Class 56...

A tough class today but a very good one as it mainly involved exercises and drills about passing the guard.

We spent a lot of time on an exercise where the bottom man had to get a standing opponent into his guard or sweep him, while the standing man had to pass the man on the bottom's open guard then get into side control or full mount. The standing man's job was to bypass the man on the bottom's legs and, even though I knew to do this I needed leg control and I needed to make sure I operated at a safe distance, I found it quite tough trapping the opponent's legs together and passing without getting caught. When I was on the bottom I found it even harder to trap my opponents and get any form of grips or control.

This is a very basic thing and I really struggled today but it's something I obviously need to work at because if I end up in the guard of an opponent who is in any way more experienced than me then I'm in trouble as I can't stabilise my base for long enough and I invariably get swept. So avoiding the guard is something I now need to work on alongside sometimes accepting guard then working my way out of it.

Sparring was quite relaxed and I did OK against more experienced people and I managed to sweep then get into side control against a decent white belt. I'm also starting to connect my elbow and knee and getting up onto one hip to try to sweep and recover guard when I'm in trouble, but it was essentially a day of limited success and heavy toil. But that's OK. Some days will be like this and I'll have worse days than this. But I just need to keep turning up...

LESSON FROM TODAY: Practise, practise and practise again basic guard breaks and basic guard passes.

Class 55...

Today was an open mat session and first up I was paired with the very good white belt I had a particularly gruelling roll with on Monday.

We kept matters quite gentle but he was curious as to why I readily accepted entering somebody's closed guard rather than fighting for position or passing the guard at the start by controlling the opponent's legs or posture. I explained to him that it was something of an intentional tactic at the moment because I wasn't yet good enough to avoid the guard of anyone who was more experienced than me and because it also forced me to work on stabilising my base while under attack, which meant I had to get used to breaking guard. I demonstrated my two quite poor guard escapes (posture up, move back and break then posture up and commit both arms under the opponent's legs) then he very helpfully showed me two guard escapes.

These went something like this:
Guard escape from in closed guard of opponent: hands get wrist control on opponent and arms and elbows cage the hips with head on chest/stomach of opponent; up onto your toes and sprawl out and push backward to break the guard; then pin one knee and move to side control.

Guard escape from half guard:
Guard escape from half guard on top: hands getting wrist control on opponent and arms and elbows caging the hips and head on chest/stomach of opponent; up onto your toes and sprawl out and push backwards; then wrap your arms around the opponent's legs and squeeze them together and use one hand to push his knee down and break his half guard; then pin one knee and move to side control.

I then rolled with a blue belt I've never met before and I held my own for some time while in his guard. At one point I even managed to sweep him and secure side control but his movement was very slick. I did manage to recover half-guard from a mounted position on a few occasions, too.

I then rolled with a blue belt I know quite well who's very good and he tapped me a few times, but I managed to hold on and defend myself against a choke and an armbar when I was in real trouble. His movement and knowledge is far superior to mine, though, so holding on and defending for any length of time is something I consider a minor victory. We also worked on a few sweeps, which was very helpful.

Last up was a roll with a purple belt who's very good. On the plus side I managed to defend myself against his chokes for a good while and this is something I'm usually quite weak on. But I couldn't break his guard and every time I tried to use both hands to get some control on him I was under threat from something yet again. I managed to hold on for what seemed like a long time and defend myself but it was always inevitable that at some point I'd move somewhere bad or do something that exposed me to an attack I couldn't defend and that's pretty much what happened. Very sweetly he did take me to one side at the end of the class and showed me how to do the guard break I'd been unsuccessfully trying against him during our roll.

But a good class and lots learnt. I feel like a few things are starting to sink in and I'm now doing some of the basic stuff (keeping both arms together and not allowing one arm to get isolated, connecting knees and elbows to form a defensive wall when I'm on the bottom, hip escaping to at least try to recover guard, etc) at least some of the time.

LESSON FROM TODAY: Remember to use your knee and arm to create a defensive frame against an opponent on top; practise, practise and practise again basic guard breaks and basic guard passes.

Class 54...

A particularly gruelling class today that started off by focusing on drills designed to pass the guard.

All three drills involved gripping the opponent's gi pants and knees to secure leg control and moving swiftly around to bypass the legs and avoid getting stuck in the guard of your opponent... so you end up in a position where you can drop down into side control. These had to be done at speed and needed to be in a regular rhythm and your feet needed to operate in unison. I found this really tough.

We then went into a sparring drill where the person on the bottom had to catch his standing opponent in half-guard while the standing man had to pass and drop into side control. We worked our way though a line of opponents, then when we came back to our original opponent it was time to swap... so the person on the bottom then became the person standing and had to work his way down the line again. I did OK at passing but I sucked when it came to defending from a seated position. These drills need much more work.

When paired up for sparring we had different goals: in the first five-minute round I had to submit my much better white belt opponent while he had to score a certain number of points. I held on and just managed to deprive him of the number of points he needed. In reality he battered me and passed and swept me far too easily but when I was about to lose I really kicked in and got some stubborn defence in. A victory of sorts.

In the next five-minute round I got utterly booted by a very good white belt whose hip and general mobility was superb, then a spar with a very big purple belt saw me gently but comprehensively out-classed. I did manage to nearly sink an arm triangle in at one point but he saw the danger coming and it quickly passed as he escaped. On the plus side I am now trying to hip escape and recover guard much more than I used to but I'm still not fluid enough at it.

I also had a roll with a new white belt and just relaxed and got into the positions. I did gently try a few single legs from the knees and these came off. I even remembered to put my head in the correct position and grab the opponent's seated leg and pull it through to help establish side control. It was a nice end to a very demanding but excellent class.

But here are some things I had underlined today:
i) I'm still not connecting the knee and elbow enough when I'm defending myself on my back but I'm now aware of this and I am at least fighting to get onto a hip when mounted so I can start the process of recovering guard.
ii) The very friendly and very good visiting brown belt encouraged me to keep knee and leg control when I'm passing guard. Again, this is something I should know but it's tough to remember when you're really tired.
iii) The purple belt gave me a good tip on defending when the kimura is locked in and that is to bury your elbow in your hip so it makes it much harder for the opponent to yank your attacked arm out and complete the submission.

LESSON FROM TODAY: Remember to use your knee and arm to create a defensive frame against an opponent on top; controlling the knees and legs of the opponent makes guard passing much easier.

Class 53...

Today's class started with quite a light warm-up but the rest of it was quite demanding as we were drilling basic control positions from half guard and this was tough.

We were split into threes and we did two sets of three five-minute rounds so the first guy in the middle essentially stayed there and on the bottom for the full five minutes while the other two people alternated in attacking him from half guard. The second guy of the three then went in for five minutes and so on. The winner was the guy who secured head control or who swept or submitted his opponent.

I was OK at the attacking part of this... once I figured out that head control was the thing we were drilling and once we'd established this it made sweeping or submitting or escaping guard much easier. But my defending wasn't great and too often I'd allow myself to be in a bad position before really trying to act or escape, which was then obviously too late.

It was a great exercise, though, as it exposed a key thing I need to work on: defending a neutral position and not surrendering it too easily for a worse one. One thing one of my opponents did was use his head to push down to help him secure head and arm control whne he was attacking, while the other one was very good at getting his knee and arm between me when I was attacking and using this as a frame to defend himself.

In sparring I go paired with two newish people and I suddenly found that I had been making some progress as I relaxed and quite gently rolled and just let them put themselves into bad positions, which allowed me to apply a guillotine choke from half-guard, an armbar from mount, a kimura from full guard, an Americana from side mount and two kimura sweeps from open guard in quick succession.

Obviously this was no type of victory as it was against relatively inexperienced people and I wasn't going out to defeat people but just to see what happened, but it maybe also means I'm not quite so inexperienced and not quite as bad as I think when rolling with more experienced students and higher belts. And that's good to know as it means I'm not totally wasting my time doing this...

LESSON FROM TODAY: Fight for head control; use your knee and arm to create a defensive frame against an opponent on top; use your head to pressure an opponent down.

Classes 52 & 53...

The first class was another session with Rodrigo Cavaca and continued the guard-passing ideas of his previous class, but this time using similar set-ups to get sweeps. A lot of the finer details were lost on me but the two sweeps I remembered went something like this:

Ankle grab sweep: You are on the floor with your opponent standing over you; use your left leg to trap his standing right leg by hooking it on the outside; then using your left arm, secure his trapped leg by grabbing the gi pants at the ankle with your hand placed inbetween your legs; using your right leg stretch his left leg by pushing at the knee; then switch you hands so your right hand secures his trapped left leg and your left hand secures the gi sleeve on his left arm; then extend your right leg and drag his right arm down so he collapses and you go into side control.

Ankle grab kick up the arse sweep: there was also a version of this sweep that used a similar set-up and grips where you elevate the opponent by getting your right leg under his groin. The main point of both sweeps, however, was to trap and take your opponent’s posts out so he couldn’t rebalance himself when you got him moving.

We also did a sparring drill where the bottom person had to score points or submit the standing person and I did OK in this and survived a while with a few more senior belts and even passed a purple belt. This was clearly down to his fatigue more than any skill on my part, though.

I also had a brief roll with one of the visiting brown belts and he encouraged me to try and pass the guard at the start rather than let myself be trapped in it and have to fight my way out. I realised that rather stupidly this was a simple tactic I'd been neglecting as I've been intentionally putting myself in bad positions to experiment with guard breaks and escapes and the like.

The second class was run by the visiting brown belt and he demonstrated a way to avoid getting trapped in your seated opponent’s guard and pass into side control when you are standing. This went something like this:

Knee crunch guard pass: Your opponent is on his back with his feet on your hips and his hands on your gi sleeves as you stand; keep your feet back to avoid getting them trapped and keep your posture up; move your hands so your hands are on the inside of your opponent’s thighs with your elbows pinching the opponent’s legs together; step backwards until the tension from you opponent’s legs goes; then collapse your opponent’s knees to one side and keep a grip of the opponent’s gi pants; then drop into side control and secure the position.

Knee split guard pass to back: Your opponent is on his back with his feet on your hips and his hands on your gi sleeves as you stand; keep your feet back to avoid getting them trapped and keep your posture up; move your hands so your hands are on the inside of your opponent’s thighs with your elbows pinching the opponent’s legs together; step backwards until the tension from you opponent’s legs goes; then collapse one of your opponent’s knees to one side and keep a grip of the opponent’s gi pants; secure the dropped knee by bringing you knee through; then drop into back control and secure the position.

Knee split guard pass to side: Your opponent is on his back with his feet on your hips and his hands on your gi sleeves as you stand; keep your feet back to avoid getting them trapped and keep your posture up; move your hands so your hands are on the inside of your opponent’s thighs with your elbows pinching the opponent’s legs together; step backwards until the tension from you opponent’s legs goes; then collapse one of your opponent’s knees to one side and keep a grip of the opponent’s gi pants; secure the dropped knee by bringing you knee through; then drop through into side control and secure the position.

We then sparred for a while and this was tough. I held my own for a while and escaped some bad positions but I was too fatigued in the final round and just got tapped all over the place. A fab class, though.

LESSON FROM TODAY: Never surrender and just accept the opponent's guard as a starting point; always try to pass on the outside.

Class 51...

A real treat today and a dinner-time class with visiting instructor and former BJJ World Champion Rodrigo Cavaca.

After the usual warm-up routine, we got straight into drills about passing and defending guard with one player seated and the other on his feet. Key points emphasised here were always connecting elbows to knees to close the space down, and making yourself a compact unit to not allow the opponent a place to secure grips, plus distancing feet if you are attacking to avoid the opponent catching them and trapping your opponent's feet if you are sitting.

We then worked on a guard pass where the standing player moves from in front of his opponent into North-South control. This went something like this:
i) Pick a side you're going to attack and place your left hand on the gi trouser leg at the ankle of the opponent's right side.
ii) With your right hand pin his hip and apply pressure with both hands to secure the opponent in position. Remember to keep your posture up and you legs at a safe distance.
iii) Then move past his legs to the right side of the opponent. Keep applying the pressure and keep the grips in place, then step your right leg in front of your left and move your left leg out so you've moved 180 degrees to the opponent's head from his feet.
iv) Now drop down into North-South and remove the grips and secure the position.

We then worked a variation of this same pass but where the hand on the hip secures the opponent's collar on the left side and you use these two handles to collapse the opponent. This went something like this:
i) Pick a side you're going to attack and place your left hand on the gi trouser leg at the ankle of the opponent's right side.
ii) With your right hand, secure a grip on his left-hand gi collar. Remember to keep your posture up and you legs at a safe distance while pressuring down.
iii) Collapse the seated opponent by pulling down with your right hand to collapse his posture and dragging your left hand on the floor towards your right so the opponent effectively curls into a foetal position. As this happens you use the momentum created to move to your right to secure his back.

This was then adapted to give attacking options: 
iv) When you have him curled up and you are in position, prop your right knee up against his back to prevent him moving.
v) Secure an over-under seatbelt control by driving your left hand under his neck and your right hand under his armpit so you have an underhook nearest you. Use this to secure the position.
vi) Move you left arm from under his neck and prop his head on your knee and trap it between you left arm and knee. Grab the opponent's right arm at the wrist, then grab your wrist with you right arm to secure kimura control.
vii) From here, you posture up to secure the kimura control, then drop you right leg over and pull him backwards so you have his back and one hook in with your right leg. Then fight to secure the other hook with your left leg.

We then did another passing and defence drill where the seated player had to score points or successfully take guard to win and the oncoming standing player had to pass guard or score points to win.

We then went onto sparring where one of my blue belt friends caught me again and again in basic submissions. On the plus side I knew what was going on and had half an idea on how to defend myself, but he was just too fast and the submissions were too fast. But he's very good. I then got to roll with another blue belt and fell for one choke but managed to defend myself and my position for the rest of the time.

Another great class.

LESSON FROM TODAY: Keys to passing guard include posture, commitment, and limiting the opponent's ability to move by pinning his limbs

Class 50...

An open mat session today and I made a return to sparring and got tapped all over the place. I forgot to do basic stuff like keep my arms together and defend collar chokes and keep things tight and use my weight properly.

But it was a good class and I managed to hold my own with a very strong white belt for some of the time and I also had a roll with a very helpful purple belt, who encouraged me to keep hip-escaping and try to recapture half-guard then guard when I was mounted.

I also managed my first sweep from the bottom in half-guard today and I even turned an armbar into an omoplata at one point. And I actually meant to do them! So even though I got tapped all over the place I had a few moments of success.

But with recent injuries and a month away from sparring it was just to be back on the mat and rolling. Very happy.

LESSON FROM TODAY: Improving at sparring takes time. Don't worry about tapping. It's how you learn.