My pals Seph Smith and Jen Flannery got their brown and purple belts, respectively, from Felipe Costa last night! I spoke with Seph very briefly, and he was incoherent from the brutal hour of rolling with maybe 30 different people. I’m sure Jen felt similarly. But these promotions were well-deserved; Jen has been placing in every competition she has entered this year, and Seph is a monster. A perfectly safe, friendly monster, but a monster nonetheless.
I’m very happy for them!
To Anonymous who asked about the Murph: I have done that workout 3 times, all as prescribed (so, run the mile, do all the pullups, do all the pushups, do all the squats). The first time was in the fall of 2007. I did the pushups from my knees and assisted pullups. It took me about 62 minutes. The second time I did it was maybe 6 months ago. I did the pushups from my toes and unassisted pullups. It took me about 60 minutes. The third time was Memorial Day, same as the second time. It took me about 58 minutes.
It is a grind. But it’s always fun to be done!
As for all the comments on the hero part of the post, thanks for those. I am still conflicted, but I am just going to continue doing what I’m doing and hope it shakes out for the best, for as many people as possible.
Rodrigo had us working more on passing the guard today. There were three variations:Version One:1. Open the guard from the wedge position, with one hand on the chest and one on the hip.2. Slide your left arm under the guy’s right leg and grab on to hi…
Nova Força Epsom (BJJ), Tim Radcliffe, Epsom, UK - 30/06/2009
I’ve had a few weeks off due to a bunch of job interviews (none of which came to anything, unfortunately: just have to keep plugging away, like the massive horde of other people applying for the same jobs…), so good to get back on the mats. Ricardo is in Brazil at the moment, so instead class was taken by his top student, brown belt Tim (who incidentally won yet another MMA fight recently).
Tim kicked off with a gi choke. Start by pulling one side of their gi out of their belt (if its already loose, so much the better), then feed it around their back to your other hand. Shift your torso to that side, then change hands. This frees up your first hand to grip whatever material you can on the back of their gi, still on the same side (if you try to grip on the other side, your partner is likely to see it coming and defend). Finally, bring that arm over their head whilst maintaining your grip, then bring your wrists up for the choke.
Next, Tim demonstrated a basic loop choke. Grab their opposite collar, with a deep grip. Break their posture by pulling that collar towards you, while also pushing their head down and to the side with your other hand. Next, slide that other hand across the back of their head and under your own elbow, hooking with the back of your hand. Finally, raise the elbow of your collar-gripping arm for the submission.
Rowan Cunningham, who puts out the best free BJJ videos on the net (unfortunately not the most famous, as the Abhaya vids aren’t heavily publicised or flashy), has a typically excellent demonstration up on YouTube, where he calls it an ‘encircled collar choke’. I first saw this choke when Aesopian put up the Abhaya vids, probably on Bullshido somewhere:
Tim mentioned as he was walking around that you need to be quick with this, so its something to spring on your opponent if you have a collar grip but see they aren’t defending their neck. Even if you don’t get the choke, you’re likely to still manage a sweep, as in order to avoid getting submitted they’ll probably have to roll out. You can simply follow them and end up in mount.
Sparring today put me mostly under side control, which is good as I always like to try and improve my escapes from there. As per Saulo’s advice (both in his book and DVD), I was concentrating on keeping my head stuck to the floor to prevent the cross-face, while also blocking their arm with my hand.
While I did ok getting that far into Saulo’s ’survival position’, I was rather less successful getting onto my side. I also wasn’t preventing the knee on belly too well, as usual, but I think I managed to use my elbow and knee as a barrier slightly better than last time. The difficulty is getting them properly locked together, with forearm to upper leg, rather than just touching elbow to knee.
From knee-on-belly, I also couldn’t avoid Mark’s choke, so must have done Simon’s defence wrong. I know you’re suppose to swim your arms in and turn towards them, but forgot which arm went where.
With one of the white belts, I managed to get to my knees from side control, but couldn’t then trap an arm in order to roll them. I was thinking about the wrestler’s sit-out too, but didn’t feel I had the space to get free: as their arm was ready to look for chokes, my neck felt exposed. In retrospect, I probably should have been less hesitant and just gone for something, as eventually I tried to spin to guard as they left some space, which merely landed me back under side control.
My last spar was against somebody fairly new, so I had a chance to play around with triangles. I’m still missing lots of important details, like proper head control, so even as a noobie they were able to slip out, but it was nice to confirm the ‘trigger’ position Ryan Hall talks about. Whenever somebody is trying to open your guard by driving their elbow into your thigh, you can open your guard and cause them to lean to one side. This leaves your partner vulnerable to the triangle, as you can now fling your leg over that arm and to their neck, locking your other leg in place.
I mentioned last week that I finally got a chance to watch the finished documentary film on MMA directed, filmed and edited by my friend, Matthew Hickney. I love all sorts of movies… even the occasional chick flick with my wife. Now, to be clear, I h…
One of the hardest things about learning bjj is that there are no clear cut answers. 2+2 does not equal 4. In most cases, 2+ 2 = “it depends”. This is the beauty of our art, but also the challenge. Its depth is endless. It is a lifelong pursuit.
…
I pretty much want to crawl into a hole right now and never do jiu-jitsu again. I know everyone always wants to read inspirational stories but sometimes you aren’t going through an inspirational moment, you’re going through a shitty one.
I have wanted nothing to do with BJJ since returning from the Worlds. Sure I was sick as hell for the first two weeks, but even last week I only managed to half-ass it through positional sparring one single night. I hadn’t trained in 3 weeks and didn’t want to compete at GQ but was going to be needed to drive people home from it. Of course I couldn’t go up and NOT compete or I’d feel like a tool being that at this point I was perfectly healthy (even if out of shape and the heaviest I’ve been in months - I barely made weight and usually I’m 5 lbs under).
After an embarrassing half-ass display of semi-lazy jiu-jitsu and wanting to scream at anyone who complimented me since I knew inside that I hadn’t given it my all, I headed home very annoyed at myself. The last few times I’ve competed (with the exception of the Absolute division at the Worlds) have just been embarrassing displays. I’ve received lectures about my efforts and the fact that I am competing below my potential after each one. And admittedly, I deserved every lecture.
Being in this state, it is really hard to accept all the congratulations and well wishes for being promoted last night. I definitely appreciate all the kind words; it’s just hard to hear right now since I am so angry with myself after weeks and months of faltering physically and mentally. It will definitely be interesting to see my expressions in the photos from last night.
I really don’t want to do BJJ this week but will probably go in to roll with Felipe one more time before he leaves, as I know that I would be angry with myself in a month’s time if I missed the opportunity that I’ve been looking forward to for so long.
I had a great opportunity Sunday to train at Foster BJJ in Auburn, WA. James Foster is a black belt under Juliano Prado and was more than welcoming for a visiting white belt nobody. When I mentioned I was taking summer break to come up to the Seattle a…
Tonight Garth went over a high double leg takedown. First step is to change your level while keeping a quality athletic stance and good posture.
Next comes your penetration step. The key is to fire out with you lead foot while keeping the same level, no raise or drop. Then grab behind the knees.
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Ryan Hall is in Crystal Lake, IL this week to help MMA superstar Jeff “The Big Frog” Curran as he prepares to take on dangerous Japanese fighter, Tomohiko Hori, in XFO 34.
Coming off of a first round TKO of Dustin Neace at Strikeforce only 2 weeks ago, Jeff is looking to notch another victory and [...]
FORT BENNING, Ga. — The U.S. Army Combatives School has adopted a new teaching plan.
The Army is revamping the curriculum to take lessons learned from Iraq and Afghanistan and build more effective close-quarters fighters, said Matt Larsen, the school’s director. The goal is to push advanced techniques down to the small-unit level, including basic training.
Read [...]
Update from Spain: A wild turn of events ends with Ryan Hall taking the bronze medal at the Abu Dhabi Submission Wrestling World Championship!
Read on for more information…
Barcelona, Spain
9/27/09
After winning the ADCC West Coast qualifier in Carson, CA earlier this year, Ryan was invited to compete in the most prestigious no-gi grappling tournament in the [...]
As many of you are aware, 50/50 guard has come under fire recently from many in the Jiu-Jitsu community, in large part for its use in the Pan and Mundial tournaments as an attempted strategy to dethrone 4-time consecutive featherweight champion Rubens “Cobrinha” Charles. It has been hotly discussed and has [...]
World Martial Arts once again delivers the goods with the most highly anticipated DVD series in years, the 50/50 guard with Ryan Hall! This new guard position is so effective and dangerous to its unsuspecting opponent’s, that many competitions are now considering banning it all together!
Ryan Hall, one of the most active and successful Jiu-Jitsu [...]
