Monthly Archives: September 2015

Jiu Jitsu class notes 9/15

17 Thursday Sep 2015

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Attended the takedown class and wondered how I used to do sprawling drills and breakfalls for 45 minutes at a shot…a few minutes has me gasping and sweating.

Takedowns & techniques worked: sprawls, technical standup (without the kick. http://www.grapplearts.com/2014/08/bjj-self-defense-part-4-the-technical-standup/?nabe=5701865648947200:1), peeling the grip off the lapel, single leg + counter (get head into attacker’s chest and mule kick the leg free), snapdown series (jerk with arms, jerk with arms and a step back, “snap the towel” and step back), snapdown + hiza guruma, snapdown + double leg. It took me a while to figure out that the trip we were doing was actually called “hiza guruma”, but perseverance and hitting the judoinfo.com site paid off! It also led me to spend more money at Amazon on a few judo books, too.

Anyway, check it out: http://judoinfo.com/images/animations/blue/hizaguruma.htm . When it’s done right, its effortless.

Moving into the grappling portion of the night, we started with breakfalls, penetration steps, and shrimping drills. Most were familiar but my back roll and penetration steps were pretty sloppy and need more drilling. There was a funky reverse shrimping movement that I hadn’t done before that wasn’t at all intuitive, too. Here’s an explanation of the movement from Ritchie Yip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Io63PwUHNrc

After 5 or 10 minutes of breakfalls we covered pulling guard – gripping sleeve and collar, placing a foot in the crease of the same side hip, then dragging the opponent into the guard. This progressed naturally into the “monkey flip” aka tomoe nage. http://judoinfo.com/images/animations/blue/tomoenage.htm

The progression then led to various sweeps from the guard against a standing opponent – I assume the intent was to chain these attacks against an opponent who didn’t get pulled down into the closed guard position. The “Tripod” and “Tomahawk” were the ones we worked. http://www.grapplearts.com/2013/07/3-open-guard-options-vs-standing-opponents/?nabe=5701865648947200:1

There were also some De la Riva sweeps and a monkey flip that I grappling dummied for but didn’t practice myself – I had enough trouble with the basic open guard sweeps. I like the De la Riva quite a bit but have fairly short legs so am not sure how readily I can make some of those moves work.

I was pretty well rung out at that point so skipped the open rolling again. I’ll add that to the regimen soonish.

“Do What Larry Says”

14 Monday Sep 2015

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I’m lucky enough to know the “Larry” spoken of in this blog post. When I follow his advice, I benefit. When I don’t, I typically stall or backslide.

Find yourself a “Larry”, people. They’re worth their weight in gold.

http://blog.anti-fragile.net/2015/09/get-good-coach.html

Adem Redzovic’s “Open Guard Translated”

13 Sunday Sep 2015

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Great stuff from a Chicago-area practitioner.

The biggest take away is to maintain 4 points of contact while you’re in guard. Feet and hands are generally the first line of defense, but shins, forearms, knees and elbows count, too. While we’ve been working De la Riva in class for the last 2 weeks I’ve attended, it still counts as an open guard and needs those 4 points of contact to function well.

When my guard got passed a number of times in the last class I had lost 1 or more of those points and probably should have just adjusted to something else that allowed me to bring another point of contact into play. That might not always be possible, depending on what’s going on, but at least it gives me a goal.

A Decent White Belt Guard Instructional

12 Saturday Sep 2015

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There are a lot of videos available online. While I’m not the raw beginner that these particular videos pertain to, they’re helpful reminders. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu tends to be taught in a piecemeal fashion due to the nature of its student body – a variety of people showing up on any given night with different backgrounds and levels of ability, along with an instructor who’s often a good practitioner of the art but not necessarily a good instructor.

Here’s “Charlie from the Plaza” showing some basics for the guard.

His 3 tips:

Top guy – don’t get tipped. You get tipped, you get tapped or swept.
Bottom guy – tip him. Then sweep or tap him.
Bottom guy – pull him off base when he moves. See what happens from there.

I’m sure this seems simple, but its often not spelled out to noobs and they don’t know what they should do.

I’ll add this one from Charlie as well – how to start the roll from the knees. This is another place that most new guys get thrown into without any instruction and often, no clue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjLn087ph7Y

Charlie has an interesting web site as well. Check it out. http://www.charliefromtheplaza.com/

De la Riva madness continues

11 Friday Sep 2015

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I arrived in time for the standing grappling/takedown class, so, after a brief warmup, we hit double legs from a standing position, relying on a fast level change and butt with the shoulder to pull the move off. The second drill was a snapdown set up with a quick jerk, then a step back and jerk, followed by a step back and snapdown. After that some free grapping – I kept getting taken by a simple step back and throw down to my right side, so I’ll have to look for some good counters – simply dropping my base might work. I’ll park this list of top BJJ takedowns according to Kesting/Grapplearts here for easy reference.

http://www.grapplearts.com/2015/06/top-10-throws-and-takedowns-for-bjj/

The class consisted of several De la Riva sweeps, and I’m pleased to find that the techniques make sense the first time through – I’m not fumbling around feeling lost like when I’m trying to hit the omoplata. I got jammed up when we added resistance, though, as I’m still fumbling through and trying to find the “right” response to a technique rather than just flailing about. The guy I was working with wasn’t wearing a gi, either, so grabbing sleeves or collars wasn’t really an option.

This is quite similar to what we were working. Slip the hook in, stretch the guy out, and dump him to one side or the other. If he posts and comes back up, force him back or dump him to the other side. http://www.shogunhq.com/search/label/De%20la%20Riva

There are some additional tips here, and advice to work to integrate the De la Riva with the Spider and Sit Up Guard for an integrated, offensive-oriented bottom game. I kept getting passed to the side of the hooking leg during resisted rolling and am not sure how to properly counter that yet – sitting up might be the ticket. http://forums.sherdog.com/forums/f12/de-la-riva-guard-1795131

Armbars and triangles and Omoplatas, oh my!

11 Friday Sep 2015

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Another night of BJJ(9/3/2015), and some frustration. For some reason triangles and I just don’t “click”. I found the omoplata similarly elusive. The main variant we were working included passing a leg under the locked person’s neck and I really couldn’t make it work. This looks quite similar to what we were working: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5vofh5L9Pc

We worked these techniques as a series going from armbar attempt (foiled by the top person yanking his arm out) to a triangle attempt (foiled by the top grabbing his pant leg with the arm that is forward of the hips) to an omoplata. One of the things that was emphasized was to push the head to clear a path for the leg and control the opponent.

Kesting’s one of my go-to guys to get good breakdowns of technique and he doesn’t disappoint here. As always, I find I have to do homework if I want to keep up with the other guys in class.

Armbar: http://www.grapplearts.com/2014/04/the-easiest-way-to-teach-and-learn-the-armbar-from-guard/

Triangle stuff – my legs are short, so I can use a lot of this advice. There are some comments about transitioning to the omoplata, too. http://www.grapplearts.com/2012/08/are-my-legs-too-short-to-apply-the-triangle-choke/

Omoplata fixes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mwTslcGH1Y

I have returned to Jiu Jitsu

02 Wednesday Sep 2015

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Dear Readers,

I have returned to what, in many ways, is one of my true loves and main Obsessions. Grappling gives me a sense of satisfaction that almost nothing else delivers. I spent 45 minutes drilling one simple sequence in a gym that seemed to be about 130 degrees and couldn’t be happier!

Since this blog is about keeping tabs of where I’m at as well as trying to provide content of interest to others, allow me to present one of the sweeps I saw demonstrated from the de la Riva guard!

Nothing is ever static in jits, even when you’re on the defensive. This is a very active position and you’re constantly attacking the opponent’s base and threatening a sweep or throw.

Here are some tips straight from the source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00YeBJBS9Eo