Class #213

Roger Gracie Academy Kilburn (BJJ), Jude Samuel, London, UK – 30/03/2009 – Beginner

I had an interesting chat with Bryan Hogeveen this weekend, a name Fightworks Podcast listeners might recognise from his interview a while back. If you missed that episode, Bryan is an academic currently conducting a BJJ study, for which he’s asking people to fill in a survey (one for women and one for men).

Bryan is also looking to interview those who are willing to give a bit more time. I love talking about BJJ, so I was happy to get the chance to babble at length (like I mentioned during the conversation, this is ideal for bloggers, who are always looking to share their thoughts about BJJ anyway). It doesn’t matter if you’re nowhere near Canada, where Bryan is based, as he’ll phone you from his university. It sounds like a great project, so definitely deserving of your support: for further details, check out Bryan’s blog.

On a different topic, it looks as if Eddie Bravo is gearing up to follow in the Gracie Academy’s footsteps, with his own version of online training, complete with the ability to gain rank through video. It should make for a revealing comparison with the Gracie University: I’m particularly intrigued as to whether or not Bravo manages to avoid the criticism Gracie University has received (which I listed back here). I’ve long thought that the Gracie Academy and Bravo have a lot in common, given that they both rely on sometimes controversial marketing to maintain their reputation, rather than major current competitive success (as opposed to, say, Gracie Barra with Roger Gracie, Alliance with Cobrinha or Gracie Humaitá with Xande Ribeiro, to cite just a few examples from those powerhouse teams).

Also, just noticed as I was writing this that Oli G, the undisputed king of competing at every competition ever, has set up a swish looking new site to showcase his competition videos. Check it out here.

Jude focused on chokes for tonight’s session. First the basic rear naked choke. Put your arm around their neck, pressing the bony part of your forearm into their throat. Grab the bicep of your other arm, making sure not to bring the bicep arm out straight (otherwise they could potentially grip your wrist and submit you, using their shoulder to bend your arm the wrong way). Finally, the hand of the bicep arm goes to the back of their head, then you squeeze their neck between your two arms.

The RNC was followed by a lapel choke. From rear mount, reach over their shoulder and grab deep in their collar. Your other hand comes under their armpit and grabs the other collar. To finish, straighten out your arms, pushing forward and thereby squeezing your partner’s neck between their lapels.

Finally, Jude went through the clock choke. This is similar to the lapel choke, except that it is applied when your partner is turtled up, and the execution is with your bodyweight rather than pulling on the collars. Once you have the grip on their lapels, drop your weight onto their neck, staying tight. In order to secure your base, put your forehead to the floor on the other side, then slowly walk round, one leg at a time, starting with the bottom leg. Your legs are acting as the hands of a clock, hence the name.

In guard passage, I kept trying the Saulo guard break without much success: still not controlling the hips well enough, which I think continues to be my main problem in somebody else’s guard. I also tried standing guard breaks, getting to my feet while holding their sleeve, but need more work on establishing base and being careful with my legs, avoiding sweeps.

Underneath, I again attempted the combination of handstand sweep with star sweep. Swinging both legs to the same side works ok, but I’m not staying close enough to the leg. I need to knock them off balance by getting in tight to their thigh. At the moment, I’m leaving too much space, which is why last week I basically ended up under side control, while this week Rich caught me in a randomly positioned armbar.

Another thing I wanted to work today was replacing full guard from half guard. My aim was to grab their shoulder and leg, then get my same side leg under their knee, while the other foot trapped their calf. I’d then lift them up and drop them back into full guard. However, the problem was firstly getting that foot under their knee: can be awkward depending on how I’ve locked the half-guard. I’m also not getting a good grip on the arm, and when trying to grab onto the knee, my arm is too loose.

When sparring with one of the white belts, that meant I was sitting there working my way of an Americana from much of the spar. Fortunately for me, they didn’t know how to finish it, but that’s the only thing that meant I was able to avoid the submission. So much like last lesson, I was underneath a white belt in half-guard, though at least this time, I was working towards something specific.

It was good to see John there, who is a purple belt that weighs the same as me. I’ve sparred with him once before, back at RGA HQ: hopefully he’ll be at Jude’s regularly. He had lots of advice, such as trying Saulo’s running escape under side control. I had thought that was only useful for when they had both arms on the near side of your body, but John mentioned that you could often direct their arm to where you wanted. Gave it a try in sparring and it worked ok, though obviously John was letting me have it (he took on an instructor role for everyone he sparred with: IIRC, though he’s still a purple, he’s been training for a looooong time).

Finished off class by buying myself one of the snazzy new RGA branded t-shirts. I’ve generally avoided buying stuff, given continuing lack of job, but as its almost my birthday, I thought I’d treat myself.

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All content copyright ©2004-2009 by Can Sönmez


Reviews, History, Beginner FAQ

Hey guys
The past few weeks we have been working on guard passing.
In my opinion the easiest / safest way to pass guard in BJJ is through standing.
By standing it eliminates many submission set ups, you just have to be careful of being swept.

Here is a video I made a while ago showing some of the passes

Cheers guys i’ll see you next week

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 ).

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”.

Congratulations to all the Street Sports athletes that competed on day 1 of the Pan Americans this year. We didn’t bring home any medals the first day, but we did give ‘em hell!!!

Congrats to: Charles Martone, Eric Luchtemberg, Michael Ripberger, Ruben Lomeli, and Roberto Zeinum.

Special thanks to John Lamonica for sponsoring our team and for taking these very unbelievable photos!

Charles Martone

Eric Luchtemberg

Michael Ripberger

Because I could not compete due to injury, I decided to go every day to watch and observe any trends I noticed for this year in competition. The worst part was when they called my name and I was getting DQ’ed. My heart was thumping, I felt like I was dying. Like I let myself down really bad and maybe I could borrow a gi and compete. But as a wise friend told me, its not worth the training I would miss, and there will be other Pan Ams.

Oh don’t ask me about white belt trends. I didn’t even watch any white belt fights.

Blue Belt

A lot of the better guys would tug on their opponents gi relentlessly with their lead hand and then pull guard which would off balance their opponent and the guy would bend at the waist so they could get complete closed guard. Because of the grip and pull on the collar, their posture is broken so unless they want to get armbarred, the top guy would fall to his knees and start the match, but down on both knees. Not with his knees up AKA combat base. And because of the tugging and the grip on the collar, they land with their head down. A bad way to start and normally the bottom guy won.

The number one finish was triangle. Meaning the guy who pulled guard in the manner explained above was normally able to win by triangle. I saw very few rear chokes or armbars. I think because the triangle itself is like a closed guard position, easier to maintain and control where as with armbars from bottom, they can’t just lock their legs up and control and wait. It’s not even adviseable to cross your feet from the bottom anyhow, so a harder squeeze to learn. Reminded me of wrestling. Win by points or pin, triangle being the pin.

I saw blue belts grab a grip and get married to it. No improvements on grips to better grips.

Blue belts tried the same passes over and over. So a lot of them got caught with the same sweeps and submission over and over until they got eventually swept or finished.

Saw a lot of the bottom guys win.

I saw bottom guys attempting sweeps or off balance to the side, top guy basing and squaring up then getting triangled. A lot of times these sweeps to triangles happened because the top guy tried to pass with no grips. Just barge through which may work in training against partners who don’t roll at competition intensity.

Saw hard time controlling posture or not controlling posture at all, just going for sweeps or subs.

Bottom man not sitting up so their head is even with the top man’s head to threaten chokes.

Loose over under passes that either led back to guard or triangles.

Not enough hip pressure or control of the hips.

Saw wrestlers get desperate even though they were winning and getting tapped in the final seconds.

In the later rounds to the finals

A lot more takedown attempts. More of the throwers advanced, or they wanted to rack up points early with a takedown.

A lot of tugging on the collar to keep their posture broken from stand up like I mentioned before but now to stop them from pulling guard. Which is unlike Judo where they both are standing up straight. Pulling to ankle picks or pulling to drog seionage.

I saw a guy try to jump guard and the other guy foot swept him in midair to get the takedown. A lot of times when the guy tries to pull guard if you shove him with your power grip or control grip and he goes down, you will get the takedown points.

If you do get taken down and are hold a guillotine or a choke and stand back up, it will not count as a takedown.

A lot of sidemount control.

Inability to finish the armbar from the bottom due to the legs being crossed or not sweeping.

Too much gaps and air holes in the grip.

A lack of a lot of good takedowns or gi wrestling.

Purple Belt

Lots of takedowns. Dynamic fights from all positions.

Use of spider guard, De La Riva and sleeve controls.

Better posture control.

Still lots of triangles but now the sets ups are less scrambly. Lot of climbing the leg up the back and keeping their posture down and staying tight. Either to armbar or triangle

De La Riva sweep attempt to triangles.

Employment of cross faces. Top man used it to keep the bottom man’s face turned so they could not bridge or hip escape. Kept the bottom man’s back flat, bottom man tried to get onto his side.

Using the choke to set up moves. More head and neck control.

More mounts, knee on belly. More point play.

Utilization of half guard effectively.

Pulling out of the lapels of your opponent from the back for better grips, and grip improvement.

Getting inside control and inside grips. Breaking of the opponent’s grips.

Dynamic guard passing, acrobatic jumps. Especially from the Brazilians.

A much higher level of conditioning.

Brown Belt

Instead of passing right away or the bottom guy allowing the pass. A lot of the passes happened from half guard, either inititated by the top guy to half guard to pass, or the bottom man pulling half guard.

Saw choking combinations. Baseball to brabo to baseball to brabo.

Lots of kneebar finishes when the guy tries to take the back.

More refined gi wrestling. Lots of stand up play. If there was a guard pull, it was after a lot of stand up and realizing they were not going to get the takedown.

Black Belt

Black belts take care, take time, and cultivate their grips like expert gardeners eliminating all gaps and air holes. Like grap a sleeve grip and over time work it to a tight handle bar grip completely pinched tight around the opponents wrist. Or grabbing the collar, to a grip over the back to a grip of their opposite lapel over the back.

Control of the pant legs.

Not extending the leg while standing in their guard, keeping leg bent and outside of their guard to always land in combat base or prevent sweeps and leg locks.

Constant grip fighting and maintaning of grips. Hardly ever does a black belt not have a grip on their opponent. Not allowing opponent to get a grip on you and breaking grips.

Instead of turtling, they would roll to inverted and upside guard. Sometimes executing a helicopter sweep.

Loose rules and play of the Cobrinha/heel hook guard. Once they get stuck in this 50/50 position, they spend most of the match here which gets boring and very little points are scored.

Momentum sweeps. Where someone is initiating a sweep or takedown and gets swept or reversed. More constant fighting to stop allowing points or get your points back.

Saw someone go from one half guard sweep from the knees creating a dog fight attemping old school, to swinging under to sweep the other way.

Lots of transitional positions like reverse mounts.

Leg locks to sweep to leg locks.

Lots of good leg work aka Leg Fu, turning and switching of hips, matador style movements.

Sprawling to stop the takedown and free legs, then pulling guard to keep score 0-0.

Deep half guard play, Staying tight and turning in and away. Top guy jumping over to reverse half guard or clearing their head or attacking armbar or kimura.

Saw no kimuras. Lots of rear chokes and collar chokes.

Patient in all positions.

Black belt pressure as opposed to purple and brown relentlessness. More of a constant pressure.

Use of the knee and shin as wedges to cut the pressure.

Passing by pinning the opponents hips or legs or knees and running around or reaching the far collar and stabilizing and passing.

And old black belts are still tough!

The subject of the ‘BJJ Federation’ has been on my mind since the end of 2008 with the introduction of the BJJFP and JJFCN (Philippines & China respectively). With this new representative body comes interest over how this will affect the scene. So from the time of their announcement, I’ve done my best to get in touch with the powers that be to find the answers. The most responsive has been Stephen Kamphuis, director of the BJJFP, a Fabricio Martin’s black-belt and head instructor at KMA fitness ‘Team Fabricio’. The organizer of some the largest tournaments in Asia outside of Japan, Mr. Kamphuis has been very open about what the federation looks to accomplish in the short and long-term.

GENERAL BENEFITS:
• Competitions will be officially recognized by the IBJJF and will endorse National titles.
• Belt levels, Schools and Instructors will be identified and recognized to ensure authenticity
and promote the integrity of its participants.
• Having been recognized by the federation, competing internationally will become easier as your rank/school will already be authenticated.
• As a unified body the community will have a voice on the international level and greater access to sponsorship and public awareness.
• Training of officials, supporting-staff and unification of tournament rules.
• Centralized co-ordination of the sport, websites, news and results…and sponsorship for competitions which help lower the organizational costs and could provide more prices/awards to competitors.

Below are a few questions I sent to Mr. Kamphuis and his response. I’ve added some additional questions after the first set of replies to further explain on each topic.

1. How many levels does the IBJJF recognize and what are the powers of each?
IBJJF and CBJJF are the head Federations and run the sport on all Levels. Each of the other Federations are in place to promote, organize and propagate the sport at the local level. We would be the smallest Federation in this group.

1.1 As the smallest federation what are some of the responsibilities we must meet? Is there any quota to the number of registered competitors, schools and black-belts?
No, this is a medium term process we have this year to set up the systems whcih are issuing: ID cards, compiling grades per registration cards and registering schools.

2. What are the requirements for a team to be recognized by the federation? black-belt instructor?
Each team should be under a Black belt, whose own lineage can be traced back to the Arts Founders. Black belts need to be issued by 2nd Degree Black belts and above only.

2.1 For teams that do not have a black-belt instructor, what are their options? Does this situation force would-be competitors to switch teams/schools in order to compete? Would there be any program to have a blanket school to include students that do not have a head black-belt instructor?
The instructor teaching does not need to be a black-belt but the school itself and the teacher should have an affiliation to a black-belt. Otherwise, who can recognize grades and on whose behalf are they made. You could have situations where people start to grading themselves. Basically it identitifies authentic BJJ schools otherwise anyone can call themselves a BJJ instructor. This protects the sport and ensures that students who have worked hard for their grades are recognized and are protected. There have been situations where students enroll thinking that their instructor who is wearing a black-belt, find out later he is not really a BJJ black-belt.

3. How does this effect teams outside of PH coming to compete?
We welcome all competitors. There are no restrictions for players to compete in the Philippines.

3.1 Since the scene and federation is still growing, there is no restriction for competitors outside of the Philippines to compete. But in the case that one would like to compete in Japan or the US, they would need to have authentication by the IBJJF and or it’s partnering groups?
Yes, BJJFP is recognized and affiliated to IBJJF.

4. Does the card give access to other major tournaments in Japan or US?
BJJFP ( Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Federation of the Philippines ) can issue ID cards to its members which are accredited to IBJJF and the other Federations, this will ensure the ranks and teams from the Philippines are recognized.

4.1 Understanding that such an organization needs financial support, what does it cost to the school & to its students to be a member? I know in Japan there is issue between the JJFJ & BJJFJ where one is free and the other is not. How do we balance this concern to discourage the splitting of the community and the formation of multiple federations/associations?
There are three federations in Japan. The small fee that we charge which is about $10 USD and the limited number who take up the card in reality do not support the operational costs of a federation or the associated costs that go into website development and maintenance, competition equipment, poseters, banners, refs, shirts, etc. Basically it barely covers the cost to issue an ID card. In Japan, only one federation is recognized by IBJJF

What we are looking for is recognition and endorsement from IBJJF which we have for the competitions held here such as the Pan Asians, The Philippine Open, the National Championships (which determine national Champions), protection of the sport and recognition of the schools, students and their grades in the Philippines.

Once a federation is in place you do not have to go to an IBJJF comp from say the Philippineas and try to prove your grade or have to affiliate to another school, the process is already in place. If you look at it from the IBJJF perspective it is much easier to work with a federation than a group of individuals, any changes ro rules, grades and reff training programs can be implemented for and on their behalf.

>>>
I want to thank Mr. Kamphuis for taking the time to answer our questions at BJJ-ASIA. I hope this starts some healthy dialogue for those that are interested in knowing more and how they can take part in the positive growth of BJJ in the Philippines and SEA as a whole. -Luke

For the 40th OJJ event, Ide-san invited Koji Komuro-sensei (Komlock!) for a special five hour long seminar of Judorific newaza techniques.
This was hands down the largest gathering of OJJ easy. To give an idea of just how large, in the room, where we usual hold OJJ, the Judo mats took up the entire [...]

When asked this question, most BJJ practitioners I know, would probably answer ‘no’. Advanced, secret, cool, hot-off-the-press techniques – oh yes; that’s an easy one – but basics – ummm. Kind of boring right? Well, before you answer that question – I would like you all to consider this …
What if I asked you whether you wanted to eat spaghetti for dinner tonight? A pretty simple question – one that I bet all of you could answer without to much need for consideration. But let me pose a few more questions – (fear not – I do have a point) – was you IMAGINED spaghetti straight out of a can as you slumped on the couch watching Seinfeld; or was it a plate of angel hair pasta served up in the best restaurant in Tuscany, with the love of your life sitting across from you; or was it a hot and hearty plate of rosemary and basil pasta accompanied by a glass of your favourite beverage?
Whatever it was that you initially imagined, when I posed the question ‘do you want spaghetti for dinner tonight – I can probably safely bet that your mind leapt straight to n answer, and didn’t consider the infinite number of possibilities of how this spaghetti dinner could be presented.
And so it is the case when presented with the question on whether you would want to devote an entire day to the practice of BJJ basics. If you have been training for a while, you probably have a skewed idea/picture of what basics consist of. But that’s – like the spaghetti problem – just one single point of view. What if when I say ‘basics’, I am referring to the ten most important and game-changing concepts that someone like Rigan Machado considers to be the foundation of high-level Jiu Jitsu – would that change your mind? One would hope it would.
I love studying and training the ‘basics’. After all, the basics, from a total novices point of view, and the basics from the virtuoso’s point of view – may be more than a little different. I love looking deeper – rather than broader. Remember, the virtuoso’s of the world are doing things, and sometimes (understanding things), that others are not. They have become masters of nuance – masters of the basics – when asked if they want to eat spaghetti for dinner – it’s worth pondering the possibilities.

JBW

I did the gi class sunday, which was awesome…but I should have done both as Big Dawg ran no-gi with only two guys…so they basically got a free private class.

Gi was well worth it with the oft mentioned, and much appreciated Mr. Hyde.

We started off class with HIIT sprints. We haven’t really sprinted much (if at all) since the Arnolds. This was no joke and I was pretty wasted after the 10 minute cycle. Hyde then of course did his deranged chain of inhumane strength drills that make you want to cry. Good times!

We worked triangle drills for a while, before getting to Hydes meat for the day: the turtle guard. We started with some drills, playing around in the turtle position…moving around, getting a grasp of where to put your grips and where to move (never behind the guy).

The Man-Beast then showed some escape techniques for us to practice….the roll out to full guard, the shrip out to half guard//underhook, and finally his patented rolling straight armlock. We got ample time to work these out with Mr. Hyde pacing the room, making subtle corrections to everyone.

Raw-Hyde then showed us a good offensive move for breaking down the turtle. You grap the very back of their collar and their far side gi pant by the ankle. You stand up and brace their body with your knee. You then roll the over their shoulder by you. Hyde said he learned this at JG’s school in Cincinnatti, and this guy that showed it was 5’3″ and 200 lbs of raw muscle…and that he pretty much cleaned and jerked guys! I wasn’t QUITE that impressive when trying it on Mark Thesz, but thought it was a good move that I want to play with.

I haven’t posted in a bit as I have been preoccupied with my JiuJitsu365 Twitter Page.
But to recap these past few weeks I have been attending class once a week on Fridays. Due to a hyperactive schedule this past month as well as battling minor injuries I decided to limit my participation until Spring Break. 
Well [...]