16/10/2008 – BJJ (Advanced)
Posted: 16/10/2008 Filed under: advanced class, BJJ, Brazilian jiu jitsu, clock choke, clock choke defence, Jude Samuel, London, Roger Gracie Academy Leave a commentClass #186
Roger Gracie Academy (BJJ), Jude Samuel, London, UK – 16/10/2008 – Advanced
Work has now apparently blocked a whole load of things that is going to make it slightly more annoying to update, like Google Docs (where I host my spreadsheet). Grr. Still, just means I need to remind myself when I get back home rather than doing it in my lunch break. Far more aggravating is that Google Reader doesn’t appear to function at work now, which means I miss out on reading through all those great blogs when eating soup. Blogger has issues too, meaning I can’t play with comments and the like. Hopefully its just a temporary thing. 😦
I had an interesting chat with Dean before the lesson, who seems to have thought really carefully about BJJ on a theoretical level. He was warming up with some solo drills to improve hip movement, and when I asked what he was doing, discussed how it was something he’d done at the Rickson class in Kent. The idea was to try and replicate the kind of positions and motions you encounter in BJJ: shifting your hips forward and side to side (escaping side control, sweeping etc), shimmying backwards on your shoulders (as if you’re being stacked) and the like.
He showed me the application, and like Tran yesterday, emphasised understanding the situation and moving with what your partner gives you: e.g., they’re in your open guard, you grab their elbows, pull them forward and roll to sweep (not quite sure exactly what he did, but looked effective). That conceptual focus makes me want to take a good look at the various drill videos on The Grapplers Guide, so I can try them out on Sunday.
Class today was based around the clock choke. First, Jude showed us the straightforward clock choke from the back, where your partner has turtled up. Reach under their same side armpit with your far arm and open up their same side collar. Feed that to your other hand, after you’ve reached over their other arm to get it into position. With your far side arm, switch to either their same side wrist, or the opposite collar.
Keeping your weight down, walk your legs around to their far side, also posting your head on the floor and pull on their collar. Eventually this should result in a choke. Alternately, you could also switch your hips and walk through that way, if you don’t want to use your head (Alex, one of the brown belts, prefers this method, apparently).
A variation on the clock choke crops up if they try to defend by turning their head into you and moving to their side. Having secured your grips, step over to their far side, then complete their turn and roll them over. However, you don’t want to stay underneath them, but instead come up on their other side, using the foot you rolled them with to establish a hook on their body. Shift back, so that you can sit up and grab their leg with your free arm. Finally, get your free knee out and up, so that you can press it behind their head. To get the choke, pull on their collar and trouser leg, simultaneously pushing with your knee.
Jude followed that up with a defence against the clock choke, but I didn’t actually get a chance to drill it, because we ran over on the previous technique (think we must have forgotten to switch or something). However, IIRC from observation, you turn your head, trap their leg into half-guard, then grab their other leg with your arm to roll them over and end up on top. Very possible I’ve got that either mixed up or missed out lots of important details, but I think that was the gist of it.
Sparring from that position, I found that when I was going for the choke, I kept on coming up on the wrong side, so couldn’t get my knee to their head or grab their leg. Underneath, I was just about able to escape by snatching half-guard, although I had to scramble to chase after my partner’s legs as they walked round for the clock choke.
With Tran, I couldn’t do anything at all when attacking, but defending felt much as usual, as I always end up either under mount or back mount when sparring Tran anyway. I noticed after that spar the strain defending back mount puts on my knees, which I presume means I’m using my knees too much, rather than concentrating on good hip movement. Always worrying when the knees get a bit battered, as I’m told injuries to the kneecap take ages to heal, and may not recover fully.
My first free spar, with Yas, proved similar, as I again found myself defending for much of it. Like with Tran, I worked on getting my hands into her arm to prevent a choke, then gradually turning after establishing some kind of half-guard to return ideally to either guard, or at least under mount. I found it difficult to get any kind of open guard when she stood up and moved round: I’ve got about four sweeps I want to work on from open guard, but those may have to wait until Sunday to get some proper drilling in.
Next I rolled with Helen, where I was underneath half guard for much of it, along with knee-on-belly. I struggle to escape the latter position, normally aiming to shrimp and try to trap a leg, but its rarely effective: escapes tend to occur when the person on top tries something and leaves enough space. Helen’s tips for escaping knee-on-belly were basically to get on your side. She also described some kind of sweep, where you reach up around their knee and grab behind them, holding onto their belt, using that for leverage.
I finished off by going with Tran a second time: although it was a free spar rather than specific now, same thing happened, as I defended under back mount. I eventually managed to roll to under mount, and at one point got the Tran side control escape on the man who’d shown it to me originally, which made him smile (although he reversed me back under his mount almost immediately). I’m tending to defend chokes by getting my knuckles in the way and pushing back: still not entirely sure about the viability of that defence, as it seems a bit cheap and sloppy.
Looking forward to Sunday drilling, so hopefully the landlord is going to contact me at some point. I’ve had a couple of missed calls from a private number (which frustratingly means I can’t call it back), each time when I’ve either been in the Tube or training. If I don’t hear from them on Friday, I’ll try ringing on Saturday to make sure they know when I’m in (as they only live a short distance away). Definitely don’t want to miss out on my Sunday drilling!
06/12/06 – BJJ
Posted: 06/12/2006 Filed under: beginners class, BJJ, Brazilian jiu jitsu, choke from the back, clock choke, Jude Samuel, London, Roger Gracie Academy, takedown defence Leave a commentClass #10
Roger Gracie Academy (BJJ), Jude Samuel, London, UK – 06/12/2006
As you’d expect, Roger Gracie’s fight was up pretty swiftly after the event, defeating Waterman by armbar in the first round. Not bad for a debut, though I can’t say I currently count him as my instructor, given that I’ve yet to meet him. Still cool that he won, of course.
The Academy had a big banner up between the Brazil and England flags that are always there saying ‘Congratulations Roger!’, detailing the defeat of Waterman by submission in the first round below. Which was nice: apparently, he should be coming back to the UK in the not too distant future, possibly in time for the grading day on the 16th (not sure though). Also confirmed that as I’d hoped, ‘grading day’ simply means a bunch of people get their grades that day, rather than some weird formalised thing.
Jude ran the session today (maybe he normally runs it? I’ve only been to one Wednesday before this), though thankfully didn’t do the mega-fitness thing he seems to do on Saturday: already had a fairly decent workout yesterday at ZSK. Following the warm-up and drills on the hip throw and double-leg (I’m still sucking badly at that, though I think my hip throw is improving), Jude demonstrated how to counter a single/double leg takedown. Person A sprawls then manoeuvres around, thrusting their left knee into Person B’s left side. Person A also reaches round Person B’s head to grip their left collar with their right hand. Person A then switches their grip and opens up Person B’s left collar with their left hand, which enables Person A to sink their right hand deep into Person B’s collar. Person A then reaches under and secures Person B’s right collar with their left hand, pulling downwards to prepare what’s apparently called a clock choke. Keeping their weight pressed down on the middle of Person B’s back, Person A switches base by moving their right leg round to the left, walking round and tightening the choke for the submission. There is a variation on that in which instead of switching their base, Person A leans forward and over, aiming to get their head to the floor – this seemed to be a lot more difficult, as both I and my training partner Oli (not the blue belt, who I’ll refer to from now on as Oli G) had more trouble with it.
Jude then showed us a different option to choke from the back. Once Person B is on all fours, Person A moves round as before with the sprawl, but this time secures a grip on the back of Person B’s collar and lower down near their belt. Person A pushes down on Person B’s neck, then shoves their left knee into Person B’s left side, aiming to create space to sink a hook (which I think is the right term for wrapping the foot in round the opponent’s leg). Continuing to push down on the neck, Person A lifts their hips and swings their right leg over, securing the second hook on the other side. Person A shifts their grip to Person B’s right wrist (at least I think it was right), steadying themselves with their right hand. Using leverage from the hips and hooks, Person A pushes back with their legs in order to stretch out Person B.
Finally, Jude demonstrated what to do if Person B turned while Person A was trying to get a choke as in the previous movement. This turned out to be fairly simple, as Person A just did a rear naked choke from their back as Person B was lying with their back on top of them, or alternately the clock choke. Jude referred to the rear naked choke as a ‘mata leo’, which he later told us was Brazilian for ‘killing the lion’. Bizarre name, but at least I know what it means now. I’m familiar with the RNC from MMA classes a few years back – Person A wraps their right forearm around Person B’s neck, pressing in with the bony part. At the same time, Person A wraps their left arm behind Person B’s head, gripping the right bicep with the left hand and the left bicep with the right hand (depending on how much you can grip), then squeezes.
Class finished with the usual specific sparring focusing on guard passes and sweeps. As has been happening in the last few lessons, I mostly ended up in a stalemate with Oli, simply resisting or pass. He was able to pass me twice, but IIRC he didn’t sweep me – either way, I was unable to initiate anything from either position. Oli mentioned that I needed to work out the grips, which is something I haven’t been shown yet: that should certainly be useful once I get familiar with them, as at present I’m mainly just flailing and grabbing at random.
I also managed to accidentally kick Oli in the head while sloppily attempting an armbar from guard, but he seemed ok, so fortunately no damage done. I’m thinking a rash guard might be a wise purchase too, as I’m getting rashes on my bicep, and also Oli was tending to pinch my skin when looking for the clock choke during drilling. Will have to see if there is something suitably cheap for beginners available in the UK – IIRC, Underarmour was about £20. Really don’t care about brand, as long as its not going to fall apart on me within a few months.
Next session will be tomorrow, then it’s on to the Throwdown in Brighton at the weekend.
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