It’s all a fractal. A fractal floorplan.

Lately I have had the same message presented to me in a couple different ways, but most clearly I’m getting it from Donald, one of the blackbelts at my academy and the instructor of our competition class.

That message is– in order to really make the most of your training time, you can’t just go in there and muck around rolling aimlessly. (Ahem. That’s me. For reals.) You have to pick a position… see how people react to it… catalog all the possible counters or reactions you observe… then craft responses to all of those. And then so on.

I inadvertently did this as a baby jitsuka when people would go for an americana then try to armbar my other arm. After I’d been caught in that about 80 million times, I realized that I was overcommitting to the defense. If I just barely got my americana arm out of danger but always kept an eye on my other arm, I could switch back to defending the second arm effectively. (Also helps to have short little T-rex arms. I know.) Ridiculously oversimplified analogy, but you get the point.

So now I’m happily marching in there with my crappy standing open guard pass game and I’m going to take it apart. I feel like forever I was incapable of doing this more rigorous and more efficient type of training because I felt like I didn’t know how I was getting to any one position, and I couldn’t be sure of what to do after it. Now, I have at least a basic conception of a few ways to get to that standing position, a few ways to pass that guard, a few basic ways people are thwarting* me there, and when thwarted, a few ways to move on. Since I have the back door and the front door covered, I feel a little better about starting to draw a floorplan of the middle. And ideally, someday soon, I’ll be able to turn off the lights and make my way throughout the house without banging into anything.

It’s kind of like a fractal too– my mental image of choice– because you see the big picture taking a particular shape, but the closer in you get and the tighter your focus, the more you see that particular shape repeated in varying ways.

Ooh. I’m all analogical today

*I actually spent a minute or two trying to conceptualize the spelling of the gerund form of “stymie” until I said hell with it, I’ll say “thwarting” instead.

All right, some pretty to go with the philosophical ramblings of someone sadly deprived of more than one training session today. DAMN THESE WORK DEADLINES

It’s fellow Black Eagle Oli Geddes in the Milano Challenge, Absolute finals. I think it’s the Reis pass around 3:45.. a teensy halfguard sweep.. some deep half… and a tricky kneebar finish. Yum.

Oh, and another small person, but way better than me– Caio Terra… doing a butterfly pass to backtake. It’s a nifty counter to this sweep that Dan Dau is always killing me with. Thanks David, at Kirsch’s Korner, for piquing my interest in this today.

And some Caio spider madness.

New Friends … no, not on facebook.

It’s great to be back into the rhythms of a normal training week. I had my first night back at my school last night, and enjoyed it immensely. Two visitors arrived from the UK for training (Mark and Roger from Fighting Fit Martial Arts in the Cotswalds) and another coming from South Africa on the weekend (Marc Hebert).
I think there are a lot of benefits to be gleaned from travelling abroad for training; the distractions of daily life are cut to a minimum – there is a greater appreciation of the things learned (perhaps due to the massive effort involved in learning those things) – there are new training partners to help ‘pressure test’ your game – plus of course, the fact that being in a new environment helps to see things from a new perspective.
I often have guests travelling to my home town of Geelong from far away – and it is always a pleasure to have them in the class. I meet a lot of people in the work that I do and have built some rock-solid friendships over the years; perhaps one of the most rewarding things about martial arts training is the opportunities that it provides for us to connect strongly to people from different walks of life and different parts of the world – the kinds of people that perhaps, in the course of our normal lives, we would not usually get to know or befriend. Nice.
JBW

Wanna be hungry?

You think I get nutty about food… read THIS at Rock My Palate.

Say a prayer for Ashley, Ella and Harrison…

Ashley is my sister-in-law (my husband’s brother’s wife) and she had an emergency Caesarian last Thursday to deliver her twins, Ella and Harrison.  There were serious blood pressure and blood flow issues, so the babies had to be delivered at only 26 weeks.  Each baby weighs less than two pounds.

This is Ashley holding Ella’s hand.

The babies are on ventilators and have a long way to go.  Please, send good thoughts of healing their way, and of support to John, their daddy, and their siblings Bryan and Sarah.

Thanks.

How to defend a grab and punch in a fight

How to defend a grab and punch – a Responses to Common Attacks

Gracie Insider September 07 Technique Of Month Armlock Guard

Ryron and Rener Gracie From the Gracie Jiu Jitsu Academy in Torrance, CA demonstrate how to effectively apply an armlock from the guard. This video is brought to you by the "Gracie Insider" the official newsletter for the Gracie Family. For …

07/12/2010 – BJJ (Advanced)

Class #366
RGA High Wycombe, (BJJ), Kev Capel, High Wycombe, UK – 07/12/2010

Next up was the running escape itself, although rather than the one I keep trying, this was the version from Saulo’s first DVD, where he doesn’t take that break in the middle of the technique. When your partner has near side grips, to escape side control, you begin by bumping, then turning to your side and getting your hand past their shoulder. In one motion, step out with your bottom leg, then quickly turn and bring the other leg over the top, spinning to your knees.

Also, don’t elbow your partner in the face. I pushed off the shoulder with my hand when drilling this, but smacked him hard in the jaw in the process (sorry Howard). Not clever, and doing that definitely isn’t going to endear you to your training partners. Not to mention that watching Kev show it again, he doesn’t actually push off the shoulder, but punches his arm straight through instead.

The risk with that technique, as I’ve always found whenever I’ve tried to turn, is that there is a chance your partner is going to take the back. Kev showed us how to do this next, using Marcelo Garcia as an example: this is one of Garcia’s signature moves. The way Garcia does is to get a sort of harness grip with his arms – ‘backpack’, I think Kev called it – then gradually work them onto their side. Kev went for a simpler version, without that grip, but the principle is the same.

As soon as they start to turn away from you, slide your leg underneath them to establish your initial hook, then swing over to take the back. The problem here is that it is tempting to immediately try and swing over their body with the far hook, by which point they’ll probably have turned too far and escaped already. I kept doing that in drilling: the key is to force yourself to establish that near hook first. Something to work on.

Sparring started from side control, but kept on going after that, so was free rather than specific. With Howard, I was yet again getting into that running escape position: as you can see in the picture on the right, it acts as a sort of stopping point, so you aren’t swinging straight through this time. However, for me that seems to mean I passively curl up and wait. I was having difficult progressing to the next stage, bridging forward off the lower leg and spinning to guard.

On the other hand, I was pleased that at one point, I was able to switch my hips up then roll over, like Saulo shows in the second series, and Kev drilled last week. Not that it went as smoothly as I planned, because I seemed to end up in half guard, but still, that’s the closest I’ve got to successfully executing the running escape. I also need to watch them getting body control with their arm: Saulo does show a sort of sit up and spin response to that, but I’m going to need more practice to get that right.

With Kev, it was as usual a good steady pace, where he let me work. Due to the way Kev goes light, I often find myself in open guard, which isn’t common for me when sparring higher belts: with Howard, I think I spent almost the entire spar defending under side control, which is entirely typical. So although Kev’s intention was to see what I’d do, I was basically just staring at him from open guard, switching grips with my arms and legs.

Kev mentioned afterwards that my sparring isn’t too bad in terms of guard retention and hip movement, and I’m getting to the right positions. However, I’m not actually doing anything when I get there, so I need to attack more. This has been a long term problem, as I’m pretty much 100% defensive. I’m not sure if that is because I’m lazy and don’t want to take risks, I’m not used to being in position to attack, or that I simply don’t know what to do from there. Either way, it’s a good reminder to make proper use of open guard, instead of just assuming I’m going to get passed at some point anyway.

I did try that reverse De La Riva sweep again, where you push into their knee with both your legs, but as I spun to hook the other leg, I lost the grip with my first hand. Kev suggested that I could try gripping differently, so that my hand wraps around the inside of their ankle and heel, rather than the usual hold around the outside. That could help twist their leg outwards and put them off-balance. At the same time, I’d want to be careful with that, as I don’t want to tweak anyone’s knee.

He also mentioned I could use sitting guard, which is handy as they taught a lot of that while I was at Gracie Barra Birmingham (it’s De La Riva, but when you’ve sat up by their leg, pressing your foot into the other one). I find it difficult to keep the tension in that pressing leg, but it would combine well with the reverse De La Riva stuff I’ve been playing with. There is deep half guard too, though I still find that really confusing. Nevertheless, that could work well with the sitting guard sweep where you spin underneath.

[Comment]

07/12/2010 – BJJ (Beginner)

Class #365
RGA High Wycombe, (BJJ), Kev Capel, High Wycombe, UK – 07/12/2010

All about side control escapes tonight, which was ideal for me given I’ve been playing with the running escape. Kev started off with the basic escape to the knees, which I still hardly ever do. Howard gave me a handy tip on shrimping twice to thread the leg through more effectively: I frequently find I end up with crap posture when I try to go to knees, so just get flattened.

Kev’s aim for this one wasn’t to single leg and move to the top. If you have your head on one side and raise your leg on the other, you can slide your other leg in to replace butterfly guard. If you have your head and leg on the same side, you can make space by driving your elbow backwards against their arm, then kick your other leg through and spin to their back (a wrestler’s sit-out).

On top, Kev demonstrated a method of maintaining side control, by switching to the other side when they try to escape. They’re attempting to do that same escape, swimming their arm through. As soon as they do that, thread your arm under theirs (known as a whizzer), reaching through with your hand so you can push on the back of their head (no their neck, as that isn’t so controlling a grip). Keeping your weight down, follow them round, moving to the other side. Even if they get to their knees, this hold is sufficiently strong that you should still be able to move around to the other side, rolling them onto their back.

Another more difficult option is to go against your instinct, and turn your bum towards them as they try that escape and you establish the whizzer, meaning, you end up sitting on them. From there, you can either bring your leg through past their head and look for the triangle, or possibly set up an armbar, due to the control you have on their arm. I felt vulnerable in terms of balance and it felt like I was leaving a lot of space, but then Kev does this to me all the time, so I guess it’s a matter of practice to get the sensitivity and timing.

Sparring was of course specific from side control. As ever, I was giving the running escape a go again, but I am still finding that I end up just settling into the position and then struggling to move anywhere. I was generally not being too proactive under side control, going flat on my back too often.

I’m also still tending to do silly things like look for the armbar or triangle from under there, which is particularly foolish against other blues. I did get to half guard once, but I’m pretty sure Howard could have got back to side control if we’d kept going: I always find it tough to fully establish guard when escaping his side control.

On top, I was trying to drop my weight and go high on the shoulder, to see if I could sneak my way into that step-over triangle position. A couple of times, I noticed that I could slide into mount due to all the space, but that almost feels like cheating when doing specific side control sparring. That’s because in the specific setting, if you spend a lot of time working high on their shoulder, they start to forget about the possibility of mount so you can sneak it in. I should be taking the opportunity to practice more control in side control and attacks.

Or at least that’s how I felt, which was possibly a bit silly. Probably also affected by the fact I really don’t like being in mount (which is definitely silly, as that is supposed to be a major dominant position, not a place to avoid!), as I’m far more comfortable attacking from side control. So on the other hand, good to practice getting to mount as well.

I also had a go at that control Kev showed by threading the arm, although I went too low, holding the neck rather than behind the head. That meant Howard could get to his knees and reverse, because my grip was too weak. Still, I like the concept, so I’m going to try and use it more often in future: just need to make sure I’m going higher, so controlling the head like a muay thai plum clinch, not the neck.

[Comment]

Vale-tudo Takedowns For Mixed Martial Arts 1

A second example from the World Martial Art’s Vale Tudo Takedowns, Darrell Gholar demonstrates proper takedown offense and takedown defense techniques as taught by him to the Brazilian Top Team. Known as a premier takedown coach with a vast wrestling b…

Parabens Jonathan Brookins!