Met a new guy who was a Karate instructer veteran, met one of our guys down at a Royce Gracie seminar over the weekend and decided to try pick up more ground work. He had a good attitude which was good to see. He didnt seem in very bad shape but our warm ups can be abit punishing to those just starting. He seemed to manage ok though. Got to spar him as well later in the session. His a little bit bigger than me so I decided to work my sweeps to show the awesomeness of jiu jitsu. He was quite busy and tense so I had to fight a lil for my grips, but I pulled off the sweep. Either a sit up or pendelum, probaly a sit up as we had just gone over it in class.
Talking of which, we covered:
The kimura
Transitioning from kimura to guillotine
Transitioning from guillotine to sit up sweep
Going from sit up sweep to armbar
So especially good for the new guys. Had good fun pairing up with Nick again who I enjoy helping. His really come a big way in a very short period of time. In sparring he was active, fought for grips and defended very well. Kept his arms in as well. But although busy he did not work for a pass and so he eventually got swept. I dont think his had the chance to see many passes so will be interesting to see how he progresses once he has had a chance to drill some. Also did some stand up sparring with him. Am still finding it difficult going for takedowns, so I went for my failsafe throw, tomoe nage (stomach throw).
When I do it though I keep a hold of them and roll into a top position (hopefully mount). I like it for 4 reasons. Its unexpected; if you mess it up you end up pulling gaurd; its very easy as it requiers no strength; and you can also do this if you get very good at it:
You can also go for the throw, stop it mid way and let them fall into the armbar position. So it kinda looks like this:
How do you combat such an awesome throw? with an awesome counter!
The other counter is you can just bend your knees :P. Which is where the pulling guard comes in.
Anywho, other sparring went well. Was mainly sit up sweep, pendelum and armbar as Im trying to hone my A-game for the comp this Sunday. One of the big guys stayed very tight though and he managed to pass my guard. I think I was being to passive again allowing him to take it inch by inch rather than forcing an error. Annoyingly his guard pass was finalised with an elbow to my head, completely unintentional but it hurt. One move I was happy with was going for a kimura and then quickly moving to the other arm for a sit up sweep, which as he was pulling that way (defending the kimura) worked well. These grappling improvisations are happening more often recently, which I think is a good sign. That Im starting to develop a better understanding of the basic concepts of BJJ grappling.
One the guys showed me another cool take down, where you get your opponent moving but suddenly change to the other direction and go for an inside single leg. Worked really well but Ill need to drill it properly before feeling confident.
Had another roll with Terry, consciously focused on keeping side control and not letting him get to his knee's. Which he is quite good at, and is a hole in my game from looking at my videos from Brighton. Mainly just kept active in blocking his hip and controling his lower body.
My division for the Kent open was released to today. Got to fight about 44 people, probaly the biggest category in the whole comp. The good side to that is that we might win a new Black eagle gi as a prize!, which I need. Chris the poleaxe of doom has pulled out due to an injured knee he picked up from a kneebar the other week. Its a big shame as I was really looking forward to watching him in action. Hope it heals up soon.
Am really LOVING the look of this red Vangaard gi.
But they seem hard to get, seem to only find them on french or german sites. And I might look abit of a ponce in red. The black one looks great as well, but I hate ninja's... . I also think I might be better off just getting 3 privates with Andy, which is pretty much the same price (normaly £40 each but you can batch buy 3 for £100). BJJ has complete control over my christmas list.
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