good, starting to get better timing and setting up of the straight achilles. Cross choke from mount is everybodies friend.

Whenever we get a guest instructer or special visitor it always results in crazy injuries. Everyone spars harder and tries to use more muscle, as if by a show of pure gripping strength they are gonna quadruple promote you. Anyone other people notice this?

Roger was then flooded with people to take pics and sign belts, I dont know why but I can never bring myself to ask for a picture so I opted for sneaking into other peoples :P. I remember asking him if he ever got bored of all the people wanting pictures and so on and he replied very concisely "never".

And of course we had to have the big group picture.

Thats me sneaking behind Andy and Roger.

I took the oppertunity to talk to Roger about his thoughts on my pilgrimage, he seemed quite positive about it although perhaps unsure why I am doing it. The guy is so relaxed I would be interested to see him stressed. So all in all a very fun lesson and it was great to have one of the greatest grapplers alive in the world teaching at the club.

Thank you to all those that took the pictures!.

Carlson Gracie Camberley - Mark Earle judo seminar

2009-10-18T11:00:00.001-07:00

This visit was slightly different to the others in that it was a seminar, with the main focus being judo but also in applying it to a BJJ context.

Gary Lowe who from what I can tell is the heart and soul of the club picked me up from the station. To my amusement we were both sporting blue obi michi faixa rua belts!

Mark Earle is the head judo coach for the GB Olympic team and holds the rank of 6th Dan (the lighthouse coloured belt). He has coached Great Britain in 3 Olympics!. His experience in BJJ is minimal but he made constant efforts to explain the techniques in a way that would help our jiu jitsu game.

We started off with a light and speedy warm up of touch rugby and some kineastethics. He then made sure we were comfortable break falling, explaining that being comfortable with being thrown would help our stand up.

We then went through a series of throws, always breaking it down to absolute basic level and then adding complexity. These footwork drills made a quick and significant difference. We covered seio nage (shoulder throw), ochigari (outer leg reap), a keraaaaazzy drop kata garuma variation (doing a front split and throwing your opponent side ways over you!) a forward and backward variation of that. And a butterfly Tomoe nage type throw which ended in mount, the setup to which was particularly tight.

Mark had an assistant throughout called Danny, a GB judo international and nice guy. We went a few rounds of randori (stand up sparring) and when I had a go at Danny he was curtious enough not to smash me through the floor. Against my other opponents tomoe nage was my friend as usual but uchi mata is my deadly enemy. At one point I was paired against a taller opponent and on two, TWO! occasions I got nailed right in the tenders by a uchi mata calf.

We then lined up on the wall and we each fought Danny, in a row, without a break with Mark scoring and explaining. There were atleast 10 of us...some atleast 20kg heavier than him. He did not lose a single judo point and beat everyone, although had his back taken a few times but always survived to matte (restart). Awesome thing to see, incredible cardio, heart and ability. Ill be cheering him on in the olympics if he makes the team.

My fight against Danny:
I knew he was on to my tomoe nage so was tryng to keep him out of his element by attacking his legs. At one point I went for a flying armbar but he got his arm out, and engaged me in newaza. Went for an armbar of his own but I escaped. After standing back up he got me with a sweeeeet uchi mata, very nice feeling to be made so weightless...

My camera messed up again so Im waiting on a Mark Phung from Carlson Gracie to upload the picture on facebook. Also had a roll with Mark which was good fun, who is the heaviest 62kg Ive ever engaged with! Mark was good enough to treat me to a protein shake after training which was pretty tasty.

All in all I got a much better appreciation of judo and am keen for more, Mark gave me some compliments I feel very proud of.

Thank you Faixa Rua

2009-09-24T10:22:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to say thank you on the blog to Faixa Rua for sending me a cool piece of kit to wear on the pilgrimage. The item in question is the Obi Michi wearable BJJ belt, also mentioned recently on Meerkatsu's blog. I first saw a similar item on an american website but was put off buying in fear of taxes. Its a great idea though and I expect it will do well, so Im more than willing to sport it to some clubs and comps.

The item in question has split the BJJ community though, some think its abit cheesy (like 80's guitar solo's, others (myself included) think its awesome (like 80's guitar solo's).

The material is just like a normal gi belt although different to the normal faixa rua belts. Would I be taking it to far by adding my stripe to it?

Character

2009-09-20T03:05:00.000-07:00

There is more to Brazilian jiu jitsu than jiu jitsu, and brazilians for that matter. Character is important, and I think the training itself is a powerfull filter for those with the wrong sort of character. And I guess thats why you get so many guys and girls from different backgrounds but who get on well in the training environment, because of the similar traits needed. Ive often heard of this also being a sort of prequisite for promotion within the art. Even with boatloads of ability you will not get far if you dont treat your training partners well, respect your instructer and dedicate yourself.

I think club compatriots invest alot of time, effort and emotion into each other. Things we cannot afford to give everyone, and definitely not those who have shown themselves not to deserve it. Im not just talking about the guy who slams you to escape the triangle, Im talking about the guy who ignores the struggling white belt or refuses to help get a guy ready for a big fight or comp. The guy who only fights those 10kg lighter and then makes excuses when he gets put with a bigger guy. The guy who demands his instructer promotes him or he will go elsewhere.

Luckily I dont see those guys very often, they dont last. And the ones that do have a very lonely road.

Mill Hill RGA Grand opening and visit

2009-09-09T03:35:00.000-07:00

Im battered. Trained Friday – was good. Trained Saturday – was good. Trained Sunday for 4 hours -was awesome. Typically the better the training the more battered and sore I am. On Sunday I attended the grand opening of Mill Hill RGA’s new venue. Myself, Dan, Dave and Rich were representing our front. Loads of people were there, must of been atleast 60. Including black belts Roger Gracie and Nic G. Saw Roger Gracie in the toilets and decided not to shake his hand but did contemplate jumping him and putting on a RNC while he was at the urinal. Just so I could die a legend.

Even more awesome was running into some familiar faces, Lawrence venter from RGA Wimbledon; The Jones family; Mathew Benyon from martial farts; Semour yang from meerkatsu;Alex Hare; and of course Nick Brooks the instructer at Mill Hill.

Left to right: Alex, Seymour, Matt,myself,Darren Vitry

Tons of people were there so drilling was abit cramped but still learnt some good stuff. Focusing a on a flower sweep variation I dont know the proper name of. Gripping the trousers rather than underhooking the leg though, then going for the sweep, or armbar or switching the grip and going for triangle or omoplata!.

We then Sparred....for forever!. Me and Mathew had a tussle which was fun, I was able to dodge the triangles (just!!) but couldnt get to far in setting up much. Then sparred Lawrence which was also awesome, tried for some dodgy americana's from under side control as is my custom but couldnt finish it. Think he tapped me with a choke at some point. Sparred another big RGA blue belt guy Darren Vitry. He gave some great feedback which was really usefull!. Sparred Nick Brooks a whole buncha times! who is one of my favourite people in the world to spar for his feedback and style. I always learn a huge amount from this guy and its always fundemental basic stuff that is so vital. Me and Dale (Mill hill Orange belt - 6 golds in a row: if you meet him he will let you in on this little known secret) met again in a war, this time ending in abit of a stalemate with to be fair the points going to Dale. He has improved his control and tightness tremendously since our last encounter, if I dont step it up he will win round 4 soundly!. In summary I didnt tap anyone...but my defense was pretty good I thought.

Pre Carnage

Nick and Roger then handed out some belts! a few blues and stripes and a very notable purple to Daniel Strauss!, big congrats to him! purple at 18!

Me and my boys then stayed on the mat as we will carry on sparring/training till they kick us off. Nick Brooks shares our enthusiasm and pretty much gave us a private for an hour! Gave me alot to work on, which is a great feeling. POSTURE! HIP PRESSURE! GRIPS! TIMING!!

Had a fantastic time! one of my best visits so far.

Im in there I promise.

I had a case of camera envy so all the photos you can thank Semour Yang at Meerkatsu, Mathew Benyon at Martialfarts and Millhill RGA BJJ.

Apoligies

2009-09-05T07:47:00.000-07:00

I Have recently moved to Woking and do not have internet access yet, hence the lack of updates. Doing a pilgrimage visit to millhill tommorow for their grand opening, should be a blast been looking forward to it for a loooong time.

Training is going well. Been practising the no posture pass and getting some results with it, Andy helped alot in pointing out its weaknesses which gives me a better understanding of how to impliment it. Been doing abit better recently with a slight change in the way I approach sparring. Be as boring as possible!, if Im passing do not do anything untill Ive got posture even if I have to spend the whole time fighting for it. Or not trying any attacks untill Ive got good grips and broken them down etc etc. Fewer moves the better. Will see where it gets me, possibility of becoming to passive. But am enjoying it and has helped.

Will update after millhill.

Just everday training

2009-08-13T14:05:00.000-07:00

It occured to me I havnt blogged about normal everyday BJJ training for awhile. So thought I would include a short update.

Its going well!. I regard my topgame as my A-game but feel quite comfortable on my back in good or bad positions. Passing wise Ive really tried to slow it down and find the angles, rather than trying to be acrobatic and leaving to much room. My plan is to frustrate and slowly but surely crush their souls untill I can no longer ignore the juicy morsel of the submission. This video here that I saw on Christian Graugarts blog really gave me alot of food for thought, on pressure and angles when passing.

I found this pass a really interesting way of using hip pressure and a low posture to create an angle to pass. Goes by many names it seems so Ill let the video explain:

Found through bullshido and then Aesopians blog.

Been doing more no-gi training which is fun, my shoot is very crappy I prefer to clinch and go roman greco style. But I definitely need to work on the shoot. I keep on trying a no-gi tomoe nage but without much luck unless I have a guillotine type grip. Scrambles are definitely more fun no-gi, something I feel I do ok in but I definitely miss those collar grips.

MMA and muay thai monday madness

2009-08-11T03:15:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I attended the MMA session for the first time and the muay thai for the 2nd. Both were taken by Mike Wood. I always enjoy training with Mike as his a similar bodyshape to me and so stuff he shows me I know will work for me as well. His also a good coach. Coaching ability is nearly as important as knowledge in my opinion and more important than competition ability. Being the best in the world doesnt mean you can teach, knowing everything doesnt mean you can teach either. But Mike has good knowledge, great coaching ability and competes regularly. He reminds me of a slightly shorter Hugh Laurie, which matches perfectly with Micks giant Tony Robinson.

MMA class:

Did a fun warm up that got a sweat going and then training revolved around a circuit.Station 1 & 2 medicine ball situp drill, 3 deadlifts, 4 ground and pound on bag, 5 clinch striking and takedowns on bag. 1 round at each station doing the circuit 3 times.

We then did some partner work, one guy going for takedown the 2nd just defending. Minute each. Going for 2 minutes. Did this first with Kieran who got me with a sweet no gi uchimata, I tried a no gi tomoe nage and we had a chuckle about that. Im not a great fan of shooting for the takedown, preffering to clinch and take them down from there. Then partnered with Rich who DOES have a great shoot, Rich is abit closer to my size so I was able to impose abit more in the clinch pinning him to the wall. But still pretty tough to take down. Good session, really enjoyed it cant wait to start some sparring.

Thai class:

Another warm up. 2 brazilians walked in wondering about classes so I chatted to them trying to be part helpful part salesman. One of them mentions how he also appreciates the muay along with the bjj, I mention anderson silva (been a fan of him for a long time). Brazilian guy 1 then asks me if anderson is here!!, I say no just saying I was a fan. Guy then mentions how he trained a little BJJ with anderson who showed him some stuff in brazil. He also mentions how they found out about us from another martial arts club. Precision martial arts in blackwater (http://www.pmartialarts.com/) Their posters at blackwater station had given me a misinformed opinion of them so was good to hear that the instructer was a good guy, especially as he was reccomending us. So Im trying to repay the favour by putting their link in this post, so check them out if your in the area. Anyway back to training!.

Technique was: jab, cross, hook, push kick, round house kick. Im still chambering kicks and my punches are very loose. But Mike gave me some great positive feedback so I felt good about improving. Im right handed and my partner told me my left leg's kick was considerably stronger, maybe Im forcing the right to much. Mike then worked on me abit trying to get me to turn my hips more, once I slowed it down I think it made more sense to my body. Rather than just going mental.

We then just had abit of a free mat for 30 mins. Did some no gi sparring with Toby a hefty polish guy, whose calmed down alot since starting. Worked on pressure from top of side control and escaping side control, with some random rolling inbetween.

Other news:

Started following Rafel Lovato jr's blog http://www.lovatojr.com/

Andy and bunch of other guys are going to ADCC to watch so ill be teaching some classes while they are away.

Stages of personal development within BJJ

2009-08-02T16:01:00.000-07:00

Although still at a very infantile stage in my BJJ development I have noticed a series of changes in my attitudes. And wondered if anyone had experienced a similar pattern or any changes in themselves for that matter. Regarding BJJ or normal life.

Stage one:
I was obsessed with learning as much as I can, as fast as I could. With quantity seeming to take preference over quality. I start eating better and take up regular running.

Stage two:
I constantly talk about bjj to my disinterested friends and family, and they quickly rename it manhugging. At the slightest wiff of alcohol I cant help but play grappling with friends against their will. I insist on showing friends my newest moves. I start getting very competitive in training and search specifically for lesser known novelty submissions online. I discover Eddie Bravo.

Stage three:
I feel very confident in my ability, and sometimes hope that some lone chav fancies a rumble. I internally debate whether to double leg, mount and pound or flying guillotine with knee's. I examine all the other men in the pub, paying close attention to their ears and decide I am the mightiest.

Stage four:
I feel the highs and lows of winning and losing in competition. I feel responsible for the success of my club compatriates and feel elated when they do well. I know longer seek the submission in all sparring matches, looking to help those with less experience.

Stage five:
I feel more humbled in my abilities, less aggresive and with no wish to be involved in conflict or to use what Ive learnt in a real setting. I am relaxed and easy going, I apply this attitude to all parts of my life. Giving all my focus on basic techique principles and intricacies for weeks on end. I no longer care about winning or losing in sparring as long as Im learning or helping someone else learn. I also find I am able to do a suprising amount of tasks with my feet that I couldnt do prior, and often just lie on the floor feeling more comfortable.

Stage six:
profit?

I wonder what change I will next experience since Ive still got a lifetime of jiu jitsu ahead. Please comment if you have experience any personal changes like this.

MMA Dartford

2009-08-02T03:43:00.000-07:00

Just returned from Dartford MMA. Good buddy Terry Valler drove me down. Terry had been to this club a while ago so it was nice having someone who could introduce me.Dave the instructer got stuck in traffic so unfortuantly couldnt make it. Fresh purple belt Gary took the class, which was very good. Technique wise it was uchimata (inner thigh throw). Uchimata to knee on to armbar. Armbar backwards roll escape if only 1 leg. Armbar stack escape if they have both. I always have trouble with uchimata, more so than any other throw I would say.

Then sparring!Sparred my drill partner who was quite a young kid but has plenty of promise. He opted for the headlock whilst I opted to playing on my back. At one point he got some good pressure when I had half guard. Also defended well when I had him in mount. Mounted triangle however proved to sneaky for him.

As is my custom I asked Gary for a role. Was very relaxed and he was keeping an eye out over the class whilst rolling. I was opting for a brabo grip/choke to armbar type deal whilst looking for sweeps. Thought Id sunk the armbar but gary escaped very well using just what he had taught. And then he choked me somehow from a position I was certain I was safe in, turns out this is his thing. We went again and I ended up in his guard where he tried I choke I was pretty sure would only work if he was on top. Top hand forcing one lapel across the throat and the other pulling down on the other lapel. I postured and straightlocked my arms whilst thinking "no problems here". But then I felt myself going deeper down the rabbit hole and had to tap. He let go and we went to go again, but I couldnt move my hand or my face,eyes, or body. I was out....but still conscious just unable to move, wearing a stupid grin on my face. This lasted probaly about 5 seconds and I could feel myself swaying but then I felt ok and just had to sit against the wall for a little bit. Eerie.

Then rolled with a whitebelt and a bluebelt where my brabochoke armbar combo paid off a little better. Both were really cool and relaxed guys, and focused on technique and not muscling anything. Also tried some "long guard" that Micah taught me on thursday. Had a fantastic time, and this is another club I would reccomend!. Very nice mats to roll on aswell. After the session we went for some tea/coffee at the cafe just round the corner. Turns out Gary is a green lantern fan! always fun to meet fellow geeky BJJ'ers, more of a batman guy myself but with the GL film looking likely Im taking more of an interest.

Visit their website for more details on the club: http://www.dartfordmma.com/

Novagen Sutton

2009-08-02T03:35:00.000-07:00

Had a great time at novagen sutton. The club has only recently opened so was a small class, but great guys. Micah was a very friendly and easy to like guy. Micah also has a club in south africa that he started with his brother in Durban. One of the first if not the first BJJ club. They travelled around to different clubs in Brazil and UK. Micah is a brown belt.

Technique wise we covered an overhook to cross choke, with then options of the straight arm lock, triangle or omoplata.

Micah also gave me some great tips on the long range half guard which I was abit ignorant of. As Ive been using alot of deep halfguard but been getting flattened to much. Very usefull to be able to change range. Ill post more about half guard variations in the future.

We then sparred, me and a blue belt had a fun match. Got caught in a triangle which I managed to escape using the trusty catdip escape and then single lapel choke once I had tired his legs out, but didnt finish. Was quite an even match and couldnt control after passing or finish anything from guard. We had abit of a leglock tussle with him getting the better of achilles lock, I didnt tap and tried to work a calf slice of my own. On second glance I probaly should of tapped to the lock as it was tight and painfull, just not enough for me to expect damage.

2nd Roll was with Micah which was enjoyable. But odd. As far as I could see, he never moved. I just simply jumped about and rolled myself into submissions. Another thing Ive noticed with instructers is they giggle to themselves mirthfully whenever I try my cartwheel pass for open/butterfly guard.

3rd Roll was with a guy new to the art, he was calm and had pretty good posture. Still learning the ropes obviously but was enjoyable and I worked on that long distance half guard.
Had the usual nightmares with the camera, turns out it has a timer that micah found!. Micah also gave me a patch which was really nice to get, good looking patch to. You can check out there website: http://www.bjj.co.za/

If you get the chance and find yourself in sutton, go train with these guys. They are right opposite the train station above a gym so very convenient.

MMA Dartford this saturday with my buddy Terry. Looking forward to it!

Muay Thai - my first lesson

2009-07-24T02:10:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had my first lesson of Muay Thai kickboxing. Really enjoyed it, I have done some striking before In the form of san da (chinese kickboxing) but on recent reflection the coach was abit of a numpty. This class however was taken by Mick Walker who Ive known for a while through the BJJ classes, Mick really knows his stuff and has a great eye for detail. Perfect for a good striking coach. For some reason Mick reminds me of a slightly larger and more violent version of Tony Robinson. Mick takes the thursday classes and Mike Wood takes the monday's. Really looking forward to Mikes class as well.

Some thing I didnt realise was long time training buddy Kieran has been doing the class since its inception some time ago. So thats 2nd dan judo, blue belt BJJ and experienced muay thai striker - oh dear mr opponent I do not envy you.

We did a long warm up that was pretty good. Then one of the guys decided today was the day they wanted to work on some body conditioning!. So 50 leg kicks to the thighs each side and 50 kicks to the abdomen both legs!, and 20 kicks to the fore arms both legs!. Mick then got me working on some basic stuff with a partner. Jab and cross, Mick got me driving from the back foot on the cross which added alot more power. We then moved on to leg kicks, Mick got me to spin alot more on the ball of my foot and corrected my distancing. We then worked on elbows, I was doing more of a fore arm smash so he got me using the boney point. With elbows he got us using what is called "long guard". Which is when they have their arms outstretched, ineffective for punching but great for elbows following kicks.

Then with swapping with my partner that was it, almost 2 hours mind you. Enjoyed myself alot and if I can get the hang of this striking malarchy then you might see me dabble in some MMA. The club is just at this moment organising a MMA team and training sessions so thats motivated me abit. Its invite only though, and you either gotta have some smoking striking or atleast a blue at BJJ. So I qualify, but want to get my striking up to a decent standard first. Just so I can survive enough to pull x- guard and juggle my opponent like a beach ball.

Must.get.back.on.track

2009-07-11T07:24:00.000-07:00

Been a loooong time since my last update, life has just been stepping in the way. But Ive been steadily building up a library of content that Ive been dieing to post. Went on a barge trip around France and have been working quite abit which has slowed training annoyingly. And the pilgrimage, but Im hoping to put that right very soon.
Heres some holiday snaps though:

Showing off my guns at this cool resteraunt. I had snails but avoided the horse burger.

From this holiday I gained 2kg's in about a week and a very fond love of Desperado's!

Bringing the boat into a lock, we did about 50 of these!

Giving the camera's a show.

Club news:

Big bunch of our guys recently got promoted to blue, which is fantastic. Myself and some of the older blues each got a stripe.

Couple of medals from the british open so big congrats to the guys who do well there, especially Rich who Ive been training a fairbit with in his private lessons. Very steady progression.

The guys also held a 6 hour grapplethon at the academy to raise money for a hospice one of our guys works at. Was a great success and everyone did spiffingly. Matt apperantly lost over 5kg'sin sweat.

Pilgrimage news:

Aaarg its been killing me being unable to get the momentum going. But its not dead I promise! the dream is still alive. Camberly, Mill hill, Haslemere, mataleon, bjj school battersea, Zt fight skool brighton! Im looking at you!!!

The GAA (grappling arts association) also just offered me complimentary insurance and membership which is very generous of them so Ill be sporting a patch in support. These guys do a great job so check them out.

Other news!:

Check this awesome video of Cobrinha showing off his Capoiera .
Also funnily enough, Cobrinha asked on his facebook page for questions for a fan interview and he was kind enough to select one of mine. Its in the background/history section.

Check out both these blogs. Both are excellent and use quite different formats:

Laymans journey into BJJ

Moving to Brazil

Carlson Gracie Hammersmith - stop 10! tour is 7.5% complete!

2009-06-02T01:48:00.000-07:00

Just came back from Carlson Gracie Hammersmith. Had a great time and was made to feel very welcome, good session run by Wilson junior. That place is hot!. On walking in you ascend up a set of stairs lined with photo's from the last 8 years, the place is well worn and I can the jiu jitsu. Funnily enough noticed a picture of one of the instructers and my instructer reffing his fight.

Got in very early but it gave me a chance to observe their basics class and to talk to some of their guys, including a canadian called Vince who seemed to be a member of staff. I say hello to Wilson junior their main instructer. Then I get to meet Dickie their other blackbelt instructer who with Simon Hayes (another blackbelt)sorted my faixa rua gi's. Simon gives me a very warm welcome and I feel good about training here.

Class was pretty busy, met some very cool people and had some enjoyable conversations. Covered the toreando and a bunch of counters, including some crazy knee on head bow and arrow type choke from top turtle. As is my custom I wanted to roll with the instructer. So I got to roll with Simon Hayes, Dickie AND Wilson. Only the 2nd time Ive seen 3 bjj blackbelts in the same room never mind getting to spar with them. Was great fun though and each of them gave me some different and really usefull pointers.

First up Simon Hayes:

Big guy and tough. Initially pulled guard a few times but couldnt stop his pass for toffee, he did the single lapel stack choke on me which I love. Picked up on a new detail on gripping the trouser legs. At some point I got figure four footlocked. In his guard I never got a chance to pass and was defending collar chokes and scissor sweeps plenty and getting caught plenty. Defended a few moves but got caught in some subs I cant even describe.Simon gave me some praise for my hip movement which made me feel good about myself, as its easy to get down when being totally outclassed.

Next Dickie Martin:

Flexable and triangly. Was in his guard mostly, and found myself getting caught in to many triangles. I did have one hand in and one out (a bad habit of mine) but the hand that was in was by his thigh so in my mind should be safe. Dickie demonstrated how it was not and that if I moved it to his knee I could then block the elbow coming out, but would be better off just using 2 in or 2 out. Another fun roll.

The boss - Wilson junior:

PRESSURE. Arg man...seriously, pressure!. He let me make the first moves but he made sure always to have a good grip. He commented on the importance of grip fighting and how it gets them to play your game. Also got triangled here plenty, trying to work on what Dickie had shown me. But if Wilson got a grip, it was game over straight away - he as able to pull my arm right through. At one point he was just holding side control on me and I couldnt move much so I just waited for a gap. 15 or so seconds go by and Im finding it hard to breath and am thinking about tapping, 5 more seconds and Im feeling very claustrophobic and short of air. I thrash about abit and luckily he changes position before kimuring me from a very odd angle. Another 5-10 seconds and I would of been extremely uncomfortable. He shows me how he put on the extra pressure by getting hip to hip and putting his weight on my diapragm. Great roll and learnt alot inbetween tapping every 5 seconds.

Another guy I dont know asks to go no-gi with me. Simon says something about him being very old friends with Braulio. Simon tells him to go easy which worries me more. Was fun rolling with this guy, think I should of been more attacking though I was putting myself into needless guillotines and could of imposed myself more. He covers my mouth BJ Penn style, neck cranks me and goes for a heel hook - but to be fair he does them with control and does not crank or use to much strength.

I was to be truthfull expecting a very different experience and Im glad I had the oppertunity to correct my assumptions. They dont care where you are from, everyone is welcome and they treat visitors very well. I felt proud to recieve a class Osssss meant for me. Very friendly bunch.

Thank you Carlson Gracie Hammersmith for the good training.

Judo and new things at Andy Roberts Farnborough

2009-05-28T03:38:00.000-07:00

Couldnt make the stop in Birmingham in the end, so gonna try do another London excursion and hopefully make 2 in a day.

Due to myself and some of the other blue's helping as assistant instructers at the club we have been able to expand the timetable. One of the benefits (besides being able to train more) is that we can vary the training for the wednesday session. For instance James Hardy is a physical trainer and is going to be doing a conditioning class. Andy is going to be doing no gi training (I learnt to pummel!). And Kieran Rice will be doing a judo class (his a 2nd dan). The only downside is with peoples schedules these classes arnt as often as I would like, especially the judo. Kieran is looking to do a BJA coaching course so that he can then formally grade in judo as things are much more tightly controlled than in BJJ.

Main thing I wanted to talk about was Kierans Judo lesson which I attended last night. My first martial art was judo but it was a long long time ago and its only with BJJ that things are coming back to me and the spark of interest has returned. Really really good class. As a teacher Kieran is very informal and flexable, he made an effort to teach judo for BJJ rather than just pure judo. Kierans competed a fair few times in bjj so his learnt alot on adapting it. For example he told us that when gripping the arm judoka preffered to grip lower down on the sleeve, but for BJJ he reccomended higher up near the bicep so as to be able to control the arm once finished the throw. To give you the option of a armbar, as most judoka wont think passed the throw.

I have a tendency to go down with my opponent after a throw, as I like to follow through with the momentum and knock the wind out of them. But in a BJJ sense this occasionally means my momentum carries me to far and I end up giving up back as a reward for the throw!

The biggest problem I have when standing with my opponent (and I think everyone runs into this) is when they hunch low and straight arm me, as is default in BJJ. Kieran got us training specifically for this. He taught us 2 grip breaks and got us doing them with some resistance, he also got us lifting our opponent up onto their toes and opening there arms. Without these 2 things you are giving your opponent to many advantages and your more likely to get thrown or definitely stuffed when attempting a takedown. Decided I will start training the pull up technique with some resistance bands.

Throw wise we did seio nage,otoshi, some version of otoshi with the arm over the head, tai otoshi and 2 counters when they step out to defend the tai otoshi.

Enjoyed the class a massively and would be happy to go back to brand new spanking white if we could get the class going atleast once a week.

I give you sexy judo!:

ZT fight skool Crawley

2009-05-19T04:29:00.000-07:00

Found this club completely out the blue, currently it isnt on slideyfoots map which Im using. Probaly as its only 2 weeks old. I wasnt doing anything so decided to go down last night.

Walked 30 mins down a road heading for Brighton before having to enter a forrest! the club venue was one of the 30 odd huts located here, oddly enough quite a few of them being martial arts clubs. Met Yousuf Nabi a purple who was taking the class (head instructer is Ivam Maciel), really nice guy and around my build. Did a good warm up, aspects of which I plan to steal as I like to vary the warm ups alot. Since the club was so new the classes were still small but a few blues had come up from their main Brighton club. Yousuf and another blue had both trained under Marcio Gomes who I met at RGA wimbledon.

Zt fight skool have a curriculum system Ive not heard of before. They teach techniques on a single position for the whole week across all their schools. This week was north south and we did 2 chokes from there. Both were technical and used alot of pressure, nothing flashy but I think perhaps difficult for the beginners. Yousuf was attentive though and walked around giving everyone pointers and helping us out if we ran into problems. We then did some sparring, worked my current laid back style and no one tried to rip my head off. Well someone did try to finish an arm triangle on me after I had mounted them but they were new. Unfortuantly didnt have time to roll with Yousuf as we were running late and another class was starting.

All in all, enjoyed myself alot and really got on well with Yousuf. The crawley club is run by Saied Golamine who is their wrestling coach, and by the look of his ears a very good asset. They also offer MMA which is the main focus of fight skool but the BJJ is strong with them.

Their main school is their Brighton venue, which I will hit as well. I must admit I had reservations about a place that used the word "skool", but I think they are trying to form a strong brand and are using it more for advertising purposes. Check their website here:

http://www.ztfightskool.com/

Poll, training,twitter and new pilgrimage targets

2009-05-17T16:38:00.000-07:00

Just made a poll asking about whether any of you guys out there would consider buying a patch to support my bjj pilgrimage?. The main big cost is travel at the moment and if I was able to offset that then I could ramp up the pilgrimage. At this rate we are looking at 2-3 years! . Black eagle are soon to be releasing a custom patch service so I was planning on taking advantage of it. Currently Im brainstorming design idea's as I want it to look cool enough for people to want it for its own merit. Depending on how much black eagle charge Im hoping to sell for £5 a patch. If I can get an idea of how many people like the idea, then I can justify an initial investment.

Another possible idea is doing a T-shirt, with any interested sponsors going on the back. Talking of which I need to approach some people if they would be interested in buying ad space on my gi...

In training news!

Focusing a great deal on my bottom game at the moment, especially butterfly and deeeeeeep half guard. Slightly flirting with x-guard, as everytime I get it I go all he-man and can barely resist shouting "I HAVE THE POWAAAAH!". Found this beauty, concerning x-guard:

Marcelo Garcia x-gaurd series

Am completely rehauling my passing game as their were some fundemental flaws that I was getting away with on lower level opponents, that just dont fly now. As such its weaker but hopefully will improve fast on a more solid foundation.

Balance balls are great! done only a tiny bit of work on them but have already felt some benefits to my top control. Andre Galvao initially lit my balance ball fire:

Didnt realise Martial Farts was to thank for this video! So thanks!

Heres something to aspire to:

In teaching news!:

Im loving it. Although I do worry about making sure its a good lesson and that people are enjoying it and learning correctly. But so far whenever Ive been asked questions about the techniques Ive felt comfortable in giving what I think is the right advice. So far no complaints and Im certainly getting alot out of it.

Pilgrimage news!:

Going up to Worcester again this weekend, will do a club in the Birmingham or Hereford area hopefully!. Terry my faithfull friend has also offered to drive me to Exeter! where there is another club under Italo's banner.

In other news!:

Im now on twitter! http://twitter.com/Jadonblade . Because all the cool kids are.

BJJblogs.com seems interesting . Noticed some of my articles show up on there, wonder if its automated or if a human chooses the stories.

Over and out. Strictly speaking in radio terms you cant be over and out, as over means your still carrying on the conversation and out means your not...

Bullshido throwdown and updates

2009-05-09T06:03:00.000-07:00

May 3rd I hosted a bullshido throwdown at the Farnborough Andy roberts club (my club). It unfortuantly clashed with the Essex BJJ competition. These throwdowns also seem to primarily consist of BJJ guys. But we still got a few guys down, Mark Curry from Ireland as previously mentioned, Can sonmez (slideyfoot), Alan (madgrenade - a kung fu guy) and 2 of my guys James hardy and Sid (also a judo guy). Did a little bit of boxing with Alan but focused primarily on the grappling.

Mark specialises in no gi so it was a great chance for me to get some pointers on that as my no gi game is considerably weaker. Got my ass kicked abit but picked up an important tip on head placement. Mine seems to hover in the middle between pinning them with my head and good posture, which meant guillotines. Which I normaly dont mind as I just then goto my von flue counter, but it doesnt work against good guys who can keep you in their legs.

Rolled with Can which I was looking forward to after the oxford throwdown so long ago. He broke my posture really well and was alot stronger than he looked. I went for my default game when I dont know much about my opponent. Pass guard, mount, cross choke. Managed 2/3 as I just couldnt get the choke quite tight enough so I wouldnt have to waste a ton of strength trying to crank it on. Similar deal with the baseball choke. Whilst playing this top game however I nearly got subbed 3 times by reverse triangles!. But managed to find breathing room and keep my arm safe each time and escape. Not to sure how I was offering up these triangles, maybe cruising to low on his hips rather than on his chest. Went to knee on belly so I could then work something abit more dynamic and keep my head clear but we decided to call it then.

Rolled with Alan but was more of a focus on showing him the different aspects of bjj, he wasnt to bad for a complete beginner though so hopes he thinks about doing some sort of grappling.

After 3 or so hours of rolling, talking and showing each other stuff we called it a day and got some food. Me and Mark then went to get our train, had to wait in a local pub amongst the very chavvy making me feel embarresed to share the same country. I mean seriously wtf. The rest of the evening consisted of hazelnut liquer in coke showing each other our favourite bjj youtube clips.

Thanks to Slideyfoot for the picture!

From right to left: Alan, James, Mark, Can, Jadon

You can see his write up:
Here

So update wise, am currently in worcester and have so many things to put up but its hard finding the time. Want to talk about my crazy 30 year old judo manuel. An idea for graphing grappling ability (inspired by prides spidergram). Am currently experimenting with x guard and loving it!. Helping instruct some of the beginner classes, having lots of fun and learning a fair bit. The pilgrimage is definitely helping me improve, just need to decide on the next stop now. Probaly one around london got some offers for lifts which will be very usefull. A bunch of comps at the moment should definitely enter one, would of been essex if not for the throwdown. Maybe UMA or grapplers showdown for no gi. So you can look forward to all that and more!

RGA Kilburn and London

2009-05-05T15:17:00.000-07:00

My hands feel like they belong to someone 3 times my age.

Hosted a "bullshido" throwdown at the academy the day before. Essentially a bunch of angry young geeks who like to fight abit. Mark Curry came over from Ireland so I put him up. His flight was only in the evening so he wanted to do a lunchtime training class. He wanted to goto carlsons hammersmith but as I needed them for the tour wanted to attend a proper evening class. So looked around phoned Mario Reis's place but I got a solemn" no mah fren is bank holiday". So decided back on hammersmith, very foolishy I didnt check if they were going to be open (as it was bank holiday), and when we got there it was closed .

So phoned RGA and checked it was open and made our way there. Nick Brooks (RGA Mill hill instructer and brown belt)was there which was awesome and really helped us out. Did some drills and some fun sparring with Nick. To the tune of junior (a massive purple belt) singing "I believe I can fly" each time Nick set up a sweep. Went for some outrageous things and had alot fun, Nick gave me some great pointers which Im annoyed at myself for not being able to remember.

Then we tried to make our way into more central london to catch a film, ran into one of the guys we just had a lesson with who was also killing time before work. Ended up watching Crank 2! - was crazy but very entertaining. Im talking shotgun up the ass crazy.

Had to then part ways with Mark and I made my way to RGA kilburn, walking around all day, training and operating on steak and cheese pasty power was taking its toll. So I got some fruit and chocolate in me before the session for some energy.

Met a cool young guy called Dan who gave me some nice pointers. Being a bank holiday there wasnt to many people but thats how I like it. Did a hard warm up and worked some stand up before moving on to some passing techniques that were new to me. Got my ass kicked in sparring and I was starting to gas abit.

Challenged Jude Samuel (black belt instructer and awesome dude) to a death match but had to settle for a light roll, where he put me through my paces constantly making me think and work hard. Stopping at parts to go over particular techniques. I also tapped to a sweep! which I thought was some sort of tortuous rib crusher.

Rolled with some more guys, all were cool and relaxed and focused on trying to learn rather than win.

Back to Jude for more of a beasting and I learnt a huge amount. I was dead but he kept me moving and he told me training at this point is more important than when fresh, because this is where it counts. And I realised I should try get like this every lesson, Ive been to relaxed about pushing myself. Another thing I realised is I hide behind being nice to the less experienced but I should pull the trigger more.

Learnt some great fundementals this weekend and its made me realise what I need to do now to get to the next level.

On the academy - with its high street location it is prestine, very cool venue with plenty of confused bystanders watching outside. The neatest and most clean cut so far. Jude is Jude and other than being a monster on the mats (multiple euro champ)is also where I set the bar in terms of instructing, friendlyness and attitude.

Long day! left at 9am and got home past midnight. Training tuesday and wednesday as well.

My brain is swimming with new things, I need some time to absorb it all.

My Brighton fight, news and thoughts

2009-05-02T01:46:00.000-07:00

Its just been put up so been watching it. Thought I was like 30 000 points down, didnt realise at the time that all I needed was to pass and hold position. Annoying, happy with the escapes although perhaps I should of put myself in the subs to begin with. Still was a fun fight and Ive learnt alot from it. The pass was there! . Specifically my passing and half guard passing.

The fight here if the embed doesnt work.

In other news, hosting a Bulshido throwdown at my club this sunday!. If your about come join us. Thread details HERE .

Should also be doing some pilgrimage stops in london on monday, hopefully looking at 2 clubs!. Been trying to think of how I can drum up some money from doing the pilgrimage in order to help pay for all the travel. Someone suggested asking the clubs to pay some of my travel costs in return for a review and maybe some extra acknowledgement. The trick it seems is getting some clubs to do it first so that the others are tempted to follow suit.

Other than that maybe I could search for sponsorship from local businesses?. 150 odd clubs (minus the 7 Ive already been to). Average class seems to be around 20, so thats around 3000 people spread all over the country that will see me and take notice of me. So perhaps I could use that to justify myself as ad space?. I know Ive had 4-5 inquiries into my faixa rua gi since wearing it for each of the stops, so people definitely take notice. I try thank the whole class at the end of the lesson and ask them if they would join me for the picture.

I could try a sponsored super pilgrimage and see how many clubs I could hit in rapid succession over a week?. If I had the travel money and support I could do probaly 14 clubs (around 24ish in london). Although I would be feeling pretty dire after.

Carlson Gracie Caterham

2009-04-29T05:32:00.000-07:00

My friend Terry was awesome enough to take me to another club he had trained at previously. Run by blackbelt Steve Haydock, which recently joined the carlson gracie family. Check their website out.

Steve also does a crossfit session so there were plenty of ropes and some sort of strange roof scaffolding for pull up type exercises presumably. Not a huge room but provided easily enough room for the class. Class consisted of almost equal amounts of blue and purples with a smattering of white belts. Also included the first ever female purple belt Ive met. Everyone seemed to be pretty built (crossfit helping no doubt), which indicates to me that they dont mess around with training.

The lesson focused on chokes from the back - more details on that later.

Everyone was pretty cool and chatty, and we got on well. Got to roll with Steve, who played a little bit of catch and release with me whilst slowly killing my soul with pressure from the top. Ended up sparring him a few times which was great, tried some outrageous moves as I was pretty sure I wasnt gonna catch him with anything orthodox. This included trying to cartwheel to his back from kneeling, kicking his knee back to pull him into a loop choke, a crazy judo choke from underneath side control. This normaly resulted in me being punished with knee on belly and taken apart. Fought some of the other purples which was fun, held out abit more but still got caught. Got a compliment from one of the purples of a pass I did against one of the whites, so was chuffed with that (the compliment, not passing the whites guard :P). Caught an elbow at one point and bit my tongue, still not keen on a gumshield though.

All in all a great class, Steve is a really cool guy and these guys train hard. Again I would reccomend this club. I need to find some man drama or this will make for a boring final write up!

You can see that crazy apparatus I was talking about on the ceiling.

Going back to the techniques we drilled, learnt quite abit.

First was the clock choke grip type choke which I knew well.

Next was a choke I had seen in some books but never really learnt it myself:

And 3rd in the series was something Ive never seen or heard of. Talking to Steve afterwards he said it was something he came up with for himself, Im sure others know it as well but I dont think its well known at all.

Same single collar grip as before but it can be very loose (the genius of this sub is in how loose it can be). Open up your right leg and put it to the ground, this will give them room to escape out that side. Its a crafty trap so let them. As they escape come up onto your knee's, keeping the grip and putting your shoulder behind their head. Over hook their left arm and bring it to the ground while you pull down on the collar and raise your shoulder - which raised their head. The choke is tight! and all that extra room in the loose lapel grip is taken up as it wraps around their neck. Cant wait to use it. Devious!

Next stop Carlson Gracie Hammersmith and hopefully somewhere else the same day if I can find one that has a class after.

RGA Aylesbury - stop 3

2009-04-27T08:21:00.000-07:00

Me, Terry and Dan descended on RGA Aylesbury on Sunday. Terry had trained their a few times so he showed us around and made introductions. One of the guys there was 69 year old bluebelt called Pete!.

Really nice venue, weights room, boxing ring and a pretty big mat space. The lesson itself was cool, focusing on the armbar/pendelum sweep situation. How to defend, a trick for the armbar and a trick for the sweep.

The class was taken by Kevin Capel, who has just recieved his brown belt after crushing his opponents at the euro's. Had a roll with him and got man handled. And learnt a valuable lesson about a favourite move of mine, its shit. In a nut shell it was going from de le riva to a sort of open deep half guard and then unsettling them to take their back or sweep. Done it many times and not suffered to badly for it. Kev just turned round, sat down and armbared me. Didnt realise my arm was ripe for plucking.

Everyone was very friendly and were cool to talk to. One guy recognised me from my RGA intercomp exploits which felt good!

This time my camera batteries were charged! and with spares. However the person taking the picture was abit unsteady :P .

Another awesome stop on the pilgrimage, thanks for having us Kevin!. If your in there area I would definitely reccomend this place.

I felt uncomfortable with the idea of just taking random photo's at a club Im entering for the first time. But ill brainstorm to try get these entries abit more entertaining.

Get up and dance

2009-04-21T02:40:00.000-07:00

Because its my birthday!

Italo Ferreira Worcester - Pilgrimage stop 2

2009-04-17T05:53:00.001-07:00

Havnt got the photo yet so Im just gonna put the post up, and when he sends it to me Ill put an update in and edit this one:

I arrived early at Butlers gym, a very manly looking gym filled with an everlasting testosterone mist. However I had got the session times wrong and had turned up with only my gi to the end of the gi session, with the no gi session next. Italo and the guys greeted me warmly though and Italo got me sparring right away. Sparring cold is never fun but its a good warm up and the guy was relaxed and wasnt trying to kill me.

I then spar Italo who makes me look foolish, everything I did just seemed wrong and I fell into his traps constantly. But when you dont have a hope of winning, you just let go and enjoy it.

Italo then gets his next class warmed up and gives them some drills to do. I thought he was gonna just give me the gi variations but instead pretty much gave me a private lesson!. First we covered loop chokes, which Ive been wanting to get right for a while now. We also did a variation which broke down their posture and pulled them into the choke, while also setting up a triangle if they escaped or defended. Brillaint.

We did this from a sitting position, think sparring from knee's. You want to be sitting at a slight angle to them. Grip the opposite collar to the gripping hand, around the collar bone. Put one foot (the same side foot as your gripping hand)in their hip, other leg is crossed underneath. Using the collar grip you pull down to break their posture, aiming to pull them into the gap created by sitting at an angle to them. Lift the gripping hand elbow up to the ceiling, so the forearm runs the underside of their jaw. Swim your other hand over the opposite side of their head and dive the hand through the crook of your elbow, so that forearm rests on the back of their neck. Lift your foot (the one that was in their hip) and hook it round the top of their shoulder - this stops them trying to move the other way to get out the choke. Lift your gripping hands elbow further up to finish the choke. If they roll, roll with them into mount you can still finish it.

In the other variation they are simply being stubborn and keeping good posture, the only difference is the setup. Same grip on the collar but other hand holds the sleeve (the one on the same side as the collar your gripping) and the foot that wasnt on their hips goes onto their knee. Then simply pull the sleeve and kick back their knee to completely destroy their posture and pull them into the space.

This choke works from almost anywhere. Recently being seeing Ollie Geddes do it alot from half guard:

Now with handy annotations!!

Talking of Ollie, fellow blogger Seymour (meerkatsu) just interviewed on the fightworks podcast website: Here

Italo then gave his guys some more stuff to work on and then asked if there was anything I wanted to do?. Top halfguard has been on my mind after Brighton, Im just not great at passing it. I end up hunting submissions instead. Italo seemed to know alot about this position though and he went through abit of theory while teaching me 2 passes I didnt know. The first Ive had done to me but never quite got the mechanics down till now. The second is brutally basic and effective.

Damn youtube let me down again, 1st pass:

Get the underhook!. Get a grip on his knee that is up. Put your shoulder to the mat so your pelvis is facing the ceiling. Bring your trapped leg up and walk it towards your opponent so it makes a right angle, this makes it very hard for them to lock it over your knee. With the knee grip slide their locking legs down towards your ankle. Hop over their body and using leverage from your other leg sliiiiide the trapped leg out so you end up in side control. If you dont have the underhook your back will get taken.

2nd Pass:

Put your hands on their biceps and flatten them out. Put your forehead into their solar plexus. Then bring your hands back and around their legs locking with an S grip underneath their legs. Straighten one leg out, bring the other leg slightly back and then explode backwards to open their legs. Keep their hips and legs pinned, walk your previously trapped leg to the side of your free leg, walk up into side control.

Then just for abit of fun showed me a very cool counter to the basic butterly guard sweep. As they pull you in, swim your hand under to get the underhook and grab their belt. As they start lifting you up in the air, post your other leg out and your forehead onto the mat. Then you do a handstand! hold for a few seconds so their leg drops and then simply slide over into side control.

Me and Italo then had another spar, I immediately tried to jump him with the loop choke which he found funny. He let me put him in more bad positions this time and we had a nice fluid roll, I still got nailed obviously. At one point he gets me with a wrist lock whilst I try push him off while under side control, without using his hands or legs!

Overall I really loved it, learnt some new stuff, met some cool new people, had fun and ticked off another gym. Was also my first roll with a blackbelt.

Jibber jabber

2009-04-14T15:56:00.000-07:00

Went to Italo's in worcester on saturday and had a blast. My camera packed up on me again though so am just waiting for Italo to send me the pic he took from his phone. The post is all written so soon as I get it ill put it up.

But thought I might as well include some extra stuff.

Watched this 3 part mini doc the other day on the jiu jitsu life style. Little bit cheesy but I found it quite enjoyable and an interesting watch:

On monday my girlfriends cousins popped over for abit of a grapple, brought their own mats and everything. The weather was great so was alot of fun. I got my ass kicked for most of it but I picked up some nice no gi pointers. Helped them with their gi stuff. And generally just had alot of fun. At the moment they train at braulio's but as they have only been training no gi have no rank!. Stephen is currently undefeated (11-0) and is the amateur champion in his division for the combat sports/mma universe organisation. Check his profile at: MMA Universe 10 fights one in the first round! half of them by triangle!. He triangled me.....very quickly. From talking to him it seems he can hang with purple belts (and sub them) nogi, which puts him in the funny situation of being legitimately able to compete at white belt in gi comps but obviously able to compete much higher. If you were in the same position would you just wear the white but insist at fighting at blue/ purple?. Or would this be seen as rude to your club/instructer?

After being taken down about 5 times in a row I got him with a judo outer leg reap, but his fatigue might of been a factor there :P.

His brother wasnt a slouch either, and fighting his brother often seemed to end in tie's. Managed an armbar on him when we put on the gi, but pretty much got sat on otherwise.

Things I took away with me:
Wrist control
Standing throws with whizzer/overhook!
head control
underhooks can really stuff you up from almost every position
getting beaten up for 2 hours is alot less tiring than doing the beating.

RGA Wimbledon - 1st stop on the BJJ pilgrimage

2009-04-08T11:21:00.000-07:00

After the comp I was free to start the pilgrimage and turns out RGA wimbledon is actually alot closer than I thought!. One of the guys I met at the Brighton comp even gave me a lift from the station which was handy. They were a great bunch of guys and I had a good session. The class was taken by Marcio a black belt affiliated with RGA, I dont know him to well but Ive seen him before. Also in attendance was Ray Stevens who not only has an olympic silver medal in judo (1992 - the last awarded to a British person) but also is probaly one of the only people to attain a BJJ blackbelt without holding any prior rank. Due to his training with Roger Gracie and his aptitude at newaza. The club is run by him and also offers judo and other classes: Check the website here

First thing new I picked up on was a warm up exercise I hadnt seen. Essentially standing up in someones guard and picking them up ten times.

Technique wise we did a normal sprawl drill, a sprawl variation and the triangle. The sprawl variation was interesting.

One arm between you and them against their neck (as normal) and one out. The main difference was in hooking underneath there jaw, sprawling at an angle and driving your shoulder down into the back of their neck. The bonus is the extra head control and ability to completely stuff the shoot. Possible downside is breaking their neck? but definitely works.

Sparring was fun. 1st up was the guy closest to my size (big dudes in this class!), he was cool and relaxed but just made some normal new guy mistakes I capitilised on. Next up was a big blue belt guy, so I stepped it up a notch. Cross collar choke from guard did the business, turns out he hadnt trained in a year and a half!. So felt a lil mean but was still a fun roll, he nailed me with an ezekial choke from top half guard which I really should of defended. One move Ive used a fairbit in the past came in handy. Go for a collar choke from mount, when they try roll you off. Go with them, slide your leg over and a hey presto belly down armbar.

Then had a go with Lawrence (who beat my guy in the final in brighton), kept it light hearted but wanted to avenge my guy. Lawrence had great top control and patience. Went for a omoplata sweep which he countered well, subbed me a few times in the end.

After the lesson we all went for a pint! Ray had some very interesting stories.

Great start to the pilgrimage, hope each stop will be as good. Definitely going to investigate doing some judo with Ray.

Thanks again to Faixa Rua for outfitting me with 2 gi's for the pilgrimage and one massive A5 gi for all the patches.

The grab and pull - Brighton 09

2009-04-06T05:00:00.000-07:00

We showed up 15 guys strong and were ready to rock the boat. The scales were atleast 2kg's light so everyone was able to chill out weight wise which was nice. Tried to make sure our white belts knew to warm up but they got called onto the mat very quickly. 2 of our guys were fighting each other in the first round which sucked.

Had no idea when my division was on so I kept warm for around an hour before finally weighing in. In case they threw us on the mat straight away. But it was alright in the end.

Did my usual thing and struck up conversation with complete strangers, always fun and interesting though.

Mat had his fight before mine and did really well, was in a bad position for a while but he fought through it and got a great escape/turnover from under side. He worked his triangle game but the guy knew he was up on points so just did enough to survive. Afterwards his hands were completely dead from holding off the triangle choke from closing in. His team had to massage the life back into them.

I step on and Im feeling confident. Ive got my game plan and I know what Im doing. We get our grips and I feel like this is gonna go my way as I set up room for the single leg. I go for it and my opponent sits back into a perfect yoko tomoe nage. I hit the mat hard, flat on my back but immediately arch and try and twist back to my knee's. But he rolls straight over onto top. And now it all gets abit hazy. He threatens an armbar and I get put into a triangle. I bring the knee to the floor and by myself time and eventually escape, which gets turned into an armbar which I agian defend. But he then transitions into an omoplata, his got it but I adjust the angle so he cant finish. I escape and get in top half guard. I give him the shoulder of justice, get the underhook and try flatten him out so I can free my leg. But my base is to far over and he gets the sweep. I get put in another triangle and this time I try a new defense for me. I stack him, and do a single lapel choke while moving to my right so he cant turn it into an armbar. He gets uncomfortable but I dont grip his belt with my other arm so I can finish it. He lets go of the triangle but I dont step it up and get put back on the defense. I defend more but he throws on another armbar hard and I verbally submit.

Was happy with my performance for my first fight at blue, defense kept me alive for 5 minutes but I just couldnt shift gears to put him on the defense. Someone comes up to me after and lets me know his a judo blackbelt, really should of tweaked when I saw he was wearing an adidas gi. No excuse though. He gets to the final and lands the same throw really well on the other guys but comes away with silver.

The rest of my team fight very well but things dont quite go our way at times. Jamie hurts his knee bad whilst well on the way to a win. Lee rips through the opposition till the final where this guy lands a sweeeeet double leg. Still a great fight but comes away with silver. Matt sweeps a massive beast in the absolute but unfortuantly rolls into a choke the guy finished from the bottom. Kieran showed us the power of hara goshi. Phil showed huge heart and fought lotsa fights, before coming away with Bronze. His opponent slammed him twice and was calling him for everything, Phil still won and was a class act. The guy and his coach came and apoligised after which was good of them. Sheena gets silver in her division then has a rematch in the absolute and gets gold. Young Dan our super serious prodigy wins his first ever comp fight with an iron unbending will. And loses in the final by 1 advantage to Dale, one of the top ranked youths in the country.

Roger Gracie fist bumped me.

Had tons of acai which I ended up spilling on myself and all over my face. Afterwards we had a great night out reliving the tales of the comp and all going for pizza.

Learnt tons! -

Need to up the aggression and pace of attack

Drill the tomoe nage counter more

More work from under bad positions

More work on half guard

Carlson Gracie guys = Kobra kai!

You got to disrespect those legs

This comp has really helped me I think. Feel incredibly motivated.

The great BJJ pigrimage and other news

2009-03-30T07:04:00.000-07:00

For a very long time Ive been thinking about doing a BJJ tour of all the clubs in the UK. Ive always really enjoyed meeting and talking to people at competitions and even on other blogs and forums. Its going to be an adventure and hopefully will do something to show BJJ unity in the UK, we have plenty of rivalries (which Ive said can be a good thing) but they can also turn petty and do more harm than good. This is genuine and I am doing it, it may take a very long time as I gotta fit it around real life but Im in a very good place to do it. Im near London and often am in Worcester which is ideal for going to Birmingham and Wales.

As a proof of UK BJJ and a trophy of sorts Im also going to get myself a patch from every club and put it onto a GI. Faixa Rua have amazingly sponsored me for this mission and are supplying me with 2 gi's. One to wear as I visit each club and a massive A5 one to put all the patches on. Ive recieved alot of great feedback so far, the Carlson Gracie clubs have offered me free patches from each of the clubs AND a free lesson at each club as well. Which is worth quite abit. Its quite likely they will be some of the first clubs I visit as quiet a few are in surrey. If more clubs help me out like that its going to save me alot of money and allow me to do this much faster.

This whole thing is further made more possible by the legendary Slideyfoot who has created a BJJ map of the UK! which really puts the whole thing into perspective, its around 150 clubs strong. See the map here . In the more densely club populated area's I hope to hit 2-3 in one day. Might even be able to do the whole of Scotland in one weekend, Wales should only take one or two trips. Dasmoose who Ive talked to on the bullshido and efn forums has very graciously offered to put me up in Ireland, so could hopefully do those clubs in only a few days.

Im still trying to work out some idea's to maybe get some sort of funding for the travel, or maybe sports relief sponsorship. Andy had a great idea about doing a T shirt as well with all the clubs on the back (band tour stylee).

My focus needs to be more on the here and now but am also giving thought to maybe seeing if a BJJ mag would be interested in the story or the fightworks podcast. I am thinking of this now in case they require the story not to be on my blog (this is just a synopsis really :P ).

Onto other news now -
Had a session where my legs were replaced with tissue paper and everyone destroyed my guard, fixed that next session though by breaking posture more as I realised I was being lazy as my hands were hurting.

Taught a beginner class which I really enjoyed, would love to do this more regularly which hopefully might happen. We did a sit up sweep series, as I think its much easier to remember when all the moves are related (this is true in mneumic terms). It went:

Sit up sweep - Sit up sweep into kimura - sit up sweep guillotine - defending and escaping the guillotine - kimura escape and counter - proper sit up sweep defense (not posting the arm out). It sounds like alot but I think it flowed together well.

Been taking some warm ups as well, got them doing a pull up exercise where someone stands over you and you pull yourself up using sleeve grips (so doubles as grip and arm strengthening). Couldnt think of the real name for it, so I just called it the "teabag".

Sparring and the best knockout in the world

2009-03-27T04:08:00.000-07:00

Did some early morning training at the club with a few of the guys. Andy and Mike were doing some padwork so me and Lee decided to do some rolling as a warm up. Rolling without a warm up gasses you VERY fast and doesnt feel nice, but it does warm you up in a less monotonous way. Lee is a solid white belt (won silver at europeans) and is just under 90kg, his a fireman though so his also hench. Not that Im making excuses or anything... :P . but yeah I got pounded abit. I got plenty of sub attempts and good position but couldnt hold it or finish it. Mostly armbars from bottom that he then defended well and with his strength made it feel impossible. But even things like RNC's I found alot of trouble. I need to get my subs to be alot more ruthless, Im always trying to find a nice easy gap that sometimes just isnt their with the more experienced guys. Highlight for me was nailing a flying guillotine and escaping side with an americana from bottom (that I kicked myself for not being able to finish). Lowlight was nearly getting aikido wristlocked from within my guard!. Was great to work the no gi though and Lee has really got tighter on everything.

So next we put on the gi's and did a winner stays bout. Me and Mike first, really good fun. I went for the same armbar 3 times and only landed it on the third, need to break their defenses down abit more getting abit to excited to quickly. Then Lee came on and we went for abit but I tapped a few mins in. Then Andy came on......and didnt get off obviously :P. He would let us get good position before properly defending, which was fun but annoying at how loose I felt. High light was landing that wheel throw off the single leg ( I think andy let me for kicks though). Low light was going for a flying guillotine on Andy and getting chucked on my ass.

Me and mike then drilled abit, mostly on an omoplata escape as a few minutes prior Andy nailed me with one but I didnt want to roll so I turned towards his head. Which has worked for me in the past, but in this case it just trapped my arm and gave him a RNC on a platter.

Good fun though and has got me feeling great. Because now I can focus on improving again, after my trip I had forgotten everything I was working on tweeking. Fitness is coming back fast, should be ready for Brighton.

Now for some interesting videos!

BJJ school gets its windows broken tons and setup a stake out...

The best knockout in the history of the world!

Bottom of the barrel

2009-03-25T06:08:00.000-07:00

So Im bottom of the barrel again, overweight, conditioning is down and am feeling rusty and out the zone. Fuckit, Im going to compete at Brighton (2 weeks). Want to know why!? this is why:

(first seen on Pesadelo's blog [link in sidebar]) Talking of Pesadelo his just opened his club so if your near him in Texas go train with him!.

Thats pretty inspiring I think, and a great attitude for BJJ.

As I see it theres two options, lets way them up:

Compete:
Cant win it if your not in it. Going to gain experience and it will make me better, meet the new guys and some of the top dogs in my division. Even if I lose completely all that Ive lost is a little ego, which if anything is a good thing. And thats the worst case (accidents dont come into it).

Dont compete:
I gain nothing, except envy at those that did compete. Maybe I end up waiting till ive improved enough to have a solid shot at gold, but all ive done is waste time. I could lose 2 comps in half the time and end up being twice as good.

And Im gonna kick ass anyway. I weigh 69.9 with my lightest gi, abit to close for my liking. Went for a run today, bit to slow but i still finished with a sprint. Going to do get a upper body calisthenics routine going as well. Push ups, pull ups, hand stand push ups, cat dips etc. Weight wise ill do my old routine of rotating 20kg around my head, sledge hammer, etc. When Im at the club ill go early and do as much as I can of Randy's workout, maybe some kettle bell stuff as well.

My folks recently got a wii fit and I gotta say that hula hooping really takes it out of you, Im convinced its a great core exercise so Ive been doing it. Heres some extra incentive if you doubt me:

Heres something that really made me laugh, such a great ad for BJJ allround:

Guerrilla Jiu-Jitsu Commercial

who do? ju do!

2009-03-18T06:35:00.000-07:00

Everytime a competition starts to loom me and my training buddies always end up talking stand up. The focus this time was on James who was set on using seio nage:

Which can be an awesome throw... if your this guy:

I find this throw very hard to pull off in BJJ because of how low and stiff armed people are in comps, there are very few rules on defensive posturing compared to judo. I like to use my attributes so I naturally prefer throws where you need to get low. So I offered up Tai otoshi as a substitute (which kieran had shown me the week before):

We had a little stand up sparring session to try it all out, I really liked tai otoshi but my footwork sucks. Tomoe Nage is still magical, Kieran (again from the week before) showed me another sacrifice throw I had not seen but didnt catch the name of. Its very similar to tomoe nage but instead of foot in their stomach its in a butter fly hook position. Heres a favourite video of mine of some poor soul getting smashed over and over with various sacrifice throws:

Ive watched this vid quite a few times and Im still learning from it.

I think in the end he decided on an attacking single leg strategy. The next lesson I paired up with super serious new young kid, whose pretty good. The Brighton comp will be his first so we also worked some stand up stuff, pretty solid kid. He will win. IF he gets his game plan sorted. Gonna make an effort to help get him ready.

Another throw Ive gotten Andy and Kieran to show me a few times is Kata Guruma, mostly because I think it can work really well in combination with some other throws. And will bypass the stiff arm and sprawl defense.

But my footwork is still a little slow on this one. Gonna work on it.

To be abit more BJJ centric now, am loving the baseball bat choke. Andy showed us a really nice variation from side control Ive been successfull with. For those unfamiliar a normal baseball bat choke looks like this:

This is my current goto sub from knee on, very powerfull. Just make sure you put your head down to the correct side so that he cant spin to loosen the choke.

The variation Andy showed us meant we could do it from side, without knee on in sneaky fashion. In side control (his right side) you grip deepish into his right lapel with your left hand. Then you spin yourself over his head all the way to the opposite side while still keeping the grip. Make sure to keep a solid base with your weight on his chest. Get a deep grip with your right hand inside his left collar. Then spin/walk back to north south. Put your head down to your left side to stop him spinning out, squeeze and sprawl your weight if you need to, to finish the choke.

Am back!

2009-03-09T11:28:00.000-07:00

So arrived back in the UK after another good flight. Soon after arriving I pickup a sore throat though. I goto training on friday, Kieran and James are taking the beginner class as Andy's away. Kieran takes the next class which is my first as a blue. Been looking forward to a lesson from Kieran for a while as his a really good judo guy. He doesnt dissapoint and I learn some new stuff including some throws I had forgotten about. Will find some vids in my next post.

Had a spar with 2 guys, first one went really well and I felt comfortable offensively using butterfly guard on reaction. 2nd one was against James (aka spider noodles), which went suprisingly well. Passing guard felt very good and I was just a tiny bit to eager for the choke, didnt take my time. I got nailed with a bow and arrow choke in the end but I felt good for 6 weeks away.

Next session I felt damn rusty though, I was in socks to protect some infected mosquito bite wounds I had which made things a little annoying. Lots of new faces! some new big guys to soul crush as well. We even have a new super human polish guy, which is the only sort you find in BJJ it seems. We were just doing some position sparring but I lost it or they stood up a few times. Feel a little bit of pressure on the belt but I its less than I thought and that will go soon I reckon.

However their is the brighton grab and pull again this year, I won my division last year so would be awesome to win again at blue. But I wanna get myself back to form, dont want to give myself any excuses. Need to just get out their though.

Pictures from zambia!

2009-03-06T00:16:00.000-08:00

Have arrived back in the UK so here are some of the pictures I promised. Ive got 200 odd so Ill try pick the most relavent/interesting

Toughest Looking baby ever, and his name is junior!. His gonna be massive.

Freddie! - likes biting ankles.

Flowers for me!?

Poser monkey shows his good side.

Teaching some english, to my older class. Loved this classroom.

Posing at the falls, post drenching. The falls kick up a bunch of water like 100 metres up so its like ever lasting rain in some of the places.

Before we decided to move onto the soft grass and carpet... . Why are you hitting yourself lewis? why lewis why!?

Black Mamba gives me the beady eye.

Some of my english class :D

Girrafe and mini giraffe have a falling out.

Younger BJJ class rolling around.

Victoria falls!

Bridge to zimbabwe, from the bottom of the falls, boiling point.

Bummed couldnt go white water rafting. Looked awesome.

Once you take the first shot you have 10 seconds till your mobbed with "and me, and me!"

Younger boys BJJ. Maybe the first in zambia?

One of my fave pics, looks like she is taking the pic!

Rude cat ruins picture.

Older boys, my first BJJ students. 3rd guy is taking the pic.

They were very fond of armbars, their fave after RNC.

Posing at the falls, pre drenching.

Blue nun > blue belt.

My parents come for a visit

2009-03-03T07:49:00.000-08:00

My parents love Africa and so they were all to ready to come down and visit me. The original plan was for me to just meet them at the airport and then see them the next day. But turns out Ive earned some big karma points and it was time to cash them in. The captain of the flight that brought my parents over gave me his room! (he was going on safari somewhere). In what must be the best hotel in Zambia. So now I was able to spend the day with my folks. Me and mom had a huge breakfast, they had tons of stuff and even a chef at the ready to make you omelets and waffles or whatever you wanted. Then me and dad went to a local small safari lodge and went on a small safari, seeing plenty of antelope and some giraffe. Lunch was thrown in and I was shocked at their prices, $180 US dollars for both of us. But the bill only came to $48….which just about covered the free lunch and drinks. Our taxi was more expensive in the end!.

Got back and we went out for some really good steak and drinks. I went up to my room and was THIS close to trying on the captains hat and jacket. THIS = the space between atoms. But thought it abit rude considering he gave me his room for the night.

Next day we went to Chamanuka, definitely the best safari place Ive seen and a really great place to stay it seems. We meet the owners who knew a friend of ours (BA co pilot) and Sister marieola who knows everyone. They were very nice and gave my parents an awesome room with a view, we got free lunch and drinks. The tests of manliness are coming thick and fast round here.
The safari itself was really good although the grass was very high so made a lot of things hard to see, as we pulled up to the lions who were in a separate enclosure. Another car pulled up and some kids ran out near the fence. The guide told them to watch their fingers, a lioness crouched and pounced at them and scared them senseless. Comedy gold. More giraffe!, zebra’s, antelope, GIANT termites nests as tall as a house some of them. Damn elephants have evaded me again!.

I consider their evasiveness over a castle lager or 5.

Next day parents come and stay the orphanage, I give them a tour, we goto the reptile park, and have a good evening. They are off the next day and I meet two new visitors, an ex BA flight hostess and her 9 year old daughter, they are currently living in Portugal and actually had heard of BJJ!.
The only slight downside was a bite I must of scratched during the night on my achilies heel, not painfull just annoying.

It occurs to me that sister marieola is like an inverted mafia don, she has incredible influence and her karma discount is 100% on everything, people will goto a huge effort to help her anyway they can. I put this down to Kasisi’s fame, her potent charisma (she could do stand up) and goodly nun status (30% of Zambians are catholic).

De la riva massacres small defenceless orphans

2009-02-17T07:55:00.000-08:00

Been teaching a 2nd daily class with some younger boys (around 11-13), Ive had to be abit more carefull teaching submissions and have been keeping a very close eye. Most of them are ok but Ive had to tell one off for goofing off abit to much, where someone could get hurt. Other than that its been really fun, they love doing the hard warm ups even though it kills them. I can see them already getting abit more comfortable and learning a little bit of control. Not spazzing out so much.

I decided to have a mini tournemount, with first to score a controlled take down the winner. Was a great success and they really enjoyed it, the smaller kids found it very tough against the bigger ones but they never gave up. Only one disqualification. I told them to start each match with a hand slap and fist bump (or handshake), he went for a handshake and then whipped the guy round over his hip. Was a really good throw! Best of the comp by far but I had to disqualify him for “bad manners” as we say in the orphanage. We all laughed though and he was happy enough with the throw.

This really got them motivated for further stand up practice and I could see them forming some individual styles. So with this success I did another comp. This one starting on knee’s and ended with the first to get a sweep or takedown (or take the back) and hold it for 3 seconds. This again worked really well with some upsets from the smaller guys. The champ from the last comp ended up losing in the final after 3 minutes of escapes, roll overs and 2 second pins. Most wins were by guard passing. Only one disqualification. I gave a first warning after he was setting up a RNC and I took him out after he tried a hammed up armtriangle. A shame as I don’t like to tell them off for sub attempts but I told them no subs in this comp. They loved it though and the WWE 3 second counts were fun.

Only slight hiccup is when Akmed challenged me to a superfight. Akmed is another volunteer from Egypt, finished his army service a few years ago and plays competitive volleyball. He is close to my size and weight though. Am worried his ego might make him a sore loser but decide to give him the benefit of the doubt. We play with the same rules and I decide to show the kids how to relax and handle someone aggressive. I pull guard and he tries for a stack pass of sorts. I hook his leg with my arm and make my hips heavy and straight arm his shoulder. I free my leg and then finish the pendulum sweep, he bucks like mad but I stay on top. Straight after he wants a re match. This time I want to show them control from the top. So I clinch, spin to the side and put him on his back, hop over his legs and then hop into mount, and hold for 3. His a good loser but complains he didn’t know how to do anything… . But he appreciates BJJ abit more now I think. I think the match would have been abit more… tense if we threw in submissions as well, as theres no escape for the ego then. The kids really went mad for this one.

Next lesson I decide to work on some of the mistakes I saw common in their matches. On holding guard, stand up passing, counter/sweep to stand up pass and grip fighting.

I decide to try an experiment and I roll with each of the kids (about 5 of them today – varies from 4 to 12). The aim for them to pass my guard, starting from knee’s or standing their choice. And I have to sweep or transition using only my legs. I have an unfair advantage with my strength and size but I try as hard as I can to minimalise it by playing off my back and being gentle. I used a de la riva hook 90% and managed to flip them all over or take their back in a various ways. They loved it though and kept on cueing up for another go. Around the 5th roll they start to grab my ankles and try and escape the hook, which I was happy to see. I think I will try this drill again against people my own size at the club and see what I learn.

I let them do some gentle free rolling as I watch from the side. I saw one of the smallest boys transition from under side control to under half guard to his opponents back and put on a RNC, against one of the bigger boys. This made me very happy, as I told him to relax and stay calm to find an opening and he listened well and made it work. Ive always liked to help people with stuff but now I really see the rewards teaching can bring.

Learning from teaching

2009-02-04T00:25:00.001-08:00

My schedule is now fairly sorted. Wake up at 6:30am; breakfast at 7; teach a young group english at 8:30 for an hour. Lunch at 12 (Lunch is the big meal here); teach older teens english for an hour. Then we train Jiu jitsu for one to two hours. 4pm I teach the teens english for an hour, then teach more BJJ for an hour and I eat dinner at 6pm. Inbetween this trying to get photo's of each of the 250 kids for a catalogue thing we are making for sponsorship.

Lets talk jiu jitsu though.

Its nogi by default (shorts and shirt). And I like to teach using games, I do get them to do alot of drilling but I find they respond really well to these "games". I.E guard passing, holding open guard while the top guy tries to touch your head, try throw Jadon, moving round someones body whilst keeping consistent pressure, sumo. Been racking my brain trying to think of some new ones. Drill wise have been doing basic techniques with at the moment more emphasis on posture, base,pressure,escapes, passing and sweeping than the submissions. Although I have introduced a few. Been quite carefull to avoid any injuries.

Occasionaly I throw in a game that is good for me as well. I.E throw jadon. Where I let them get what ever grip they want (they love single leg) and then I defend. After which I explain the defense I used and get them to drill it. Also do it in a passing and sweeping sense, each time making sure I explain what I did. As its a small class I spend alot of time on them individually and roll with them giving feedback. I am getting more concise and my explanations clearer, which is important as babbling just confuses them.

Personelly I have been focusing on some de la riva (when Im rolling)as its a good oppertunity for me to get it up to scratch, and Im getting comfortable keeping people off balance with it. Even without the sleeve grips. By the time I get back to the UK Im gonna be in top form, never mind rusty!. Each time I correct someones mistake I am also correcting myself not to make the same mistake. And although Im not getting a workout or am being pushed by someone equal or better than me, Im still learning from them. Combining moves together is at the fore front my mind for my own development recently.

Sit up sweep goes with kimura
Pendelum sweep goes with armbar
Scissor sweep can setup a collar choke or even omoplata
An omoplata can lead to a reversal of position (not quite a sweep)
Triangle leads to mounted triangle (sweep?)
Half guard arm triangle can lead to a sweep
Triangle can also = armbar and even kimura depending on their defense
You can sweep someone from underneath side control using an americana
etc etc

Really getting this down I think will bring me up a few notches, my mind knows it I just gotta get my body to know it by reflex. Still thinking to much.

Bringing BJJ to zambia

2009-01-31T09:06:00.000-08:00

Arrived in Lusaka after a great 10 hour flight, even got delayed and it was still great. One of the pilots was a friend of the family so I got bumped up. Got plied with lots of cashews and champagne. Was also thoroughly enjoying my book I picked up from WH Smith at terminal 5 Heathrow. Sam Sheridan’s “a fighter’s heart”, which I have since finished. Sam is a mid level fighter but a great writer and his book is about his journey exploring the fighter’s mindset, what makes a good fighter, why do we train to fight etc. And by journey I do mean in the physical sense; Japan, Brazil, USA, Thailand. Whilst giving enough background information so anyone would become familiar with the fighting world. In terms of actual fighting he trains with some amazing characters in BJJ, MMA, Muay Thai, Boxing, Tai chi and meditation. And for most of these I’m not just talking a casual visit, he becomes friends with these people and becomes part of their circle. Pat Miletiches camp, Brazilian top team, Fairtech muay thai. The book can quite often be brutal as Sam really trains and even explores less desirable parts of fighting (Dog fights, cock fights, boxing conditions) but does so in a very professional neutral way. I don’t want to give too much away but pick this book up; it’s really good and not just for the hardcore fight fans. Completely novice friendly whilst providing great insight for the more familiar.
Anyway back to my trip!

A week in and no problems, I’ve got a good room, the kids are amazing, I love teaching and helping, good food, weather isn’t too bad, the nuns are great fun! And I got some internet access. Now that I’m more settled; in my main duties are teaching the young children (8-10 yr olds) English in the mornings before their school and teaching 4 older boys English in the afternoon (15-18). Their English is good all round but their teachers at school have not been great. Repetition all day long, their English not to great, taking the kids to garden instead! As the teachers aren’t getting paid enough. But most annoyingly no phonetics at all…. Which means when they read they are going purely by the shape of the word, the letters don’t represent sounds to them, making it very difficult for them to figure out new words. Despite this they work hard and some can converse fairly well. The nuns are mostly all polish or Zambian and despite having quite good English they lack confidence worrying to much on their accent.

Sister marieola the head sister asked me to teach them some jiu jitsu, something Im all to happy to do. They are familiar with the idea of judo so Ive used it as a crux in describing Brazilian jiu jitsu. The older boys have really taken to it and as there’s only 4 of them during the day (rest at school) I can give them a lot of attention. I spent a long time really making sure they understood the importance of tapping and respecting your training partners. And so far so good. It looks like I will probably end up teaching them everyday for an hour for 6 weeks, so I think they will be quite competent by then. As they are very flexible, athletic and keen to learn.

In my first lesson I gave them a little bit of history, went over positions, showed them a hip throw and seionage and then briefly gave them idea of what a submission is. Mainly to guage their interest and possible pitfalls. They did great however and really took to it. So now Ive been concentrating on drilling fewer techniques for longer so they can get the details down. They really love it when a technique works with minimal effort. Had a small guard passing roll with each of them where they would start in my guard and then after I swept them I would pass theirs. I wanted to highlight how easy decent technique can make dealing with a potentially stronger opponent.

Outside their rooms they have a lawn with the softest grass ever which has been great for training on although it does add a little bit of friction for the bottom guy. Although we have recently added a carpet big enough for us to practice techniques. Am trying to teach a move and then its defense or counter in the same lesson so they can get an idea of what they have to look out for and the basic options. First case was double leg and sprawl.

Teaching jiu jitsu is very enjoyable but its also made me appreciate good instruction more I think. As I often noticed I am perhaps talking to much/rambling and am not concise enough, sometimes providing to much detail or not enough. But I feel my style of instruction steadily improving as I notice mistakes and correct them. Having to show people techniques in good detail is also great for my own practice.

As they have to pay for bandwidth used here I am not going to upload pictures to the blog yet, when I goto Lusaka (the capital city) Ill find a web café and add stuff there.

BLOOYAH!

2009-01-21T02:25:00.000-08:00

A good day for Obama, a good day for me.

But ill start at the beginning.

Me, Andy and Mike were in early and decided to do some sweating. So Andy devised this killer routine.

3 rounds (2 min break in between rounds) of:

1 minute of each exercise continuously:

Pull ups

Box jumps

Squats

20kg kettlebell swings

60kg dead lifts

Sit ups

40kg clean and press

Olympic ring press ups

I wanted to give up and do some yoga after the 2nd round but the guys motivated me and kept me going, glad I did.

Beginners lesson covered some good stuff. Single leg pick up and take down, basic armbar, standing pass and control to side mount. Americana. Main difference with the standing pass is that we didnt go one leg up at a time but braced our arms on there body and hopped up in one motion. I liked this as it used up less energy and got me standing much faster, leaving me less open for a sweep. Getting armbared is a slight concern but will have to try it out and see.

Second Lesson.

Before it started Brian jumped me and we rolled. He got on top early and I just went into survival mode, got to his back but didnt control his shoulder and get the hooks in properly before getting rolled over. A very tiring and not great looking 5 mins, although nearly got an Americana from underneath side control.

Same stand and pass but with alot more detail on keeping really tight pressure and making sure they dont put you in guard. Key to this was always to have their hipped blocked by either your hand or your knee, the knee being more ideal. When in side dont just rest on your knee's, try and keep as few points of contact on the ground as possible to increase your weight on them. Then in side dont just look down but try and move your head so you are looking up, this rolls your chest forward and increases the pressure dramatically. On a 85kg guy it felt like he added another 15kg on easy.

I cant find the hopping up pass but heres the conventional standing pass:

The guy in the vid makes the mistake of bringing up his knee to block the hip but without a hand already blocking the hip, so there is room for for the bottom guy to put guard back.

We then went onto positional sparring starting from side control, then mount. Both went well on top and underneath. Few tiny mistakes where I let people wrap my arm around my neck, no sub but very annoying. Some new Mauricio trick they have learnt. After getting bucked off mightily by Adrian (big strong guy) I decided a different tactic for my next go on him. I crushed him down and curled him up by pushing his knee's in the direction of his head so has to limit his explosiveness using his back. I then slid into mount, woop!.

Underneath mount I went with my usual wiley tactics, getting there foot and then getting half guard and then full guard.

We then did some torture sparring on 3 guys going to the euro's, where we would spar judo style leaving them on even if we won. So they would have to fight around 10 fresh partners in a row. Some very nice throws came through. The brand new kid whose done some judo did a great classical judo trip (cant remember the name of), where he lent the guy into it and caught him off balance. I decided to go for my lumber jack throw (named myself as I dont know the real term). Essentially its a single leg trip. I went for a double leg and he sprawled but I got deep grips. I then stood up, hugged him and curled my left foot around the back of his right calf. I the just put all my dead weight forward and unable to balance he falls back. I landed in his guard. I call it the lumberjack because you essentially just fall down like a tree, standing almost completely straight.

Pro's of the lumberjack:

VERY high percentage

Easy and uses little strength

Cons:
Quite likely to land in guard or half guard

All to likely you will get a mega knee in the balls

Will not impress the ladies

Normal sparring went well I went against 2 very heavy guys, both decent as well. One guy who was particularly big I didnt know, a student from Carlsons I believe. He grip fought well and didnt give me much. He passed and controlled but I never gave him anything and got guard back, trying a few things I eventually hit paydirt with a pendulum sweep and went straight into mount before the timer went. One of the biggest guys Ive landed that sweep on, probably around a 20-30kg difference.

Had another match with Brian who controlled me well and gave me no openings, although I got half guard a few times. Wrapped my arm around my neck which was very claustrophobic. But my private lesson survival drill really was paying dividends today.

Next guy is another heavy guy who ive been having trouble with as I can barely close my guard on him. We worked his guard abit before I scramble ended us in my guard. He threw on another of his patent ezekials from inside guard, normally always a foolish mood but this one guy has some magic attributes that stop me from armbarring him. Lights were going dim, going out, Im operating on mobile phone light and he STOPS thinking he isnt getting it. I tell him to put it back on, Im staying calm and I get control of his elbow and get rid of his leverage. I defend his passes and go for a figure four armbar. He is wary but Its a real threat and he rolls. I transfer his arm from my hip (which is the fulcrum) to my inside leg, so as he rolls the pressure remains constant as my leg moves with him and he taps as soon as he stops rolling.

So didnt get subbed today and even when dominated managed to reduce their options and either escape, sweep or get to safety.

Andy lets people know Im going away for 6 weeks to volunteer in Zambia at an orphanage (Im leaving in 4 hours!). He then calls me up and awards me MY BLUE BELT!

Man I was in shock, still hasnt full sunk in. So incredibly happy about it, took alot to get here. It makes me the first blue belt for our club as well which feels even better. In 2 weeks Andy was having a promotion day but since I was gonna miss it he was awesome enough to give it to me now. So will definitely be a few more blues when I get back, so the target wont be as massive on my back. Thanks Andy and thank you everyone at the club, everyone who kicked my ass for the last year and abit taught me how to lose, so that eventually I could win. But now I really gotta work so I can start doing well at this level. The longer I train the more I realise that the amount I need to learn is always getting bigger not smaller. But Ive got the tools to do it and to get to the next step. For the new guys and everyone looking to get their blue, never be afraid of failure. Dont avoid the big guys or the people who you know will beat you, its in overcoming adversity where you will really shine. Its all to often I see that people are their own worst enemy. So its important to relax and have FUN! :D

I am going to try and get some updates about my trip up while Im out there so hopefully wont be long till you hear from me again. Andy has given me support in teaching some jiu jitsu while Im out there, which Im excited about. So should be some interesting updates!

Private 2 and mystery injury

2009-01-19T06:20:00.000-08:00

This update is laaaaate. Been getting things sorted for my trip to Zambia, and saying farewells. Missed Mauricio coming down which from all accounts was very good. Had my 2nd private from Andy a week ago as well so my memory is abit hazy. Luckily I wrote down what I wanted to work on!

Drill taking back from guard, half guard and all top positions.

Survival drill – Mount, side mount, back, half guard, guard

Flying armbar

Kneebar setups.

To make sure I used every minute I actually wrote down alot more than this, as I thought it better to have to much to work on than to little. Something I recommend to those seeking privates. Alot more practical stuff compared to my 1st one where I just needed lots of tiny adjustments. Time wise we ended up splitting it (45% taking back, 45% survival, 5% flying armbar, 5% kneebar). Ive got some sweeps and Ive got some subs but I find myself rarely going to the king of positions (their back). So I wanted to work on this to complete my triple threat. All the transitions to someones back were pretty similar, with the key being on getting them off centre and staying tight so they couldn't twist back. Another mistake I was making when taking the back from side control was by not scooting my hips high enough. Which meant as I rolled them over to put my hook in their weight went onto my hips and allowed them to gain some control. My pelvis needed to be closer towards their head. We drilled this from virtually every position including under north south (where you roll backwards onto their back). I feel quite strong in this area now and just need to practise it during sparring.

The survival drill was my idea. I wanted to practise pure survival without thinking of sweeps, subs or passes. The idea being so we could focus on the details of defense. Although being subbed over and over is never that fun, the drill paid dividends. I wasn't defending their grips enough, often allowing a deep collar grip thinking myself quite able to defend the cross collar choke. But Andy got them on me several times and even when I did defend them my posture was broken down from the grip and it led to other submissions. Another key point was when under mount I wasn't working hard enough to escape. You may be able to stall in someones guard but its a very different matter under their mount. I think I will make a feature of this drill as its something I think people could benefit from doing.

Kneebars we worked from different positions all sharing a common theme of correct positioning over the victim leg. I shouldn't really be working to much on kneebars I think at this stage but I felt it important that I am quite comfortable with them for when Im expected to start working them.

My flying armbar was corrected in that I was jumping with the wrong foot and without the right grips, giving me a high guard rather than a controlled armbar.

So another good private! - decided to reschedule my 3rd private for when I come from Zambia as Im gonna be russssssssty.

Then did a beginners lesson. Was good :D. Cant for the life of me remember what we did, which is why I have this blog!!.

Before starting the next lesson and a spar with Brian which went quite well. Went for an open butterfly guard Ive been growing fond of and immediately went for a sneaky sweep and then transitioned to his back when he defended it. Woop!. But then I couldnt sub him...and we only had about 2 minutes so I let it go and we carried on. Ending in a stalemate of sorts, good roll.

The next lesson was another good un, I think it was pure sparring. My performance then declined to about 50/50. I was being way to passive and my timing was off for that approach, knowing the problem though I was quite up beat and didnt let it get to me. Managed to pull off some alright stuff so wasn't a whitewash, bow and arrow choke awesomeness. The ones I did lose was mostly things like posting my leg up to stop them going to mount. Then fighting for abit and forgetting about my leg and dropping it to do something else, then POW mounted. In another one I defended an omoplata thinking only of the sub when it occurred to me to late that its just gonna get me swept, which it did. But was still happy and kept at it, nearly landing a kneebar on Ryan before having to let it go.

The main thing that got me down was getting subbed TWICE from someones back. You read correctly reader, from being on someones back... . Two different people as well, first time Ive ever seen this submission. 1st time it was Dorian, went for a RNC and he got control of my choking arm and positioned it so my elbow was on his shoulder. He then proceeded to straight arm lock me by pushing up with his shoulder and pulling down on my arm to straighten it. Andy then did the exact thing to me 5 minutes later. Bizarre!, but gonna try it myself if I find myself in a RNC. Cant find a vid of any mention of it on the net. Long day! 3.5 hours training!

My knee was for some reason very swollen recently, no injury to it and not alot of pain. Its just abit stiff and only hurts when I try bring my foot to my ass. Ice brought the swelling down abit. But is very odd.

Compelling historical evidence on why Fedor is gonna kick Arlovski's ass.

My check list

2009-01-12T05:03:00.000-08:00

Im always trying to improve my weak points and refine my strong points but I always do it with a mental checklist, which can sometimes be forgotten in the heat of the moment. So I wanted to put something more concrete down. I keep on working on the different parts of the list till I get them to a level that matches my strengths, thus making a new strength :D. Some parts of the list are more high priority than others. Some might only need a day to work on, others months. For example I have only just got my half guard to a level where I see it as a strength after working on it specifically for around 2 months. But after developing some issues in my passing game it only took a week or so (including a private) to take it to new highs.

Decided to make a concrete physical list after reading a feature on A-game camping at shogunhq.com.

So essentially this list functions by myself making a commitment to using and practising these techniques rather than my A-game. My A-game will still get practise regardless as some tough guys will give me no other option. Practising stuff on the list will without a doubt lead me to getting tapped and dominated more, but it also without a doubt make me a better grappler. Gotta think of the big picture!. Kick the ego to the curb.

The stars indicate priority. Have also added time expected to take to get them to the level I want. Depending on how things go this could take longer or shorter than expected.

The list as of today:

Taking the back from guard, half guard and top positions. **** (2 month+)
Achilles lock and knee bar setups.** (under a month)
Maintaining knee on belly.* (month+)
Specific pressure on the diaphragm.*** (under a week)
Omoplata's.*** (under a month)

Ill try give status updates as they come up regarding this list. Like I said earlier some may take days and others months. Im already pulling off a few Achilles locks but I want to make my setups more subtle, same with the knee bar. Taking the back is something I dont find myself doing enough of but have recently started playing around with armdrags and getting there from half guard. I really want to get this to be a major staple of my A-game. I want to be able to maintain knee on belly and crush my opponents soul rather than be forced to transition. Diaphragm pressure is also something Ive been recently specifically targeting, so just need to be automatic in the position of my pressure. Omoplata's I think are great as can lead to other subs, sweeps and transitions to top. Not to mention the actual omoplata finish.

Recently stumbled upon Roy Deans articleson being a Uchideshi for a year. Which is a live in student essentially.

Roy Dean began training in martial arts at the age of 16 when he moved to Japan as an exchange student. While there he received his shodan (first degree black belt) in Kodokan Judo.

At age 19 he began training in Aikikai Aikido under Kalvin Koshiyama, eventually serving as uchideshi (live in student) under Julio Toribio. By age 24, he had received his shodan in Aikikai Aikido, and Enshin Itto-Ryu Batto Jutsu (Iaido), as well as a sandan (third degree blackbelt) in Seibukan Jujutsu.

Training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu began under Claudio Franca in 1997, where he received his blue belt. In 2000 he began training under Mr. Roy Harris in San Diego and was promoted to purple belt in 2002, brown belt in 2004, and the prestigious black belt in 2006.

So some genuinely very interesting stuff, not to mention the real life stories contained in the articles.

Lots of sparring, good times.

2009-01-11T13:16:00.000-08:00

Saturday training was awesome. I was expecting to feel scummy due to the vaccinations but felt good, was huffing and puffing abit more than usual cycling there. Warm ups felt killer as well. I arrived early and took the beginners class. Did some throws and a submission sequence. Armbar to triangle. I really do like these beginners classes as its really handy going over these techniques and realisng what needs improving etc. On my armbar I need to clamp their arm down abit better and keep my hips up, which Ive been recently doing but its not drilled into me yet. On the triangle, making sure I get the back of my knee solidly on his neck made a big difference. Andy nearly tapped me just with the pressure from the one leg.

Next lesson!

Pure sparring, due to the upcoming euro's. We did positional stuff (guard, sidemount, full mount, back) shark tank sparring, and normal full sparring. Everything felt great, I was in an awesome mood and felt everything I had worked on in my private with Andy fully internalised. Didnt think I would respond this well to the private format. I feel like I have just gone up another level to what I was only the other week. Just need to get the balance of aggression and relaxation right now.

I wont go into every match as it would take to long but Ill note down the main bits.

Position sparring:

Guard:
Defense was solid, passing felt like I was dictating the terms. Even managing to pass spider noodles without even a whiff of a triangle. Defended the double underhook pass a few times by making my hips very heavy. And limiting their arm movement. Faked an attack and then pulled off a pendulum sweep. Half guard sweeps are still high percentage and got to a guys back. Sit up sweep is still trusty, pulled off a kimura when one was defended.

Matt tapped me with an armless triangle!, I was to overconfident I was safe and got stuck in it and while he was working on a arm I ended up in abit of a neck crank. Shoulda made him abit more uncomfortable there I think, didnt give him a reason to try turn it into something else.

Replacing guard still getting me out alot of scrapes when things go wrong.

Side control:
My weakest point of the day but still enjoyed it, got guard back a few times and kept active. But did get mounted. Got drawn into guard as well. But was still pretty happy, staying on my toes alot more and moving with my opponent.

Mount:
Escaped several times with the same technique. Using my foot to get hold of theres then passing it over my leg, so I can shrimp to half guard. Then shrimping the other way to get full guard. On top my new base continued to shine and the trusty cross collar choke never let me down.

Back:
Me and spider noodles had a good battle from here, his body triangle was very uncomfortable. He got me in the end. On attacking I used a bow and arrow choke, which is Plan C if RNC and clock choke dont work. Saulo Ribiero's Jiu jitsu University advice helped in defending my back. He has a survival posture called the scoop, where you hanker down and guard your neck. Worked very well. Allowing me to relax and time my reversals. Lee nearly made me throw up on myself from his body triangle. Went for a foot lock which I didnt get but wasnt far off.

Shark Tank (6 minutes - new partner jumping you in whatever position you are in every 2 minutes)

Being relaxed really helped my cardio here. Got Adam with a straight arm lock from half guard, which was a nice improvisation. Adam got me with an armbar where I verbally tapped forgetting he was deaf!. Me and Matt had some good tussles, landing a few sweeps on him but neither of us getting the tap. MMA Adrian literally flung me from mount across the room into the wall. Massive upa. Sweeps, especially from half guard really helped here. I think I shoulda been a little more aggressive on the submission front as I found myself to worried about getting tired.

Notes:

Balance relaxing and aggression.
Need to work on alternative subs from the back of a no-gi opponent other than RNC. As my normal Plan B and C need a gi. There is the armbar but it risks losing the position.
Look at more subs from half guard.
Make sure to work more sub/sweep combo's.
Arm drags are paying off, use them more.

On the rise, De la riva and diseases,

2009-01-09T15:51:00.000-08:00

Things are going well, oh yes.

Today I went to the Docs to get vaccinations for my trip, so by the time I was going to training my arm was really hurting from the mini war being conducted therein. But it didnt seem to impair the muscle function at all so I ignored it. Apparently tomorrow Im gonna feel shit though, so will have to see how training goes then.

Todays training focused on De la riva guard, he didnt invent it but I like the name so Im sticking to it!. We did a series of 3 sweeps, all shiny and awesome. Going down in percentage, is it strange that I much preffered the last 2 though?.

1st:

From the De la riva position grip the far away arm, sit up and put it towards the leg closest to you . Grip it with your other hand thats passed under their leg. With your free arm grip over their shoulder or top of the collar, whichever With your foot on their far knee you push them out and roll them down and over their shoulder. As you have taken away their posting arm and unbalanced them with your legs.

2nd:

You do this after they have pulled their far arm out of your grip. So focusing onto their other arm.

3rd:
This one you do if they pull both sleeves free.

Sit up and hug their knee (sitting on their foot). Swing your foot that was on their knee underneath there legs and stand up, taking the single leg as your swinging foot brings it up.

We then did sparring with the condition that we start with De la riva and going to full closed guard counted as a loss. As is if they pass my guard. I like open guard and I can keep it, but I find it very hard to sub my opponents using it if they are standing. If they are lower down then armbars, triangles and omoplata's are plentifull. I dont have big long legs and I find de la riva difficult but thats more reason to focus on it, and I love sweeps so its a must for me.

First I had to pass though! - which I like. I like to get low and close while keeping my hips away. Then I work a pass normally using some sort of underhook, although I do switch directions and/or chain pass attempts together depending on my opponent. My new found base felt solid and there was no way I was getting swept or submitted. Prevention rather than cure is my motto for dealing with subs and sweeps.

Now I was on my back starting with de la riva. First guy comes in and he quickly tries a knee through the middle approach, going for pressure. I shrimp away sit up and sweep him backwards, holding a sleeve so he cant post. We decide to be cheeky and go again as he was abit confused why he did that. This roll is alot harder with him getting double underhooks a few times. But Im good at defending them as I keep my hips heavy and keep active and work on breaking his posture. When he did pass I kept enough room so I could quick get my legs back in the way. In the end got him with a half guard sweep where I sat into him again.

Next guy is another tough dude, and he goes for underhooks as well. I defend and we go for quite a while but he wears me down and gets the pass where I cant re establish. I definitely needed to push him away abit more with my legs and pull him down with my sleeve grips. At one point I duck underneath one of his grips and get all the way to his back but I dont put in a controlling arm and he spins into me. At one point I was trying to lock his leg straight so I could sweep him backwards while he was standing. But Andy pointed out the way I was trying to do it was Illegal (atleast at my level) as it was endangering his knee to much as I was trying to get the angle. Something which a ref has warned me about mid fight (Brighton) thinking I was going for a submission.

So back to the que with me anyway.

Back on and Im passing again. Big mma guy, good solid defense passing but still learning the ropes on his back. I break grips and get control, slight opening for a triangle but Ive got my eyes on it and my arms are in safe. I go one way and he shrimps so I quickly duck underneath his leg and go the other way, he plays catch up and I swap again with some nifty footwork. I get side control and he bucks hard to escape but my new found pressure keeps me stable and in control. Andy tells me well done. He doesnt give out compliments on technique cheaply, so it meant alot to me.

Back to my back!. Adam comes in, and is in my opinion one of our best passers. So I gotta work hard on this one. He keeps very good pressure and negates my angle of the de la riva, very nearly passing a few times I goto half guard to slow him down. Ive only just got him by the ankle. But I get control of his other foot and I sit up and take him over backwards, sliding into side control for the sweep. Very chuffed with that.

Big Lee steps up. And I chuckle at my impending state of discomfort. He chuckles to. Buzzer goes! whew!

Normal sparring next up.

I do well and dont get submitted or swept, but perhaps abit to laid back. I dont land anything fantastic. Have noticed that Ive been sparring newer guys recently. Nothing conscious perhaps my body is being sly in making me lazy. But I really noticed how much I get out of sparring some of these guys. Its given me a great opportunity to really notice tiny details of my techniques, and a great chance to work on stuff Im less familiar with. Ive also recently had the confidence to let them pass and even get mount, so that I can work escapes and defenses. Today was even happy with them putting on a few subs and then countering or escaping. Mostly Guillotines oddly enough. Slowing everything down has really put a magnifying glass over myself. Tapped one guy from mount by putting in the leg vines and using my pelvis to crush my weight down on his diaphragm, which is a novel first. I could get used to this "pressure" malarkey.

Even with guys my own level now Ive kept this chilled out demeanour, sometimes I think its abit to relaxed but its really helped my mental game. Im much more aware of myself and them. Definitely feel my game on the rise.

Privates, Zambia and chilling out

2009-01-07T04:58:00.000-08:00

One of my christmass presents was money for 3 private lessons with Andy. Ive had a few issues which have been turning up time and time again and want them sorted. So the timing is good. Gonna have them each tuesday for 3 weeks so Ive got time to work on the stuff covered each session. Tuesday is always a long training day for me. I arrived at 4pm and got on my train home at 10pm.

This first private was more theory based than anything as I wanted to cover all the things that have been niggling at me. And often they just needed some specific advice or demonstration to fix. The triangle problem was my big concern.

Turned out what I was doing was focusing to much on my hand that was closest to my body. Keeping my other arm at a safe distance to avoid armbars I didnt think to much about it. I use these two grips as a base from which to go for most of my passes. I figured if I made sure they couldnt get my close arm under their legs then I couldnt get triangled, which is true. But its also a very easy grip for them to break and control. Which leaves my far arm that enables the triangle. So Andy got me to keep it much much closer, so I can dive it under their leg if they try go for the triangle. And also be able to protect the other arm.

We then worked on adding more pressure to my top positions, mainly side control and mount. In mount by putting my feet on their hips, widening my base and pushing my pelvis back. These things definitely made me feel heavier. In side control I needed to have as little of my body touching the ground as possible. Driving my weight 45 degree's through their chest. Important to still keep tight and to block their hips, but instead of resting on my knee's to rest on my toes. This made a big difference, need to drill it alot so I do it automatically though.

Another big concern was keeping my mount whilst working a submission. By leaning over to the side rather than staying upright and in the middle it gave me a MUCH better base. With the example of a cross collar choke I could then get one hand in, move over to the other side. Slide my arm to open up their neck and get my other grip in to finish the choke without giving much room at all to get rolled off. Must remember to get high up as well to minimise their upa.

Ive taken to controlling people ankles recently, which is good but I often control the wrong one!. So must remember to control the leg in which Im turning into, to avoid getting put it in guard.

I need to take my time a little more in dominant positions, I keep on jumping the gun abit early. Which is allowing room for things not to go my way. Especially in turtle I find myself sometimes going for the rnc without having my hooks in, so I get rolled over.

We worked abit on chaining moves together, sweeps with other sweeps in case the 1st is blocked. Submissions with sweeps, subs with subs etc. An example of which is going for the armbar, underhooking their leg and if they block it turn it into a pendellum sweep.

Worked a guillotine defense as Ive become to reliant on the von flue choke, so Ive not been stopping the guillotines from happening. The von flue is great but it cant work if I can get out of their guard, and once Im on the opposite side of their body they cant put on the choke anyway. Essentially it was guarding my neck with one hand diving my arm underneath their shoulder so that I could stack shoulder pressure into their chest while looking up. This motion plus the pressure leads to them letting go of the guillotine.

Andy noticed I sometimes keep to much distance when ontop, and do not push my hips down enough. Something Ive noticed alot in my comp footage. This is sometimes due to getting straight armed in my hip. So we worked on shimmying the hips so that hand slides off. He also showed me how remaining static on top was not going to work and that you had to move with them to always stop any space being created. People are pretty wriggly, not eel or ferret wriggly but wriggly enough that a big heavy lump is not gonna stop me inching my way into making the space I need.

Other things we covered were:

Finishing omoplata's by scooting hips out
Pendelum sweep variations
Turtle attacks
Attacking stalling opponents in my guard

Alot of what we covered we got through pretty quickly as some only needed tiny adjustments. But they really helped. In the next privates Ill be asking to do more drilling and specific sparring on some of these issues.

We then had a final roll so I could work the stuff we had talked about. Felt good but itll take some time to fully get that top pressure down. I lost...but not by triangle :D .

The guys arrived for the beginners session, but I opted out and ended up talking to two prospective new students, giving them info on the club and the art.

In the next lesson we drilled some throws and worked on getting the armbar when the opponent stands up. Breaking posture and keeping tight while you walked your legs up their back was key, otherwise they would pull their arm out. Getting your leg over their shoulder before swinging it over their head to keep it as tight as possible.

We did some positional sparring and I was committed to being chilled out today. Which really paid off. No one got close to sweeping me. Passing took abit longer but I felt more in control and safe in their guard. People still passed my guard as I was perhaps "to chilled" but I was alot more conscious of what they did right and what I did wrong and it didnt bother me at all. Chris passed really well as I shrimped to block his hip but went to the wrong side, his base didnt give me any openings for sweeps. I do need to try standing up and passing abit more though. One of the guys stood up to pass my guard and I flung the omoplata sweep on him instinctively, which worked perfectly. But I was to happy with myself for the sweep and got caught in a reverse triangle, but I kept cool and postured out of it to secure top position.

In full sparring I went with a new guy called Bunny, who was a nice chap and abit bigger than me. Showed him the beauty of sweeps (sit up, butterfly sweep and half guard sweep) and finished each time from mount using my new found base, which made me feel really solid.

Next was Terry who I decided to keep relaxed and to slowly work his guard and then to explode when 30 seconds was called. Early on he got on top but I made sure I didnt give him much to work with and I slowly inched my way back into his guard. Where I kept myself safe whilst trying to work him open. I exploded and passed but he kept me at bay and never stopped moving, putting me back in guard twice. I was still happy as I managed to explode fully but kept a level head and didnt go after any 50/50 sub chances.

Had my usual session with Nick after who is really coming along, his got a pass that his been working hard on getting good at. Its a knee through the middle pass. He went for some guillotines and kimura's, some of which got close but I managed to escape.

So in the end via combination of being chilled out and the private my base seemed really solid and I defended everything. And not one triangle got setup on me.

Zambia!. Im going to Zambia for 6 weeks, leaving in 2!. Im gonna be volunteering at an orphanage at there. So should be a great experience, the person whose organised me going with the orphanage wants me to show them some jiu jitsu. But am not 100% if thats a great idea, all depends if theres the space, the interest and the right temprement. With the language barrier I think I would keep it to positions, sweeps and some judo stuff. But we shall see! . Ive done a quick look on the net and I think the chance of a BJJ club is very slim. But they MUST have a judo club...

So Im gonna come back rusty as hell for the next bunch of comps but its gonna be a great experience. My chief worry at the moment is that I might miss Mauricio coming down to give us a lesson and hopefully see some of the guys get their blues. But I seem to be naturally lucky so Im sure itll work out.

Congrats to Christian Graugartwho won this years Fightworks podcast bjj blog of the year. I urge you to check his blog out as he has some really great stuff on there. Im gonna take a leaf out of his book and try put some pizazz into this blog.

Back on the mats!

2009-01-06T05:56:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, Friday and Saturday lessons both dealt with open guard and quite abit of sparring.

Tuesday focused on the bull fighter pass, where you hold their knee's and pin them together and then pass round the side. Then a variation where you triangles your legs around theirs to secure mount. The counter I really loved though. Before they pin you securely you sit up and grab their tricep, you then pull as you shrimp to the side so they land in your open half guard. But you carry on pulling yourself up with the momentum and take their back. Used it a few times already in sparring and worked a treat. I just need to work on securing the back position with the other hook so they can just turn into me and end up in my guard.

Sparring was good but I was getting very preoccupied with my performance and worrying about how well I was doing. Which meant I ended up with sub par performance, maybe it was because it was the 1st lesson back from Christmas. But I felt sluggish and not as freewheeling as I normally am. Got triangled again... . On a plus a pulled off 2 omoplata setups using an overhook collar grip, my opponent just snuck out though while I was putting it on. More control needed!

Friday's was more open guard and lots of sparring. Writing this I think I was not enjoying myself, Im gonna relax alot more and forget about trying to always put in a good performance. Technique wise we did the open guard tripod sweep.

In the event they counter by stepping their foot back, you switch grips and grip their other foot. You then use your foot thats on their thigh to sweep the other leg in a scissor motion. Coming up with momentum.

Sparring did not go well. Was getting abit stressed at the silly mistakes I was making, more triangles!. I even got submitted in my guard! the one thing I tell everyone not to do and I get done in by one. He was a big guy but thats no excuse, his hand shouldn't of got that deep and I should of not let him pin me flat on my back. Should of been an easy armbar. Did have a good roll with one of the guys though, where sweeps were coming off well and I felt dominant. Still giving up to much room though.

Saturday we kept the open guard theme going lesson was more sparring and conditioning orientated as we build up to the euro's. Using the shark tank technique where you get a fresh partner every 2 minutes for 6 minutes. Then after that you form part of the rotation for your partners. Got triangled even more!, found myself uncharacteristically frustrated and angry at myself. Plus side was a I managed some good passes, transitions and a Achilles lock. Still need to work on my control from dominant position though, am getting side and mount often enough but am losing it to easily. My heart was down and my will broken as I sparred some more, but I was having to think to much. Taking to much time for simple moves that are normally instinct. Oddly enough my half guard sweep has never once let me down in this period, and the sit up sweep is making a strong come back.

Cant find an adequate video of my half guard sweep so Ill describe it. Cant remember if it was shown to me or if I just found it by accident. Pretty sure its a classic normal sweep though, just dont know the name of it. Get the underhook and crouch down as normal. My right leg is crossed over the trap legs knee joint, with my left leg crossing over my right legs ankle. My right hand is on their knee or on their thigh. I roll towards my right abit more, scooting my ass out a little. They normally post on their right side despite the sweep not being very threatening. I then suddenly roll to my left to end up on top. Their right arm is normally around me head blocking taking their back is often not at a good angle to post in order to stop the sweep. If they do post then just roll to the other side with your added momentum.

Found this great highlight vid I want you guys to check out. Its an MMA best of 08 highlight. One of the best highlight vids I have ever seen.

2008 part 2
by allenpork

Armbars in the new year!

2009-01-03T10:47:00.000-08:00

Happy new year!

Due to not being able to train over the christmass holidays and perhaps partly due to some small amount of alcohol new years eve. I ended up wrestling about with my friends and brother, who were all convinced of their striking superiority versus jiu jitsu (and their superior size). I kept my brother close so he couldnt slap me around in my guard and then quickly rolled into an omoplata which I finished. At this point I realised I should probaly tell them to be sensible and tap.

Tom who is nearly a foot taller than me and weighs probaly just under 100kg's was next. The last little roll we had was when I had just started BJJ and Tom choked me unconscious (I didnt tap). Tom was allowed strikes this time, and was very wary. He went for a soft punch to the head, I shrimped out the way and grabbed his tricep and swung my hips up for an armbar. I put it on but he immediately went to work on pulling it out. So I converted it to a triangle, but he postured up so I returned it to an armbar. This time I didnt want him to escape so I put it on abit harder (more than I should have). His arm made 3 very loud clicks and I let go, despite not tapping. Luckily no real damage, but I felt bad about the lack of control. It was also at this point we realised that the little competition favoured me heavily. As I can go full out balls to the wall, but they didnt really want to knock me out or cut me. Did have a very small cut from my lip catching my teeth from one of Toms knocks. At one point he did have me open for a big hit but without actually doing it, I claimed it as a moot point. With training I think Tom would be a natural.

Adam was convinced he could hit me whilst I had him in an armbar, and that punching me in the head would make it to painfull for me to break his arm. I very passionately argued that this would not be the case. He then tried to show me his armbar defense which was essentially stacking me and punching me with the other hand. I tried to explain that you HAD to get your arm safe as a priority. And showed him my defense. He tried his and I just rolled into a belly down armbar. I then showed him how to do an armbar to show it from the bottom guys point of view. I then defended correctly, he scrambled and I took his back and put on a RNC. At this point I decided not to wait for the taps as stubborness was gonna cause more injuries.

I would of prefered just going for sweeps but there was not enough room in my lounge. Another interesting point I noticed was how they never sought to pass my legs, thinking them unimporant. I wish there was a way of quantifying cognitive grappling ability (without competition).

Is it possible I got the first tap of 2009!? Fingers crossed.

Here are my new year resolutions for Jiu jitsu:

To annihilate all traces of ego that are creeping into my game.
Medal at atleast 3 big comps
Tell someone something that really helps their own jiu jitsu game
Develop an unbreakable will
Start doing yoga consistently

This is actually the first half of 2 posts as Im trying to cut down on the giant walls of text.

Heres to what the new year brings!

I dont think his technique is quite right though...heres my improved version:

Jiu Jitsu University

2008-12-28T08:31:00.001-08:00

Been reading this book over Christmass (Jiu jitsu university - Saulo Ribiero), really enjoying it. Giving me lots of ideas for articles and Im only 1/5th of the way through. Survival postures, dead angles for sweeps, many escapes including one where you turn away from side control (normaly a bad idea as it leads to them on your back).

The clubs been closed for the holidays, so should be back to training on the 2nd. But one of our illustrious members made this promo for the club!

Any comments and critisms you have would be great to read.

To much christmass food for me, its not gonna be fun working this off.

RGA charity interclub comp

2008-12-22T02:19:00.000-08:00

My arm was abit twingy still but I decided not to give myself any excuses and to man up. So the next day I woke up very early and made my way down to the Roger Gracie Academy in london, on the way meeting Brian "the lionheart" Earle from our club. The comp was a very informal affair and was mostly to give some guys some valuable comp experience, have some fun and to help out a charity. Met Alex Hare who trains at RGA Mill Hill with Nick Brookes, who I have been recently talking to as he is a friend of Matt at Martialfarts.com. Nick G leads all of us throug a group warm up which was a great idea as I dont think the others would of warmed up otherwise.

Im gonna try keep my fight descriptions concise or else this is gonna go on forever.

The organisers give us a little bit of detail on the charity and thank us for the money - Its a Kenyan relief charity for a hospital dealing with terminal care. One of the doctors who worked there who trains at RGA was one of the organisers.

Nick Brookes and Helio are our refs with Daniel Strauss doing the scoring.

First fight is up and its me! vs Dale Jones. This is the 3rd time in a row Ive started my division off. Ive met Dale before who is a tough kid (orange belt) and has more competition experience than me. We get started and he quickly pulls guard on me. Which is where I want to be, but as I start with passing and get to half guard I realise his very comfortable there. And gets a few dangerous looking grips on me. I pass but cant stay there for long as he gets me back in half guard sharpish. He tries for a scissor sweep from a semi open guard but I sprawl well back. I pass a few times but each time he puts me back. Which is very annoying, Im up on points but one good sweep from him and Im over. In the end time runs out and I get the win. I felt like I used to much muscle there and not enough technique, props to Dale for being a constant threat though.

Brian has a fantastic showing in his fight, starting off by getting his back taken he then defends, escapes, takes side and then there back! winning on a bunch of points.

2nd fight:

Guy called Gareth, we get to his guard quickly ( I take him down) and seems VERY tense and rigid. A good sign to me that Im gonna wipe the floor with him. He goes after a triangle as I start passing but its gets a little closer than I would like, I get both my arms back in though. I then get myself ready for another go at passing but he flings his hips high and locks in a good armbar. His hips are also blocking me pulling my armback to within a safe range where I can defend, so I have to tap. Good match! and Ill talk abit later on what Ive learnt from it.

3rd Fight

I consider bowing out as my arm is hurting abit now but decide not to and just to keep a mental note on tapping very early if anyone goes after it. I wouldnt even be able to defend an armbar on it. I decide its time to have abit of fun as well, since its such an informal comp. I make up my mind to go for a flying triangle. I grab a single sleeve and jump as high as I can but he blocks with his far arm and I end up in guard, I quickly try go for an armbar off it but he defends well. I get back into full guard. He tries to escape but at a risk of sounding like Gandalf - HE COULD NOT PASS. I put an arm underneath his leg, rotate and flings my legs up to get the pendelum sweep. The crowd cheers!. I then establish mount but dont have to defend it hard as he then tries to cross collar choke me.... . Oh dear. I start working for a choke of my own once he realises his wont work, he starts bridging to escape and goes to roll onto his side. But he leaves an arm behind and I spin into an armbar and I get it. I get alot of props for this fight, these guys love sweeps and transitions!

4th fight:

Ollie says its the final for bronze and Im fighting Dale again!. I decide its to dangerous to let him have another go at his game so I decide to take him out of it. I go for the same setup and move again, another failed flying triangle but I get full guard. We tussle for abit as I try go for a situp sweep. An arm comes loose and I jump on it and get a kimura grip, he defends by grabbing his trousers. I work it for a little bit trying to then turn it back into a situp sweep but never give up on the group. I get a little bit more leverage and start to put on the pressure, it suddenly comes on very fast and he turns his arm straight. I carry on with the pressure whilst turning to the side and he taps and I goto let go but a small bit of momentum from turn him over is still there and his arms makes a horrible sound. Like slowly stepping on a pack of Quavers. I instantly apoligised and felt incredibly bad (still do). He says his ok and Nick gets him to move his arm to see if its broken and its not. I keep on saying sorry. Worst win ever. Dale slings it up and ices it, apperantly its also a recurring injury which I dont know is a good thing or bad. But hopefully he will be able to train as normal quickly.

5th:

I go against a French guy who is very new but showed some natural skills. Daniel Strauss is looking after my glasses and tells me if I dont win I dont get them back. We start. I grab one armsleeve, throw my legs up but I dont clear his far shoulder. So I end up in guard on the way down, As I go down I transition to an armbar. Its on tight and I go belly down. Helio from the side shouts "stop", but Nick is reffing. I stop...I look at Nick who didnt stay stop. I apply a little bit of extra pressure and whilst he doesnt tap Nick then calls a stop to the match. The guy didnt complain but seemed abit confused. Unless he had rubber elbows the armbar was fully on.

Theres another fight apperantly!

6th -

This guy looks big for our weight class (mind you we didnt weigh in!). I go for my new found gameplan and go for the flying triangle. Didnt get it again!. I get full guard and keep on trying to work the pendelum sweep but am having abit of trouble. He stays very far forward and tight to me. Trying to ezekial me!. lol I move my head next to his ear and tell him "you wont ezekial me in my guard". I defend it and start working to make room, in wiggling about he gets my half guard. I shrimp down and take the risk of swapping my controlling legs. I then bridge away and roll him over for the sweep. I then work to pass his half guard. But he makes it hard and I end up in guard. I start trying to break his guard and he is getting very tired. Perhaps a little to loudly and not very sportsmanlike I tell him to dig deep. To his credit he does and suprises me with the sudden energy. He starts a scramble. I get a leg but his on top, I keep on pushing for the takedown and its a long time but I get it. But only to briefly as we scramble again and I get guard. I secure an arm, lift hips, twist, fling my leg over his head and put downward pressure on. I get the armbar! with 6 seconds to go.

Brian is a like a juggernaut and plows through his opposition. Getting to the final without loss. This one falls out of his game plan slightly and the guy gets an armbar from his back in a similar fashion to how I was beaten.

2 Andy roberts fighters - 2 medals. We are happy.

Alex puts in a good showing doing very well, dont get to fight him myself but would be fun.

I talk quite abit to Nick Brookes who Ive seen around a lot but never had the chance to talk to. Which was great as he was a really friendly guy with a great training philosophy that I admired. He tells me he has never seen so many ezekial chokes!, very true. Perhaps an indicator of some sort. He tells me he liked my style which made my day, and offers to roll off Im still around later.

I also noticed alot of attempted subs from within the guard, and some people actually getting them which is even worse and not good for the victor as its gonna teach them bad habits.

DONT TRY TO FUCKING CHOKE SOMEONE IN THEIR GUARD!
Its become a pet pieve of mine recently.

Nic G has a blackbelt super fight against a 8 year old ginger kid!. Very funny and made the kid very happy.

In the end a very enjoyable event and met alot of new friendly faces, thank you to everyone for their kind words!. Great bit of experience and the most amount of fights Ive had in a single tourney. Mauricio was also there but didnt get to say hello.

Me and Brian have to leave so we say our goodbyes.

Right now onto the outcome:

Did good:
Armbars!
Pendelum sweep
Half guard sweep
Pulling guard (although was always plan B - Plan A = flying triangle)
Transitions into subs
Cardio
Calm and confident

Need to work on:
Inside guard defense (the big one)
Control and pressure from the top
Breaking open guard
Submission control (to stop injury to opponent)
Avoiding being put back into guard/half guard

Will add photo's and any vids as they appear. Congrats Brian!, Sorry Dale!, Well done Alex!.

Experimenting, working bad position and injury

2008-12-20T05:32:00.000-08:00

Thursday night just before I went to sleep, my mind was on jiu jitsu. I was contimplating if it was possible to baseball choke someone from underneath by spinning into north south. All the choke mechanics are there. On this I went to sleep, and I dreamt. In my dream Roger Gracie told me the technique would not work and was shit, because it gave them side mount and it was very easy for them to defend the choke. To risky and way to low percentage. Maybe I think to much about jiu jitsu....

Arrive Friday training and before we start the session I experiment on Dan to see if it works, and although the choke is tight. It is to easy to move around and defend, very little control. Roger 1 - Jadon 0. Next up was a move I saw Leo Viera do in a vid on the martialfarts blog. Its a turtle attack move. They are turtled and you clasp your hands around there chest, you can get your hooks in so you put your head to the floor and roll completely over, pulling them into a roll as well. You end up both sitting and you get your hooks in for the back mount. Andy showed a few alternatives which were either flashier or higher percentage.

Me and Dan sparred abit, and the guy has transformed. He is aggresive and controling, with a wide array of moves and techniques. We started from standing where I am confident, he didnt give me anything easy so I went in for a clinch/wrap leg aroudn the knee and fall type takedown which worked. We sparred for an age, both exchanging top and bottom positions. Myself coming off abit worse in most of the exchanges. I decide to experiment and aim for getting a kneebar or achiles lock, as I want to get these better for the next step. My kneebar setups are way to loose though and give him top position a few times but Im wily and escape. Im pretty sure he catches me in a sub at some point, a choke I think. I sink in a ezekial but he upa's me out. Its like a 10 minute fight and I get into his guard and he opens to do some open guard. I grab a leg and put on a kimura grip and sit back for the achiles lock. I stick up my feet to stop him sitting into me. Which he does. I really use my legs to push him back and eventually my legs win over his arms and goto the side pull back to get the lock. A lil bit cheeky but I think we got to get comfortable with leg locks.

My elbow hasnt been feeling good last few days, feels very similar to my knee injury from ages a go. No muscular problems but shooting pains.

We do a throwing drill where we chain two throws together (as a result of the first being blocked). An inner leg reap followed by an outer leg reap using the same leg. My partner Nick suprises me as he seems to have a natural knack for throws.

We then move onto sparring from underneath side control, winner stays on (winning via mount or submission, bottom guy has to replace guard or escape). My first partner is a strong guy but I get mount without to much problems. Now for some reason I find myself loving being under side control. The top guys dont often realise that there is a danger of being swept or even submitted if they arnt carefull. I end up going against alot of big guys but this suits me fine, as they try to crush me but I find the gaps and replace guard or roll them over to land in their guard. A few times I land in side control, I take someones back, I get a mounted triangle. Really is my day. Andy comes to investigate what I am doing. I block his hip, shrimp and make room, grab his foot to control him and roll us over to land in his guard. I got the feeling he was just watching to check on what I was doing. He seems happy so Im happy. A few guys I get by putting into half guard as they try hop into mount, and then work for a sweep to full guard. I end up getting caught by an americana by one of the big guys I beat earlier, I make sure to tap early. It is worrying me now so I decide to give it a small 5 min rest.

Andy then changes it to sparring from under mount. I fair well here as well, as I find I have a good disposition for escapes. Go against Lee at one point who is very patient, I bring his head up to stop him bucking me off but he bides his time well and gets me. Found it very hard to see an opening here, more submission pressure needed. Occasionaly do get caught though and I give my elbow another rest. We then move to sparring from the back. I have to grind a training partners jaw more than I liked, but I get the RNC. Defending my back goes well, winning another few in a row untill someone decides to change tack and go for a clock chock. This is alot harder to escape I feel, and my spine is completely straightened and I am locked in tight and have to tap.

We then go onto the more regular sparring from inside the guard. Passing still feels good but I need to really be more wary of triangles. On my back and Im going for sweeps over submissions still. Ian our resident Japanese ju jitsu blackbelt controls my legs well and has the oppertunity to pass. His got an arm near my throat though and he decides to opt for the submission, me being in such a bad place with my knee's around my ears. Ian really taught me to toughen up against the big guys as he loves to stack on the pain. Unfortuantly because he decided not to pass and has a pseudo choke on I rolled my hips and got him in a armbar. He goes to defend but its in deep and we roll and he has to give. POSITION BEFORE SUBMISSION. I let him stay on in my place though as my elbow is giving me some strong shooting pains.

I watch people for a few minutes which is always interesting. I then opt to roll with Paul, whos got a few kg's on me. I go for an anaconda choke but dont have the grip in properly before I roll and end up giving him top. Its a good fight and I get my position back and end up in guard. He squeezes me so tight I feel I taste some bile. I stand up to pass and he omoplata sweeps me!, brilliant!. He gets top position a few times but is unsure on developing a submission. Over our spar he gets me twice, one choke and one arm lock. I dont get him but am happy with my escapes and movement. Although I perhaps should of tried to work him in guard abit.

End of the lesson and a few of the guys who wernt there on Tuesday get some stripes, very well deserved.

Me and Nick have our post lesson roll. We work his passing again and his sweep defense, which is really coming along. Then we free roll for abit, he gets a deep collar choke that Im forced to defend. And is starting to realise how important the hips are, by blocking mine and using his own. Good stuff.

I want to compete this sunday at the RGA charity intercomp. Elbow is giving me gip but hopefully itll be ok by then, its only a small event so should be okay. Ive been preparing by eating cheese toasties and Ferroro Roches.

Back to class!

2008-12-17T06:25:00.000-08:00

Tuesday has become my long training day. I get to the club at 5 and do a small workout. Push ups with olympic rings, 10kg halo's, turkish get ups, 60kg dead lifts. Didnt do many reps but am feeling it as I right this. I then had a roll with one of the newer guys. An MMA fighter who trains at London pankrase. His a big and his built so his got some power to back himself up. We wrestle for abit and I stubbornly force him down, from their I pass and get mount. I sink in an ezekial, pretty tight I thought. But he has a good sense of how tight it needs to be and he resists and then escapes. From then Im on the back foot abit but get guard. And there we stale mate for ages. His got a great base and I cant sweep him, and is very wary so not much sub openings. I try a situp sweep kimura setup and get a lil close but he is wary and defends it easily. However his passing isnt great and Im wily enough to keep him in my guard. I decide to put him in half guard to see if I can catch him unaware. But his base is still to good, but he still cant pass. He ends up getting side and working a kimura from on top. We go again and we end up stale mating again for ages. Good training partner for me.

I am abit knackered but Andy like the good trainer he is, insists I also do the warm up for the beginner class. Nothing to bad but I am feeling abit hot. We drill the basic armbar then transitioning to triangle. We also do the cross collar choke and some variations of it. I need to break posture better and lift my hips more for the basic armbar.

We then do a drill where the person in guard just has to defend sub attempts from the guy on the bottom. Which was fun. Im partnered with Nick who is doing well, I purposively make it difficult for him to set them up. So that he would then chain the setups together, which he did and it worked really well. Didnt get me but got close a few times, so definite progress there.

We swap round. I go for the cross collar straight away and get it as I want to develop a fast and strong attack with it, so I can catch people offguard. Land a triangle which he goes to stack me with but I roll back and land in mounted triangle, do a similar thing with an armbar. Then I experiment with an omoplata, which I really want to develop. However Nick defends really well and I cant get his arm free from gripping his jacket.

Lesson ends and me and Nick try get in a very quick roll. We dont have enough time so I try and do a quick drill Ive been thinking about. Where he has to just defend sweep attempts from me. The idea being he see's the similarities in all the different sweeps and can work on his base and on keeping my hips pinned. And also to recognise the setups for the different sweeps, ones I used were: situp, scissor, pendelum, elavator, butterfly. However due to the time I rush abit to much, so hopefully we can do it properly next time.

Next lesson rolls on - no rest for me!. Warm up isnt to heavy but its focuses ALOT on the core. Andy teaches us a new sweep from when they stand up in your guard. It resembles a omoplata that you then convert into a sweep by rolling over your stomach and landing in side control. This vid shows that sweep at 3:00 but also some other sweeps so check it out.

As you can see it looks abit funny, but after drilling it for a while I started to really like it. As it was deceptively controlling. He then taught a variation where they posture fully and block the sweep by pushing out there hips. Instead of rolling over your stomach you roll backwards, so that they are falling backwards. We drilled both of these for quite a while as they were abit tricky.

Then onto some pass the guard type sparring. Went up against Adrian the MMA guy again and passed his guard without to much hassle. Then I got one of our big guys in my guard. Couldnt sweep him and he was doing very little to pass my guard. He stood up and I went for the sweep we had just drilled but as I hooked his foot it must of slipped or something as he then guard slammed me hard. He said sorry and gave me a little bit of time. Went at it again and I decided to go for half guard again. He resorted to using "crushing" as a guard pass, but theres no way Ill tap to that. Just on principle. He then tried some attacks within my guard but again Im not gonna let him do that. So abit of a stalemate, but eventually I get abit frustrated and go for a sub and he defends well and passes on that. Next time Ill try some open guard instead.

Next fight goes well and Im about to pass but the buzzer goes and we are then told to move on to full sparring. We restart and I go in to get top position, he lands a guillotine!. WE go again and he gets a triangle, then another guillotine, then a collar choke. WTF! the guy is good but he has never tapped me more than once. His even tired. Maybe he was on fire, maybe I was just off form. Props to him though, he obviously spotted a weakness somewhere I havnt addressed.

I was pleased with myself next though as instead of having a break and wallowing in what went wrong I got straight back on the mat and asked if anyone wanted a roll. Mike steps up to the plate. Mike is good and has given me plenty of trouble before once he sorted his armbar defense out. But now I feel like I am firing on all cylinders, getting a very pretty pendelum sweep. Sweeping from under side control with an americana roll and escaping bad positions. I try for a rolling clock choke but dont get it and end up getting an armlock, he makes abit of noise but I dont let go of the sub. Dont know why I didnt but I figured it was from the roll not the tap, so I keep abit of pressure and he taps. Andy scolds me for not letting go sooner, which I should of. Especially as Mike is a friend. We go again and I keep good movement on top eventually getting his backs with hooks in before the timer goes. Very happy with that roll.

Andy lines us up against the walls and begins to award stripes!. Been a long time since we last had stripes done. I was expecting them to be awarded in a few weeks, not today though. As its been such a long time virtually everyone deserves some. I get awarded 4 stripes! (I had none previously). So am very happy, as it means the blue belt isnt very far away if I keep training right. Note to the uninitiated - only 4 stripes per belt.

Mauricio Gomes should be visiting us in a month or 2, so I reckon there will be a few belts given out. Am just hoping Ill be in the country for it. Will be great and I know a few guys who definitely deserve it. Good for the club as well, as the newer guys then know what type of level they are aiming for. And once they start tapping the blue's then they are at that level!

Inspiration and opening the gates

2008-12-15T09:17:00.000-08:00

This is just a post on somethings Ive been thinking about, reading and looking at. No real BJJ updates but hopefully something interesting which you may of experienced yourself. There might be a fair bit of babble.

Ive been getting inspired alot recently. From talking to people, watching, reading and experiencing different things as well. I find it difficult to shut my brain off, I have alot of internal chatter. Which is why people who know me find I talk...alot. And this makes it hard for me to focus sometimes, I dont quite have a train of thought. Its more like the London underground but with the trains driven by monkeys with a bad sense of direction. So I tend to over think and over analyse which does allow me to pick up alot of information. The downside is implementing it. I have to sift through alot of mental noise and that often means Im to late and not focused on the task at hand enough. But when something inspires me it allows me to really focus on whatever that thing is, and it makes it easier for me to understand whatever it is Im trying to do. The other way I handle this mental noise is by getting tired. When I get tired enough my brain starts to switch off and I fall back on the things Ive drilled and act more instinctively. Which is great!...but I want to be able to do it without having to get exhausted first.

So heres a few things that Ive been thinking about, just today:

This is a vid of Leo Vieira doing some playful demo rolls in japan. He starts with a whitebelt and moves to purple.

Whilst watching the first match I was abit disappointed, but it was only after watching the whole vid I realised how good he actually was. The white belt looked like he got the upper hand in his match a few times, but he really was insignificant. Leo was controlling him even whilst the white belt was passing for side mount, because he knew everything the white belt could do. It didnt really matter what the white belt did. And you can see this when Leo spars with the purple belt and goes to town on him, because the purple might JUST be able to do something if he got into a good position.

So how is this relevant to me? - I need to keep everything on my terms, even if Im in a bad position I want it to be in the bad position I want. I dont want to fight my opponent on a level playing field. So I need to keep busy, be subtle and use a dynamic multi pronged attack. Always 10 steps ahead, as soon as my fist bumps theres I want to have them in my web. I simply dont have the mental clarity and technical know how to do this now, but I think it will be a little easier knowing what Im trying to become. Everyone says you need to train to become "good", but what is "good". Its being better than your opponent. And I think the way I just described is how to do that, against any opponent.

So dynamic attacking can equal two tactics:

Limiting all your opponents options and abilities so that your submission is undefendable. I.E control and superior technique.

Creating an over abundance of your own options so that he cannot possibly defend them all. I.E chaining submissions attempts together. All his defenses have to work, only ONE submission attempt has to.

Unstoppable force meets immovable object.

Further note of interest: Going for an omoplata from mount!

Next is some inspiration from a fictional source. A source that reveals my nerdyness:

Rock Lee:

Probaly gonna have to give some background info here. Rock Lee is a character from a manga and anime series called naruto. Its about freaken ninja's. Rock Lee is not a main character, his secondary character at best. All the ninja's can use super chakre magic type powers...cause they are ninja's naturally. Rock lee cant. His essentially a ninja retard. And he looks like a stalker of the beatles. But what he can do is work hard. In rediculous fashion thanks to his teacher who is the same as him.

So I was watching Naruto, and Rock Lee had popped up once or twice. I hated every second he was on screen. And the characters are all fighting in a tourney. One of the favourites who is 10 times better than everyone else is drawn to fight Rock lee. Awesome, time to die Lee. Fight starts and Lee is speedy as thats the only thing he has. But the favourite (Gaara) doesnt even have to move his feet to show Lee that he has no chance. Lee's teacher gives Lee the thumbs up and lets him know he can take them off.. . Lee is very happy to hear this and jumps on a statue to take whatever it is off. None of this is even hinted so far in the show. Heres an edited version of these early parts of the fight:

When Lee dropped the weights he won over every anime loving geek in the world. As it was completely unexpected. Lee goes further and ends up going bat shit super sonic crazy by opening the gates. These gates are natural mental barriers to stop people overexerting themselves and injuring the body. But anywho thats more than enough background knowledge. Essentially theres 2 main things I liked about it. It really nicely characterised the notion of overcoming the biggest hurdles with sheer hardwork (a nice example also shown in the vid I posted of the paraplegic wrestler). And that you can push your body beyond the mentally percieved limits. Despite it being fiction I think most people will agree these 2 things have been shown to be true many times. I dont think any of this gives you any sort of magic power but I believe people are capable of amazing things when they really try.

I believe the idea of what these "gates" represent is actually quite commonly found in evidence. For example when I started running I found it damn near impossible and progress was so and felt like torture. It was only when I started going past what I thought was my limit that I made proper progress. Every time I did this however my limit moved up and to carry on being able to run further or faster I would have to beat this limit. Im sure alot of you are familiar with "training to failure". And even with the proper precautions I believe it would be possible for someone to run so fast they would cause horrific damage to themselves, by going well and beyond their limit. But in doing so perhaps going faster than any person has been before.

So first gate = exceeding your physical limit

Anyone can just schitz out and use all their strength though, but in BJJ that means nothing without mental clarity. I believe the 2nd gate is being able to keep this mental clarity under massive pressure, pain and duress. In one of the extra's in the Renzo Gracie documentary he talks about one of his fights (Abu dhabi I think where he gets caught in an armbar. And his trying to escape but he knows he wont make it, his got about 2 seconds before his arm breaks. In those 2 seconds he says he thought about his arm breaking, and that in 2 months after it heals he can fight again in a upcoming fight in Japan. So he thinks sod it, his not gonna tap. But he kept on trying to escape. His arm gets hyper extended but that mental decision to let his arm be snapped allows him enough time to escape and then win the fight. It wasnt the common new guy mistake of trying to aimlessly escape because they think if they have a big enough seizure like fit they will escape. It was a calculated move where he expected his arm to snap but would fight on regardless.

2nd gate = presence of mind and willpower

Now I know this is nothing earth shattering or even new, but what I am trying to do is to discover what I am trying to achieve prior to achieving so as to do it more effeciently. Because when I started I wanted to be "good" at jiu jitsu but had no idea what that actually entailed. And I dont want to be JUST as good as the best guy in the world, I want to be better. And whilst I am perhaps aiming outside my reach I think it will get me closer than by aiming low.

Let me know what you think about some of my ramblings here.

party party party PARTY! woooo

2008-12-15T05:30:00.000-08:00

Still havnt trained since Hereford. Missed Tuesdays lesson as was in Worcester, missed Friday as I had some weird stomach cramps but then ended up going out for someones birthday!?, then I woke up hung over and it was pissing it down outside so I wussed out saturday. Not good, still need to up my out of class workout. My cardio is dipping, I didnt realise at first as Im abit more relaxed when I roll and I have been warming up properly for comp fights. But its definitely not as good as it was. Weirdly though Ive picked up some muscle mass from the ether, enough to warrent comments. Which is always ego boosting. I do feel strong though. My toe is swollen and itchy so Im gonna assume a radioactive spider has infected me.

So Sunday came round in the usual fashion but with the added bonus of the RGA christmas Dinner!. Met the guys at waterloo, got a series of trains and we got the venue which was pretty close to the RGA academy. The staff were abit curt and indignant which is always a good sign a place is swanky. Walked in and Jude and Nic G were meeting people in. Walked in and said to Nic "Yo Bro! hows it going" Nic: "My names nic" o_o; . Couldnt tell if he just really doesnt like being called bro or if he was just introducing himself (again). No worries though ended up having a good chat with him later in the evening, where I thanked him for some advice he gave me at Kent which has had a significant impact on my game. He was cool and gave me some props for Hereford. He told me I should be ready to lose, I lose plenty so not sure what he meant but Im sure its sage wisdom will dawn on me in the future. He also told me and Matt he hopes his there when we get our blackbelts, which I chuckled abit at as its the 3rd time he had said it to us!. Once when he got his blackbelt (although that was to the whole room), 2nd at Kent when I congratulated him again and talked to him about his website. And 3rd at the xmas do. The dude is awesome though and has a unique style of dancing!. Ill urge you again to check out his site Jiu jitsu Brotherhood . As it really has some great stuff on there I havnt seen elsewhere and he is a inspiring teacher.

Also spoke to Luciano Cristovam again, who is always a really funny happy customer. I told him one of his students had started a blog and made a post about how no instructers turned up one lesson. This was due to a change in class schedule that the students hadnt picked up on. Luciano then kept on trying to interrogate me to find out who it was, but I couldnt remember the site. Sorry if I dropped you in it blog dude, apperantly Luciano's gonna beat you up!. He was quite mirthful at the time so Im sure he was only joking. It made me chuckle though.

Dinner was good, drinks were very pricey!. Matt and Dean got on some horrible looking shots. Mauricio Gomes walks in (Rogers dad and pretty much father of UK BJJ and china BJJ for that matter). So I was abit starstruck. During dinner Jude has a little speech mentioning the club affiliates and giving props to the clinic (thats us, not a successful STD clinic). To this the guys started going "HOO HOO HOO!". This started a while ago and I have no idea why we do it!, we need something better :P . He, Nic G and Mauricio then give Andy a present from us, a customised black eagle mundial gi. We got Rogers and Mauricio's signatures embriodered on as well as the RGA logo and Judes Logo. Looked very nice!.

Edit: Just found a vid of it!:
You can even ehar me asking why we started going HOOHOOHOO
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/video/video.php?v=57703931096&oid=11174686978

Snazzy!

Ended up having a chat with Mauricio which was cool. Talked to him about my travel plans to Brazil and what he reccomended. Apperantly its gonna be roasting in July, Im hoping my south african blood will carry me through but he warns me about going inland. And hows its manic around the carnival. I then start talking to him about the Renzo documentary as theres quite a few cool extras and one of them is a good sparring match between Mauricio and Renzo.

Renzo apperantly had a fight coming up so they were actually going light!, with this fight coming at the end of a very long training day. I asked Mauricio what he thought of the documentary and if he knew the sparring match was in it. He said he thought it was a good documentary but didnt know the sparring match was in it till he saw it, didnt seem to mind at all though. Heard the very good news that Mauricio is coming to visit our club in a month or so, was quite happy to hear that!.

At this point I am feeling pretty merry, but I got to go and get my train. Sod it the jiu jitsu gods will look after me. Which they do! as Matt offers up his place. Me and Matt chat about our rivalry and we get abit philosophical about it all. You can improve if you have the drive and motivation to do so, so alot of that is internal. But there are external pressures to like wanting to do well for the club or other people, for money, for a promotion etc. I think this type of rivalry is one of the best though, everytime I miss training or am not training hard I think "Matts training his ass off, if I dont meet that and exceed it he will overtake me". Its strong motivation.

We get more drunk, me and matt gotta get our train. Sod it the jiu jitsu gods will look after us!, which also now includes Mike and Dean. We go upstairs to the club and dance our asses off. I DONT DANCE...but that night I did, I dont think they realised what they were witnissing. I have recently picked up some new moves "the shopping trolley" , "the bus driver".

Andy and his wife and other guys finally have to go (its like 2am). Me, Matt, Dean and Mike continue with diligence. And for some weird reason and burlesque stripper comes on, something probaly to do with the other people dressed up in burlesque style. And she does a number, although it remains PG it wasnt a bad dance!.

Closing time comes, the staff are getting particularly hauty tauty. Resorting to making fun of my hat, forgetting my scarf and being mad at me for it... . With a room full of Jiu jitsu guys I was actually hoping a fight would break out just so I could see a 50 strong jiu jitsu army in action. Sadly everyone was well behaved :P.

So... we are in the cold and the jiu jitsu gods are keeping quite. Any places still open are on the other side of london. Its around 3:30am. We are off our trolleys and its freezing. We decide to go for a walk. And the jiu jitsu gods come through! - I cant go into the details as I was asked not to. But we find a pseudo warm place for a few hours till we can make a move for our morning trains. I was very pleased!. We make our move around 6:30am and we all feel pretty grim but are still laughing about the nights events. I get home around 9am and instantly fall into a small coma.

Hereford 2 - Oh its ON like donkeykong bitches

2008-12-10T04:12:00.000-08:00

Got up extra early, got my stuff together, got on a train, got in a car, got in another car for 3 hours. Showed up at Hereford. WOO!

The last time I was here I got my shit handed to me, but its been quite a few months since then and Im bringing more reinforcements (Brian, Dean, Matt, Big Matt, Thor). Including Andy which is a significant help.

We actually get there early and the kids comp is still going on. We check our weights and all is dandy, its FREEZING though. For some reason I confuse Kevin Cox with Ross Nichols which is odd as they look nothing alike. I congratulate Ross and without much chitter chatter call him out for a roll when we got time, friendly like mind you!. I also see one of the guys I fought at Kent as well as his brother, spent a while talking to these guys who were really cool. Check out their website at badshah.com.

Our division was small but had a few tough looking guys. Me and Matt were on opposite sides to each other thankfully as the organisers are nice like that, so we hoped to see each other in the final again.

I go through my warm up routine and have a light free roll with Andy, working transitions and escapes. Never holding on for more than a few seconds. Although demoralising I picked up some handy lil tid bits on some passes and escapes.

My gameplan for this comp was to pass guard, stay on top, get the points and force them to make an error I could capitalise on to finish them.

I had the first fight in the division and my opponent looked quite nervous. As soon as we bumped fists he was straight in there, always a pretty good indicator of nerves. I had actually written up a dramatic version of events but then upon watching the vid I realised how much I had forgotten so Ill just give you the vid.

Video here!

The triangle was on very tight but I could feel him overexerting himself so I just stayed patient looking to buy myself some time. Thank god he didnt know the re counter to the catdip counter. Was very pleased with the sit up sweep, by far my best sweep. Although not the most subtle, it is very effective.

It doesnt feel like more than 5 minutes before my next fight. Fighting Mr Badshah. He is alot more relaxed and looks confident. I can tell as we size each other up looking for grips that his a guard fighter. I go into juggernaut mode again and we get to his guard, where he seems happy to keep it open. Being very wary of another triangle I try keep his feet and hips pinned. He is very mobile though and I am forced to defend from a few angles.

At some point he gets on top in my half guard, was very happy with my sweep. All that half guard work recently paid off.

2nd Vid here!

Matts first fight is up, he works the same solid game he does in training. Getting a tight triangle and finishing it there. Matts 2nd fight is identical!. Both finished in under 2 mins. Its gonna be a hard final!

We have to wait a little bit for the final but we are relaxed and having a good time. The competition nerves do get easier to deal with it seems. And its a big help that Im facing Matt in the final as its win win for the club. But I want the win.

I keep focused on specifically avoiding the triangle. I try to catch him out by going for guard when we start but he gets there before I do so I am forced to try pass. Which is fine for me.

The final!

Passing felt good but I was to compliant with stalling, I never tried to seperate and attack an arm. Or setup a sub. It all goes wrong at about 1:35 in the vid where I am ontop but am not active enough and it allows him to weasel himself onto my back. He had a mini choke on from underneath which was stopping me from carrying on moving clockwise. But for some reason I never went anti-clockwise to try for the mount or knee on belly. On my back he had a choke deep in. I didnt think much time was left so I was doing my all to survive. Made some very horrible gurgling sounds and actually burst a few blood vessels in my eyes (not that bad!). But he held fast and I had to tap, the magnificient bastard.

That brings our rivalry up to 1-1! - really do feel like we are pushing each other to get better. Vegeta/goku, Naruto/sasuke, He-man/skeletor!.

Heres myself, Matt and Scott Morgan posing with our trophies. Spoke quite abit with Scott who was a good laugh, he showed me a very nice overhook closed guard move. And I showed him the Von flue choke.

The other guys had some great fights as well, Brian had a ton of them and looked like the sole survivor of a resident evil film. Enough so that Andy made this picture!

So the aftermath:

Good:

Passed alot and stayed active in passing

Saw most subs coming and defended

Focused and clear headed

Never got tired

Met some cool people and learnt some cool stuff from them

Half guard felt good

Sweeps felt really good

Bad:

To focused on holding a good position and didnt develop it further to create submission openings

Was compliant in letting people put guard back

Not enough hip pressure

Didnt look hard enough for submissions

Didnt work enough from side control for mount

Took back control but didnt work the hooks in

Didnt have the presence of mind to change direction in the final fight

I like the control of playing a passing game so I think its something Im gonna stick with. But I also love sweeps which I think is a handy Plan B for when things go wrong.

So quite abit there to work on and develop but I feel quite positive and felt I got alot out of it. Including a 2nd place trophy (will add the pic when I get it!)

Im gonna start doing some reviews, including event reviews. But for now let me urge you to goto one of the Hereford ground fightings comps should you get the chance.

Valeries and new developments

2008-12-04T05:55:00.000-08:00

Tuesday:

Back to training!. Andy has just added a childrens class and a beginners class to Tuesday. So I decided to get in extra early just after the childrens class as I reckoned some people would fancy some extra training. There was an hour gap inbetween the childrens class and the beginner class so myself, Lee, Andy and another guy fancied a little workout. We started with doing press ups using olympic rings. Doing 3 sets of ten, keeping them stable and straight really added another dimension to the press up exercise. We then did 3 sets of 5 Turkish get ups using kettlebells, Im quite unfamiliar with kettlebells so used a 12KG one. Quite a tricky exercise engaging alot of muscles. Lee is abit of a demented fireman with some army experience so he then subjugated us to something called a Valery. Which was doing a burpee with a pushup and then jumping to a crossbar or beam and doing a pull up!. We did 2 sets of 5 and then 3 sets of 6 of those which were abit of a killer!. We then went to our newly attained running machine but it was having some issues so didnt get a go on that. As Im writing this my upper body is still aching!

I then did some rolling no gi with Lee, who is one of those rare strong guys that doesnt like to use his strength against smaller guys like myself. We had a fun roll and his alot more patient and thoughtful now, working position first. He caught me once or twice and I got him with an armbar. Using a setup I saw in a "The ultimate fighter" episode!. From mount you curl your leg around the arm you are attacking so your shin goes across their throat. This forces the arm up and sets up the armbar. It also puts pressure on the neck to keep them there. If they do come up its also setup for an omoplata!. That was my first experiment with it, think I need to get abit slicker with it but the surprise factor is worth its weight in gold.

Sparred some no gi with Andy and I found it alot harder without my grips, need to work on my no gi properly at some point. And I got taken apart in a variety of ways. My one small victory was a half guard sweep but that was aided by someone knocking on the door and Andy stopping and having a look to see who it was.

Beginner class was good and I fancied it as some extra training with a chance to work on my fundementals. Did some hip throw work to armbar, then worked on the rolling escape out of the armbar if they dont control the wrist.

To counter this we control the wrist and use our thigh to put pressure on the elbow wherever it moves. Did some mild sparring from this point to work the escape and the armbar. Then moved onto some sparring where we had to keep mount but wernt allowed to submit. Escaping wasnt to hard although I need to be more carefull about offering my back. Holding it wasnt to bad either but without subs it was easy to keep control. We then added subs. Escaping became a little harder and I did actually get caught which twinged my arm a little. On top my sub attempts wernt that great and I found it harder to keep mount (did lose mount once or twice)but my cross choke is getting more devious. So good session overall but need to work on a more solid mount.

Onto the next class! - Feeling a little bit tired so I sat out most of the warm up as I was pretty warm anyway and the mat was looking busy.

First techniques were side control escapes. Keep your arm against his neck so your arms resemble a T-rex's. Putting them away from him just helps him in attacking it, as you cant defend with your other arm. Important note here was to bridge and get your head out from his arms so he cant control your head to straighten you out. Then you do the thai block, bringing in your knee and elbow and replace guard using a shrimping movement. The other escape was similar but instead of replacing guard you grab his inside leg and walk around so you end up on top. The walk around is very important as it does all the work in putting him on his back. Other wise you will just end up turtled as he sprawls. I noticed something abit strange from drilling this move a few times, everyone prefers the first escape!. Even though it only gets you guard and the other one gets you side control!. Maybe as its abit easier and more gracefull, but I know I would rather end up on top even if it is slightly riskier.

Heres a great theory vid from Demian maia, looking at position from underneath side control.

We then did a side control attack that I remember Ollie showing when he was down a while ago. Based on the side control situation where your opponent is linking his arms on your back, keeping you close. The arm against his ear swaps to his other ear, slightly hooking underneath his arm. Your arm that was on his far side comes over and underneath yourself. If you rock up you can then grab the lapel closest to you from underneath. It may seem awkward but I find it a very good pin, as it completely controls his shoulder your on. Then taking your other arm that you moved earlier, grab his far lapel with your fore arm across his throat and press your elbow to the ground. Which will crush his larynx and give you the tap. If he resists move your elbow up to open up his neck more. If he moves his neck to the side it will then become a choke. Strong submission this, once you get the grips.

From the same setup before we then did another attack. Holding onto his far arm you push yourself forward to break his grip and to flatten his arm straight on the ground. You also move your leg closest to his head, over it (similar to a kimura setup). You then hold his wrist with one hand and swim your other hand under to grab your own arm. So again similar to the kimura but his arm is straight. Important part is to be underneath his elbow so then when you push down with your hands and raise your upper body you achieve an armbar effect and get the tap. Its a little tricky but a worthwhile option to have when they straighten their arm to avoid the americana or kimura.

Sparring went well, one of our guys who recently injured his spine was back. I went for top control as Im really feeling comfortable there but I took care not to put to much pressure on his spine. Although I could tell he wasnt 100% confident yet, Im sure he will be back to form soon now that his back to training.

In another sparring match I managed to land a reverse triangle from underneath side control, but I also got kneebarred and triangled. I kept on getting top position but my mount is just abit flimsy at the moment. And I dont like doing the single lapel choke on training partners, despite making it alot easier for me to balance I feel its unnecessary. Better time spent getting the cross lapel and other subs in.

Sparred no gi with an mma guy, he was quite active so I decided to let him have top and Ill work a sweep from underneath. But my no-gi gap haunted me yet again. Went for lots of things but just couldnt keep the control I needed. He couldnt pass my guard but he managed to block alot of my moves just using his head. Which is awesome!, he didnt realise he was doing it but using your head as another hand seems like a really good idea. I think with no gi I am under utilising my mobility abit, not realising that whilst I dont have alot of grips, neither do they.

Me and Nick then had our post lesson roll ritual as normal, went well. Concentrated on his guard passing with me threatning lots of sweeps. Gave me the chance to practise my open guard abit, looking at hooking underneath his leg and using it to unbalance. Definite improvement in his passing, much better idea on what Im going for and what he has to defend. He even passed at one point but his base wasnt there so I rolled him over from underneath side control.

A few posts ago I mentioned how I was really getting revved to fight Ross Nickols again, as he was a good target to aim myself at. However a spanner has been thrown in the works!. He just got given his blue! - Big congrats!. A shame though as I wont be fighting him in Hereford now, unless I make him roll with me. But its nice to start getting to that point where familiar faces in my division are getting their blues.

So I needed inspiration!, and fate smiled on me yet again and delivered this:

Cant embed so heres the link:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=zvxc8S5ybS4

No one gets to complain EVER again.

The other new developments are:

RGA Charity interclub comp sometime in December

Decent chance I might be doing some traveling in Brazil

Gonna start doing some reviews

Muay Thai classes have started at the club!

Passing natures guard

2008-12-03T04:28:00.000-08:00

Friday:

Got in early as normal and luckily some other folks did for some early sparring. Was feeling good and my last post refers to my performance in this fridays lesson.

So me and long time training partner Chris got rolling, been quite keen to work my passing game and did well. Chris made it difficult but I tried to keep him pinned and straight to reduce his mobility. Cranked on an armbar should of squeezed it on with more control. Ive noticed a lack of confidence in putting on some submissions where Im convinced they will escape. But this results me in cranking it on abit to hard. Worked some half guard as well which as a gap in my game is steadily coming up to par with the rest of my positions.

Did alot of throwing work in this lesson which was really good. Started with seoi nage and then went on to any throw we fancied, finishing the throw by knee riding them and falling back into the armbar. Gave me a good chance to properly practise drop seoi nage and hara goshi. As your throwing them from such a low level I thought drop seoi nage wouldnt hurt very much. But it packs a big unexpected punch!. I am exploding abit more into my throws which I feel is helping them as itmeans I am commiting more to the throw. Andy wanted to correct some people one their breakfalls so asked me to throw him. I stood in mild shock for abit with the class looking on, then took even longer trying to think of an appropriate throw. A part of me wanted to try a mega WWE style throw as it might be the only chance I get to throw him. Went for a normal seio nage in the end as I didnt want to mess up what he was demonstrating.

We then did the baseball choke from the knee on belly position. Sticking both arms deep into their collar, try and get them enarly touching. Dont cross them over like the cross lapel choke. One hand will face in and one will face out, resembling like your holding a baseball bat. You then put your far leg over their head and twist your body so your kneeling in a north south position over their head. Put your head to the ground on the side you crossed over on, this will block them turning into you and make the choke tighter. Comes on very tight!.

Dont really like this vid but couldnt find a better one.

We then did some sparring. One of the newer guys Ive been facing recently always dives straight in for a triangle/armbar attempt, everytime. I block, pass, crush, mount and submit. Gave me a good chance to put the baseball bat choke into practise and it worked a treat, definitely gonna use it more often. The kid never loses heart though and is eager for more each time. So I take the chance to work more on my half guard (sweeps and taking the back) as well as experiment with a few things.

Sparred my new favourite partner again with his HCK (pain in the ass to choke gi). And here is where I felt my new found passion really help. I was alot tighter and more focused on trying to take him out of his game. This guy loves combat base (one knee up) and is very good at using it to pass by blocking the hips. But being more comfortable in half guard now I hooked my leg underneath the leg that was up so my foot was curled round his thigh. This really helped in neutralising the position and getting him off balance. Kept tight in side control and worked to mount, put in a cross collar choke and squeeeeeeeeezed it on. There were some sounds and his face was going dark, but he held out for a long time and I thought it might not of been fully on so I let go. Turns out it was on! so I really need to put more faith into my moves. No tap though so we continue but I was far more dominant than usual which made me very happy as I find this guy one of the hardest guys currently training. He will probaly kick my ass next time we roll but thats how these things go.

Andy asked if anyone fancied a spar and I jumped at the chance. Although he always take it quite easy I get alot out of sparring him. As it makes bad habits and mistakes easier to see. As a result of him capitalising on them, or just plain telling me. Worked to pass and put in better showing than usual, although I never managed to fully pass I put on alot more pressure than usual. And minimised oppertunities to get subbed. Got done in by a shoulder crank ive never even seen before, I was belly down with his legs curled round my arms which was pulling at my laterals and shoulder. Played a little guard and got put into half guard, Andy corrected me on my underhook which I kept on putting on the wrong side enabling him to take my back. Always on the same side as the leg your trapping!.

Sparred some other guys and generally felt very good with passing and control, really feel I am on the rise now with alot of things falling into place.

Sparred Nick in our post class ritual, accidently spinning elbowed him in the face!. Sorry dude!.

Saturday:

No BJJ for me Im going caving in Somerset for the weekend (Cheddar)!, which is something Ive never done. First cave was slippery and very small and tight. Not trusting my wellies for grip I was crawling on my hands and feet like a spider. The advantage of this is it meant I was actually quite mobile and able to essentially play open guard with all the formations and rocks in my way without slipping. Some parts got tight enough where we couldnt move our head and had to shimmy our hips to get through. Luckily for me I was quite happy with shrimping and snaking so was through there like a shot. In some areas we had to chimney climb over crevases, this was hard for some as it required steady pressure in a small space whilst moving for space. To me this just resembled guard passing. Some of the passages we went down were called "Bloody tight" and "Hellish tight"!. We all survived and got the beers in after.

Sunday:

This cave was harder and more dangerous with the added bonus of it being a live WET cave. Not wet as in abit damp, we are talking flowing streams and waterfalls. Loud enough that it was impossible to hear the others at times. Oh yeah and it was snowing. I was wearing 1 shirt, 2 fleeces, 1 fleece body suit, 1 caving body suit, marigolds, 2 socks, diving socks, and wellies. And they guaranteed me I would still be absolutely drenched and freezing. Cave water is not warm, and the snow didnt help it... . The entrance was very forbidding, the size of a large cushion with a rabid stream underneath. Who in their right minds would think it was a good idea to explore this when it was first discovered!. So straight in we had to crawl army style through this stream and then had to crawl up through a U bend style tunnel. Had to crawl down a waterfall that was spraying everywhere. Chimney climb a few bits whilst butt scooching my through. Towards the end the instructer asked me if Ive ever climbed a ladder. I said of course. A caving ladder?. No.. . But it couldnt be to different. A caving ladder is a very small wire ladder, and it was under a waterfall. To climb it properly you had to climb with your leg round it with your heel and the other foot in front, so it kept straight otherwise you went straight into the waterfall. You mean De la Riva guard!? no problemo!. On the way back up however it was abit harder and I got soaked.

We then realised we were gonna have to climb back up all the streams and waterfalls we had just passed. Which was difficult, getting quite wet and providing an interesting climbing challenge. Nature wasnt done with me yet though as it through a formation called the "toilet bowl" into the works. Myself having to climb up out of the toilet bowl with nature effectively waterboarding me. Then spiderman crawling through the stream. As predicted we were soaked and pretty cold. Nothing a pint of somersets finest cider couldnt cure though. Great fun weekend. And if you fancy getting a workout for jiu jitsu I highly reccomend it, VERY similar movements with alot of grip training.

Crikey! Ive actually found a vid of the cave we went in on Sunday, although without my awesome jitsu moves obviously. And Im adding a BBC link as well (embedding disabled)!

BBC video

Did it make a difference?

2008-11-28T15:09:00.000-08:00

YES, a massive difference.

(read my previous post if you dont know what Im on about)

What Ive been missing

2008-11-28T05:29:00.000-08:00

I consider myself a calculating and analytical individual when it comes to jiu jitsu. You will always find me smiling as Im enjoying it but my emotions are quite reserved. Ill be concentrating on what to do next based on what my opponent will try to do next, strengths and weaknesses etc. And I think this type of thinking is good, I believe in the jiu jitsu - chess idea. However Ive been training without passion. This has just become clear now because I feel on fire, instead of butterflies my stomach is filled with easily to anger hornets who have just had their nest pissed on. I dont feel any anger, just a powerful drive to train my ass off and to do well. And all this drive is aimed at one guy - Ross Nickols. This guy kicked my ass in Kent and I want to avenge myself. His in my division in the Hereford comp on the 7th. Let me reiterate that I dont dislike him or feel any anger at him, his just a focal point for what I need to achieve. So if your reading this Ross and Ive just knee ridden your sternum into paste Im sorry. If you beat me again then kudos!. Beating Ross is more important to me than winning the comp, so if we dont face each other ill ask him for a roll on the warm up mat.

But yes, passion!. Will it make a difference? we shall see tonight at training. A while ago I trained in "anger" and I got my ass kicked all over the show. This feels different, I still feel clear headed and able to think ahead. Ive always wanted to win and do well but Ive not had this hunger before. And its given me heart.

A few of us are going down to Hereford so should be another good day of fun. Hereford was my first BJJ comp and my first 2 losses, so am eager to avenge them. Hereford features a different rule set as well. All positions have to be helf for 15 seconds not 3 (except knee on belly). Passing is 3 points. Rolling someone off from mount counts as a sweep! - which is particularly annoying. That is how I lost my first fight. Fights are only 3 minutes and start from knee's. Straight knee bar and achiles lock is allowed. I think its good fighting under different rule sets, so as to not narrow down ones game to take advantage of one particular rule set.

Ive been spending alot more time in half guard as mentioned in previous posts, feeling alot more confident there now. Can see the oppertunities to sweep and to take the back more clearly now. Subs are there as well, although abit harder to finish.

Last session was good and found myself putting on a few omoplata's. Couldnt quite finish them though, so got the sweep instead. Controlling them from rolling over is natural now. Just need to make my setup flow abit more. Had a great roll with Brian before the lesson started. Off the bat I did well, got side control, mount and then back. But Brian is a tough customer and has a very good judgement on how tight your submission is, which allows him to resist for a long time. He has alot of heart. So his turtle was tight and I was on his back, going for a clock choke. Put my head to the floor and started walking around (abandoned the hooks). But I didnt have the hand in deep enough and he eventually got out. From their it went back and forth but he had good control and finished me with a americana.

We did some guard passing and I found myself getting triangled a few times. Which was frustrating but also very good as it pointed out a mistake I was making consistently. Andy gave me some advice on sorting out that mistake so hopefully no more triangles!. Managed to pass a very tired Dorians guard which is a big achievement for me, this guy EXPLODES. And he times it well so very hard to control him, but eventually I managed it.

My guard has become abit more static since I started focusing on guard passing, my sit up sweep timing is abit sluggish. So didnt get to much from full guard.

After the lesson, Nick wanted some more rolling and Im always up for it. Its only been a short time but his definitely coming along. We focused on how important it was always to stay moving, especially when under positions like mount. We kinda did a pseudo drill where we focused on me passing his guard and then him putting me back (medium resistance). That went quite well and I might try repeat this drill again sometime. Some of the guys also pointed out good grips and hand placement for blocking hips etc. One of the things I love about my club and I hope all clubs are like this, is how willing people are to help each other out. And how there is no ego when people are corrected or shown a variation. I would still be making alot of old mistakes without the input of my partners, and Im almost relying on them pointing out more so I can get better!

Any readers going to the RGA christmas dinner? - I hope to be there so let me know.

Heres a great vid from Stephen Kesting where he talks about the importance of position when going for subs and defending them.

He then goes onto show the Von Flue choke as a defense to the guillotine at 3:10. Love this choke and used it in my last lesson, very fun.

Stephen Kesting provides some great video's so if you see his name on a vid -watch it.

Heres an awesome judo vid shamelessly taken from Martial farts (great blog! - read it!):

Reason I include this, is because the judoka in question is pulling off the same throw everytime. His opponents know its coming probaly before they step on the mat, but the guy is SO good at it all they can do is slow him down abit. This gives me confidence in really focusing alot of effort into getting a few throwing techniques down to a T (as shown a few posts ago). I think it definitely works in BJJ as well.

Its now been a year

2008-11-23T04:35:00.000-08:00

It has now been roughly a year since I first started training. So time to assess the situation I think. First lets break it down into simply what I have gained and lost from a result of training.

My grappling ability has certainly improved, I am actually having trouble trying to quantify it. Current me could kick the crap out of old me in under 30 seconds, blind folded, legs tied and starting under mount. Lets also pretend old me weighs around 100kg's and likes to hit the weights. Thats how sizable the difference is.

I have lost 10kg's of weight and my pulse has dropped by over 10BPM. I have the fitness and strength I never thought was in my reach. I also look much more healthy, with a fair bit of podge removed and some muscle added.

I have made many new great friends that I enjoy spending time with outside of training. Just feeling like Im a part of the club is a great feeling.

Now the cost. Training has cost me money, time, blood and bath tubs full of sweat. I have small calluses forming on my fingers, the occasional painful joint, regular bruises and friction burns. A few small hard or swollen bits on my ear that have formed, not very noticeable though. Despite the aches and pains though, a year on and Im still in love with this art. It has become a big part of my life, that is never far from my mind. And the great part is, Im still a white belt! Ive still got this huge journey in front of me. And I'm in no rush.

At one point I focused on training to attain the next perceived level (blue belt). But now it doesnt bother me at all, I just want to get better and improve my Jiu jitsu game. I dont want to improve to win competitions I want to win competitions to improve!.

I think improvement is abit of a funny thing. Your constantly looking for it but its always there, gradual and consistent. Even when trying to get past a plateau, it is all part of the process. I feel that the learning process in Jiu jitsu is a high curve, with the greatest gains in the beginning and coming quickly. Improvements take steadily longer but according to the curve model for comparatively less reward, which I feel isnt true. I have often seen and experienced how a very small adjustment (a small improvement) can lead to significant results. So whilst a curve I feel there are many bumps, plateau's, possible dips and steep rises which are unique to the individual. Heres an example, your often taking peoples backs but you keep getting foot locked due to crossing your feet. Stop crossing your feet, BOOM greatly reduced amount of footlocks.

I also agree with the bullseye model of BJJ (thats my own name for it). Where you start with a massive circle, with layers down to a small bullseye. Each layer represents a belt level of skill. The first layer is obviously the biggest (white) and the layers get smaller till the last layer which is the smallest (black). The size of each layer represents skill, knowledge, ability etc. Its abit overly general but the reason why I like this model is because it shows that everything you need to know is shown to you at the white belt level. You then improve upon and internalise these as you improve which carries you through the belt levels. The adjustments and honing aspects get smaller and smaller. This is also why I think BJJ is a bad spectator sport for the uninitiated, its hard to appreciate it without knowing what they are doing. The greatest example of this I can find is watching Roger Gracie's fights. Everything he does is stuff you will probably learn in your first week.

Ill probably end up posting another one of these next year when I realise Ive been talking bollocks. So onto recent classes.

Last couple have been good, Ive been trying to focus on guard passing and control from the top. Recently Ive felt abit stagnant, but I know this is a common thing and all you can do is persevere. I am finding myself holding half guard alot recently as well, which is good and bad. Good because I desperately need to improve it, bad because it is often a precursor to defeat for me. However my eye for sweeps from that position is starting to develop which feels nice. And I am able to hold it for longer. But it still needs alot of work.

Unfortunately Ive had to miss a few sessions recently due to train trouble, which is not helping to get out of this slump. But the jiu jitsu gods are kind and through their prophet Slideyfoot (link on sidebar) they have delivered me this very usefull new resource. Beginning BJJ . The most useful being a free E-book available on the site. Written by Stephan Kesting from grapplearts.com. The book is VERY useful and alot of effort has gone into it. I highly recommend it, the fact that its free blows my mind. I think one of the reasons I like it is because of Stephens style of writing. He breaks it all down very logically and systematically in a way that really makes sense to me.

Trains screwed me over Friday so went out with some friends and had a couple beers. To make up for having to miss Tuesday I decided to goto both Saturday classes. The early class is focused at new students with some self defense emphasis alongside the crucial basics. It was fun though and I got plenty out of it. All the other usual suspects started turning up for the next session and it was only 5-10 minutes or so before we started that. The warm up was alot more rigorous and Andy inflicted a new exercise on us. Sitting down with legs off the ground you had to shimmy on your ass to the other end of the room, JUST using your ass. Each shimmy moves you like an inch. And we had to do it twice, I resorted to using my feet on more than one occasion. The beers started making their effects known, could tell I needed to be careful. But I also had some foul smelling wind, which is not ideal for grappling.

The class focused on sparring and was very tough. Each time I came off and joined the que I was feeling very tired and woozy. Not nearly as bad as my last hang over training session but my cardio took a big dive. Half guard came up often but I could hold it and was working for sweeps. Need ALOT of refinement on the sweeps though, as currently I am just relying on shifting below them and then rolling when I feel there base is weak. Played around with open guard abit more but couldnt really do it much with hence the rise in half guard. One of my sparring fights went on for an age. I really like sparring this guy as he thinks about every move he makes, no unnecessary movements and is very hard to catch in submissions. Passing felt very good though, I normally always do some sort of stack pass. Which is probably why I find myself in triangles more than any other sub. That day I was mixing it up by also passing through the middle, which I previously didnt like because it very often led to their half guard. Which isnt so bad, just extra effort. However I was doing abit of knee riding and was keeping their legs and hips pinned, so felt more solid.

Terry managed a beauty of an armbar attempt of me I defended by the skin of my teeth. He had side control and went to north south, but he transitioned fluidly from their to my other side and to the armbar. Took me by complete surprise, I had to then flip myself over onto my stomach and then defended by stacking and pulling it out. Definitely want to practise that transition maneuver.

Sparred Ryan who has an MMA fight coming up very soon, so wanted to focus on him. We decided to work on his side control game (we went no gi as well). He was focusing alot on trapping my with his legs and then working a submission. Managed to escape once or twice and he managed to sub me a few times as well. Ive only ever caught Ryan once and that was with a guillotine, his a little lighter than me but very athletic and rapid. But hangover BJJ nirvana beamed once again. He went from side control to north south but my shoulders didnt feel completely pinned, so I tried something Ive been dieing to reproduce. I rolled back (think a backwards roll) tucking my head out. As I did this I went from under north south to having rear mount. I landed quite high up so had to work my hooks in abit and as he worked to escape he left an arm in. So I put in a triangle with my legs, I reverse triangle of sorts I guess. Andy then reminded me to hook his leg and pull it in to further put pressure on him. I couldnt get his arm properly across his neck though, so when he tapped it was 60% neck crank 40% choke. That backwards roll is my new morale busting move.

Had some good rolls with the big guys, a really cool one where I was defending omoplata's for a while. And caught a knee to the head and a cut lip, I accidentally caught him as well. In fact lots of people seemed to get kneed or banged up in some way that day. That fight went back and forth alot where I would half get a sweep or escape but just couldnt finish. Lots of fun jumping around.

Felt very good after that session, definitely feel like Ive come out of that slump. Despite not getting as many subs or sweeps some of the guys gave me some really nice compliments on my guard passing and movement. Which is what I really want to work on. Thanks for the kind words guys it does really mean alot to me.

Talking of kind words slideyfoot has nominated me for the Fightworks podcast BJJ blog of the year. Thanks alot man! really made my day. So if you like my stuff vote for me there when it starts. Or if not vote for the other guys like slideyfoot or pesadelo, all top notch!.

I have also signed up to fight in the up coming Hereford comp on the 7th of Dec. Which is very soon, but we have a few guys going and itll be a fun small comp.

In other news:

The amazing Renzo Gracie legacy documentary is out here
UFC 91 was a jiu jitsu love fest (this is good) - Vids here
Last man standing is still awesome! - Clicky
I need to make a new banner

If you agree or disagree with any of the stuff Ive written leave a comment. Always happy to learn more from feedback.

My post kent return!

2008-11-11T16:22:00.000-08:00

I had taken the week off from training, as I had friends round, a birthday, mat burned toes and a very sore elbow. What this meant is my normal reward of eating like a pig extended for a week past the 2 days I was going for. But a good time was had, and Ive done some runs in between then and didnt feel to bad.

Turned up to Tuesdays class all rearing to go, with passing guard in mind. I wanted to try work on the things I put up in my last post, especially stand up. I had arrived early and so me and Matt decided to get some stand up judo type sparring in. It felt good, really good. I felt I actually had a selection of throws to try and go for. First throw was when Matt went in for a O soto gari (big outer leg reap thing), I countered by doing the same throw in the opposite direction with more hip momentum. It worked, but as I landed on top of him I realised I should of done it abit more softly. I kept on going for the throw I had seen kieran do a few times, a harai goshi (I think!?) as I really love the grip for it and the angle of attack. But was doing it wrong as I was going flinging my leg up in between his not outside, this is another type of throw (Uchi mata). But I find it harder to pull off. Later on I get Kieran to give me some pointers on it. Next throw I managed is my favourite, pushed him back and as he pushed me back in return I lent back into a Tomoe nage. Always feels great to pull that off. But I always forget to roll with the momentum and try finish in mount. Finishing instead in side control most of the time. Our other scraps mostly ended in half ish throws and scrambles from messed up attempts. So still plenty to work on. All I want to do is get 3-4 throws done to a T:

Tomoe nage:
Its my favourite, as its the one Im best at. Its very unexpected even in judo!, I think its pretty rare in BJJ. Which is probably a bad sign but I think its very practical. If I mess it up I can pull guard, or even armbar. Done right I can go straight to mount. It also looks the Bee's knees. I wont add a video as I showed you guys one 2 posts ago!

Harai goshi:
The throw Im trying to learn to be better at. Ive noticed that most people in BJJ from standing are very stiff armed, hips back and really not up for being thrown. I think Harai goshi has a very strong grip setup, and the angle of attack can cut through the stim arm/stall defense. If messed up I can carry on pulling on the arm and fall with my weight to still take him down. I wont get ippon but ill get side control. Which is just gravy for me. And if that doesnt sell it for you, its recommended by Vladimir Putin.

Double/single leg shoot:
Not very subtle and all BJJ'ers practise sprawling and doing this throw so its expected. Stiff arm defense makes it hard. But I think developing a good shoot can be very destructive. GSP seems to be able to take anyone he wants down with this at will. If it goes wrong I can still attack and/or pull guard. I can also just go for a single leg where theres a ton of further options. So a flexible and very powerful attack. At the moment Im to slow and I telegraph it to much, but am able to scramble to safety.

Drop seoi nage:
It looks awesome... . Can be quite unexpected, with knock outs not being unheard of. If it goes wrong I could get my back taken... . But it seems very explosive and leaves me close on the ground with them, with an arm already controlled. The main thing that draws me to it is again the hips back straight arm stalling defense that seems to prevalent. As alot of their weight is forward (ready to sprawl it seems), it would seem a waste not to use that momentum. :P

All these throws except Tomoe nage seem to work well in no-gi as well. Only decent way I know how to do a no-gi Tomoe nage is with my already on the ground holding the back of his neck, but thats more of a open guard sweep really.

Anywho enough of this, back to class!. We drill some throws :P. One of the main ones we drill is a normal Seoi Nage, but we follow it through into an armbar.

Next we go through some counter attacks when people are defending the armbar, as well as some armbar escapes. I make sure to let my partner drill on my left arm, but his controlled enough anyway.

We do some light positional sparring from this setup as well, I can defend it ok but still find it hard to stop them putting there elbow to the mat and coming up on their knee's to escape the armbar.

We then do some guard passing sparring. I as normal jump straight in so I can be one of the people to start first. Not sure if some people may resent me for this, but you snooze you lose. No matter though as I get my arm pinned behind my back, and my guard shortly passed. Found it very hard to defend this as he was so good at controlling my arms. Next match and Andy swaps it so the winners are guard passing. So Im back on my back, my partner starts before I even close my legs. He seems abit dazed, he also controls my arms very well and is tight. But he doesnt work a pass and I get a sit up sweep.

Next match lasts a long time, Im guard passing and his legs are very strong. I really want to focus on my guard passing and top control after kent. But I cant open his legs and his not throwing any sub attempts. His quick to keep my posture down and stop my from standing though. But not going for any sweeps or subs is making it hard to find an opening. I cant even dig my elbows down enough to do a stack pass. With all my wriggling I eventually leave an arm to far out and he pulls down on it in a shoulder assisted type upside down armbar. Its not to tight but I can feel the pressure and I verbally tap. 4 times. I probably should of just tapped with my hand but I didnt want to let go with my defending arm incase of injury. No matter though, I just went "yeah yeah yeah" which normally works but he probably thought I was working something good and was excited so after he didnt let go I just told him to let go. Although in quite a desperate voice. No harm no foul though. Might have to say "TAP" instead of "yeah or you got it" to avoid this in future.

Class ends with some running on the spot, tuck jumps and sprawls.

Im up for some more though. Luckily Brian accommodates me. Brian is tough and wont tap unless you have it on 100%, always a good opponent. We start from standing, I go for Harai goshi as Im determined to get it down. I dont get it though but we end up on the ground with me under his side control. His base isnt quite there though and Im able to bridge him off balance and then sit up completely to put him under my side control. Am happy with this. I get it in such a way that I try a kind of upside down anaconda choke. His breathing changes for the worse so I think its close, but I realise Brian wont tap which is a good sign its not on 100%. So I goto mount. Go for the cross lapel choke but he bridges well and gets me over.

We scramble and he ends up on my back, with a body triangle. I get to my side but cant turn all the way over to his guard. He doesnt threaten the choke to much though and Im eventually able to get rid of his body triangle by hooking his leg with mine and pulling it off so he just has hooks. This gives me enough room to move all the way round. I manage to get my knee up in the middle and squeeze through his legs into mount. I go for the cross collar choke again, and he turns me over again!. This time into my guard. He works to pass and as one arm goes under my legs I set up a triangle. For some reason I go for the Teepee pre triangle attempt though, which I scold myself for as its a bad habit to start. He defends it well though so I dont waste alot of time on it. I then go to triangle and it feels ok. Cant quite get his arm across though and I can tell Brian isnt finding it to hard to resist. He goes for the cat dip escape and I do the counter by pushing myself on my hands to roll into a mounted triangle. The arm goes right across now and I can get a good grip on his head. I squeeze and his gurgle is a precursor to the tap. Really fun roll and further high lighted the work I need to do on my base (especially mount). And that I need to work on my triangle.

Got a bunch of Kent pics Ill put up in my next post, made this from one of them. Hopefully my opponent doesnt mind, I thought it took the piss out of me if anything and some people might find it funny.

The Kent open!

2008-11-04T04:16:00.000-08:00

Decided to train the Friday and Saturday before the comp, we took it easy and focused on some good defense with light rolling. Also learnt some handy defense counters.

Sunday arrives all to soon and I wake up at 5:30am, my friend Helen is coming along to support me and gets all our food and stuff together. We bring a picnic!. We make oru way to guildford were we meet up with Andy and his wife, then go to meet the boys. Everyones fired up and the journey down there goes well.

We arrive early and the venue looks great!, an olympic Judo centre just built in Dartford.

There is a ton of people here, this competition is huge. 400+ fighters, 40 odd just in my division. The organisers are feeling the stress but things are running well. Myself, Matt and Dan are fighting in the white -70 and we are on at 9:15. So we get changed and are eager to weigh in quick so we can get properly warmed up. We make weight EASILY, super light scales put me in at 68kg with the gi. We do some of our normal group warm up and some individual exercises. As far as I can see most other fights are just warming up by themselves. So it feels nice to have a partner helping me get warm. We run into some familiar faces as well, I see some Nova Forca guys Ive talked to before. Matt see's the guy he fought in Brighton and we get chatting to him. Also run into a few RGA boys, we can tell as they write their names on their gi :P . Included in the RGA possie is Nic G who I saw get his blackbelt a few months ago, his abit of an inspiration to me and I really admire him. His also south african! like me!, which is always nice. Oh yeah Roger Gracie is also there...

My mat is called, and Im on the opposite side to Matt and Dan. Im also the first fight on the cards. Ollie shows up as well which is awesome as I wasnt sure if Andy was gonna be able to corner us all and Ollie is a great cornerman with a ton of comp experience. My first fight is against a tough looking kid called Ross Nickols. I had been day dreaming of my strategy for the last few weeks. Pull guard, sweep, choke. Unfortuantly I pull guard VERY badly, I was way to eager and I just sit into it limply. He then steamrolls his way through my defenses, with me being way to static and my half guard weakness really makes itself known. He finishes me with a very tight clock choke from the back. I am annoyed.

Luckily Kent has a repercharge system so I can now fight for bronze, but Im feeling abit knackered. The wind has been knocked out of my sails. The warming up really helped and I didnt feel gassed at all but my morale took a dive.

I have a while to wait before my next fight, and I chat to a few guys and my team mates. The time limit is down to 4 minutes so fights are fast.

Next up Im against a thin looking guy named Muhammad. After watching the other fights and thinking about how mine went I decide to abandon pulling guard and try and be more aggressive. It works well and I stuff his takedown and sprawl. I get good grips and decide to risk a sub. I link my hands with an S grip, put one leg up and fling the other over his back for a Peruvian neck tie. I feel my hands crushing his neck but when I sat down it wasnt tight enough and he manages to slip out, I get him in guard. I go for my usual grips and I set up a kimura, I get it and start putting it on from half guard (his slippy). I dont realise how slippery, Im cranking it on full with his hand approaching the back of his head. He some how escapes!. We scramble and I get side control, I hold tight and I can hear Andy shouting for me to put my hips down. I then move to mount, and go for the corss lapel choke. Ive often neglected this choke from here thinking it far to simple to be caught with. That was untill I saw Roger Gracie putting it on some of the best grapplers in the world. I get the one hand in, cirle my other round, get the grip, tighten and put my head to the mat. Tap.

I am very happy that I got a win, cardio felt good. But I still feel drained. The other guys are having a similar day to me, losing their first and then winning later on. So I think nerves is playing a part. I am very suprised to hear that James (spider noodle) got beaten as I thought he would wreck his division.

Next fight, and its Matts opponent from Brighton (David Potter)!. A friendly Carlson Gracie guy who fights hard and a good guy who I hope does well (just not against me). Im keen to see how I match up. We start and his aggresive from standing, pulling and pushing me trying to offset my balance. I notice his doing it quite regularly and I time my next move for next time he goes to push forward. I hold high on his arms, fall back, put a foot in his stomach and flip him over. Tomoe Nage!. Although it wouldnt of scored ippon as he went to the side, it gets him down. I then get top position and work my way trying to get to mount, but his tough and makes it difficult. Things go back and forth and I end up in his half guard. Im getting desperate and go for a single lapel choke. Its very thuggish but has worked for me before. The half guard doesnt take away to much of my weight, I really have to put it on hard but I had a good grip and the tap comes. Am again very happy with the result but dont feel on top of the world either. Theres just so many fights to go.

The next guy looked tough and Nic G was around talking to Andy in my corner. He tells me the guy looks aggresive but will crack if I put enough pressure on him. Some advice I really appreciate and has still got me thinking.

I again decide to stay up, looking for an opening. He gets bored first and pulls guard, as he does I come down with him hard. Knocking abit of wind out of him, I then get my hands close in and start looking to pass. He goes for a sit up sweep but I base and just about stay up. I fight for posture, at one point he gets close to a triangle. I keep both arms in though, close to his groin so his effort to put it on hurts himself. He also goes for an armbar and nearly gets it but I defend it and use it to pass. It gets alot easier from here on, maybe this was the point he "cracked". I work side control, and mount. But he defends really well and I can finish him. Im aware of the time though and stay busy and keep position. I dont like to stall but his defense is good and Im happy working position and waiting for an opening. Hoping that as he realises he is down on points he will make a silly mistake. He doesnt. I win on points

Now I feel really dead, I feel abit dizzy. All the fight has left me, and all I want to do is goto sleep. I consider bowing out, but I regain some focus. The judge see's Im tired and gives me some extra time to get myself together. One of my contacts is gone as well, which probaly led me to be abit dissorientated. No excuses though, time to man up. But all I can think of is that even if I win this I got to fight AGAIN for the bronze.

I am fighting a guy called Andrew from RGA who was a real pleasure to meet and talk to. He got beaten earlier by a very fast flying submission so I think Ive got a good chance. As soon as we touch hands and start I suddenly feel very happy. All the dread and tiredness leaves me, I give a big smile. But it doesnt last to long as for some reason I pull another shit guard. He then goes on to quickly control me. Looking back on the footage I cringe at how close I was to reversing the situation and how static I am. I dont know where my heart went, but its something I need to make sure never happens again. He holds side control and puts on an americana, I dont react fast enough and he puts it on hard. I verbally submit as I hear an audible *pop*. Im worried my arm is broken. Andrew checks on me straight away and is very apologetic, as mentioned before his a good guy. I stay on the ground assessing the damage, its not as bad as I initially thought. Definitely not broken, just very sore. Am not dissapointed, just relieved I can now rest. Yet I dont feel tired or drained anymore. I go and see the medic to get some ice and see what he thinks.

Kieran our judo guy is fighting hard for bronze, he sneaks on through and pulls a few great throws. He loves to use an over the back power grip. Im definitely gonna copy that. He does really well and wins the bronze!.

Andy is fighting as well, we are really excited to see him fight. He doesnt dissapoint. Check. This. Out.

His next opponent pulls guard and works a very strong spider/de la riva guard game. He works a good sweep and eventually catches Andy. Andy gets silver. We are still well chuffed with his performance though as its his first fight at brown belt. His just gonna get stronger.

More of our fight footage can be seen at:

Andy Roberts BJJ vids

Everyone does well, and for quite a few of the guys it was there first comp. Despite the nerves and the high level opposition I think we should be happy with what we can learn from the outing. We finish the day off by going to a Burger resteraunt where a french waiter see's our academy T-shirts and asks to come train!. Talking of shirts Faixa Rua gave free T-shirts to everyone!.

Back to business, what did I do right, what did I do wrong, what did I learn and what have I got to work on:

Right:

Tomoe Nage (sacrifice throw)
Cross lapel choke
Being calm
Guard passing
In guard defense

Wrong (need to work on and learn from):

Hip pressure
Pulling guard
Sweeps
Guard activity
Loose sub attempts
Lost my heart
Half guard
Movement was abit slow and sloppy
Stopped listening to my corner

Things Ive learnt and shall focus on:

Hip Pressure:
My hip pressure has improved but I normaly just put my hips down via sprawling. But Ive now learnt that I should put my body more into it and use some strength to force my hips down to add to the pressure.

Standing game:
I feel comfortable standing! why dont I do it!?, I seem attracted to pulling guard. Yet things have more often than not gone my way when I decide to stand. I am really motivated to work on my standing game now, especially after watching Kieran. I did a fair bit when I was a child so need to get that back. Even if I do pull guard I need to make sure I do it properly, with some conviction. Not just limply sitting into it.

Mental game:
I can be calm, but I need to work on my focus. Staying positive, I really felt bad when all I wanted was to lose and rest. Need to work on my drive and determination, all the skill and strength in the world wont help me if I dont want the win. Nic G gave me advice to get my opponent to mentally crumble, I think it worked. So I need to realise where I can make my opponent crack, how best to take him out of his game and impose mine. Destroy morale, show no weakness and seem unbeatable. Alot of it seems to be tiny bits of body language, like not avoiding his eyes. Taking a strong stance and looking confident.

Warming up:
This went really well and worked, cardio felt 10 times better than the Brighton comp. Need to make sure not to forget this.

Half guard:
It was shit to be frank. I was barely surviving when in it, I found myself in it often. And couldnt work anything. Need to really nail down a few solid moves from here. A massive gap in my game at the moment.

Sub setups:
Went for one or 2 subs that I could of made abit tighter before putting them on, because of this they slipped out. So patience is needed here and I think even for low percentage moves, I need to take care to make them as tight as possible.

Thats alot to work on but I really think if I manage to improve all those areas then my game will come on leaps and bounds. Am genuinly excited to see how much everyone will improve from the experience.

Quick notes from Tuesday

2008-10-29T14:52:00.000-07:00

One of the guys showed me an Eddie Bravo technique called puppet master, had quite a few elements and seemed tricky. But cool none the less. Andy looked on dissaprovingly, shaking his head and sighing.

Met a new guy who was a Karate instructer veteran, met one of our guys down at a Royce Gracie seminar over the weekend and decided to try pick up more ground work. He had a good attitude which was good to see. He didnt seem in very bad shape but our warm ups can be abit punishing to those just starting. He seemed to manage ok though. Got to spar him as well later in the session. His a little bit bigger than me so I decided to work my sweeps to show the awesomeness of jiu jitsu. He was quite busy and tense so I had to fight a lil for my grips, but I pulled off the sweep. Either a sit up or pendelum, probaly a sit up as we had just gone over it in class.

Talking of which, we covered:

The kimura
Transitioning from kimura to guillotine
Transitioning from guillotine to sit up sweep
Going from sit up sweep to armbar

So especially good for the new guys. Had good fun pairing up with Nick again who I enjoy helping. His really come a big way in a very short period of time. In sparring he was active, fought for grips and defended very well. Kept his arms in as well. But although busy he did not work for a pass and so he eventually got swept. I dont think his had the chance to see many passes so will be interesting to see how he progresses once he has had a chance to drill some. Also did some stand up sparring with him. Am still finding it difficult going for takedowns, so I went for my failsafe throw, tomoe nage (stomach throw).

When I do it though I keep a hold of them and roll into a top position (hopefully mount). I like it for 4 reasons. Its unexpected; if you mess it up you end up pulling gaurd; its very easy as it requiers no strength; and you can also do this if you get very good at it:

You can also go for the throw, stop it mid way and let them fall into the armbar position. So it kinda looks like this:

How do you combat such an awesome throw? with an awesome counter!

The other counter is you can just bend your knees :P. Which is where the pulling guard comes in.

Anywho, other sparring went well. Was mainly sit up sweep, pendelum and armbar as Im trying to hone my A-game for the comp this Sunday. One of the big guys stayed very tight though and he managed to pass my guard. I think I was being to passive again allowing him to take it inch by inch rather than forcing an error. Annoyingly his guard pass was finalised with an elbow to my head, completely unintentional but it hurt. One move I was happy with was going for a kimura and then quickly moving to the other arm for a sit up sweep, which as he was pulling that way (defending the kimura) worked well. These grappling improvisations are happening more often recently, which I think is a good sign. That Im starting to develop a better understanding of the basic concepts of BJJ grappling.

One the guys showed me another cool take down, where you get your opponent moving but suddenly change to the other direction and go for an inside single leg. Worked really well but Ill need to drill it properly before feeling confident.

Had another roll with Terry, consciously focused on keeping side control and not letting him get to his knee's. Which he is quite good at, and is a hole in my game from looking at my videos from Brighton. Mainly just kept active in blocking his hip and controling his lower body.

My division for the Kent open was released to today. Got to fight about 44 people, probaly the biggest category in the whole comp. The good side to that is that we might win a new Black eagle gi as a prize!, which I need. Chris the poleaxe of doom has pulled out due to an injured knee he picked up from a kneebar the other week. Its a big shame as I was really looking forward to watching him in action. Hope it heals up soon.

Am really LOVING the look of this red Vangaard gi.

But they seem hard to get, seem to only find them on french or german sites. And I might look abit of a ponce in red. The black one looks great as well, but I hate ninja's... . I also think I might be better off just getting 3 privates with Andy, which is pretty much the same price (normaly £40 each but you can batch buy 3 for £100). BJJ has complete control over my christmas list.

Passivity, lucidity and guilt

2008-10-27T12:34:00.000-07:00

Arrived early on Tuesday and watched some of the guys have a group private. This included judo tankman, spider noodles and James who I have yet to think of a nickname for. They seemed to focus on tactics for Kent aswell as fixing some holes. I think for christmas Ill try get some privates, they do look usefull if properly prepared for.

The lesson focused on turtle. 2 chokes to attack it and one escape. The first choke I have been waiting a long time for, but always forgot to ask it to be shown. The Peruvian necktie, I first saw it on the last season of "the ultimate fighter" CB dolloway subbing Rampage with it in a sparring session. The reason I was keen on it is because I have often found myself in the right position for it but just didnt know the correct setup. And its awesome. Just got to make sure I control the head enough so they cant slip it out. Comes on very strong. Heres a vid:

Alot of chatter in this vid, but I like the extra detail, anecdotes and explanations. So I was very pleased. Next technique was very similar except it was a gi choke with a quite a few elements, this made it seem quite complicated to me and I had trouble getting comfortable with it compared to the peruvian necktie.

I really liked the escape we did. From your turtle/sprawl position with them ontop of you fling your left arm up to create enough space for your head to get out. Then you shoot your right leg through and rolling to your left to escape from underneath. Then when out rolling to your right to finish ontop. Resist the urge to carry on rolling to your left as their arm is still there. It looks like the beginning stages of a breakdance routine but is very good. I wish I could find a vid to describe it better. Let me search one more time... woop woop! Found it!

See isnt that awesome?

Onto sparring!

I had to leave early today as I due to meet some friends for a drink in guildford, eventually leading to me trying to convince a bouncer at a club to let me wear my gi bottoms instead of my tracksuit trousers. He wasnt having any of it and got abit hostile. Annoyingly I was wearing my worst clothes as I had come straight from work, then training then out. Anywa, so I had to leave 15 minutes early so my eye was on the clock and I wanted to get in as much sparring as possible.

We started from within guard. I was feeling very positive and happy but also determined. Things went really well and the pendelum sweep and situp were in form. Armbars were also there. Spider noodles passed my guard but I gave him alot more trouble than I expected so was happy. One of the big guys got both his legs around me but was to heavy for me to stack him, I kept patient and tried to make room. For one or 2 seconds he ended up on top where I should of then conceeded, but at the time I decided he didnt have it controlled. He thought otherwise but I managed to escape and he let me stay on the mat. Another big guy came to fight, he did well. His posture was low and his arms down. Ive been trying to expand my arsenal so was trying things other than armbar. Kimura was looking good but he was on to it. He was also keeping me pinned to avoid the sweeps. I realised he was holding me very tightly and suprised myself by hooking my right arm underneath his left bicep, then putting my left arm over his tricep and gable gripping my hands. From there I then applied a kimura/wing type shoulder lock. Ive never tried this before from there so was happy that I got the tap. We were shown the technique as a counter to a triangle defense, not as a sub in itself. Ive had it done to me when Ive defended triangles by curling my arm around there leg. I hope I can put together more subs outside my normal stable on the fly.

Sparred my friend James, who is really coming along. I was feeling good but was still trying to get in as many spars as possible. I setup an armbar from threatning a gi choke, I put it on and we rolled abit. James is quite a strong guy, he went to protect his arm behind his leg but didnt make it. I kept on pulling, he tapped, I didnt feel it! :( . I carried on putting it on thinking he was using his strength, still not feeling his taps untill he verbally submitted. But it was to late I had hurt his arm, his already injured arm!. I felt really bad and still do, I really hope he will be ok for Kent. It wont heal before then and he will have to make sure he taps early if people go for it. Ive had the exact same thing happen to me and it sucks, so Im trying to think of a way to make it up to him. Ill buy him something at the comp maybe.

They then did some sparring from knee's but I had to leave.

Roll on saturday!

Didnt drink much due to looking like a hoodlum so no drunken style bjj this time. Saw a face I havnt seen for a very long time. A bluebelt who was about in the initial first days of the club, a Royal marine who Andy has known for a while. I also remember him because he omoplata'd me, which tends to stick with you. He took the warm up which was fun and different. Getting everyone to name a different ab excersise and then having to do 10 reps of it, among other things. Andy did take the lesson though. As its saturday the focus is on sparring and competition. We did some throws which are becoming alot more regular at the club. Perhaps due to changes being made because of Rogers judo training with Ray Stevens?. Also an open guard/spider guard escape.

We then did some in guard position sparring as normal. I felt lucid, passive and on form. Pulling off sweeps smoothly and transitioning well when thinks went wrong. I came up against Ali who was going no gi, Ali is an mma guy who is bigger and much stronger than me. He is also probaly better. We had a long fight, I kept on trying for the sweep and kimura's but couldnt get a grip on him. At one point I got his posture down but he fought for it back. He nearly passed ac ouple of time but I managed to put him back in guard. In the end he did pass but I felt happy with my efforts. Chris the poleaxe of doom complimented me on doing well, against him and the heavier guys. This made me feel very chuffed as he doesnt hand out praises willy nilly and I rate him as our top guy under Andy.

Next came sparring from back, side mount and mount!. For this I teamed up with Terry. I feel quite happy underneath side mount as I feel my strength is in spotting gaps and manouvering pressure. Terry did manage to mount me a few times though. From under mount Im not to bad at escaping as I am pretty wiggly and good at defending armbars. However my subs from ontop mount still really suck, my control has really taken a dive. I can hold the position well just not finish. Ive put it down to being to rushed, where I should take a little time setting it up. Also I think I should try setting up more than 1 sub at a time. I.E threatning a choke and using there defense as a setup for an armlock.

From the back Terry completely schooled me, he really was on form today. I felt I was being to passive being overconfident I would spot a gap. He was using a technique he picked up from BJ Penn, where he would trap an arm underneath one of his legs. Which then made it almost impossible to defend a choke. He subbed me more times in those 5 mins than he has in the last 10 months. He went through this technique and showed me a genius way of setting it up, and gave me some food for thought as well. He managed to get my arm underneath his leg each time because he would get a grip on my arm and push up. Instinctively I would then push down with my arm, he would then suddenly change pressure direction and my arm would go down and be wrapped by his leg!. Even once he explained it, it was hard to avoid because of that instinct to resist your opponent. I cant help thinking this has huge application for setting up other techniques as well.

Sparred abit with a new guy who Ive been talking abit to. His really got a thirst to improve so I enjoy sharing what Ive learnt. He seems to think showing him things and sparring him is an unecessary use of my time. I always assure him its not, because I get quite abit out of it as I get to really think through the techniques when I try explain them. I recently told him "position before submission" and I think he has taken it to heart. He game has improved alot recently, he no longer just dives in. He fights for his grips and fights to get rid of mine, postures up and is moving better. I really do love seeing people improve, and I get a real buzz if I can give some advice or tips that aids this improvement.

I think one day I would really love to do some instructing, although I need to be more concise and clear!. As you can probaly tell in this blog!

Heres your reward for reading through that jibber jabber:

Warming up, podcasts and new ideas

2008-10-23T13:40:00.000-07:00

This post comprises the last few lessons and some of the stuff Ive been thinking about recently. Ive been saving some stuff for after the Kent open so as to make a mega post.

Me and Matt were ready for a session early so we decided to have a roll before warming up. Matt worked position well and ended up subbing me via a very well worked choke. Then 2nd fight he did well again and got me in side control, where an odd idea popped into my head. Americana..., I saw the arm and it was there so I gripped it and worked it on before he could defend. He wasnt expecting it as no sane person would really think to I guess but he it went on hard and he tapped. He was suprised and so was I, we explored it a little more and we realised that if he didnt resist it It would of just rolled him onto his back and me into side control. Andy also pointed out he could armbar me from on top, thats why we pay him the big bucks.

The other thing we noticed was that we were REALLY tired, we are among the smaller sized people in our club so we both use our cardio as a strength in order to survive against the bigguns. I mean we were really tired, we can normally have 4/5 fights in a row and feel ok. We realised it was down to not really warming up. I explored this topic with Andy and its made a big difference to my existing knowledge. I always thought warming up was just to prevent injury, I didnt realise you need to warm up passed your initial cardio barrier to get maximum oxygen/energy effeciency. Now the reason why this is an important find for me is because when I competed in Hereford and Brighton my warm ups were minimal and I was exhausted in both my fights. I put it down to adrenaline and nerves. But now I know it was due to inadequate warming up.

I noticed alot of people having the same problem. I think alot of people dont have the confidence in there cardio, they are to worried of using up to much energy pre fight. But they end up more tired!. Training has given us a good recovery rate, hence why we can have multiple fights and feel ok (once warmed up). Being relaxed obviously makes a difference to. I would be silly not to utilise this recovery rate and hinder myself by not warming up fully. And by fully I mean getting a good sweat going, not just stretching.

My competition outlook has also changed considerably, due to a post from http://martialfarts.fightlinker.com/ . Who retrieved this nugget from the fight works podcast
http://thefightworkspodcast.com/ . This is the martialfarts paraphrased version:

"You can think of your training as a way to improve your jiu jitsu for competitions. Or you can think of the competition as a way to improve your jiu jitsu. Compete to improve your jiu jitsu. Don’t train just to improve your performance at "competitions.

Its one of the obvious things but is actually quite meaningfull. Why do we compete!? people say to test their abilities but then they end up training for the sake of competition. Competition is a great test but we should use it more actively to improve our jiu jitsu. So Ive adopted this mindset and now see competition as a seminar with lots of rolling, Im going their to learn, meet people and have fun. I dont care when I tap in class, a comp shouldnt be any different. And I think being that relaxed will actually make my comp performance better. It has also caused me to worry alot less, Im really looking forward to it now with minimal butterflies. Already looking at the next comps as well. Ollie Geddes's competition ethic has inspired me to attend as much as I can. The podcast also mentions lots of great stuff about acting positive even if you are nervous because that positivity will effect your body in terms of stress. Ill leave it to you guys to listin to it though. Its episode 136 and they do a follow up on 138.

There are over 10 of us from my club competing in Kent, including Andy. We are gonna rock it hard. Gonna be a great day of fun. 3 of us including myself in the same division, so good chance of a medal from one of us. 3 of my top ranked fighters in our club are finally competiting as well, the pole axe of doom (Chris - strong and good allrounder) and spider noodle (James - his tall and spindly, and crafty) and Kieran (Judoyourassman) whose around 100kg's of decent BJJ and scary judo throws. I currently rate Matt as ahead of me at the moment due to his activity on top and control, so hopefully he will place If I dont make it. The other guy in our division is nervous but Im sure he will do really well if he relaxes and will learn alot from the experience even if he doesnt do well. One of the newer guys James (not spider noodle) is also choosing Kent as his first comp but Im sure he will do well, he might be less experienced but Ive hardly ever seen him get tired. One of the fittest guys in the gym, he knows a good deal. If he works his A game and relaxes Im sure he will suprise himself.

Ive been sparring some guys who Ive not had the oppertunity to before now, so lots of new suprises. 3 in particular have given me a good run for my money, being forced to tap a few times and a few very long stale mates. I think I should try spar more people Im not used to. One guy who had trained before but not for a long time was quite tough, he wasnt very relaxed and was gripping onto me like a vice but he knew how to defend. I worked 2 subs that I thought I had deep, both chokes from mount I was really putting alot of effort into. He wouldnt give in and escaped both. I didnt give him a chance to attack back but he was close to setting up a few americana's. In the end I caught him with my most common sub, armbar from guard. I had to crank that on much more than I like to as well. He tried rolling out and I had to really clamp my knee's together. I finally got the tap but had caused myself alot of discomfort in crushing my tender groin. Something I havnt felt in a while.

Been feeling good off my back, quite mobile and able to reverse bad position and pick up subs from scrambles. Passing guard is feeling good as well but I need to use more hip pressure inholding side control, am also being put into half guard way to much. Still having trouble finishing subs from mount, see alot more options from side control. While I was waiting for the train I counted over 20 different subs I could think of from side control. I think its because people under mount are much more wary of sub attempts, so I need to be more crafty and subtle in my setups.

Alcohol cures my BJJ woes?!

2008-10-12T05:00:00.000-07:00

Instead of training friday night I went out drinking with my buddies as I hadnt seen them for a while and there were some last minute plan changes. So did that, got drunk, came home. Went to training saturday morning feeling pretty hung over but my stomach felt stable. In the warm up we were rolling and shrimping down the mat. Which really got me dizzy, dizzy enough I had to cling to the wall whilst walking back to do it again. We also did some full throwing drilling which was really good, my breakfalls are rubbish. Forgot how hard even a soft throw can feel.

So at this point Im feeling a lil more tired than usual but coping. We do some more drilling focusing on pulling guard, sitting into open guard etc. Saturday sessions are more focused on competition so we had a Q & A session with Andy as well.

After this we did some positional sparring (from side control, mount and guard). And this is where things got more interesting. I was feeling a lil dehydrated and everything seemed very blurry. Almost like tunnel vision but less extreme and very fuzzy. I can only assume because of the alcohol and the sweating I was running pretty low on sugar, salts, water etc.

But there was a plus side! - I felt very relaxed and calm, I felt I could weasel myself anywhere. My mind was muddled so I had no internal dialogue, no analysing or planning. I just felt everything in the moment. So not only did I do well but I was pulling off things Ive never tried or been shown before. Like taking someones back from UNDERNEATH side control. Or passing from inside guard to someones back. The sit up sweep came back with a vengeance as I was abit more subtle with it. Pendelum sweep also felt abit more natural.

I did get subbed by a very good gi choke mind you, very nicely setup by pinning my arm so I couldnt defend it. So we rolled again and I went to repay the favour and gi choke him. This guy is strong as hell and a good 20kg's heavier, annoyingly he is also fairly cunning. While I was trying to choke him he said "wow check out that blister on the guys foot". So I tried to look, half forgetting I wasnt wearing my glasses and wouldnt be able to tell if the guy even had toes. Then I realised he was distracting me while he made his escape!. Luckily for me he left an arm behind and I managed (just) to pull off the armbar.

I also noticed I still need to be a lil more aware when holding side control, couple of times I fell into peoples halfguard from them scooting their legs around.

Session finished but I had ages till my train so I didnt get out of me gi, and had a rest. My strong friend wanted to spar some more because he came late to the session but I was really dead now. I could barely do the warm down and I felt very dizzy. I finished my water and bought some lucazade. Also had an apple. 20 minutes later and I was feeling good. My friend was sparring with another training partner which seemed to go on forever. Andy was teaching a private and asked me over to spar with the guy (my friend Terry who I had been paired with during the session before). He wanted to look at things whilst we sparred and to work on any issues that came up, while giving coaching as well.

There are few things more annoying in jiu jitsu than your opponent being given good advice that he follows whilst rolling. Its like fighting two people!. But it was fun and good, I feel guilty that I actually learnt a fair bit from it and it was Terry's private. During our rolls he managed to get back to his knee's several times from under my side control. Using a really simple set of movements. His pressure was better and tighter, he also came incredibly close to finishing me off with a guillotine. Baring in mind Terry had now been training for well over 3 hours, he did really really well. The difference from merely an hour ago was definitely noticable, which has resolved my conflicting ideas on how worthwhile privates are. Terry is another asset to the club, a JKD instructer as well I always learn something from my conversations with him. When we spar, I cant pass his hands. I can pass his legs, I can get good position and get submissions but I cannot for the life of me pass his hands. If I want to grab his elbow, get an underhook, grab a wrist then I need to think of a new plan. Because his hands just fend everything off like Im attacking him in over telegraphed A-team style punches. His also escaping alot of my armbar attempts by straightning his body to line up with mine and then rolling, till the angles safe.

The session before this one Mick (a Muay thai trainer) and Terry were talking about low leg kicks. Mick volunteered me as a dummy and very slowly placed a few on my thigh. Despite this very slow kicking it still hurt, his shins were like lead and he was spot on in hitting his target. Then Terry showed his kick, then Mick showed his. This went on for 2 minutes, at the end I was one knee on the ground, pleading for mercy. Hopefully if Mick does a class at our new centre Ill be able to attend, my first love will always be grappling but striking is fun to and opens things up to trying MMA. After the Saturday session and extra rolling I helped Andy and co put up the big sign for our club. Was quite a fun afternoon as the weather was great and the banter flowing.

The Kent open is approaching fast!, I plan to register today. I hope I still get one of the free shirts, I wanna start a comp shirt collection. Saturdays session really rebuilt my confidence and made me feel good about my progress. We have quite a few guys entering now, we are gonna bring back alot of medals. I am completely convinced of this. I think Ill do good, good chance of winning I feel. Hope to fight a team mate in the final.

One more thing:

Anyone got a sewing machine?

Cause Im ripped! *flexes*

Mind set

2008-10-04T10:18:00.000-07:00

Just before training on friday I got the annoying news that I didnt get the extended job contract I had earlier interviewed, I really love the job so it bummed me out. So this boiled away while I made my way to the club. I decided I would use this frustration and channel it into aggression for sparring. Which at the time seemed like a good idea, to help me vent and to test out the approach.

The lesson covered halfguard, I really need to work on my halfguard. Being in it or holding it, it is easily one of the worst parts of my game. I get more submissions from under peoples side control than I do from within my half guard. So this is the lesson I really needed, and we covered some really usefull stuff. But I was in such a negetive mood all I could think about was how much I hated half guard. I lost out. It only occured to me hours later what a dick I was being. Now Im trying to rethink every minute of the lesson to salvage what I should of been focusing on positively.

We did some half guard sparring, I managed to work my way out of a few peoples half guards, and managed a few sweeps. But still lost a fair few matches, which made me feel more bitter towards halfguard at the time.

Then came full sparring, finally a chance to go mental I thought. And so I warned my opponent that I was gonna be aggressive. And so I went for it....

If you could call it that, I made stupid mistakes and ended up fighting a triangle attempt for most of it. I felt like it was my first lesson. Not taking anything away from my opponent, he was solid but I felt I could of done better. He had a triangle on and I was defending by putting my other arm inside his leg, all I had to do was push it through, but I didnt. I ended up waiting till he had it on tight enough I had to tap.

My other sparring match was a similar affair, it ended up going the whole distance without a sub but again I felt limited. I kept on getting top position but not getting his legs out of my way properly.

It really was like I had resetted myself to when I first started, and it frustrated me. It took me a long time to really get into the habit of looking at aquiring good position as the most important thing. Then theres control, setups, breathing, subtelty, planning ahead, tactics etc. The submission is only the last puzzle piece, everything else needs to be in place first.

Position before submission. I let that fly out the window for the stupid justification of "venting". My game suffered. I got tired and made silly mistakes. So now for the plus side, I have learnt from this mistake. I am now confident in my normal approach, that it has the right levels of aggression and passivity. Allowing me to relax but to threaten at the sime time.

Hopefully the damage is only temporary and Ill be back to my old self for Tuesday. I need to start training hard for the Kent open.

Perhaps Im being overly critical of myself, just because I didnt do well in one lesson. I know some people in my club that dont get a submission for months, yet are really positive and keep on working at it. Using it as motivation to improve and keep on trying. It wont be long till these people far surpass me, if I dont learn from them.

Another team mate told me this on Friday after I told him it had been a hard lesson and I hadnt done well :" Yeah they are the best, they are the ones you really learn from" . Having this mindset seems to make all the difference in training, I let it slip and it made a big difference. Now Im trying to learn from it, as you should all your mistakes.

Saturday sessions have just started at the new club, so Ill be able to train 3 times a week when I can. Hopefully get a few saturdays in before Kent.

Brand new digs, new moves and preparation

2008-10-02T10:42:00.000-07:00

Been a lil while since my last update, missed some training due to work and other commitments. Was abit worried about my performance taking a drop. But you gotta just jump back on these things.

Rolling felt great, the little break actually seemed to benefit me. I feel so relaxed that I never get tired and my recovery time is good. Had a great roll with Ryan, no gi was feeling better and I was defending well. Most spars with ryan I get stuck just defending, but I managed to attack this time as well. Guillotine, kimura's and arm triangles. Couldnt finish him though so we ended up stalemating. I need to learn to keep back control better though, to many people ending up back in my guard.

We covered some solid basics in class and I went with a new guy and helped him through it, giving him tips where needed. I need to talk less.

Next session.

ITS IN FARNBOROUGH!

The day has finally arrived, Andy and the guys put in an ass load of work to tranform the place from this:

To this:

To summarise:

1000sqft
matted area with matted walls
Changing facilities
Toilets
Filtered water fountain
Power rack
Free weights
Gymnastic Rings
Kettlebells
Rope
Lucozade Sport Machine
Equipment Shop - Gi's, kneepads, shorts etc etc
Strength and Conditioning coach (PTI Royal Marines, Judo Black Belt, BJJ Blue Belt)
Judo Coach - 2nd Dan Black Belt
Thai Coach

So the Andy Roberts Academy is looking good. The first lesson was busy!, everyone turned up plus some new guys. So around the 40 mark. However despite knocking into people on occasion, wasnt to much of a problem. Most lessons will be around 30 people so plenty of room. A few things in the other rooms are still being worked on, once they are done we are gonna have a open day and get lots of people down. Have a seminar and have a good time.

During the lesson we covered a very nice alternative arm triangle from on top. Holding side control, your put your arm over their head and slide it under their neck. The arm closest to your body must be inbetween your body and there neck, not floating about. You then work your other arm to your hadn under there neck and clasp it. Put your head on the same side of their body as your body. Work your body round so you are straight onto them while squeezing a tad. Comes on a treat. Everything must be tight though.

Warming up with Kimura's!

Also worked on setting up the triangle from mount, which really improved my existing thoughts on it. Head control, hooking the leg underneath and arm control. Pulled it off during sparring which is always a good sign. Sparred Terry whose defense is really improving, but Im quite unrelenting with him as he can be sneaky. No longer catching him in armbars or ezekiels, really having to work for the subs.

Also sparred a new guy, talked to him abit on keeping tight and working his game. Illustrated this by passing his guard a few times. He was flinging on triangles without the control. But he made some progress, was very relaxed and a great attitude.

Finished up with some sparring, a warm down and then Andy giving out some presents to the guys who helped him do the place up. Well deserved.

Warming down or dancing to "thriller", you decide.

Me and all the boys listining to Andy telling us for the 5th time not to walk around barefoot. We have shoe cubby holes now!

Death rolls and link madness

2008-09-18T10:15:00.000-07:00

Tuesday was Ollies final lesson before Andy returned and he made it a good un. He ran into issues getting to the hall, and we ran into issues finding where half our mats disappeared to. Caretaker revenge for running over?. But we got them in the end and we got going with our normal warm up. We then got extra warm with some guard passing sparring. I decided I was going to specially focus on guard passing today as I feel my approach is abit 1 dimensional (give arm, defend armbar, pass). So every time I won a match, rather than get someone in my guard I offered to swap positions with them. No one turned me down, I had some trouble working things out. But towards the end it really felt like I had made an improvement, I was still having trouble breaking open the legs but I was diving my hands under (keeping myself protected), stacking and passing.

Ollie arrives and we are pretty warm, so we jump right into technique. Its another scorcher! Anaconda choke!. I know the name, I knew roughly what it was and had seen some of it but never knew how to do it. It is essentially an arm triangle setup from on top of north south turtle and then you roll underneath them and squeeze it on. Very tight. It looked quite technical but was a very cool looking move which felt very strong, also gave me some good ideas for no gi (which I really want to improve).

Not a great vid, but it shows the main points. I never had to go all the way round to hook their legs, but if they really dont wanna tap that will do the trick.

Next up was a similar variation, Darce/Brabo choke. Similar arm triangle mechanics but using a different arm and without rolling underneath them. Also nice and strong.

I dont like using Sub 101 vids, as sometimes there demo's look abit iffy. But this one isnt to bad.

Third technique was abit dodgy, in the sense that if you pulled it off you were awesome. If not you looked abit of a pillock. The grounded version of a flying triangle. Still pretty good though, very sneaky. Was essentially the anaconda choke combined with the darce choke and all in one motion... . Hard to describe and not sure on the name for the vid. So for now itll have to be my secret weapon :P .

So we drilled all of these trying to get it right, quite easy to mess up but is abit of a BJJ version of the karate kid crane kick " If done right.........no defense".

Onto sparring!.

I was feeling abit odd after repeatedly having my oxygen supply to my brain disrupted. I felt as if my "tired meter" wasnt working, I wasnt getting any more tired, at all. So went against my mate and managed to get the grips I wanted, and I realised the anaconda choke was screaming at me. So got my hands clasped, got the arm triangle, rolled, squeeze, tap, awesome. Now Im in love with this technique. So we go again. Boom boom boom got it again, awesome sauce (new catchphrase I'm trialling). Tried going for the crazy roll one but he was onto me now, and got a good top position.

Fought a few people and felt good, guard passing felt alright as well. Went for an armbar on a mate and he rolled to get out of it, I rolled to keep it on we ended up rolling 4-5 times now before I had to abandon it and go for a triangle which he defended so I went to an omoplata which I couldn't control so ended up in mount.

This was a long session...

Fought ollie and got some ok position, then lost it then defended my ass off for a few minutes as he went from sub to sub. I ran out of back peddle. He got me in the alternative crazy side control, he went for the choke/larynxe crush. I could see it coming "Ah! I know this one I squeal" as I spaz in true white belt style. Bang and the dirt is gone, and so is my oxygen. I tap fast. " Just because you know the technique doesnt mean you can always defend it, otherwise blackbelt fights would be pointless" remarks Ollie. Man.....thats deep.

I go and fight some others, pulling off a lil bit of everything. One of my mates escapes a full on kimura which was cool to see. I didnt keep pressure with my legs so he was able to roll out of it, and then escaped the americana I tried after as well.

Its rolled on 2 hours and theres a few of us left still sparring. I feel fresh and happy. I get another crack at Ollie, this time no gi. He plays open guard and I do my normal thing as side control screams at me. I get it but I dont feel like Ive helped myself any, as his knees get working to upset my base. The sparring is alot faster than before and I keep trying for mount but never quite get both feet over. I get dragged to half guard and am arm triangled. This happens a few times almost exactly the same except sometimes I cant get both hooks in for back control, or I get rear naked choked. I tried for the anaconda a few times but went for it before I properly had everything right and he could defend and escape.

My defense felt good and I felt I could fight while being relaxed (hence why I felt fresh), despite getting my ass handed to me 5 or 6 times ( we probably rolled for 15/20 mins). All in all it was a positive experience, I managed to defend a few things and I noticed some interesting holes in my game and had some errors pointed out as well. This is always great as it then allows me to focus on those aspects which nearly always results in improvement.

2.5 hours this session, woooooooooboy. Im bruised to buggery.

Am thinking about going to the Hereford comp, Matt is up for it as well. But I cant train this friday, or tuesday, so that leaves one session to prepare. And its no gi... so gotta think on that one.

Great great session from Ollie, learnt alot and have a ton to think on and to hone.

Decided to give you guys some handy links that I enjoy using and have some good resources. Hope you will find them usefull.

http://www.mmascraps.com/ - Very good MMA vid site, updates regularly.

Slideyfoots great BJJ club map of the UK

http://www.bullshido.com/ - Interesting, usefull and funny forum that is critical. Very good resources to be found here.

http://www.efnsports.com/forum/ - Very usefull forum for grappling in the UK and europe, especially if you want to know about upcoming comps

http://tapskillz.com/modules/newbb/ - Where I get most of my technique vids, free but you have to register.

http://www.geocities.com/global_training_report/arte_suave_index.htm - Amazing BJJ travel stories and history. Well worth reading.

http://www.myprotein.co.uk/ - Best supplement supplier in the UK I reckon, for price and quality.

http://www.jiujitsuforums.com/ - Another good forum, nice guys here and some good vids.

http://www.thedailyplate.com/ - Very usefull for looking at your diet and tracking it in good, easy to use detail.