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Monday, December 24, 2007

Rolling around

While I am in the mood for posting blogs, I thought I would put up some clips from a recent open mat, excuse the effects though, I am playing with my editing software...

The clips are of me rolling with Tony and also with Joe, all I am really showcasing here is my lack of cardio, but it is still good fun...

Merry Christmas!



New Bell

Just another quick one, now that my shoulder is basically 100% again I have graduated from a 12kg kettle bell to an 18kg bell. I splashed and bought one of the fantastic bells made by Mike Patterson in Hobart, they are definitely the best bells around in terms of the shape and comfortable grip. The great thing is you can comfortably do both single and double hand swings on this type of bell, plus the colours are fantastic.

Fantastic stuff!


Highlight Clips

Obviously it has been a while since I have made a post... but that is cool I didn't have much to say. I have now put together a couple of highlight reels from the recent BJJ Tasmania Spring Titles, so I though I would post them here... enjoy!

Merry Christmas.

Gerry





Monday, April 30, 2007

White to Blue






I finally got my Blue Belt tonight, Adam and Pete awarded me my Blue Belt after the completion of the Beginners Class. It only took me 5 years, lets see if I can get my purple in less time!

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Arm Bar Wednesday

Last night we continued the theme that we have been recently working with, of getting arm bars from varying positions. We are trying to avoid the idea that armbars only come from limited positions. Recently we have looked at various versions of the armbar including; mount, side control (near and far), knee ride (near and far) and front control.

To continue the theme we added 3 more;

From Guard
- The most important factor is to cut your leg high up over the opponents back, firstly to control the opponent, but later to setup sweeps and omoplatas etc as a plan B.
- As an alternative project your arm inside your opponents leg as you pivot to take their balance and roll them over.

From Front Control
- Setup with "Up and Crush", use a figure 4 grip and pop legs into place, instead of just stepping over the head, step below the far arm as well to prevent the opponent escaping.

From Back Control
- Start with Harness, seperate the opponents arm from the body, push the head away and down, swing your leg out and over the head.

I had lots of fun last night and I enjoyed my roll immensely, last night we were doing some 40% rolling which is always fun as it is great to see the variety of places you end up. My only apology is the few accidental kicks I delivered while rolling... whoops sorry!

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Busy Monday

Mat Devils

Good class tonight, kids are such sponges, they just soak up new material! We had lots of fun with a modified guard pass cycle, top control drill, guard work drill and creative guard passes. As usual we had a high energy class with plenty of rolling, falling and hip-escaping. Everyone is really doing well, but especially with their bridge and rolls and also the stay on top drill., not to mention having "Eifell Tower" legs, not "Leaning Tower" legs.

BJJ Beginners

We had a good beginners class this week, covering a range of techniques, we did the following;

Top Control Drill - Keep tight, with your chest on your partners chest.
Figure 4 from mount - Use straight arms and weight to push the arm away from the body.
Figure 4 from side control - Remember to change your base towards your partners head and then step over to stop them from sitting up into you.
Knee Ride escape to knees - Control the Hip and free leg, hip away and roll to knees for a single leg takedown.


BJJ Intermediate

Last nights intermediate class was a lot of fun, we had some guests from the mainland who were doing a driving tour of Tasmania, drop in for a roll which made it much more fun. One of our guests was a pruple belt under John Donehue who taught a No - Gi class in Adelaide and the other was a Blue Belt from Perth. Pete continued with the theme of arm bars from various top control positions (side control, mount and front control), then added near and far arm bars from side control and knee ride. Our guest from Adelaide offered a few fantastic alternatives to the far armbar from side control, effectively neutralising the near arm as well as the far arm, this gave an option of a tight far arm bar or a crushing arm bar on the near arm. It is always great to have guests come to train with us and offer their insights and roll with us of course too!

Great to make new friends on the mat!

Have fun, C Ya!

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Visitors from the North...

Hi all, last night was the first Thursday night class for 2007 and it couldn't have been better! We Were lucky enough to have 8 of our good friends from BJJ Launceston on the mat, who were down for a visit. The resulting class size certainly showed that it will be nice to have the 40 square metres more mats space we are planning on when we upgrade our mats soon.

I decided to spend some time on striking as well as a takedown and submission so after the warmup (courtesy of Adam Newton who ran it while I got everyone signed in) we moved onto a multiple station striking exercise. In the exercise we drilled many combos of: punches, elbows, knees and front kicks as well as weaves and reflex drills.

Our next action was to work our "Fence, Question, Go!" setups progressing from a strike, to a strike with a takedown to knee ride and eventually adding an arm bar to finish. As always before practicing a takedown we spent some time on safe falling. I like to work on "Safe Falling" as opposed to "break falling", the 2 principles I push are 1. Keep your arms in (don't land on an out stretched arm, big injury risk) and 2. Squat down to counteract the force pushing you back. As with all falling it is also necessary to learn to control the speed of your own fall.

Moving onto the technique progression; we started with the Fence, question, GO! Using a straight right for the strike. After drilling this we added a modified double leg takedown to, stepping past the opponent with our outside leg. The next stage is to consolidate the takedown, do this by keeping their knees squeezed together and step the rear leg past to a knee ride position, grabbing the near arm in a figure 4 grip. Finally Step over the opponents head and sit back into an arm bar to finish.

Our final exercise for the night was to add some resistance; the person being taken down was to try and pull guard on their opponent and the person doing the taken down has to pass to knee ride and get the arm bar. Essentially the same drill, but with resistance.

On a whole I had a lot of fun and hope everyone else did to, I do think it was a real benefit to our newer students to see a real cross section of experience on one mat. It gives an idea of what we can aspire to achieve, particularly having 3 purple belts training with us.

Thanks see you soon!

First Class for 2007

Hi everyone welcome back! Last nights BJJ beginners class was the first class for 2007 and we were really happy with the turnout and also everyone's enthusiasm!

We have decided to restructure things a little bit in the beginners class to try and get maximum benefit out of each class and present techniques in a way that each technique relates to the next.

In each BJJ Beginners class we will cover 1 drill, 2-4 techniques and 1 escape. Last night we did the following;

Drill

Keep the Mount
The "keep the mount" drill is to teach us to keep a mounted position regardless of our partners movement, it is important to hold your positions tightly when you have them, but to move with your partner so that when they roll, you can move with them so that you can flow from mount to side mount then to back mount. The important points to get side mount are to slide your knee up behind your partners head as they roll and to pull your lower leg up so that your foot in tight to their stomach and your knee is pointing to the roof. When transitioning to back mount you need to get "your hooks in", this means your feet hook over your partners thighs, you can cheat by hooking your top foot over the thigh as they roll. Once your hooks are in put both arms under your opponents arms and grab the wrists (in a paddle or "5 finger grip"), stretch your opponent out by pulling the arms and stretching your legs.

Techniques

Rear Naked Choke
Start in back control with hooks in (note: it doesn't matter if you and your partner are facing up or down) and a harness grip which is one arm over the shoulder and one arm under their arm gripped in front of their chest. Your choking hand is the top one which should be held by the other hand. Bring your choking hand up around partners neck and grab your own shoulder, try to get you elbow right in front of neck. Bring you other hand past your partners ear to behind their head making sure that both elbows are in front of your partners shoulders. Squeeze your elbows together and puff out your chest for the choke.

Lapel Half Nelson Choke
Start in Side mount on your partner, reach under the opponents top arm and loosen their collar with you top arm, reach your bottom arm under your partners head and grip their collar with your thumb in slide up tight to their neck. Make your top hand into a blade and put it behind your partners head but in front of your bottom arm. Push your top arm to the floor and pull you bottom hand like you are starting the lawn mower.

Escape

Rolling Headlock Escape
This escape is from Side Headlock, start by gripping you hands around your partners body high up under their arm pit. Walk your near leg toward them and bridge a little to get your leg underneath them. Bridge your hips up high and roll the opponent over towards their back, post out with your arms so the partner cant roll you over. Step your lower leg over their stomach and pull it tight to get side mount.