A Work In Progress....

Rolled at Chadstone today and picked up a few things that I'll incorporate into my game. At the moment and for a while now, I've been to flat on my back!!! When my guard is passed I'm ending up either turning the wrong way or staying on my back and getting squashed. I had a good roll with Richard and saw that he anticipates which side I'm looking at passing on and turns in to that side before I move. I rolled into turtle a couple of times, as Jeroen suggested, when I knew they were passing and this worked well for me. Also dropping the bottom hand down to block them turning in when I managed to pass also made it much easier to get around. Getting into half guard I'm finding myself facing the wrong way. I try to turn back in and either lose the leg in my half guard or end up flat on my back. Big Steve pointed out that I need to hip out more and I realised that I wasn't sticking my arse out at the same time.... All in all a great session and really good to see Big Tom back on the mat!!!!

Demian Maia Science Of Jiu-Jitsu Defending The Guard Pass

UFC 79......

Options....

I was having a discussion the other day with Jeroen about my lack of finishing options from mount, side control, etc since we switched over to no gi. That feeling of getting there and then thinking, bugger what now, while trying to hold the position and not get swept! Anyway Jeroen gave me some sound advice which I'll follow through on. I found some nice finishes from half guard on grapplearts.com (follow the link) some of which we've done from Marcio Feitosa the head instructor of Gracie Barra in Brazil.

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A Roadmap for the Rear Naked Choke


Merry Christmas and a safe and injury free New Year!!!!

Dave BERRY - 3rd Button Down!!!!

Last Saturday's training was fantastic. Jeroen taught us three escapes from armbar and Dave organised for Dave BERRY to come down and put us through our paces for the second hour or so. The armbar escapes were straight forward and made a lot of sense to me. I particularly liked the 3rd one where you grab your own bicep then catch the leg as it's coming over your head and stack.

Dave BERRY certainly lived up to the odd comment that Dave or Jeroen have made over my time at Extreme about him. What a great guy... Exremely down to earth and one of the few people that I have met who have a particular aura about them that says, "don't f*%#k with my shit!!!" but in a nice way....

Got this snippet from the Zen Do Kai web site.

"Well we tried just about everything to develop realism with this newly added dimension of safety, at one point we all wore 'Kendo Gu' (i.e. head and body armour) but Dave Berry used to cheat in the clinches and spin his opponents 'men' (i.e. head gear) around sideways they couldn't see, thus more broken body parts."


What I learnt from the session with him was:

1. The fundamentals of a good stance and his circle concept of balance.
2. You don't have to load up every punch.
3. Punch straight to the head and not to the side when drilling so that you get used to catching a punch and in turn get used to actually getting hit (minimises the head lift and flinch reaction)
4. Look at the chest rather than the face.
5. The punch you don't see is the one that knocks you out.
6. Left hook. Don't bend my arm in and fist leads shoulder.
7. Speed and technique = power

Thanks Dave for organising for Dave to come down and hopefully he'll come down more and impart more of his knock about common sense knowledge on us!!!!

Welcome Back!!!!

Thats welcome back for me I mean... Having trained lightly through my dodgy knees and rib for the last month or so, they have come good and I'm able to train/roll pretty much at an injury free pace and BOY do I notice the difference!!! After training last Friday and Saturday, I pulled up like an old man on the Sunday. Getting back into the full intensity of drilling and rolling reminded my body just how physically demanding BJJ is. I was lucky that I was able to train around the injuries and a big thankyou to everyone who sincerely took it easy on me during this time. I knew I was back to normal last night when Jason was going for the Guiness World Record for most submissions in 60 seconds on me!!!