We practised breakfalls front and back and how to recover from that position once on the ground. The drill we practised involved our partner holding a pad and pushing us from behind or from the front, we then had to breakfall and turn to face the pad holder, kick the pads and get up while still attacking. Then, finally once we were up, knee the pad and escape and scan. We didn’t switch who was holding the pads so I had to slog my guts out twice as hard which was fine…until we were told we had to glove up and spar!

So after being pushed over and getting up and beating on the pads 50 times in a row we had to partner up and spar…we started two against one which was hard enough with my dying arms and waining guard…but then we switched to all against all, where anyone could attack anyone else in the class! It was carnage! People were punching people left, right and centre it was seriously crazy. Thirteen people all hitting the closest person to them, it was hilarious and really hard to avoid getting smacked in the melon or kicked in the goolies…thank god for groin and head guards!

A great session that I won’t soon forget.

After last weeks lesson I picked up this book on BJJ written by Renzo and Royler Gracie, its really well put together and a very informative read. Plenty of pictures to go with the techniques and descriptions, I figure this is a pretty good start for any BJJ beginner.

On a totally unrelated toipic I was listening to Massive Attack for the first time in ages the other day, I used to train to it all the time, its pretty damn good stuff. Plus the collected album artwork is amazing.

It was fantastic in fact, the BJJ instructor Arlans Siqueira is a really nice chilled out guy. We started with some light stretches then pretty much got down to it. Arlans started by showing us the mount and basic guard position and one way of getting out of the guard to advance to side control. We then moved onto an arm bar from the mount and how to escape from an arm bar. We practised the arm bar and the escape and then combined the techniques so that we were just flowing from arm bar to escape, to arm bar to escape, again and again. It was pretty cool once we got the hang of it.
After that, we got to do some sparring or “rolling” as I’ve heard it referred to. This part of the lesson was a huge eye opener and a lot of fun. For me and my partner this was the first ever lesson in BJJ actually I think he has done one lesson before (and watched a crap load of UFC vids) so we didn’t have much to work with in terms of well anything! I had a few tricks up my sleeve from previous Krav Maga ground work lessons but really not many clean or legal submissions. In KM anything goes, so eye gouging and hammer fisting your opponents face off is ok…but for BJJ sparring I decided just to stick to the arm bar.
I was pleased because I managed to pull off an arm bar from the mount and my partner escaped just as we had practised moments before, and the rest of the time I spent face down with my partner on my back trying to flip/roll him off me, which I eventually managed and then got choked because I didn’t turn into him quick enough. Oh, I also attempted an Americana? which didn’t really work out on account of me basically learning it from watching Pride. All in all, Great fun and plenty of tapping haha.
Arlans rolled with most of the other guys in the class tapping each one out one by one, made it look effortless and then we called it a day.
I left feeling really excited at what I had just been taught and really looking forward to my next BJJ class next week.

Incidentally Arlans is featured in the July edition of martial arts illustrated which is pretty cool.

Golan took last nights class, after the warm up we practised a zombie game where one opponent tries to choke and the defender deflects the oncoming attack by striking the outside of the attackers arms then moves out of line of danger and behind the attacker. We then moved on to cover basic releases from chokes from the front, side and back then moved onto more advanced releases. I found the more advanced choke releases to be simpler if anything, more aggressive but more direct.

Ive already written about the basic release from chokes in a previous post the alternative to those are as follows:

Choke from the front: Lets say the opponent is in front of us applying the choke, step back with either foot (for this example the right foot) at the same time pluck the opponents left hand with your right. This releases the choke. At the same time as you do this, your left arm should come over the top of your opponents outstretched arms and come down on the elbows. Elbow to the face, with the arm closest to your opponent. Continue with the same hand into a hammer fist to the face. Follow up with a kick/knee to the groin, cross with the right or whatever you need then escape and scan.
An alternative to this technique, instead of bringing your arm over the top of both of the opponents arms, simply attack with a finger jab to the throat as you step back.

Choke from the side: So for this technique, the opponent is attacking from the left side applying again a choke, first things first, deal with the choke by plucking the hand at the front of your throat and hold it to your chest with your right hand (hold it to the right side of your chest). The reason you remove the hand at the front is because that is what is causing all the problems in this instance. With your left hand, grab the forearm of your opponents arm that you just plucked. With your right hand attack your opponents face straight away as many times as you like. Escape and scan.

Choke from behind:As soon as you feel your opponent grab your neck from behind, spin to either side with an elbow directly to the opponents face, The elbow should come over the top of the opponents arms. Follow up with an elbow from your other arm again to the face. A simple but very aggressive technique.

1. Bear Hug from the front (arms free) If your arms are free whilst someone has got you in a bear hug, simply grab their head with your thumbs in their eyes! OWEEE! Push their head backwards, then a hammer fist to the throat should make them think twice about squeezing you for a moment longer. Accompany this with a swift knee to the groin, escape and scan.

2. Bear Hug from the front (arms held) If you arms are caught in a bear hug and your opponent is in front of you, pull your waist away from them to make space for you to strike the groin with your hands, then grab the shoulder blades and knee/kick to the groin. Release an arm by sliding it up the side of your body as if pulling a pistol out of your pocket. Then attack your opponent with strikes from your free hand, or use your free hand to get your opponent into a guillotine choke, then escape and scan. note: standing on your tip toes and adding a twist to the guillotine makes it more effective unless they stand on their tip toes as well in which case abandon the choke after administering some elbows and strikes to the back of your opponents head.

3. Bear Hug from behind (arms free) Lean forward, your body weight will help to prevent your opponent from picking you up and throwing you around the room like a rag doll. Stamp on the top of their foot with your heel. Twist to face them and throw your elbows backwards to strike their head, alternating left and right elbows. Then, once the grip has been loosened, turn to apply a guillotine choke. If there is more than one opponent (you don’t want to be messing around trying to choke someone) jab, cross, position them between you and any other potential attackers then escape and scan.

4a. Bear hug from behind (arms held higher up the body) If your opponent is behind you holding you high up your arms, first grab their hands and hold them to your chest, Stamp down on the top of their foot hard with your heel. Take a large step circling around and behind them (still holding your opponents hands) at teh same time, turn your head into their body, under and out of their armpit so that you end up standing beside and slightly behind them holding both their arms. Now kick your opponent then escape and scan.

4b. Bear hug from behind (arms held lower down the body)From this position it is harder to grab hold of your opponents hands so you have instead to stamp again on the foot, strike behind you to the groin using your body to twist into them. Once the grip has weakened free an arm again by sliding it up your body. Send your arm forward once it is free, then immediately elbow backwards into the face of your attacker. Turn to face them attack, attack, attack , then escape and scan.

5. Bear Hug from behind (arms free alternative less aggressive, finger lock)Now in a situation where you dont want to hurt your attacker to much or lets say its a friend of yours mucking around but your dont want to be hel in a bear hug anyway simply place your hands on their forearms, slid your hands down to the hands and choose a finger to grab in the palm of lets say, your right hand. Twist the finger back towards the hand, hold their hand with your other hand at the same time turn your left foot out and turn your whole body to face them, keep your arms straight, applying constant pressure to the finger. Don’t go down with your opponent, you are in a stronger position here. When you are ready or if your opponent has had enough let go. Be very careful practsing this because it is very easy to break a finger like this! YOWCHIES! Well, it feels like it anyway.

We then hit the pads for some boxing
Pad work included:

Jab, Cross
Jab, Cross, Hook
Jab, Cross, Hook to Roundhouse Kick followed by a power drill!

Yep, that was a good nights sleep

Firstly OMG! GTA4 is out today and looks amazing. Seriously can’t wait to get my hands on a copy…

Secondly, training has been really great recently and tonight Tamir Gilad (the instructor who graded us) is taking the class, which should be interesting. Yesterday we covered escapes from wrist grabs, defences against knives and sticks as well as a stress drill against two attackers. We finished off with some light sparring and a recap of how each of us did in the grading.

Escapes from wrist grabs

If someone grabs you’re wrist, why don’t you just punch them? Well this is all well and good if you don’t mind getting straight into a fight and perhaps even getting arrested for assault even though its self defence. This technique is less aggressive and is for those situations when you know your not in real danger but don’t want to make the whole situation worse by rearranging someones face just coz they are grabbing your wrist.

Single hand grab: Someone grabs your forearm, turn your arm so that your thumb is facing out of the grip (between the opponents thumb and fingers this is the weakest part of the grip) now drive your elbow forward towards their elbow and pull your hand towards your body and out of the grip.

Double hand grab: So in this scenario someone has grabbed your arm with two hands. Use your free hand to grab your other hand coming over the top of the grip. Drive the elbow of the arm being held straight up using your other hand to pull it up as if you are trying to elbow your opponent in the chin.

Alternative Double hand grab release: This is essentially the same as the first one because your free hand releases one of the hands holding your arm by hooking it off. Then perform the same escape for the single hand grab (elbow to opponents elbow).

Two hands being held: Now both of our hands are being held low by both of our opponents hands. Keeping your elbows where they are, bring your thumbs towards each other allowing your hands to cross over then continue bringing your hands up in an ark ending with your hands (palms towards you) up at shoulder level.
This technique is the same but performed in reverse if your opponent is holding your hands high or above your head.

Two hands being held behind you: This can be performed on with either foot coming forward, but for the sake of clarity I”ll describe it starting with the right foot. So take one step forward with your right foot, turn your right arm so that your wrist is between the fingers and thumb of the grip. Break the grip by sending your arm forward fast as you are stepping forward. Raise your left hand, dropping the elbow and spin yourself around to your left, to face your opponent. This movement should break the grip pretty easily.

The above techniques mainly rely on the weakness of the thumbs and leverage to break the grip.

Techs against a knife.

If its an ice pick or oriental stab, use 360 defence and counter attack, grab the attackers wrist (of the arm holding the knife) if you have blocked on the inside of the attack, kick to the groin then escape and scan. If its a straight stab you block to the outside of the attack using the palm of your hand to deflect the knife. Step to the side of the attacker punching to the face, Grab the wrist with the hand that blocked. Envelope the hand holding the knife with your other hand and collapse opponents wrist in towards his body twisting the wrist to force him to drop the knife.

Tech against an baton or baseball bat

We only had time to cover one technique against a baton or baseball bat, but it basically goes like this: If an attacker comes at us with the weapon held in one hand, raised above their head and swings for us using a vertical attack we have to dive straight forward to the gap between his head and his raised arm, with one arm raised up straight with our head tucked into our shoulder as if we are actually performing a dive, this deflects the attack down one side of our body. At the same time grabbing the opponents shoulder deliver a knee or kick to the groin. Using the arm thats closest to the one holding the weapon, slide down the arm to grab the weapon just below the attackers hand. With a firm grip on the weapon, break the attackers hold on it by twisting it towards their groin then pulling and stepping back sharply. Use the weapon against them or escape and scan.

We covered Breakfalls and ninja rolls the other too which was great fun but I’ll leave that for another post.

It’s also probably worth mentioning that I’ve written these techniques purely to help me remember them and to document what I have been learning in Krav Maga I take no responsibility for any injury incurred whilst trying to perform these techniques or that there may be bits that I have missed. Reading or watching videos about martial arts are clearly no substitute for a qualified teacher. But you’re smart enough to know that right?

For the P1 grading, we covered:

Shadow boxing various techniques including kicks and elbows.

Pad work various techniques on the bags (punches and kicks).

Pad work free fighting on the bag (five techs) demonstrating an understanding of range.

Defence against straight and haymaker punches.

360 degree defence with counter attack against an unarmed attacker (punches only).

360 degree defence with counter attack against an armed attacker (knife).

Release from chokes (front, side, behind).

Release from side choke on the ground.

Release from a headlock

Defence against two attacks then scan and pick up a random object to use as a weapon against our attacker.

What I thought was great about the whole grading was the fact that Tamir asked everyone some pretty good questions varying from why you stand in this stance and not that, why hit there and not there? Who was the founder of Krav? Why use this technique instead of this technique? etc. etc. It was more like a proper exam than any other martial arts grading I’ve done, where you just do your forms or katas and techniques then spar then get your certificate and belt. For one thing theres the very real chance that you could fail. Something that in my whole five plus years at my old kung fu school I never saw happen and I know that there were definitely people at some of those gradings that should never have passed.
Anyway I digress… I passed wooot! and my instructor was really pleased with how everyone did.

I’ll post a photo update in a few days… Meanwhile, heres a lovely pic of my new gear

Air chokes and Blood chokes.
Defence against chokes from the front, sides, behind as well as on the ground.
Escape from headlocks.
Defence against straight punches.
360 defence against knives.
Counter attacks all practised on the bags (palms, hammer fists, boxing, push kick, roundhouse kick and knees)
Oh and a hell of a lot of sparring with protection.

All in all things are moving along quite nicely, im happy with my sparring and try to spar the toughest guys in the class as much as I can. Its really, really hard but I gain so much from it and I’m not just talking about the bruises either.
My techniques against chokes on the ground are ok, but my actual ground fighting sucks ass. I spent most of last weeks ground fighting class underneath my mates belly. which as well as being pretty demoralizing it was pretty sweaty too…rubbish. However, I have heard of a place about ten minutes drive from me where Nick Brooks teaches…I may be able to get some help there…and get to try out some BJJ in the process

heres a quote from the roger gracie academy website

Monday, 04 February 2008

Nick Brooks and Daniel Strauss at the No-Gi WorldsDaniel Strauss and Nick Brooks travelled all the way to the USA (which is fast becoming a frequent stop for them both) to compete in the inaugural World No-Gi Championships, as organised by the IBJJF. Following essentially identical rules to the more traditional BJJ competitions, it was a very different style of competition to the increasingly common no-gi events, varying both in terms of point scoring and legal techniques. The duo made the trip more than worthwhile in terms of results, with Daniel taking Gold in the Juvenile Lightweight division to become world champion, and Nick winning Bronze in the Featherweight Division before going on to take Silver in the Openweight (Absolute) Division – an impressive feat for anyone, let alone someone from the lighter end of the weight classes!

Congratulations to them both!

and a link to their website in mill hill
Theres also been talk of by one of my friends at training who trains there to perhaps, maybe get the guys from Mill Hill BJJ club to teach a class on a saturday at our school…hmmmm…that would be very, very cool.

Last night was my first night back at training and we covered how to release a grab to the shirt and how to block a kick with a kick. An easy sort of lesson with surprisingly little physical exertion which I was pretty thankful for on account of my sore ass.

Here’s what we covered.

1. Single handed shirt grab: Lets say some loud mouthed Baboon decides he doesn’t like your apres ski gear and decides to tell you just what he thinks about it and grabs you by the lepel of your favourite yule tide jumper. Don’t panic just step back with the leg furthest from the grab and spin your arm over the top of your opponents grip in a continuous windmilling motion, stepping back away from the grip. This has to be done pretty fast and strong and you should let your arm completely rotate a few times just to make sure his/her grip is broken.

2. Single handed shirt grab “C grip” to thumb squeeze: So in the same situation as above, we could also use a more…for want of a better word, “Seagal like” aggressive technique where we end up breaking said Baboons thumb. YOWEEE!!!! Now, I really liked this technique just because it’s so simple and you totally feel like your in Under Siege when you do it.
So once your opponent has grabbed your shirt/jumper/chest hair with one hand, grab their hand on the outside of the wrist with your hand in a C shape. Then with your other hand (fingers and thumbs cupped) push their whole thumb into their own hand. Don’t bend down as your opponent drops to their knees squeeling, simply straighten your arms and continue to apply pressure to that thumb…OUCHIES! it brings a tear to my eye just thinking about it. Obviously when you practise this with a partner be VERY careful not to break their thumb.

3. Double handed shirt grab: That’s all well and good, but what happens if someone then grabs your shirt with both hands!? I hear you cry. Well heres the answer to that: Again, C grip on the outside of one of the hands holding you. At the same time bring your other hand over the top of both arms to hold the same hand you have the C grip on, applying another C grip to the top of the opponents hand. Twist both C grips towards your opponent which should break their grip and twist their arm completely the wrong way. Again, if they fall to their knees, don’t bend down just straighten your arms continuously applying pressure.

4. The chevalier…? The cavalier??: I can’t remember what this grab was called but anyway it was something like that and it deals with the moment just before someone gets a grip on your shirt or is about to land a punch on you…So, the opponents hand comes towards you, you turn your body, at the same time you grab the outside of your opponents wrist with your hand in a C grip. You then turn back the other direction and smother their whole hand/fist with your other hand and fold their hand back in towards their forearm.
This technique uses a lot of speed and momentum to work properly and should almost completely throw them off balance and onto the floor. If this happens and the opponent rolls on the ground in the direction you are twisting you can straighten their arm out, clamp it between your knees arm bar or continue to twist their arm whilst standing above them.

KICK TO KICK ACTION!
Next we padded up shin guards and gloves to practise some kick defences.

1. Defence against a Roundhouse kick: As soon as you see the kick starting, mirror the move (block a right leg kick with your left leg) by raising your knee and touching your elbow to it forming a shield down one side of your body lean into the kick aiming towards your opponents thigh. Throw your leg forward kicking the kick off your shin to land in sparring stance. At the same time you should be throwing a straight punch to your opponents chin with your other hand.

2. Defence against a straight kick to the groin: As soon as you see the kick starting, mirror the move and intercept it at the shin on the outside of the leg with your shin kicking across your body. Throw a straight punch at the same time and land in sparring stance (one leg in front of the other.)

3. Defence against a straight Punch as the punch comes turn your body to the outside of your opponents arm, palm your opponents forearm to deflect the punch at the same time step forward to the outside of their arm and punch them in the face several times, then make your escape and scan. This technique is very similar to Wing Chun’s Pak sau block except you lean forward as you deflect the block and step in, creating more momentum for your attack. I’m not sure which way I prefer but I am trying to approach my training with an “empty cup” attitude so as to keep an open mind to these new techniques.