After a typical easter of over doing it on the Easter Egg and Hot Cross Bun front I did a workout with my bro to try and counter act a bit of the fat we had no doubt put on. Being that it was about 90% humidity and bloody hot we didn't go for the full routine though just did 2 rounds of our normal tyre chopping/pushup sparring combos but did some different endings for each round, that I though were worth a mention.
Warm up:
10 KB Clean and Presses on each hand
Round 1:
Normal Tyre chopping/Pushup Sparring combo
One person did 4 laps running up and down the 15 steps at the back of my house with the KB at chest height, while the other did a ladder of 5 chin ups (or at least tried...), then alternate.
Round 1:
Normal Tyre chopping/Pushup Sparring combo
One person did 10 reps of squatting down and explosively picking up the KB and putting it on top of my Greenhouse (head height) while the other did as many Bridging Crunches as possible in the time it takes for your partner to finish (I did 51), then alternate.
Cool Down:
10 KB swings on each hand.
Only a small set, but the variable exercises were quite fun and have got me enthused in trying to think of more explosive elements to intersperse in my Cardio, much like Mike Mahler talks about as High Octane Cardio, but more on that when I get there.
Anyway gotta go, catch ya.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Mat developments and Easter
Recently I have been discussing my strength and conditioning training as much as my BJJ training, so today I figured I'd write more about my grappling and only a little on the other.
I will quickly cover off on the workout I have been doing recently just for fun though, I have been doing 3 rounds, with a total time of about 15 minutes.
Round 1
Push Up ladder from 10 - 1 with a set of 10 crunches between each rung of the ladder.
Round 2
2 sets of 10 Clean and Presses on each hand (18kg kettle bell)
Round 3
Squat Ladder from 10 - 1 (holding the Bell at chest height) with 2 Hindu Push ups between each rung.
It is a quick workout but is very intense, my quads certainly let me know after I have finished...
Onto grappling, there are a couple of things that I have been working on recently. One is as always, triangles, I am constantly trying to improve my triangle game, as it is probably the weakest part of my guard. I have been playing recently with the idea of a "triangle guard" essentially closing my guard with one of my opponents arms trapped in side, making sure I am clamping the upper arm to the body. I have found that this midway position allows me to use both arms to break down the opponents posture and hold it down. Then it is a fairly small movement to scoot my hip out and a bit and setup a triangle rather than trying to clear the opponents arm and setup the triangle all at once. I had found that doing it all at once tended to give my opponent time to escape. The other good thing is that I have found that most traditional triangle setups can be used to setup the "triangle guard", so it is fairly easy to find.
The other aspect of my game that I am using a bit more is X-Guard, to be perfectly honest when I learned X-Guard I didn't think it was something that I would use a lot, but as it turns out the half guard hooking sweep that I mentioned in my previous post tends to turn into X-Guard quite readily. The reason is that I have found that the only may people are countering the hooks sweep is by moving to the opposite side of my body from my hook and effecting an explosive pass. After being passed a few times I discovered that this movement actually gave me an opening to put my inside leg into it's position for X-Guard. I already had an underhook on their leg for the sweep and my outside hook was already in so one small adjustment gives me X-Guard. Once I get X-Guard I try to sweep immediately, the sweep I go for first is to grab the opponents other foot with my free hand and drive my hooks into the knee, this is essentially the same as the first X-Guard sweep that Eddie Bravo shows in Jiu-Jitsu Unleashed. The next step if that sweep fails is usually that my opponent will reach for a cross face with their near arm. I have found that I can claim that arm and use their motion to do a back roll and sweep them over my shoulder.
Anyway that is basically all that I have been adding to my game recently except of course for Omoplata from mount which I learned from John Will in the recent seminar we hosted. The other great Omoplata trick that John showed us that is your opponent rolls out of your omoplata, that you should keep their arm by cupping their elbow, this allows you to move to the opposite side of their body and pull them into a tighter omoplata, I have been getting a lot of mileage out of that as well. I believe that there is a video of that very move on Aesopian's blog if you are interested.
Anyway gotta go, Easter things to do, have a good holiday.
I will quickly cover off on the workout I have been doing recently just for fun though, I have been doing 3 rounds, with a total time of about 15 minutes.
Round 1
Push Up ladder from 10 - 1 with a set of 10 crunches between each rung of the ladder.
Round 2
2 sets of 10 Clean and Presses on each hand (18kg kettle bell)
Round 3
Squat Ladder from 10 - 1 (holding the Bell at chest height) with 2 Hindu Push ups between each rung.
It is a quick workout but is very intense, my quads certainly let me know after I have finished...
Onto grappling, there are a couple of things that I have been working on recently. One is as always, triangles, I am constantly trying to improve my triangle game, as it is probably the weakest part of my guard. I have been playing recently with the idea of a "triangle guard" essentially closing my guard with one of my opponents arms trapped in side, making sure I am clamping the upper arm to the body. I have found that this midway position allows me to use both arms to break down the opponents posture and hold it down. Then it is a fairly small movement to scoot my hip out and a bit and setup a triangle rather than trying to clear the opponents arm and setup the triangle all at once. I had found that doing it all at once tended to give my opponent time to escape. The other good thing is that I have found that most traditional triangle setups can be used to setup the "triangle guard", so it is fairly easy to find.
The other aspect of my game that I am using a bit more is X-Guard, to be perfectly honest when I learned X-Guard I didn't think it was something that I would use a lot, but as it turns out the half guard hooking sweep that I mentioned in my previous post tends to turn into X-Guard quite readily. The reason is that I have found that the only may people are countering the hooks sweep is by moving to the opposite side of my body from my hook and effecting an explosive pass. After being passed a few times I discovered that this movement actually gave me an opening to put my inside leg into it's position for X-Guard. I already had an underhook on their leg for the sweep and my outside hook was already in so one small adjustment gives me X-Guard. Once I get X-Guard I try to sweep immediately, the sweep I go for first is to grab the opponents other foot with my free hand and drive my hooks into the knee, this is essentially the same as the first X-Guard sweep that Eddie Bravo shows in Jiu-Jitsu Unleashed. The next step if that sweep fails is usually that my opponent will reach for a cross face with their near arm. I have found that I can claim that arm and use their motion to do a back roll and sweep them over my shoulder.
Anyway that is basically all that I have been adding to my game recently except of course for Omoplata from mount which I learned from John Will in the recent seminar we hosted. The other great Omoplata trick that John showed us that is your opponent rolls out of your omoplata, that you should keep their arm by cupping their elbow, this allows you to move to the opposite side of their body and pull them into a tighter omoplata, I have been getting a lot of mileage out of that as well. I believe that there is a video of that very move on Aesopian's blog if you are interested.
Anyway gotta go, Easter things to do, have a good holiday.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Half/Hooks Guard and Butterfly Arm Drag
Hey All, sorry no post for a while, this whole being a new Dad thing is busier than I expected (lol), but I have still been able to roll a few times at least. A couple of things of note have happened on the mat recently, I'll mention both, but the thing with both of these techniques is that while I have been off the mat spending time in the hospital with my wife and young Paddy I have been doing moves in my head which I can't ever seem to stop doing. Anyway it is always nice to get on the mat and actually try them out, in this case I have had success with both, so here we go.
Half/Hooks Guard
I can't claim credit for making this up or anything, I was originally taught it by my coach John Will in a private lesson with him a few years ago. I have had success with it but haven't used it much as I very rarely get into the spot to do it. As well as learning from John I also found this great vid of it on Aesopian's Blog, I have put the link below, so you can check it out. Click here for vids
Anyways on the mat the other night we were running a set of drills essentially designed to encourage a person in guard to prevent their opponent from closing their guard once it was opened. One of the drills involved the person on top trying to maintain top position while preventing the person on the bottom from either pulling guard or sweeping. I found that I was able to use the concepts of getting one hook in to either get to full guard or use the sweep on the video's on basically any opponent regardless of size. I am just glad I had that running through my head before the half guard session. A small note I also found that I could get the same sweep even without the overhook, I simply started to sweep and when they posted with their free arm I brushed my arm to my head to take their post away. This had the added bonus of giving me the underhook once I had completed the sweep. I think the main key to making that series of movements work is to keep the elbow that isn't overhooking tight to your hip to block their knee from getting close to your body and also to interrupt their hips.
Butterfly Arm Drag
This one I would like to say I invented, in as much as anyone can claim they invented a technique, I mean I certainly didn't invent butterfly sweep and I didn't invent Arm Drags so all I can really claim is that I figured it out my self. Anyways I am a big fan of butterfly sweep (not hooks in sweep or elevator sweep as they call it in the UFC), I am talking about sweeping from the guard with your shins in your opponents biceps while controlling their wrists with your hands. This is one of my strongest sweeps, I take one shin across the belly and reach the same side hand down to their ankle, I then pull them with my shin towards the arm I am controlling and lift the ankle to take them over, normally to knee ride. I find that I can get that sweep on most people, but some people have been countering it recently by sitting back against the pull on their arm. So I figured that I could arm drag them by bailing on the ankle grip and reaching across so that both hands grabbed their sleeve. Then as they are resisting I simply kick my leg straight and pull their wrist with both hands giving me an arm drag, leading to all the good things that arm drags lead to. Anyways I thought of it and then tried it a few times on the mat and had pretty good success with it. I'll try to get some pics up here of the technique if I can.
Half/Hooks Guard
I can't claim credit for making this up or anything, I was originally taught it by my coach John Will in a private lesson with him a few years ago. I have had success with it but haven't used it much as I very rarely get into the spot to do it. As well as learning from John I also found this great vid of it on Aesopian's Blog, I have put the link below, so you can check it out. Click here for vids
Anyways on the mat the other night we were running a set of drills essentially designed to encourage a person in guard to prevent their opponent from closing their guard once it was opened. One of the drills involved the person on top trying to maintain top position while preventing the person on the bottom from either pulling guard or sweeping. I found that I was able to use the concepts of getting one hook in to either get to full guard or use the sweep on the video's on basically any opponent regardless of size. I am just glad I had that running through my head before the half guard session. A small note I also found that I could get the same sweep even without the overhook, I simply started to sweep and when they posted with their free arm I brushed my arm to my head to take their post away. This had the added bonus of giving me the underhook once I had completed the sweep. I think the main key to making that series of movements work is to keep the elbow that isn't overhooking tight to your hip to block their knee from getting close to your body and also to interrupt their hips.
Butterfly Arm Drag
This one I would like to say I invented, in as much as anyone can claim they invented a technique, I mean I certainly didn't invent butterfly sweep and I didn't invent Arm Drags so all I can really claim is that I figured it out my self. Anyways I am a big fan of butterfly sweep (not hooks in sweep or elevator sweep as they call it in the UFC), I am talking about sweeping from the guard with your shins in your opponents biceps while controlling their wrists with your hands. This is one of my strongest sweeps, I take one shin across the belly and reach the same side hand down to their ankle, I then pull them with my shin towards the arm I am controlling and lift the ankle to take them over, normally to knee ride. I find that I can get that sweep on most people, but some people have been countering it recently by sitting back against the pull on their arm. So I figured that I could arm drag them by bailing on the ankle grip and reaching across so that both hands grabbed their sleeve. Then as they are resisting I simply kick my leg straight and pull their wrist with both hands giving me an arm drag, leading to all the good things that arm drags lead to. Anyways I thought of it and then tried it a few times on the mat and had pretty good success with it. I'll try to get some pics up here of the technique if I can.
Saturday, March 01, 2008
John B Will Seminar Feb 2008
On Thursday Feb 2008 we were privileged to have have John Will, a 3rd degree Black belt and the Head of BJJ Australia. John took us through a seminar on advanced Omoplata setups and drills. It was an extremely good session and was I think just what I needed as the drills where beneficial not only from a submission point of view, but also from a transition and control point of view as well.
I also asked John for some advice on Brabo Chokes and he gave me some good pointers; essentially he said, make sure you sprawl onto the back of your opponents arm and drive it into the neck (not the chest or face) and if needs be use your lower knee to keep his arm from between his legs. He also said to make sure that the bottom arm is through as far as possible and that you squeeze the head back in towards you as you bring your elbows together.
Here is a pic from after the seminar.
And here is John offering his thoughts on my brabo choke question.
I also asked John for some advice on Brabo Chokes and he gave me some good pointers; essentially he said, make sure you sprawl onto the back of your opponents arm and drive it into the neck (not the chest or face) and if needs be use your lower knee to keep his arm from between his legs. He also said to make sure that the bottom arm is through as far as possible and that you squeeze the head back in towards you as you bring your elbows together.
Here is a pic from after the seminar.
And here is John offering his thoughts on my brabo choke question.
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