Thursday Underhook

In thursdays no Gi class we had 3 students on the mat, same as the week prior. I was a little bit disappointed as I was expecting more, but it was Hobart Show Day and public holidays often make people forgetful, I even nearly forgot to get to training! At this particular class we had John, Peter and Chris (second class for chris and he is doing great!).

Peter Rogers are currently working on the coaching concept of providing a mixed experience class, which not only means coaching to a group of mixed experience levels, but also coaching to cover mixed needs. With that in mind I spend a bit of each Thursday looking at Standup and Clinch, with self defence and takedowns as the driver. The rest of the time is spent on BJJ techniques emphasising no gi.

During the class we covered the following;

In the Standup section we built up to ran this drill;

• Jab and Cross on Thai Pads
• Penetrate to clinch with underhook
• Shuck arm and take back
• Harness position and bump of balance
• Rear Naked Choke

Once we hit the ground we had a look at;

• Switchbase guard pass from hooks safety guard.
• Getting an underhook from side back on the bottom.
• Rolling takedown from side back bottom.

The rolling takedown was taugth by Craig Robinson in his recent seminar I love it!

Thursday night last

Hi all, this is post should have been written after last thursdays no gi class (instead of slightly preceding tonights no gi class), but still better late than never.

We had a fairly small class, but still it was a good class. We had a new student called Chris come along who was largely motivated by the need for self defence. Chris was unfortunately a bit nervous about trying a martial art and I suspect his family was his main motivation for coming. I got the impression that he wouldn't stick around on his own if he wasn't motivated in some other way. So I took him through some basics and tried to spend a bit of time making him feel welcome. For the other 2 participants, Nick and John, I went through a combination of techniques from guard, it went;

• Figure 4 from butterfly guard
• Opponent forces arm straight, Upwards shoulder lock.
• Opponent doesn't tap, force arm past your body and take opponents back.

In between going through these techniques I taught Chris a self defence scenario in the following order;

• Fence position
• Straight Right Punch
• Head cover and shoot to body
• Underhook and setup "Radix" Clinch
• Shuck with underhook and get back
• Rear Hoist take down
• Establish Knee Ride

At the end of the session I think Chris was happy with the class. I reckon the fact that he had had a good workout and that he had found out what he could do made him feel fairly confident. Chris said he would be back this week, I certainly hope he does come back. I know from experience that the first few sessions are the hardest to go to and if you get past those you tend to be OK, so all being well he'll stay with us.

I am not sure how many people we'll have tonight because it is Hobart Show Day public holiday, but I have heard that there may be a few folk coming along, so maybe it'll be OK. Anyway I'll put up a post and say how it was.

Craig Robinson Seminar

Hi everyone, sorry this is a bit late, but I have had heaps on at work and no time. Anyways this entry is about the seminar hosted at Launceston PCYC by Chris Stone and all the Lonny boys, which featured Geelong based brown belt Craig Robinson. Unfortunately (but not untypically) I was benched with injury due to my recovering shoudler, I still had the oppurtunity to video tape the seminar though. I am in the process of editing the video into a DVD for all the participants which should be ready in a week or so (don't panic everyone it is coming soon). The video looks good though.


All in all it was a good seminar and i think everyone got a lot out of it, in a way I may be lucky to have been solely a spectator as I got to see everything in detail and also see everyone's questions and of course the responses to them. I had a go at one of the techniques (a rolling takedown from under side back) at class the other night with nick and was really happy with how easily it worked. Especially considering I was really ownly using my movement and not being able to even grip with my right arm, it still worked a treat and I look forward to giving it a try for real in a few months... another technique for my turtle repertoire.

The seminar covered standup to a takedown, then a combination from guard which was an armbar setup, a cross ankle choke, a sweep a triangle and an omoplata. This was followed by a rolling takedown or double leg from head to head and side back. Also very good was the fact that at the end of the seminar Craig pointed out several white belts and said they would be blue in geelong and several blue belts and said that they would be purples or at least pretty close. It was good for everyone to hear that kind of compliment, anyway must go, my jogging partner has just show up... enjoy the pics.

Theraband Graduation

Hi everyone, as I promised I am putting up a report of my last visit to the physio. As the title suggests the physio has upgraded my rehab from boring old isometrics to the exciting world of therbands. I have 6 sets of movements to go through all pulling against the tension of the band, they are; rotating my arm inwards (pictured) and outwards, pulling in and out accross the front of my body and pulling the band forward and back in the direction I am facing.



It is surprising to me how much weakness I am finding in the shoudler from these exercises. The only thing I can think of that is a similar feeling is the times when I have done high reps of crunches and had my abs shudder from the pain. The only thing is that on some of the exercises my arm starts to shake after about 2 reps! The positive thing though is that, as I am really weak in these areas I am noticing huge improvement very quickly, I wish my grappling game improved that fast!

Anyway i had probably better go, but before I do I have to mention the movie my wife and I saw the other night. We went out to see Kenny, the film about the guy that rents out porta loos for major events, it was bloody funny, see it if you can! I'll have something more to add after the 2 classes tomorrow night, beginners and intermediate.

Gerry's BJJ Blog

Gerry's BJJ Blog

Tonight I taught my normal Thursday night class, but I decided to start a slightly different approach. Up until now I have been teaching a class integrating standup to clinch to takedowns, with a focus largely on self defence. Due to my inability to train for the last month or so and the apparent limited interest in the stand up class I decided to try a no-gi BJJ class. Actually, I was quite excited about the prospect as no-gi has always been a bit of a favourite of mine and I think it is probably the better side of my game. Anyways I had Luke, John and Peter come to class and they all seemed to enjoy it. After doing a warm up and spending a bit of time on safe falling (a bit of recurring theme at the moment due to a few injuries in the community plus a bit of a learning need for our students), then taught the technique chain step by step.

The entire chain was; double leg takedown to near side control to far head/arm wrap to mount, to arm wrap (or "who's your daddy?") to head and arm choke. I also intended to go from the mount with arm wrap to front control figure 4 and possibly even use the arm wrap to roll opponent to back, but we really only had time for the first sequence. We did spend a fair bit of time on the basics aswell, but most it was a small class and the details are important so that is OK.

In other notes it is crazy-hot today and the whole city is burning down so I hope those who are affected by the fires are going OK...

Also I have a physio appointment tomorrow so I'll let you know how that goes and what hardcore exercises they have in store for me!

C ya

Gerry

Gerry's BJJ Blog

Gerry's BJJ Blog

Hi all,

After having a chat to Pete (who is our main instructor at BJJ Hobart) I decided to include another ongoing story here on my blog. That is the tale of my recovery...

I am currently recovering from a shoulder reconstruction to a dislocation about 2 years ago, without going into to many details of the injury I'll go as far as to say that my injury is the result of a poorly executed rolling crucifix choke (check this link if that means nothing to you; http://www.grapplearts.com/Rolling-Crucifix-Choke.html) . Anyways that was 2 years ago and since then I have had lots of aggravations to the injury and plenty of mis-diagnoses, but finally I have had the surgery.

In a nutshell, the process of the surgery was to dislocate my humorous from the socket and put a screw in to the edge of the socket to act as an anchor. This anchor was used to tie the damaged ligament back across the shoulder joint, really tight.

It is now nearly 2 months later (surgery was 21/08/2006) and I have reasonable mobility and strength, however I am a long way from strong yet. My surgeon said he envisages that I will be able to do full contact grappling again between February and April, so 6-8 months off.

To get you up to date, with the rehab process, the first month was off work sitting at home, watching TV and feeling sorry for myself, I also had to carefully work on my mobility in 3 plains; up in front, lifting out to the side and rotating my arm outwards at the shoulder. During that month I want from about 5% mobility to about 75% in all plains except the last one which probably got to about 30%. I have gotten far enough now to start isometrics in all the same plains. I have also been doing further flexibility work, including large circles in both directions and using a short pole (dubbed "the rehabilitator") to push my arm out to rotate my shoulder outwards.

I am due to go back to the physio on Friday for my next set of exercises and I have been told to expect things to get harder so I am a bit excited/nervous about it all, but I won't be rolling until I get fixed so I'll jump in head first... No, wait that is how I got hurt in the first place...

Anyways watch this space for my continued rehab story.

Hi, I thought I would just write a quick account of our 2 classes (beginner and intermediate) last night and what we covered. Rob took the first class and started with what Pete calls "body confidence" eg. rolls, back rolls etc also regaining your feet when you are down with an attacker standing over you. Once we got onto techniques Rob decided we would do guard pass cycle so we took everyone through the full cycle. I noticed a lot of the people who were doing the actual basic pass were tending to make the following mistakes; they were either holding the opponent down with their high arm giving triangles and arm bars away or they were posting on the floor with that arm giving triangles or omoplatas away. Justin and Kathleen were doing the pass very well but they were tending to not get their shoulder low enough under the leg for the actual pass so that when they drove forward they didn't actually stack the person on their shoulders as much as lift the persons leg. I showed them how to get a lot lower once the guard is open and the drive which stacks the person right up.

After that we ran 2 sequences; Elbow escape, double hooking sweep, far arm bar and then side control escape to guard, basic sweep, figure 4 from mount.

On a whole it was a good class, I am a bit concerned about my shoulder though, I reckon it is to soon to be doing very much physical activity, I am regulating my activity a lot, but I find it hard to go to class and do nothing, I will have to pay very close attention to it to much sure I keep it safe. On Thursdays class I am going to start a no gi BJJ class as opposed to standup as I don't think we have been getting the interest, hopefully more people will come with a change of focus to the class.

I had better clear off, but I'll leave you with a picture from by Cat-Jitsu collection, this is The Darkness holding The Khan in guard with his head in a Thai Clinch. Check out the eyes, I reckon someone turned The Darkness from "stun" to "kill"!

Hi I thought I would add a pic to my blog to put face to name.

Actually you can't see a lot of my face, but you get the idea and I have alwasy liked this pic. This was taken at my brothers place a few years ago when he wanted to test his new digi camera on quick movements for sports, so he suggested a few board breaks, which is always fun!




Me and my wife Amanda, mucking around at a friends house pretending to propose. We spend a lot more time mucking around than being serious! Amanda does roll her eyes at me a lot when my imagination gets carried away with me and I start talking crap though, but I think she finds me amusing, at the very least she puts up with me.












Me Demoing a front Sweep in a BJJ introduction and self defence awareness course I taught for a local College recently. This technique may not be the most appropriate self defence technique, but it certainly looked good for the young men and women in the course, and it is a good demo for sport jiu jitsu.






Doing a Demo of Side Control in the same course. The guy under me was 17 but weighed 122kgs, he was certainly a hard one to move around! The whole course was taught "no-gi" both so that we could try to get a more street feel and also because in terms of BJJ I have always preferred no-gi.

My New Blog

Hi Everyone,

I decided to create this blog largely to test out this blog page. I am currently creating a web page for the BJJ Club that I teach and train in and would like to add a blog to it to act as a sort of training diary. I also envisage something along those lines that all instructors statewide can contribute to on the BJJ Tasmania website (also under construction).

I am in the middle of this web page project because a) it needs doing (along with advertising, signwriting, yellow pages, etc. etc. etc. etc.) and b) I am about 2 months into a 6-8 month recovery of a shoulder reconstruction on my right shoulder. I do get on the mat and take classes or help with classes, but I am not able to "roll" at the moment.

Anyway keep your eye on this space for more BJJ and life ramblings.

C Ya