Exercises - The bible

Not the actual Bible, but I thought I'd detail the exercise for anyone wanting to try it at home. Troy Flugge (one of the founders of the Submission Factory) was a huge fan of this exercise and would go through it every time there was a new beginner in the club.

All you need is a deck of cards and 20-30 minutes.

Shuffle the cards. Work through the deck of cards with the following rules:
Black card - Push ups
Red card - Squats

Number 2-10 - number of the above exercise
Jack = 11
Queen = 12
King = 13
Ace = 15
Joker = 20

Work through the deck until you're done! (My legs feel like they're about to fall off after this is done).

You can also vary the exercises if you'd prefer crunches or something along those lines.

I also realise I haven't updated in a while. Feels like my BJJ is...not progressing. Seem to have hit that hump and just get stuck with the same problems over and over again...

Kenpo – Orange belt grading

Last Thursday (30^th August 2012) I graded for my Kenpo Karate orange belt and was successful! I graded with Phil (going for his brown belt) and Mike (going for his orange belt too).

It’s the 2^nd Kenpo grading that I’ve done and I felt a lot more nervous this time around. I’m not sure why, but there were quite a few more things which I had to know and work on that it seemed like it was going to be much harder than I thought.

A quick summary of the items I had to work through:

·         Recitation of the Kenpo creed;
·         Demo Defence (defence against a set of pre arranged attacks);
·         Push drag footwork theory and demonstration;
·         Forearm pad round (demonstrating push drag footwork);
·         Kick shield round;
·         Yellow belt master techniques;
·         2 x random yellow belt reference techniques;
·         Orange belt master techniques;
·         2 x chosen orange belt reference techniques;
·         4 x 1 minute rounds of sparring;
·         Master Technique Scenario (Demonstrating Orange belt masters techniques)
·         Defence scenario

Overall, the main feedback that I received was that my technique was sharp and concise, but my sparring could definitely use some work.

The most significant feedback that I received was that I tend to drop my hands and that I look too low when I’m sparring.  Therefore, I tend to get hit a fair bit after I’ve thrown a kick or something.

Also got a few more items to cover, will do so in later posts!

Half Guard and progress

Starting to feel like I'm getting the hang of things a bit better, switching hips, moving position and developing a bit more of a strategy. I've been working a lot more on position than anything else and I think that if I tend to focus more on that than getting a submission, it actually makes the game a lot more fun.

Anyways, a couple of things that we worked on recently include passing half guard position from the top (that is, one of your legs is trapped between their legs).

Half guard pass 1 - You get the underhook
Seek the opposite underhook and post your head on the other side of their head so you have a stronger base. Work your trapped foot up towards their butt so your hips are raised (like a tripod) and once your knee is through, switch your hips so that your knee hits the floor. Keep your hips low and close to theirs and transition through to side control. Keeping your hips low is really good at stopping them from inserting their knee back in to regain the half guard or the guard.  Keeping the hips close to them as well is much more effective than trying to keep your knee near their hips.

Half guard pass 2 - You get the underhook
Similar to the above, instead  of  creating a tripod, set up like before, underhook and head on opposite side and step to the side with your free leg. This creates a better angle to move your knee up past their thighs and pass the half guard.

Half guard pass 3 - You can't get the underhook
If you can't get the underhook, control their head by catching it with the original underhooking arm and push your shoulder into their neck/jaw and proceed to pass the guard like the first half guard pass described.

Half guard pass 4 - They have the underhook
If they get the underhook from below, control their head like above and instead of following through like in the first guard pass, step your free leg back and over their body to the opposite side of their body. From there, keep your butt to the floor and hip escape up towards their head to shift your trapped leg higher. Keep the free leg a bit bent to make sure they can't sweep you either way. From there, you can also use your free leg to push their leg and free your trapped leg. Shift into side control.

Half guard pass 5 - Neither of you can get the underhook
If you can't get the underhook, an option is to reach down and grab their belt on their opposite side. So if your right leg is stuck, using your left hand, grab their belt on their left side with your elbow in their arm pit. Sink your weight down on your butt and work your leg free and move into side control.

Hip bump sweep
Another thing I've been really working on and getting is my hip bump sweep. I'm actually really surprised how well it works and I seem to get a lot of people with it really easily. I find that when they're breaking my guard, if I sit up and cross reach over their opposite shoulder, grab their arm or just tuck it close to my body and hip bump, I can get the sweep a majority of the time. I think I've been pretty lazy with my guard so being active and getting these sweeps is really encouraging, especially as I don't seem to be able to hit the scissor sweep too often.I need to tell myself constantly that not having them in my closed guard is fine and playing an open guard is a lot more dynamic and fun, regardless of if they pass.But definitely been hitting this sweep, at least 5 times tonight!

Breaking out of Guard
I've been finding this is starting to get easier, as long as I have proper grips on their gi, their sleeve and my elbows are in the right place. Putting my hand under their leg isn't so much of an issue, as long as my arm is controlling their other leg. Still a lot to work on here though.


Kenpo wise, I should be going for my grading on the 30th August. Need to work a lot on some of the reference techniques and come up with theories of push drag, 60 second functional fitness exercises as well as memorise the creed. So much to do!

brief notes for myself

Too many things that have been learnt recently! Trying to remember them all, things that stand out and that I'll do a more detailed write up on later.

Standing guard trip 1. Snag leg from opponent standing in their guard, let go of the guard roll over your shoulder towards the snagged leg so you land on your knees and with the snagged leg, trip them by picking it up and leveraging at 2 points on the shin. From there, keep pressure on and move into side control. Actually managed to snag one in sparring today!

Standing guard trip 2 - drop down, leaving your legs open like a V, (hanging onto their sleeves) and bring it closed around their knees. Pull their weight forward and drop them to the side.

Standing guard trip 3 - Drop down, snag their leg with an arm underhook. Get your hip inside their knee, push up and to the side with your free hand and buckle the leg. Follow in a clockwise (or anti clockwise) to follow up for the mount control.

Standing guard trip 4 - Drop down, holding onto their lapel and sleeve. Release the lapel, pass the sleeve to the free hand and underhook their leg with the new free hand. Pass the sleeve back to the underhooking hand and release your guard and triangle your legs trapping the arm. This should result in them tripping and you ending up in a side control position (potentially mount).


Bread knife choke - from side control, move into front control. Get your arm under their armpit and towards their neck to grab the lapel, but mainly keeping their arm pinned to your body. Move back to side control with the pinned arm, reach through and grab the opposite lapel with thumb in, deep as you can get. From there, use the sharp part of your wrist to push down on their neck, whilst simultaneously raising their shoulder to get the choke. Tried this one in sparring today (no gi), was much harder to get the actual choke without the lapel, though you could theoretically get it with the hand behind their shoulder instead of grabbing the lapel. 

Notes to self
Keep good posture, head up
Both hands in, or both hands out, not one in and one out...ever.
Don't let them control your wrists, or you won't be able to pass the guard.

Hopefully going for my Kenpo Orange belt at the end of the month...still a bit to learn, but there should be enough time to learn it all properly!

Guillotine defense

Tonight was a tough night, got submitted so many times, didn't get any submissions and ran out of gas quickly. Anyways, learnt a few things tonight about Guillotine defense.

Basic guillotine defense from standing

When your opponent attempts to get a guillotine on you when standing and they have their hands around your neck, with your arm closest to their body, throw it over their opposite shoulder as far as you can with the inside of your arm against their body. When they try to raise their hips and lock the choke in, your arm over their shoulder should raise you up and foil the choke. However, you obviously want to get out of this position as soon as possible.

As a follow on from this, if step around their body towards your arm around their shoulder, buckle their knee and with your other arm, pull their far leg up to take them down. This is likely to end up with you in side control and if they're trying to keep the guillotine, a good position to transition into one of a few moves.

From Guillotine side control
There are several transitions you can seek from being in a guillotine from side control. Generally someone trying to keep you in guillotine does not have much leverage and ability to close off the choke.

Arm bar
First way to deal with it is to walk your legs around to front control. They are likely to be on their side at this point and if you bring your leg around behind their shoulder, snag their arm and leave your other leg on the original side of their head, you can lean back and get the arm bar. Make sure to pinch your knees.

Kimura Lock v1
Second option is to walk around like before to front control. As you reach front control, pass their arm over your head with the arm that was lower on their body, grabbing the wrist. Put your knee on their arm closest to the floor to pin their shoulder to the floor. With your free hand, snake it under their arm that you are grabbing and grab your wrist in the Kimura lock. Rotate their arm towards their back, maintaining the 90 degree angle for the lock.

Kimura Lock v2 - Loosening guillotine
A third option is that if they are realising they can't get the Kimura lock and are starting to loosen it, you can slip their arm over your head with the arm that is lower on their body, snake your upper arm under their arm pit and throw your upper leg over their head to get a Kimura.

Shoulder crush - Loosening guillotine
Another option if they are starting to loosen their guillotine grip is to reach around their head with your upper arm like in side control. Withyour lower arm, reach it back and then bring it back around their back, trapping their attacking guillotine arm. From here, clasp both of your hands together in a gable grip. Shuffle your shoulder under their neck and tripod on your legs with your weight going into your shoulder and into their neck. Raise your other shoulder so your weight is going through your shoulder. Even if they have their hands in place and chin down, it can still be a pretty nasty submission and can crush their jaw. Our instructor called it the shoulder crush choke and it was a pretty nasty one.

Anyways, will try to keep updating regularly!

On Saturday we worked a couple of combinations and things in MMA. I haven't updated in a while...not sure why. I guess I've been pretty busy, things have been hectic and though there have been things learnt, I didn't really feel like writing about them. Anyways, will be trying to get back into it!

Guard combination – Arm bar to triangle choke to arm bar

From guard position, set up for an arm bar, if they pull their arm out, switch your leg onto the other side of their head and set up the triangle. If they post off your chest and look up at the ceiling, swing your leg around for an arm bar on the other arm. Both of your legs will be on the same side of their head to get the final arm bar.

A really good video breakdown of it.

Guard combination – Triangle to Kimura

If they try to defend the triangle by pushing their arm around the other side, switch the triangle with your legs to the opposite side in order to reach that arm and put on the Kimura lock.

Guard Guillotine

From Guard, reach up and over your opponent’s opposite shoulder like when reaching for an Omo Plata. Instead of grabbing over their arm, bring your tricep down back against your opponent’s neck. If the opponent sits back, use the arm on their neck to lift you up (so they are doing all the work). Create space between your chests, then bring the same arm’s forearm around their neck, keeping it tight. Creating the space is integral to ensuring that your forearm gets under their chin. Bring your other hand underneath the fist in a cup and saucer sort of gesture and tighten. Pull your legs and straighten them out with their head on the floor to tighten the guillotine. Another way to think about tightening this choke is to uppercut with the choking arm.

If they try to fight the choking arm, loop your other arm in under their neck and close like in a rear naked choke.

Mount combination – Side Mount, Kimura, cutting arm bar, Figure 4 and Head arm choke

From mount, swim your hand inside your opponents arm and put your hand on your opponents shoulder, leverage with your elbow so their arm moves away from their body. Squirrel their forearm so it’s behind you and around your body. Bring your knee up under their arm pit and hop up to side mount, catching their wrist and reaching underneath with the other arm to get the Kimura lock. Your thigh can be used to bend their arm or even get the Kimura. The following video is a pretty good breakdown and though isn’t exactly the same, is pretty close.

If the Kimura lock doesn’t work and they straighten their arm, slide it up to your neck and close the cutting arm bar. If that doesn’t work, pass it past your neck to your opposite hand and reach your other arm around to your wrist to get the Figure 4 lock. If the Figure 4 lock doesn’t work and they bring their arm across, lean down (your chest on their tricep) and close off a head arm choke.

Headlock Control combination – Kimura, cutting arm bar and Figure 4

Similar combos to the above except from headlock control. A huge factor to getting the lock is to bring your top thigh up as the bracing. If their arm is around your body, you can reach around and push it down and bring your knee up to get a Kimura lock. If it’s straight, you can push the arm down to get the cutting arm bar on your knee. If that doesn’t work and they raise their arm up, you can get the Figure 4 lock from behind their head.

Passing an Open Guard

One way to pass the guard is to under hook one of their legs and with the other arm, keep their other leg pinned down so they can’t complete a triangle choke. Stand up, then cross step over their pinned leg and you can go straight into knee ride or side control.

Key thing is to ensure that their leg is pinned down, or they will be able to lock down the triangle.

Some of this is off the top of my head from the other day...so yeah, they may not be 100% correct, but they should be pretty close.

Couple of new things tonight

A few new things tonight, but nothing really requiring a long post.

1. From knee ride, trap their arm closest to you at the bicep if possible, put your foot over their head and sit back for arm bar.
2. When attempting the sweep in which you push their knee back, make sure their weight is forward by controlling their arm or they will be able to post with that arm.
3. When trying for the scissor sweep, make sure the bottom leg is low enough to catch their leg.
4. When in someones guard, if you decide to stand up, make sure your legs are out of reach. This may mean that you are bent at a 90 degree angle, but it means you're less likely to be swept. From there, if you control their knees, you can step back and out of their guard and slide into knee ride or side control.


Triangle choke from Guard
From guard, punch one of their hands so you trap one arm and their head between your legs. From there, close your legs like in closed guard. Simple breakdown.
1. From the guard in which you have one arm and their head in, lift your hips up and push their trapped arm across your body. Make sure you lift your hips.
2. Pull their head down towards you whilst you push off their hip. Change your angle with the hip push to allow for a better angle to get your other leg across the back of their neck.
3. Hook the leg on the back of their neck with your other leg. Make sure it goes across the back of their neck. Pull that leg from the shin or the foot so your foot sits in the crook of your knee.
4. Raise your hips and pull their head down to get the triangle. You should only see their arm and their head from where you are. If you can see more, angle away a bit more to tighten it.

So from the right side, punch their left hand (on your right side) through your legs and close your guard so you trap their right arm and their head. Lift your hips and push their right arm across to your right (across your hips). Pull down on their head, push with your left leg off their hip and bring your right leg down behind their head. Keep hold of the head so they don't escape. Once you've pushed off their hip and angle to your right, hook your right foot into the crook of your left knee and tighten. Lift your hips, pull their head down and if it's not finishing, angle more to your right to try and get the 90 degree angle.

An alternative as well to this is if they have your lapel, attack their left hand to release the grip, put it to the ground and over hook it. Grab their lapel with your over hooked hand to keep them down. From there, grab their other hand at the knuckle to loosen their grip and punch it through your legs to set it up as above.

Mount and side control

From Mount position, there are several attacks you can try for. This is from last week


Cross collar choke. This obviously only works with gi.
From mount, grab their lapel across from you, so not directly opposite, diagonally opposite (in my case, right hand). From there, punch it through to create some more material for you to grab. At this point, you can post on your head to stop them from bridging and rolling you. Move to the opposite side (so to the left posting on your head and with your left arm. Grab their collar with your left hand, thumb in,  and swing your left forearm arm around their head, keeping the grip and across their neck. From there, post on your head, and tighten for the choke. The following video explains it pretty well

Arm bar
Another potential move is to set them up for an arm bar after getting into S mount. From mount, bring your left arm behind their head and push your shoulder into their head to turn their head. Grip their shoulder with your left arm and keep it tight. From there, hook your right arm under their elbow and spider crawl it up over their head, keep your hands close to the floor and use your fingers to bring it up. Once above their head, bring your knee up to keep it pinned against their head. Proceed to do the same on the opposite side. You end up in a high mount with their arms pinned high. Keep your right knee against their head whilst your left leg shifts so the outside of your foot is on the ground. Keep it tight. From S mount, grab hold of their arm, push your left leg over their head and sit back into an arm bar. If done very tightly, it doesn't give your opponent much of an opportunity to escape.

Submissions 101 has a great breakdown.

Gotta try and keep updating!
Tonight we learnt about side control. Points included:

• Keep your weight on the side of the body which you're on. Putting it too far forward is prone to sweep.
• Hips down to keep the weight on.
• Shoulder into their face to push it across and stop them from hip escaping away. 
• Push their elbow up with your knee closest to their head and trap it between your shin and the floor to allow for Figure 4, Cutting arm bar or Kimura.
• Kimura requires the leg closest to their head over their head, so from the above, you need to switch your feet that is locking their arm down to allow you to put your leg over their head to finish it. Bring them up on their side once the arms are locked in to complete the lock.
• Cutting arm bar has a similar hand position to the Kimura. The left arm threads under their arm, grips the right wrist. Left arm needs to be just above the elbow. Right arm gripping the wrist. Keep the weight on their opposite arm and push your head against the arm to complete the cutting arm bar. Their thumb should be pointing to the ceiling.

Running a bit behind!

Things have been pretty busy lately and though I've managed to actually write a couple of posts, I haven't actually gotten around to putting them up. Anyways, from the last week or so...

On Saturday, we worked some back control stuff.

There were a lot of good points which came up in terms of how to handle back control on top of what was covered the other day in one of my posts. Some of these are repeated.

1. Protect the neck at all costs, it doesn’t take long for them to tighten and complete that submission.

2. Roll onto the side of the non attacking arm. Hang onto their attacking arm to stop the choke. This stops them from tightening and completing the choke.

3. Put all your weight onto their bottom leg and shoulder crawl your way back over their head.

4. Once you’ve moved over them, twist towards them, putting your opposite hand on their hip to stop them from moving straight into mount.

5. This should end up with you in their guard, a significantly improved position from being back controlled.







On Monday, we worked from the mount position and trying to maintain a good mount.

A good mount consists of a good balanced position on top of your opponent. Knees should be as high as their armpits if possible. Your feet should be tucked close to their body, top of the foot against their butt, knees pinching the top of their body.

Body should be leaning over with arms posted out wide. You can use your shoulder to push their head to the side and start setting up for a submission.

From mount, you can seek a figure 4 submission and multiple transitions from there.

First transition – Figure 4 from Mount to Arm bar
If they bridge and attempt to shift to their side when attempting figure 4, hop up to a side mount position, one foot in front of their stomach, other behind with knee behind their head. Control your opponent like from side control, one arm behind their head, one under their arm (except in this case, under the closer arm). From there, push your opponents face across away from you, grab your own lapel (trapping their top arm), throw the leg over (the one with the knee behind their head) and fall back with their arm for the arm bar.

Second Transition – Figure 4 from Mount to choke

Similar to the set up from before, from the side mount position it begins to vary. From there, the top arm pulls open their lapel, grab inside with your lower arm (thumb in) and pull around their neck. So if they bridge to their left, pull open their lapel with your right hand, grab with thumb in with the left hand and pull around the neck. With your right hand, push on the back of their neck and tighten with the left hand to finish the choke.

Next post will also be Mount position centric as we seem to have been drilling that the most out of all of them.
I hurt my knee on Wednesday :( The same one that's been operated on...Hopefully it isn't something too serious.

Hip Bump Sweep and Back control defense

Wow, it's been a while since I last updated...haha...Not Diablo 3 related...I swear!

The other night we learnt the hip bump sweep. I must admit, I found it quite difficult to pull off, and I suppose it’s most likely due to being unfamiliar with it. There were alot of aspects to consider with it and though it seems fairly simple, pulling it off in wrestling seems like it’d be difficult unless done incredibly quickly.

Hip Bump Sweep

1. From a closed guard position, break down your opponent’s posture bringing them down with your legs and a grip on the lapel.
2. As your opponent tries to posture up, follow him and cross grab his arm in an overhook opening your guard. So with your right arm, sit up, going up on your left hand and reach over his right arm (diagonally opposite). Your left arm will be supporting from the hand (not the elbow).
3. Control their arm with the overhook, keeping your body close, and bump your hip (pushing hard with your leg) into their torso to sweep and reverse the position into you in Mount.

You need to control their arm to stop them from posting out and to assist in the sweep.
Submissions 101 breakdown. He makes it look so easy...

 

The main thing is to control that arm and push hard with that leg to get the momentum.

The alternative to this is if your opponent pushes you down, sensing you were going for the sweep, you can scoot your butt away a bit so you’re sitting, push the overhooking arm down over their neck (like a guillotine) and under their opposite arm. Clasp your hands together and if you can get a leg hook in, you should be able to sweep them over you.

Back control defence

Someone also gave me some tips for defending when someone has you in back control.

1. If with back to floor, push your legs off the floor and try to work your head higher than the person controlling you from behind. This will allow you to relieve the pressure of an attempted choke and make it harder for them to finish.
2. Roll to the opposite side that they are attempting to choke you from. So if they are trying to choke with their right, roll onto the left. This can trap their other arm and stop it from completing the choke.
3. From point 2 above, making small incremental shifts of their leg with a grip on their pants to remove the hook and under your body can improve your position and allow you to turn around.
4. Always defend your neck.

Important point, From back control, never lock your feet in front of your opponent as you’re just asking for an ankle lock.

Cross collar choke from knee ride

Today we worked with the cross collar choke from knee ride.
This is one of those which works as a good strategy to lure an opponent into moving the way that you want them to.

Starting from knee ride, using the same arm as knee, grab their lapel on the opposite side. So right knee ride, grab their right lapel (on your left) with your right hand, fingers in. Elbow should be down on the same level as your knee. Don't put it too high or they'll know you're going for the cross collar choke. From there, if they hip escape away from you (so facing you), lean forward to stop them from escaping and at the same time, punch your hand gripping their lapel through towards their far ear. This is integral or you won't create a grip point for your other hand. Also, they are not likely to hip escape towards you as this will expose their back and a potential arm bar. As you lean down, reach behind their head, grab with your thumb in the lapel and bring that arm down around their head and below the jaw. Pull back with both hands whilst pushing your knee forward and them flat onto their back. Most of the time, you'll get the choke here.
If you don't get the choke, you can transition to mount, tripod with your head above their head and tighten the choke. This should usually get it, even for those with really thick necks.

I had a lot of trouble finding anything from knee ride, but the concept is the same from mount as it is from knee ride. In this video, he actually gets the opposite grip in first, but this is a consequence of starting it from mount.

The alternative to this is if you can't get the 2nd grip behind their head, you don't even need it. As long as you control his shoulder, you can still get your wrist across his neck and complete the choke. A general rule of thumb here is to maintain a 90 degree angle with your wrists. From here, we worked with rolling them into your half guard and trapping them there. If they don't want to move, you can always push them onto their back and finish it from mount as above.

From guard, you can also execute this move. If you control their opposite lapel like before (deep is best), break their posture with your legs and reach around and grab their opposite lat or shoulder with the free arm (like you're climbing to back mount). This breaks their posture and brings them down towards you. Though it's not a cross collar choke like before, their priority is to regain their posture. They do this by pushing across and under the arm holding onto their lat. From there, it's just a matter of controlling their shoulder and completing the choke again. There should be almost no escape for them from this position as if they pull back, push forward or try to stand up, they will have to tap out.

So Cross collar choke...another choke to play around with!

Opponent standing in your guard

Last night we worked on options if an opponent stands when they’re in your guard.

First thing was to control their posture but grabbing their lapel. This is assuming that you’re still locked in with your feet in a closed guard, but they have managed to stand up.

I was also taught that when standing up in someone’s guard, you should grab both sides of their lapel, pull it down tight, and twist to get a good grip. Then, grabbing one of their sleeves (preferably the one which you will first stand up with), push that across, then stand to reduce the potential for a sweep.

All of these moves assume your opponent has just stood up in your guard.
Arm bar variant
One option is that whilst grabbing their lapel and controlling their posture, you can walk your legs further up their shoulders, one leg at a time (whilst still on their back), adjust your angle by under hooking one of their legs. Trap one of their arms and swing your leg around for an arm bar.
Arm bar variant 2
The other option is if you can’t get the arm bar due to your opponent stacking you, you can reach across to their other foot (the one that you didn’t under hook before) with the same arm, grabbing from the front. Maintain the grip with your attacking arm. You then bridge your hips and roll them, keeping your legs tight together. This ends up with them on the ground in an arm bar, they may roll, but you can still get the arm bar even if they end up face down or face up.
Omo Plata variant (from right hand POV) – this one is a bit fuzzy...
Similar set up to the above, instead of swinging your leg around and to the opposite side of their head and pinning it there, swing your left leg around and close it in a triangle around their left arm (Your right foot being in the crook of your left knee). Hip escape to the right. From there, trip them up with your right arm in the under hook on their left leg and pushing your right thigh down on their arm.  Clear their left leg out of the way, grab their belt and pull yourself into sitting position. Their arm should be trapped between your legs. Undo the triangle, lean forward, right leg on their tricep, right foot just near your left leg to get the submission. Aim to lean towards their opposite shoulder for the tap.
Some of the points are a little bit hazy as it’s a little bit more of a technical move. Hopefully we will revisit this one later. The teacher said this was more of a blue belt technique, but was just introducing it to us for future reference.

Anyways, points to remember from this lesson.
1.    Control their posture with a grip on their lapel.
2.    From someone’s guard, grab both sides of their lapel, pull down and twist inwards. Control their arm (via sleeve) that you intend to start standing up from.
3.    You can change your angle and attack from utilising your opponent’s legs
4.     If you control their posture with their lapel, you can shimmy your legs up to their shoulders for a different attack.
5.    Sweeps are also available from this position.
6.    For the Omo Plata, lean towards their opposite shoulder that you’re attacking. Pushing your thigh down against their tricep is critical to pushing your opponent into the Omo Plata position.

I actually managed to get someone during wrestling to submit to an Omo Plata! ^_^V First time ever! I’m not sure how I even set it up, but I found myself in the position for it and used point 6 to get it.
I did also try to get a D’arce Choke from side control, but failed to execute it properly...more practice required methinks!

Front Sweep, Back Sweep and variations

Last night we learnt the front sweep, the back sweep and a couple of variations.

These all start from you pulling guard position on someone who is standing up. So say both of you are standing, you grab their gi and jump into guard with them standing.

Back Sweep
1.    From Guard (and your opponent standing), you drop down onto your shoulders, letting your legs go.
2.    As your knees pass their torso, bring them together and keep your feet on their back, toes facing inwards. This essentially means that they are trapped between your knees and feet.
3.    Grab their legs behind the ankle (thus trapping them) and thrust your hips up (therefore pushing your knees into them).
4.    This should make them stumble backwards and fall onto their back. Once they are on their back, grabbing their lapel and drag yourself up into Mount position.
This works exactly the same without the Gi. I’ve noticed that this one is really good as well for when people are trying to stand up in your guard, you can usually get them in the transition period and reverse the positions.

Front Sweep
1.    From Guard (and your opponent standing), grab your opponent’s gi sleeves and drop down onto your shoulders, letting your legs go.
2.    Bracing your feet on their stomach (toes in or out), pull their weight over you with your grip and flip them over your head.
3.    Maintain grips and follow them as they fall over onto their back so you end up in Mount position.
This one seems to rely more on Gi, though you could probably do it with grabbing wrists, it would be difficult, especially as everything tends to be slippery.


Variation sweep 1 – Hand stand sweep
1.    From Guard (and your opponent standing), drop down onto your shoulders. Slightly lower yourself by loosening your legs a bit, but don’t let them go. Your hip should be approximately in line with their knee. 
2.    Hook your right arm behind their left leg from the inside so the inside of your elbow is on their ankle.
3.    Put your left hand next to your head with fingers facing down and push to the side. This will force their knee to bend and trip them onto the floor.
4.    Grab their lapel and drag yourself into Mount position.

Variation Sweep 2 – Knee binding sweep variant
1.    From Guard (and your opponent standing), grab your opponent’s gi sleeves(?) and drop down onto your shoulders, letting your legs go.
2.    Allow your legs to spread into a V as you drop and bring them together again in closed guard at a point just above their knees, forcing their knees together.
3.    From there, it’s just a matter of tripping them down to the side. Use your legs around their legs to move up to Mount position.

Practice practice practice!

D'arce, Anaconda and North South chokes

Tonight I learnt a few new chokes, but I think the thing I need to work on the most at the moment is my posture. When we start wrestling, I've been told that my weight and head is too far forward and this results in me being easy to guillotine or be controlled from the back. Same with being in guard, posture is integral to ensuring that I can at least prepare to pass.

Today someone taught me the D'arce Choke, a variation to a head arm choke.
Submissions 101 D'arce Choke breakdown and concept.

Instead of starting on top, I was taught the choke from side control, if they're trying to hip escape away from you (facing you), you dig your arm closest to their leg under their top arm, under the arm pit and around their neck. Then with that same arm, loop it back and grab your other bicep to close the choke and tighten (like a rear naked choke).

I was also taught the Anaconda choke (another variation of the head arm choke) but I must admit, I'm a bit hazy on the details. It seems very similar, to the D'arce, except the arm is dug deep from the other end (so dig in from the neck), bring it under his opposite armpit from the side of the neck you dug and close it like a rear naked choke again.

With each of these chokes, getting that arm as deep as possible seems to be one of the key, or you can't close the choke off. 

Someone also taught me the basic North South Choke. From front control, slip your arm under the neck, push their head to the side and get their neck in between your lat and bicep. Then, with the other hand gripping the choking arm, pull it tight and sink your body down, pushing your chest forward. The sink is really important. Another submissions 101 video explaining how to execute it! Whether their arm gets caught in it or not isn't really important, as long as you have unhindered access to their neck.

Figure 4 lock (Americana) from mount. I need to focus more on putting all my weight into getting that arm down and working for it.
If the person is tightly keeping their arms to their body, I can always attack the neck to get them to open up.  Got caught with this several times.

So some points for improvement:

• Work on keeping posture upright! This is especially key when in a guard, mounted or even at the start of wrestling.
• Use my weight to try and manipulate people, not my strength. 
• Keep my weight as low and centred as possible. Extending beyond my weight results in easy sweeps.
• Attack the neck if an opportunity is not presenting itself from mount.
• Look for under the arm or under the neck choke opportunities.

Throat hurts...someone choked me pretty hard, hopefully it doesn't bruise.

Scissor Sweep

Tonight we learnt the scissor sweep and variations to the scissor sweep!
Sweeps are really fun and can completely reverse your position in a single move. Simple demonstration and instructions from Submissions 101.

Scissor sweep starts off fairly simply from controlling an opponent in your guard.
Points I took note of included:
1. From Guard position, commencing position is right hand gripping the inside of their lapel (cross grab), left hand controlling their right hand from the sleeve.
2. If in closed guard, unlock the feet, hip escape to the right (pushing with your right leg), bringing your right knee across their chest. Maintain hand grips.
3. In a single motion, pull them towards you with your arms (loading their weight towards you) and push your right leg across in a forward kicking motion, pulling your left leg back in the opposite direction (hence the scissoring) and sweep their legs out from under them. Getting their weight moving towards you is pretty important or your left leg will have a lot more trouble sweeping the legs out from under them.
4. This usually ends up with you in the mounted position.

Variations to this include (from when you have hip escaped and have the knee across their torso):
1. If the left leg cannot sweep the legs out from under them (their weight is too far back), instead of trying to sweep the leg out, put your left leg on their right knee and push it back, removing their support. This should also end up with you in mounted position. This is also shown in the Submissions 101 video.

2. If they raise their left leg and put their foot on the floor (so their right leg is on their knees, left is on their foot, think it's called the commando position), bring your right foot back to hook under their left leg behind the knee. Proceed to raise that leg and sweep from there.

3. (This one is a bit hazy...so forgive me if it's wrong) If they raise their right leg instead (in a mirror of point 2 above) and put their foot at the crook of your left knee, push off their hip with your right leg, hip escape to the left, insert your left leg under their right leg and push it across the body so you hook into their torso. From there, pull their opposite arm across and towards you (let go of the collar grip). Reach over their shoulder, grab their belt. Pull their weight onto you using the belt as leverage and kick your right leg out, spinning them to your right. This should get you in side control. (I'll check details on this one later...haha...). This one seemed a bit convoluted, but from doing a bit of reading and research, it looks like the reaching over and grabbing the lat or belt makes it's way into a few variations of the scissor sweep.

The best bit about the scissor sweep is that once I'd learnt it, it was very easy to execute and I managed to pull it off multiple times during sparring! I think I'll write a bit more about the mechanics of the scissor sweep later when I have a bit more time!

I think that this blog is already having a positive effect on my training and the way I'm thinking about the martial arts. I'm thinking more about the mechanics and the bases in which the submissions, the sweeps and positions are most effective. Hopefully this continues!

Cart before the horse...

Firstly, today was Troy Flugge's birthday and in memory of him, we got hammered at class tonight, constant push ups and squats until we were ready to collapse in our warm up. Troy Flugge was one of the founders of the Submission Factory, was a BJJ black belt and passed away suddenly last year. The advanced class (which is after the beginners class that I take) was going through a deck of cards, with the corresponding number and colour that came up being the number of squats or push ups...insanity. Apparently that was one of his trademark exercises...

Tonight was one of those nights where I just got smashed by everybody.
There are so many skilled and strong people that I take my BJJ class with I sometimes feel like I'm not moving forward or improving at all. But I'll persevere. I think about when I started and how much I've improved and changed since then and there's a world of difference. I'm just at the beginning of my BJJ journey and there's so much to learn. If it was that easy to master, everyone would be a black belt by now!

I think the worst thing that I've done and is screwing with me a bit mentally is that I watched a bunch of videos about some of the more advanced techniques (Rubber Guard, Hurricane Sweep etc) when really what I need to be focusing on improving is the basics and building solid foundations. Otherwise I'm putting the cart before the horse! This includes things like:

• Escapes from Mount and side control
• Holding and maintaining a good side mount and mount
• Transitioning between positions
• Passing Guard
• Controlling and managing other guards like butterfly and spider guard
• Defence against submissions

This surely isn't an exhaustive list and it isn't in any particular order, but these are the main goals that I want to work towards. I also note that none of them are actually submission based, rather positional based which I think is actually more important at this time. If your position is weak, going for your submission will also be weak and allow an easier sweep and change around. That being said, a lot of stuff I read indicates that attacking is the best form of defence. So a bit of a balance is required then.

Tonight after our warm up, we worked on the arm bar from guard (see my previous post), transition to a triangle and if that doesn't work, an oma plata. Oma plata is new and I'll make a separate post about that later! (perhaps tomorrow!)

Elbow positioning

So yesterday I went along for the no gi BJJ class. Man, no gi wrestling is hard! You lose alot of the easier to get anchor points (collar, sleeve, pants) and end up being alot more limited in the submissions you can go for (alot more slip, hard to find holds). Well, it feels like that anyways, I sure had to tap out alot!
I did get to try a few new different moves and was successful in executing a scissor sweep, side control sweep and learnt a few different submissions (gogoplata and omaplata from rubber guard). It was fun just experimenting as we couldn't go full bore sparring for an hour so we worked techniques and taught each other new things.

Anyways, after BJJ, I also did the Kenpo class which always makes me think a bit more about my technique. The Kenpo feels much more technical (though BJJ isn't exactly easy) and makes you reconsider concepts that you thought you had down pat.

One thing that we worked on yesterday was a technique called Gripping Talon. The video below shows a quick breakdown of the technique.

One of the first moves in the technique is a step forward with the right foot and trap the grabbing hand (with potential finger break). The elbow sinks in the first move so that the elbow point is below the point of the grab and allows you to break the grip very easily. And this is where I started thinking a bit more about the elbow position. Though it doesn't even get a mention in the video, I think the elbow position is a key aspect in alot of ways.

Whether you're a ground specialist, grappler or striker, the position of your elbows in your guard and in each position can dictate what happens next. Generally speaking, it would seem that close to your body tends to work well in most circumstances and gives you the additional grounding/defence/power that you need.

For example, in BJJ, if your arms and elbows are away from your body (usually across your centre line), people are able to capitalise upon this and you usually end up in any number of submissions. Similarly, if you are grappling and in a clinch, the person with their elbows closer generally has a stronger base to pull you close and is much more difficult to break away from. In stand up striking,  elbow position close to our body allows us to protect our body from kicks and punches as well as dynamically fire punches. I've been to a few wing chun classes in which they showed me the folly of shifting my elbows even a couple of centimetres out of place. They were able to capitalise on this and could essentially control my arms from the elbow.

Quite often the first reaction that we have to a wrist grab is to pull away from the attacker. However, at this point, our elbow is too far away from our body and we are unlikely to break away. By stepping into the attacker, sinking our elbow below the grab, we are able to weaken the grip, obtain a better angle to break the grab and stabilise our base, all in one motion. The further away the elbow is from the body, the more effort is required to break the grab, we start to utilise our shoulder, triceps and chest muscles to compensate. Its a much more stable scenario than trying to establish our base from where we started off.

Anyways, just some thoughts. I think elbow position isn't given much thought, but is something critical that people take for granted.

In other news, a new video has been released of the last grading that we had in February for a Green belt and Brown belt in our Kenpo class. Just some highlights from the grading below (note, there is metal music playing in the background).

I'm one of the n00b yellow belts. So many problems with my form...need to think more about my guard and where my hands are when I'm sparring. And my posture...arrgghhhh >_<

Basics - Basic Arm Bar from Guard

The other night, we worked on tightening up and improving our arm bars from Guard position. Arm bars seem easy, but are difficult to master and there are many points to keep in mind when attempting one.

Arm bars utilise the simple concept of a lever and hyperextending the elbow in a way they aren't meant to bend. By placing the elbow joint over a fulcrum, in this case, your hips, you require very little force to break the arm. This embodies a key concept of martial arts, whether it's jiu jitsu, karate, kung fu etc. That any person, even if they are weak, should be able to execute this move effectively with the use of simple mechanics.

"Give me a place to stand and with a lever I will move the whole world.” Archimedes

See the Submissions 101 video as they have some really good tips and points about the basics of an arm bar.

Some things I noted (Bold and underlined are the things I personally need to remember):

1. Arm control is integral. Whether it's with or without a gi, getting control of that arm can make or break this attempt.  The method of grabbing the arm can vary, but you need to have that arm pinned to your chest. One to pin the wrist, one to pin the tricep to stop them pulling the arm away. I find that quite often when I fail to finish an arm bar, the biggest reason is that I haven't pinned that arm properly.

2. Once you have the arm pinned, put your leg on the same side of the pinned arm on their hip and push off and swivel. Theres several additional points to note about this:
 - When you push off the hip, the pushing leg should be tight against their arm. Keeping your knee against their arm ensures this. In the video above, you can see that there's space when he starts to swivel. Space equals opportunity for escape.
- Cut your non pushing leg down across their shoulder. This stops them from sitting back and stopping them from moving away from you and the lock.

3. Bring your leg over their head whilst keeping the arm against your chest so your legs are parallel. Don't cross your feet or legs when they are over the head.

4. Raise your hips to get the lock. Their pinkie should be on your chest, their thumb (if they gave you the thumbs up) should be pointing to the ceiling.

Contingency:
Should they manage to slip their arm out, you can transition into a triangle choke. This can be achieved by pushing off the opposite hip, shifting the leg that went over the head to the other side of their head, bending that leg and bring your calf across the back of their neck and hooking that into a triangle (trapping the opposite arm). This video from TrainFightWin shows it in depth and another one of their videos shows that if the triangle fails, you can also transition to do an armbar the other way.

I'll cover the triangle choke in more depth later.
Credit and thanks to Submissions101 and TrainFightWin for the helpful videos. Wish I could take pictures etc myself, but without a training partner, it's kinda difficult :P

We're up and running!

Great Wall of China 2011

The blog is finally up!
I've been playing around with an idea in my head for the last few months or so about starting up a blog. Though the question was, what should it be about?

I decided with a lot of thought, that I should try and document my journey as a martial arts student. It forms an integral part of my life and isn't just exercise, but a mindset and philosophy on how to approach and handle life.

I aim to use this blog to keep track of the important things that I've learnt and constantly seek to improve myself (both mentally and physically). By documenting the things I learn, I feel that I will force myself to think alot more about mechanics, the spirit and the foundations of martial arts and not just go to my classes and bludgeon my way through (which I am often tempted to do). I will aim to analyse the teachings each day and put it down for future reference, cementing the concepts and lessons in my brain.

Now, to the picture. This picture was taken when my wife and I were at the Great Wall of China in 2011. When looking for photos to put in this blog, I realised that nearly 90% of them are of our cat (I'll upload some of those later). However, my wife suggested I post a photo of when we were in China. I found this picture which I think is a very appropriate visualisation of a martial arts student's journey. Every student starts somewhere and the journey is never a straight smooth linear curve, but rather full of ups and downs. We never truly know where our journey will take us and the goal isn't really that important. What's important is the journey itself, the constant striving to keep moving, improving and getting back up again when we are down.

I may not get any readers, but at the very least, I hope I get something out of it.