Class 304...

The first class was all about half guard attacks and sweeps. The takehome when defending on the bottom involved: deny your opponent the underhook on their near side so they can't apply pressure on your jaw; fend them off with your arms while staying on one side; and not getting flattened out. 

Conversely, the takehome for attacking from top was: pass by using the knee slice knee; Secure the underhook so you can apply old-school pressure. 

Sparring was fine. I got schooled by a brown belt and did OK against bigger, younger and stronger blue belts. I am aware I am using wrist locks and ezekiel chokes too much at the moment, though, so I am trying to go old school and use the trio of armbar, leg triangle and omoplata and work those back in.

It's good to be back. 

Things to remember: Deny underhook and use frame to defend when in half guard on bottom.

Classes 301-303…

I am finally back training after a two-month lay-off because of a broken toe. Sadly, injury is part and parcel of training martial arts and, even more annoyingly, it becomes more of a factor for any wannabe Bruce Lees who are in their forties and looking nervously on as their half century approaches.

Still, it’s good to be training again at both Hapkido, which I made a tentative return to about four weeks ago, and BJJ. I don’t expect to make major leaps at either of these martial arts because I’m essentially a hobby martial artist and my goal has never been to compete, even though I have dabbled and not entirely disgraced myself. I just want to have solid fundamentals and be a little more consistently average at both.

Onto class and the first BJJ class was all about escaping and maintaining various types of guard. My full guard escaping and attacking was actually not awful and I found myself going back to my tried and tested double unders pass. I didn’t get it to work all the time, but I was pleased I actually recalled that bit of my skill set!

Sparring was OK and I hit a couple of wrist locks. It was exhausting but it was also great to be back.

The second class was all about escaping and retaining De Riva guard. I was spectacularly awful at this, then sparring was pretty grim, too. Afterwards, I spent some time on the train reminding myself about what I should be doing in this position and reminding myself about the Ball and Chain sweep courtesy of a Stephan Kesting phone app. I did make a very cool connection, though, which is to drop into the De La Riva guard when an opponent stands in my full guard. This may seem obvious to most BJJ students but that penny has taken considerable time to drop for me. D’oh!

Class three was all about single leg x guard and I was equally awful at this. My main takehome was the positional set-up from both legs inside the opponent’s feet and climbing one inside leg to outside the opponent’s hip with the other inside attacking his knee. The other takehome was to ensure the untrapped leg stays well away from the reach of you opponent or your balance is truly under attack.

Sparring was OK and I hit a couple of Ezekiel chokes from inside an opponent’s guard. It’s sneaky and it won’t work against a more skilled and less tired opponent, but I catch a surprising amount of people with this. I also hit a single hook sweep at one point.

My return underlined how far off the pace I am. But it wasn’t as grim as it could have been and, surprisingly, my fitness was actually OK. It’s good to be back.

Things to remember: Link the De La Riva position into the full guard position when opponents stand up.