twice the father...

Hi Everyone, Just thought I'd let you all know my 2nd son Evan was born today... he is huge Amanda and I are really proud!

Waiting...

Today my wife is 3 days overdue with our second child... waiting can be pretty hard, but I know we are going to have another little champion. Nearly 3 years ago we waited 13 days past our due date for our first born and now we are waiting again... the wait though, I know will be worth it!

One Step Forward

Bit of a surprise,

Tonight on the mat Adam surprised me by awarding me my first brown stripe, one closer to brown belt. Wasn't expecting that, so now I guess it is time to really step up!

Of course just to remind me of why I train and what BJJ is all about one of our white belts tapped me with a cradle choke tonight, that really makes me happy.

Fun times...

GnP

It turns out that playing guard is harder to do when your opponent is striking....

I was just working towards an armbar that would have made Sergio Penha proud and then... BOOOMMM!!! my opponent was out, what an escape!

2010 Inter Gracie Championship

I recently competed in a Submission Wrestling Tournament in Sydney. I got a silver medal in the Light Heavy weight division. It was a great day, I have included a clip here of one of my bouts. I was paying particular attention to the clinch aspect in this amtch as I have been doing a light of private training on my wrestling and judo recently. I also got to showcase my leg lock game as well which was a lot of fun.

What do we take from comp performances?

Well in recent times I have had a few comps where I have a had some successes. The great thing about competing is that you are forced to work under maximum pressure your margin for error is greatly reduced. In addition the pressure makes it very difficult to think clearly so that you can usually only pull off things that you have done enough reps of to really concrete into your game.

Usually after I roll I am able to recall the bout and what went well and what didn't, I find it harder to do in comps though because of the pressure that I mentioned. When I am able to picture certain things that happen in comp bouts through I can usually be pretty happy that I must have a good understanding of any of the moves that I had success with. For example in the recent 2009 Tasmanian Champions Cup I finished matches with, among other things: a Triangle/Arm bar combination, a Clock Choke and various Figure 4 arm locks. I also pulled off a few half guard sweeps, an X Guard sweep and a Hooks Guard Pass I have been working on. Whilst I am not the best in the world at any of these techniques, I am happy to know that they are hard wired enough to work for me even under pressure.


What do I learn from this defeat to Jim Reid? Even if you tap you still sometimes go to sleep.

Anyway the two most recent comps I have been in are:

The Hybrid "No-Gi" grappling tournament in Sep 2009 in which I came third in the heavy weight division.

The 2009 Tasmanian Champions Cup in which I came third in the Purple Belt division (open weight) and won all fights in the team event, my team of 6 also won the event. - As a side note the winner of the Purple Belt Division was my good friend Jim Reid, who was awarded his Brown Belt shortly after the comp by his coaches Mario Yokoyama and Adriano Magnani of Gracie Oceania. Congratulations Jim, really well deserved!

The next comp will be another Hybrid No Gi comp in Feb 2010, hopefully I can place at that one as well, but if not I am sure it will be a good development for me at least.

Anyway I am off, keep on grappling and stay safe.

Paddy and Daddy

Here is a recent pic of me and my son Paddy, he seems to have inherited my awesome thighs (thick, but apparently dangerous to be triangled by...), so much so that I had to have his Grandma make him a new pair of gi pants as the Fuji ones appear to have been designed for a thinner leg.

Purple from John Will... 'Nuff Said

Kill the Advance Party

Recently I have been helping on of my students with his rolling reversals from under side control. Doing this of course got me thinking about the importance of not letting the opponent pass your guard in the first place and if he does pass taking action that gives you the chance to roll him off.

As usual when I am teching my imagination ran away with me and I started thinking of silly analogies to help with the teaching points. In this case I said that when your gaurd is passed it is akin to being invaded by an agressive foreign force and the lead arm is the advance party of this force. As in battle, by taking out the advance party you can confuse and disorientate the main force, in BJJ terms by controlling the leading arm you make it hard for the opponent to establish control. The result is that it is easier to regain guard or to setup a reversal.

A few options for working with this include: overhooking the arm, underhooking the arm, double hand blocking/kimura, stuffing the arm and also pillow defence (although this is an entirely separate kettle of fish).

In all cases the task is to prevent the leading arm from establishing control of your upper body, particularly with cross face. Regardless of how this is done the point is destabilise, if through this action you can regain guard the that is the best choice, using anything you need to such as shin blocks and crossovers etc. If you are unable to block the pass but you can control the lead arm, the next step is to hip away and face your opponent slightly then reach your far hand over their back and grab their belt or their lat. With their lead arm blocked you can shuffle round so that you are in a straight line with your opponent and then bridge and roll to take the top position.

Mental Toughness Training

I have been trying to squeeze two kettlebell workouts in a week for the last month or so, and have been alternating between two basic variations. Both require mental toughness as much as fitness and strength, which is important for any fighter.

The first is based on Steve Maxwells 300 workout where I do 300 individual repetitions of 18 different exercises without putting the bell down. This workout has a warmup component, a ballistic component, a strength component and a core component. I have been doing this with an 18kg bell and my best time is 20 minutes and 2 seconds so far.
The second is simlar but varies a little in that I do the same warmup component and then do 3 identical rounds consisting of 5 different exercises and a total of 90 reps each. Similarly I don’t put the bell down between rounds so I rest but not so much. Of the 2 this is probably the tougher workout as I really drive certain muscle groups to fatigue through doing more repetitions of less exercises. Also it is pretty close to doing three five minute rounds so is like a fight in that regard. My best time for this one is 17 minutes and 29 seconds including the warmup.

As I mentioned of the two the second is probably tougher and requires more drive to complete it, but the first covers a wider variety of movements so is more of a full body workout. I am thinking that my next goal will be to design a workout with shorter rounds probably around 2 minutes and then work towards doing 10 rounds. I’ll see how that works though.

Arm Drags

As with many techniques and concepts in Jiu Jitsu for me arm drags have followed the same progression. That is to say, we are shown a technique, we try to make it work (with more or less success), then it “clicks” and the mechanics of the technique start to become evident. After that you usually start to get a few notches on your belt and develop an ownership for the technique.

For me this has happened with arm drags quite recently, which is allowing all the good things that come with arm drags including; taking the back, triangles and sweeps. I found that the key seems to be not so much in the “dragging” the arm, but in “hanging” from the arm. As I reach an arm accross to the inside of of my opponents opposite bicep and start to pull the arm accross, I lift my back and hips slightly off the ground so that my weight is directly hanging off my opponents arm. This makes it very difficult for my opponent to escape and makes the speed of the arm drag a lot quicker. As soon as I drag the arm, I consolidate by getting about halfway to the back, grabbing my opponents far lat to “close the door” on my opponents arm and putting my outside leg over their back to start climbing on their back. From their I have been trying for three options (Plan A, B and C if you like).

1. Taking the Back - Once the arm drag is complete you are already half way to the back. To consolidate the position I like to reach over the back and get a paddle grip on the far arm as I slide my far leg further over the back to get a hook. While I do this I climb more squarely onto the back using the paddle grip for an anchor. Once on the back I use my near arm to either attack the neck or setup a harness.

2. Triangle - This is a far more successful option for me as most people tend to defent the back very hard. Essentially as I am completing the arm drag I take my inside knee quite high towards the opponents chest. Once in place I maintain my grip on my opponents far lat to keep my attachement to them and then use my other hand to block their far arm. To clear the arm and get to “triangle guard” (one arm in one arm out) there are two basic options. The first is to block the arms movement and bring my knee and foot inside their arm and around the neck. The Second is when the person triest to use the arm to pin my leg and attempt a pass. In this case I push the arm between my legs while I swing my leg around and over the neck. In either case once I have cleared the arm, I have Triangle Guard and can complete the triangles as I normally would.

3 Hooks Sweep - There are 2 basic ways to get the hooks sweep from the arm drag, one towards that arm that is dragged and the other is away. I most commonly go for the away from the arm drag option, as I find it easier as the opponent is already unbalanced and there abaility to post is killed by the arm drag, I basically use my inside arm as an underhook and sitout to the underhook side and lean back for the sweep. The other option is the to go towards the arm drag. In this scenario, you reach the inside arm out over both your opponents arms to kill the post. You are already sitting out to the side so you lean down and do the sweep.

There arm many more things that can be done from the arm drag, but that is the 3 things that are working for me the most at the moment.

Have fun stay safe on the mat!

Can Openers

When I say “Can Openers” a lot of people get the image of neck cranks from inside guard a la Tito Ortiz, but that isn’t what I am looking at here. These can openers are means seperating a persons arms from their body when they are defending really well in the bottom position. I have been working with three different types of can openers recently;

1. The “Homer Simpson” - I picked this name as it resembles Homer’s celebratory habit of lying on his side and “running” in a circle. Essentially this technique is from side control and is used to clear the far arm from the body to insert an underhook and go for submissions. To do it you grab your opponents far trap (as you would with an underhook) and make sure that your bicep is between his elbow and body. Then making sure that your chest is low enough to be below the level of your opponents forearm do the tight Homer Simpson walk around the head of your opponent until the arm is clear. Once it is free you have many options, such as a progression of submissions like: Figure 4, Straight entangled Arm Bar, Far Arm Bar.

2. The Wrist Drive - This technique is much like the previous one and achieves a similar result, the only difference is that instead of driving in a circular motion around the body, the pressure goes in a straight line driven by both feet. Start by gripping the arm in the same way as the previous technique, but slide your chest up to the wrist. Once there drive accross the body with both legs, this should apply maximum leverage on the elbow and force the arm away. Once arm is seperated follow the same submissions as the previous example.

3. The Smear - Unlike the previous two can openers, the smear is done from front control and is used to clear an arm to setup a forearm choke or front headlock. In essence I use the inside of rib cage as a hook to drag the opponents arm away from the body. Start in front control and move slightly further down opponents body so you can get your rib cage over the opponents elbow. Then keeping tight to their body move laterally back and forth smearing their arms away from their body. As soon as the arm clears the body drop your elbow into the arm pit to keep it seperated. From there you can start to attack with Front Headlocks or setup a forearm choke, it is also a good scenario for setting up a cross face with the arm trapped.

Heaps of Fun have a crack!

X Guard

I am still really only scratching the surface of this great game, but I am liking what I am finding. X- Guard has become my answer for people who manage to flatten me out in Half Guard, even if I have the appropriate underhook sometimes people still cross face so well that I am flat out on my back, especially with stronger opponents. My approach is to under hook my opponents free leg and start to shuffle my self further under them, this originally came as a result of avoiding the discomfort of the cross face, but pretty soon turned into “Back Door Escape”. When I am dealing with someone to strong for the back door option or who is to low to make it work, I trap the opponents far heel to the ground with my inside leg and then insert my outside hook. Then using the hook and my arm I can create enough space to insert the rear hook. It is really important when you are transitioning to full X-Guard that you use your free arm to block your opponents knee so they step over your hook to mount.

Now, the sweeps, there are 2 I have been doing regularly and one I have been trying (poorly)...

1. Ankle Grab - This sweep involves grabbing the outside of the opponents far ankle with your free hand. Then by pulling in on the ankle as you extend your hooks you can cause your opponents to fall back, you need to go to your knees and under hooks both legs straight away to get your pass and avoid the triangle though.

2. Hi/Low Hooks - To do this sweep slide your front hook down to the opponents ankle and your rear hook up as high as possible. The by extending both legs you cause the opponents far leg to be swept out from underneath them, they should fall backwards. As above underhook both legs to pass.

3. Near Arm control - This is a sweep or more accurately a series of sweeps that I am playing with from watching Marcelo Garcia, it involves controlling the opponents near arm and passing it to your underhooking arm to grip the sleeve or wrist. The idea, as near as I can tell, is to take more control of your opponent to do basically all the other X- Guard sweeps, or to free your hand up to pull down on the opponents lapel to give you rolling sweeps. To date I have had only marginal success with this, however I supect the weakest link is me not the technique at this stage!

Triangles

As I have mentioned in previous blogs I was a self confessed “Triangle Spastic” until about 6 months ago, in that most of my game was going OK and developing well, but I couldn’t get a triangle for love or money. Now that I have scaled the invisible barrier though I am actually finding that I’ll get 1 or 2 taps with triangles every time that I roll. So what has changed? Basically I have gotten better at them... But it is more that that it is also my approach, this has 2 steps,

1. Clear one arm to get what I call triangle guard and
2. Cinch up the choke and finish.

The big improvement is not only getting good at those 2 parts individually but also seemlessly linking the 2 of them and performing them with control at all times. A bit of a dogged tenacity in the application doesn’t hurt either as opponents tend to get a bit of the “a tiger is at most dangerous when cornered” thing going on and really explode to get away as you are trying to finish it.

In terms of the details of those 2 steps though the things that I am looking for as follows:

1. Clearing the arm. Ther are heaps of ways to achieve this, but other than specific gameplans to achieve this (eg rubber guard etc) the things I have the most success really revolve around cutting angles away from the arm I am trying to clear. Basically by this I mean doing something like faking an Omoplata attempt or getting an Underhook and sitting my hips out to that side. I have been getting arm drags and faking going for the back then clearing the far arm as well. In each case this gives me more freedom to control the opponents far arm and either force my leg past it or push it between my hips. As soon as I clear the arm I immediately cross my legs and control the opponents posture. Which brings me to Point 2.

2. Finishing the Triangle. When I was developing whatever ability I have at the Triangle Choke I knew I had to divide them into these points, and while I knew the variations for point 1 were endless, I really didn’t want to too much variation on point 2. So the keys are making sure that I turn my body to make the angle for my calf to cut accross the neck (rather than relying on my non-existent flexibility). This involved doing various things to keep the person from posturing, usually underhooking the free arm and “hanging” my weight as well placing my palm over my ankle to lock my leg down on the neck. From here it is jsut a question of triangling my legs and squeezing my knees. The only points tidy up the choke for me are: pointing both sets of toes to the ceiling, doing a slight crunch and often getting a gable grip on the free arm and squeezing down to prevent turning out of the choke.

For me that is basically Triangle, without going into a detailed description of every setup I know that is!

My coach, Adam Newton, awarded me my first purple stripe today... woo hoo!

My 3 current themes

Been a while between updates, family strain is the main cause of this, but that is “part of the fun” as my Dad used to say so I can’t complain. In my personal game the biggest things that have been happening a lot recently are; Triangles, X-Guard and Can-Openers. I’ll write a bit about each of them and their impact on my game in the near future, but for know a general overview of what I have been doing with them.

Triangles - really all I am doing is just trying to get triangles, but I have been experimenting with different setups and different ways to finish, particularly in light of some comps starting to outlaw pulling down on the head.

X-Guard - I have been playing with 2 or 3 sweeps from half guard, but the main thing I have been doing is transitioning from a tight crushing half guard to X-Guard as an option to keep my opponent off balance.

Can-Openers - This is is a topic that I covered with John Will on my recent training visit, there were about 3 different ways that we covered for clearing the arms away from the body when opponent is defending tightly under side control.

In other news, between recent National and State tournments, quite a few members of our club have either placed or done really well. In particular there have been a few golds and some silver and bronzes as well. In a recent statewide submission grappling tournament quite a few from our club placed including a fantastic win for Heavy weight Second Place with a cutting arm bar from guard, a really great effort.

Any check back soon for updates on Triangles, X-Guard and Can-Openers.

Training Trip

No updates for a while I know... things have been busy sorry...

However in few days I am going to be traveling over to Geelong to spend a few days training with my coach John Will both in privates and in his school. It is always so great to spend some time in Geelong as the depth of talent there is so deep that you can't help but come away having learnt a great deal.

Anyway I'll be sure to write a whole heap when I get back about the stuff that I have learnt and I'll try to get some pics as well.

"Rubber Mount"

My personal game at the moment is as I have been writing about a lot recently, mostly it has been about triangles and omoplata combinations. The big factor is that I am more and more starting to view guard as a place to get submissions first and sweeps second, where previously I had always swept primarily. The result I guess is that I have developed a reasonably good sweep game over the last few years, but haven’t done a lot of work on subs, I think I have John Wills recent seminar on Omoplata to thank for my new found offensive guard game though.

Anyways, I have also been playing with a new top game as well and been covering it in my Wednesday night Intermediate classes. I have been working off different options and submissions from S-Mount, I am playing with the name “Rubber Mount” at the moment for the game as I do a lot of grabbing my own feet and pulling them all over the place, much like Eddie Bravo does with his Rubber Guard.

Basically I have been working on going to High Mount, then Pivoting to S-Mount and pulling my foot really tight into my opponents far arm pit with my lower arm. From there I have been going through this progression;

Ÿ Upright Near Arm Bar
Ÿ Far Figure 4 (to break grip for arm bar)
Ÿ Insert lower shin through arms (to break grip for arm bar)
Ÿ If grip wont break go to mounted triangle.
Ÿ From there go to upright arm bar if they don’t tap to the triangle.

I’ll get some pics of this up soon, and mention more about it as things come up in my rolls.

C ya

Triangle Graduation

After a fair bit of work over the last year (and no doubt aided by the fact that I am 22kg lighter and a lot more flexible) I have started to get a lot more triangles than in the past. I am confident to say that I am no longer a "Triangle Spastic", I am by no means an expert, but I am a lot more comfortable with them than I was. I think that it is mostly about tightening and finishing the triangle as I have always had a million ways to set them up, I just used set them up and arm bar everyone from the failed triangle. Another thing is that I have gained confidence to try them more often now as I am getting reasonably good at sweeping people by under-hooking their leg if they stack me when triangling them.

The flow on effect of this of course is that I am now getting a lot more Omoplatas as well, as the two tend to go hand in hand. Especially with the game I have recently been playing. This is to go for triangles and to use a reverse triangle to clamp down if the opponent turns away from their deltoid to avoid the choke, this either gives me a control grip to reset the triangle up with or goes straight to the Omoplata, either is cool.

Anyway I intend to get some vids of this stuff up here soon, I'll see what I can do.

ta ta

New Bells

As you will have no doubt read I have been using Bells for about 2 years now primarily since rehabing my major should reconstruction. I went from an 8kg bell to a 12kg bell and until recently have been using one 18kg bell (Ozbell), I have decided recently though that the time has come to move on.

So, I splashed out and bought some new bells the other day, very exciting times!

I have had the Blue 18kg bell on the far right for a while but had been thinking about getting a pair and was also thinking that I was ready to move up to a larger bell. So I figured I'd get a pair of bigger bells while I was at it. I got the 2 new 25kg bells (the black ones) and the new 18kg to match my existing one from Mike Patterson, my Osteo, who designs and makes Ozbells. Ozbells by the way are the best Kettlebells in the world, bar none. They come in 1 and 2 kg increments as well as some made from bronze in some really ornate designs.


Anyways I am finding lots of evil doing double clean and presses etc on the 25kg bells and am loving doing double rows as well. I recently purchased Mike Mahler's Beginner Kettlebell Workshop DVD which is great and also got with it Mike's Kettlebell ebook. They are both fantastic and worth having. I found most of Mike's ideas useful including ideas on Nutrition, Mike's ideas helped to form part of my nutritional plan that has allowed to lose 22kg over the last 5 months or so (116kg to 94kg approx).

I am have always been simple with bells, basically just doing swings, Cleans, Clean and Presses and Rows. I have started now to add in Windmills and Turkish Get ups all though I am only doing the last 2 with the 18kg bells as I still need to build a little more post operation stability in my shoulder, but I am getting there.

Anyway like I said, very exciting times!