Classes 129 & 130...

Two beginners classes, one on top of the other, and both focusing on an armbar, omoplata and triangle drill. 

I've done this drill quite a lot before but I picked up some key details today about always securing the limb that's under attack and using other body parts to prevent the attacked limb being pulled out. 

So, for example, the grip on the attacked arm on the armbar has to be secured by the hand grabbing around the triceps and forcing the arm under your armpit to secure it further. The knee on the hip must also pinch tight to prevent the arm being lawnmowered out, and the hand cross-gripping the opponent's opposite shoulder must help maintain the collapsed frame, while the legs must be heavy to keep the opponent down. 

There were similar bits of advice on the omoplata and the leg triangle, particularly about using head control to secure the collapsed posture on the triangle.

It's really all about closing down space when attacking, a pint my blue belt friend underlined last week for me. 

We then did a variation where the opponent leans to one side to create space and you follow him to roll onto the arm and get the tap with it underneath your body. 

But two hours well spent. In my bid to improve, I need to start double-banking classes. And today was a start.

Things to remember: Close down the space and utilise other body parts help apply the pressure to collapse the opponent's posture.

Competition No.1: Part 2...

While on the subject of competing, I was reading about an article about Joshua Waitzkin last week.


Waitzkin was a chess prodigy, who then became a world champion at tai chi. Now he's a BJJ black belt under Marcello Garcia and he also designed his website by basing it on chess websites.

I've read Waitzkin's book, The Art of Learning, and thought it was very good, so I was intrigued to see what the website was like and how it was organised. And it's quite clear and very well done with a clear path through.

Thinking about Waitzkin and looking at the website, though, made me think about my own BJJ and how that needs to grow to be effective in competitions. And, at the moment, it looks something like this:

i) My stand-up grappling is OK. I have decent throws, sweeps, arm drags and trips so I need to utilise these to ensure the fight only goes to the ground on my terms.

ii) Once on the floor, I need to ensure I end up on top and use my weight to pressure the opponent.

iii) If I end up on the bottom, I need to not allow the opponent to settle into a position and fight to improve my position if I can't establish either guard or half-guard.

Things to remember: Develop a game plan that plays to your strengths. Ensure it has a strong through line.

Competition No.1: Part 1...

Today was my competitive BJJ debut. I went with few expectations but I was determined to enjoy the experience and ensure I used the day to do a bit of reconnaissance to see whether I fancied entering any more events. 

In terms of the competition itself, I was entered in the middleweight category (under 12.12 stone) but fought in the adult section as there were no other competitors in the olds. 

I bowed out in the first round after about two minutes when I fell into a leg triangle choke that I couldn't get out of. I was slightly annoyed by this as my triangle escapes are usually OK, but I couldn't get my body to respond in time. The other thing that annoyed me was that, early on in the fight, he got control of one of my sleeves and I didn't fight like crazy to get this off. And I should have done. 

So two rookie mistakes cost me. The not-stripping-grips helped him set up the triangle and I didn't do enough to prevent either. Idiot. 

On the plus side, I stayed and watched the other white belt matches and the blue belt ones, too. And there wasn't much I saw that made me think I was massively out of my depth.

Competing also made me do a brief technique stock take. So… 

My decent submissions are the standard armbar and the kimura from guard, the kimura, the americana and the arm triangle from side control. I also like the triangle from side control.

My decent sweeps are the scissor sweep and the kimura sweep from full guard, the butterfly sweep from half guard, and the upa from full guard.

My decent guard escapes are the standard hand on hip and hand on chest, knee in arse and drive back guard escape; the hands on hips and head on belly drive back guard escape; then the standing guard escape. 

The things I'm pretty bad at are guard passes from standing against an opponent in open guard and these will be the first thing I work on.

But I'm now hooked. If I'm going to do this I'm going to compete in at least one more event before the big inter-club tournament I've entered at the end of September. I probably need to do at least one event every month to build up my competition mat time.

Things to remember: Attack and work your strongest techniques from the standing start and don't wait to let the opponent determine the game. More work on standing guard passes. Work on stripping grips.

Class 128...

An open mat session and a chance to roll with a few different coloured belts. 

I rolled with a good white belt today and fell for a few leg locks, despite trying to defend them as best I could. I also rolled with a good brown belt who was complimentary about my defence, despite the fact he was clearly so much better than me and positionally he was all over me. He did show me a strategy for dealing with an overbooked arm when I was in his guard, though. This essentially involved turning the arm to grab the belt and then yanking it out at an angle to ensure the joint under attack wasn't vulnerable.

I then got the chance to roll with a couple of blue belts and defended myself OK, despite eventually tapping to both. 

Things to remember: The escape for the overbooked arm when in guard.

Class 127...

An intermediate class with more work on the De la Riva sweep. Today there were two variations. The first was into a foot lock.

This went something like this:

i) De la Riva position with man on bottom securing standing opponent by grabbing his right ankle with your left hand and your left foot hooking on the outside of his right leg at the knee/upper thigh area. Your right hand has sleeve control of his left hand and your right foot drives into his left hip to stretch him. The opponent turns the front leg and removes the hook so your left leg chambers up then repositions between the legs of the opponent; your hand holding the foot of the opponent snakes around his leg and secures a grip by grabbing own gi at lapel; scoot forward to close distance so your hips are under hips of opponent; left leg drives up and secures outside of opponent’s right leg at hip area; your right leg switches and moves onto inside of opponent’s right hip; you hip escape onto your left side to collapse the opponent; pinch knees together to secure the trapped leg and lean back and adjust to ensure his foot is securely trapped under your armpit; then turn away and look over your shoulder to apply the lock.

There was also an addition to this where you sweep your right leg through to come up to your knees and turn the opponent over. The second variation was a sweep. This went something like this:

i) De la Riva position with man on bottom securing standing opponent by grabbing his right ankle with your left hand and your left foot hooking on the outside of his right leg at the knee/upper thigh area. Your right hand has sleeve control of his left hand and your right foot drives into his left hip to stretch him. The opponent breaks hooks and hunches down with his right arm and knee forming a barrier; your left hand grabs the opponent’s right elbow while your right hand grabs the left lapel of the opponent; you then pull the opponent onto your right leg to collapse him so his weight is forward, then almost scissor him as you launch him up then spin him sideways by crossing your hands in a push-pull movement; follow his momentum so you end up on top.

Things to remember: the De la Riva sweep uses basic throwing principles of collapsing an opponent. Use these principles and apply them to other sweeps. 

Class 126...

Today was an open mat session, where a blue belt friend helped me out with a glut of really good guard-passing tips. These included a review of the Toreador pass. This went something like this:

i) Opponent is on his back with his guard up, and you are standing and grab control of the opponent at his knees with a firm grip.

ii) You then stack the opponent and use your chest to apply pressure to lock his knees in place before switching the grip, so the pint pot on the knees grip almost moves to a palm heel strike on the side of the knees.

iii) Fake moving the knees to one side, before you switch direction and throw them to the other side.

iv) Opposite leg then steps through to the opponent’s undefended hip area to prevent him bringing his leg back through and re-establishing guard, then drop down and use your weight to pressure through and establish side control.

v) Finally, the knee closes the opponent’s hip down on one side while the elbow locks the hip in place on the other side. The free hand secures the opponent’s head.

There was also plenty of good general advice, such as creating space if you’re defending a position and crushing space if you’re attacking. He also showed me a very nifty escape from full mount that involved getting your foot in the belt of your opponent and kicking him off, then following through to establish mount.

I also worked a few knee on belly escapes. The most basic one of these involved using both hands to push the knee away as you hip escape to the side. An alternative to this involved reaching under the ankle and grabbing the foot of the opponent to fix the knee in place, then hip escape and use the other hand to drive off/potentially sweep the opponent by pushing into his stomach.

Things to remember: Guard passing and applying pressure, mount escape using belt to kick opponent off, and knee on belly foot grab escape.

Class 124 & 125...

First up was an open mat session. I helped a senior belt work on a leg drag, which was good as I now have a vague idea what this is. I also did some work on passing a tight guard from standing, which proved near impossible as the blue belt I was working with was very good and very fast. 

I rolled for a bit and got murdered, although I did manage to fend off submissions for at least some of the time with hip escapes and knee-to-elbow barriers. 

I also picked up some advice about not over-committing to a grip when the position has gone. 

Then it was another intermediate class, plus something of a surprise. We began by working on standing passes from the De La Riva guard. These went something like this:

i) Man on back on bottom has the De La Riva hooks in with his left leg hooking the outside of the opponent’s right leg and his right leg on the opponent’s left hip. He grabs the opponent’s right ankle with his left hand and grabs the opponent’s sleeve with his right hand. The standing man turns and drives his right leg to get rid of the hook, then grabs the opponent’s collar with his right hand and pulls the opponent up to crunch him. The left leg then swims out and acts as a base post while you squat down and bring the right leg into the opponent’s collapsed leg hooking leg.

ii) Man on back on bottom has the De La Riva hooks in with his left leg hooking the outside of the opponent’s right leg and his right leg on the opponent’s’ left hip. He grabs the opponent’s right ankle with his left hand and grabs the opponent’s sleeve with his right hand. The standing man turns and drives his right leg to get rid of the hook, he then squats down and then grabs the opponent’s left sleeve with his right hand and the opponent’s gi pants and sleeve at the right knee with his left hand. He then postures up to break the grips, swims his left leg out and crosses his hand to collapse the opponent’s knee and bring his hand over so he turns to his side.

There was plenty of information and various subtleties that I missed in this little lot. But then the surprise… multiple world champion Braulio Estima was at the gym and was taking a class. And this was information overload but also really brilliant.

I can’t recall the techniques in too much detail but the first one involved a sort of one-legged triangle that used the hamstring of the horizontal leg to choke the opponent with the attacking player pulling the head onto it.

We then worked on set-ups for inverted triangles from the bottom in side control. These essentially involved stuffing the opponent’s hand between your legs by bridging and throwing your hands to the side to force him to Superman and leave an arm exposed. This arm was then fished and figure-foured by the legs. Options here were to attack the arm itself or to stuff the head for the inverted triangle. 

Another option was to use it as a control position to reach under the non-trapped arm and set up either a kimura or a wrist lock.

It was fabulous stuff. Most of it was way over my head but sometimes it’s inspiring to learn those sort of techniques. Although, the inverted triangle set-ups are definitely something I’ll use and work on.

It was also interesting to hear him talk about his approach and having the freedom to experiment. A fab class.

Things to remember: The set-ups for the inverted triangle and other attacks from the bottom in side control.

Class 123...

An intermediate class and more work on De La Riva guard with two more sweeps for the man pulling guard. These went something like this:

i) Man on top is standing, while man on his back on bottom has De La Riva guard, which here is left hand grabbing opponent’s right ankle, left foot hooking outside of opponent’s right knee, right foot on opponent’s left hip and right hand grabbing opponent’s left sleeve. Opponent drives in with his right leg to nullify the hook and steps back twice to nullify the foot on the hip with his left leg; your right leg switches legs and creates inside hook with left leg going on floor foot down to create momentum; left hand grabs collar on opponent’s left side and hips pivot 90 degrees away from opponent. Then you drive his still-grabbed hand between his legs and pull his collar down and keep moving to collapse the opponent into the space you have created on your right. Move into side control.

ii) Man on top is standing, while man on bottom has De La Riva guard, which here is left hand grabbing opponent’s right ankle, left foot hooking outside of opponent’s right knee, right foot on opponent’s left hip and right hand grabbing opponent’s left sleeve. Opponent drives in with his right leg to nullify the hook and steps back twice to nullify the foot on the hip with his left leg; your right leg comes to attack his right leg and sits across his shin on the floor with your left leg going on floor foot down to create momentum as you scoot back then sit up; your right hand passes his grabbed sleeve to your left hand underneath his right leg. Then your right hand reaches up and grabs the belt or the back of his gi over the back and you collapse him into the space on your right. Move into side control.

This is quite complex stuff but the principles seem to be similar to hip throws in the way you use the diagonals to collapse and move an opponent.

We then did some sparring where the goal was not to get your guard passed and I did quite poorly. But I know this needs work. On the plus side, I am starting to attack more, rather than waiting for something to happen and just react. And I’m at least trying to use the half-guard sweep and the kimura a bit more.

Things to remember: Defend your guard as it means points in a tournament; pass your opponent’s guard as it means points in a tournament. Work on both. And everything else. 

Class 122...

Today was an open mat session with a bit of light sparring, plus a chance to drill some techniques with a fellow white belt who's much better than me. 

We worked on an armbar, omoplata and triangle combination, and we then added another armbar onto the end for good measure. We also worked on guard breaks and guard retention, a kimura and a kimura sweep combination, and a throw combination I'm keen to drill. The latter is essentially a hip throw that turns into a single-leg or a double-leg takedown and pass to side control. 

I like drilling. It's a good way to ingrain technique. I just wish I had the time to do more of it. 

I was also shown a very nifty posture break from the bottom in guard, where you use both of your hands to attack one of the opponent's arms by grabbing his collar and the outside of his arm. And I also got shown a way to turn kimura control from perched side control into an armbar.

Things to remember: Drive up for the triangle and try the new posture break when on the bottom.