Posts Tagged ‘John Will’

29-8-11
Leg Grab Rollover Sweeps
Attacking from the bottom is an important part of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. It’s one thing that separates it from other martial arts, even the grappling disciplines. Part of any attacking arsenal should be sweeps. Today’s class walked through the leg grab roll-over sweep and provided a couple of options depending on the positioning of the opponent.

- Leg Grab Rollover Sweep
- Leg Grab Rollover Sweep 2
- Cutting Arm Bar from Guard to Leg Grab Rollover Sweep

Notes on Sweeps:
- Sweeps are a multitasking art. You’re using arms, legs, grips, hips, posture, and anticipation. If you miss any one part you make the job that much harder.   
- Sweeps all tend to have similar mechanics. It’s about reacting to posture, eliminating posts, forcing weight to the side that’s had it’s posts eliminated, and creating the necessary momentum. If you’re having trouble with a sweep usually one of these 4 things is not being addressed.
- All sweeps are developed with a specific posture in mind. Pay attention to the design of the sweep. The #1 issue people tend to have is attempting a sweep against a posture it’s not designed to work against.
- The #2 problem is that posts are not properly eliminated. If you can’t eliminate the right posts they have a block against the sweep.
- The #3 problem is usually not disrupting the weight of the opponent properly. You have to have the right (or wrong, from the opponent’s point of view) weight distribution. If you can’t get a sweep to work even though you’ve taken care of posts it’s probably because the opponent has his weight ‘right’. When studying any sweep pay attention to how it’s meant to disrupt the weight.  
- The #4 problem is lack of momentum. If you take posts and disrupt the weight, but produce no momentum you’ll often find yourself in a strength battle. No sweep is designed to be a battle of muscle.
- The glory of it is that if you can understand #1 (posture), #2 (posts), #3 (weight distribution), and #4 (momentum) you can troubleshoot to get the result. Understanding + analytical thinking = deeper revelation of moves. You can start to come up with different ways to pull off the sweep in different postures, different ways to eliminate posts, disrupt weight, and create momentum.

Leg Grab Roll-over sweep
You’ve got closed guard on your opponent. Basic grips with right hand on the cross collar and left hand gripping the sleeve of the opponent’s right hand.

If the opponent steps up on his left leg to set up the pass, and he places his foot too close to your upper body (breaking the line of your hips = too close) you can set up for the leg grab rollover sweep.

Uncross your legs, grab the posted leg with your right hand.

Pull forward and up with your left hand as you lift with your right, and pendulum your legs: left leg swinging down and in and right leg kicking up into the arm-pit.

Finish the sweep by holding on to the leg and arm enabling you to catch a ride into mount.

Posture of opponent = Up with leg posted forward
Eliminated Post = sleeve gripped right arm
Weight Distribution = lifted leg
Momentum = Pendulum with legs.

Tips:
- Grab with the arm, not just the hand. When you see the leg posted and you uncross your legs you should move your shoulder as close to the posted leg as possible. A hand grip is a lot easier to break than the crook of the elbow, or a hand pinning the leg to the shoulder.
- The momentum created with your legs will help a lot with the sweep. Make sure you get them into play.
- Lift and pull with your arms. Pulling the arm gets the weight forward. Lifting the leg unbalances the weight to one side.

Leg Grab Rollover Sweep 2
If the opponent decides he’s going to hunch down in your guard for protection you can still pull off the sweep. Remember, it’s about eliminating a posting arm on one side, and lifting the leg on the other side.

Opponent has his elbows on your chest with his upper body pressed down on yours.

Sneak your right hand under his chin in order to get a sleeve grip on his opposite (his right) wrist. Place your left hand on the opponent’s right elbow. Uncross your legs.

In one movement hip out to the left as your push with your left hand and pull with your right. You’re creating a hole with your hip out and dropped their upper body down into it with your arms.

Immediately get a tight friction grip on the opponent with your left arm, pinning him so that he can’t get his right arm out.

You then want to hold on while you shift your hips back underneath the opponent. Shift as far back under as you can.

Grab the opponent’s left leg with your right hand. Pendulum your legs, lift the leg, and turn your upper body to assist with the sweep. Hold on to ride right over.

Posture of Opponent = Low with arms on your torso
Eliminated Post = opponent’s right arm stuck between your chest and them
Weight Distribution = lifted leg
Momentum Created = pendulum with legs

Tips:
- You can’t shift under too far. The further back under you can get the better. When in doubt, just keep going.
- Keep very tight to the opponent’s upper body once you’ve dropped him in the hole. You don’t want him to free the post, or regain posture.
- Really get your legs swinging with this one. You need plenty of momentum.
- Once you get to mount don’t just give away the arm position of your opponent. Figure out what you’d like to set up from here. Once you let it go it’s not likely that you’ll get it back.

Cutting Arm Bar from Guard into Leg Grab Roll-Over Sweep 2
If the opponent is low on your torso with his arms down, hugging your sides, elbows on the ground, you can set up an arm bar. When he defends the arm bar you can adjust into the previous sweep.

Opponent down, with arms on your sides, elbows on the ground.

Hip escape slightly to the right creating space between his right arm and your side.

Fill that space by sneaking your left hand up, palm facing away, finger pointing towards the ceiling. Come over the opposite (opponent’s right) shoulder with your right hand, getting a gable (palm to palm) grip over the opponent’s arm.

Shift onto your right hip and apply the cutting arm bar. The wrist and forearm should be on your left shoulder, locked hands applying pressure to the back of the elbow joint.

When the opponent pulls his arm out to defend grip with the right hand, push the arm across with the left and establish the grip around the upper body to trap the arm.

You then want to hold on while you shift your hips back underneath the opponent. Shift as far back under as you can.

Grab the opponent’s left leg with your right hand. Pendulum the legs, lift the leg, and turn your upper body to assist with the sweep. Hold on to ride right over.

Posture of Opponent = Low with arms on your torso
Eliminated Post = opponent’s right arm stuck between your chest and them
Weight Distribution = lifted leg
Momentum Created = pendulum with legs

Tips:
- Take the arm bar if the opponent doesn’t defend. That’s a ‘no duh’ tip, but one that needs to be stated anyway. Just remember, a submission is better than a sweep.
- However, if you don’t have the arm bar locked in the sweep becomes the better option to holding on to a busted submission. This follows the BJJ rule of ‘Use what you’ve got, don’t force what you don’t’.

Ideas for Training:
- If you really want to master a certain type of sweep study the mechanics of it, and make it your goal while rolling. Set up your entire game around it. Pull guard from the start, use escapes that recover the guard, use submissions to set up the sweep you’re working on. Be single minded in your training.
- Once you have the move down drill wise, find a partner that’s working on guard passes. There’s no better way to master a sweep than against someone that’s trying to pass. There’s no better way to practice passes than against someone that’s trying to sweep.
- Drill the move. This is the single most overlooked form of training.

BJJ

With the Will/Machado nationals coming up this weekend Warren focused the class on rolling, working on what we know rather than learning something new. I spent the class trying to reinforce the things I want to remember for the comp, tweaking little things and enjoying rolling.

MMA

Mark led us in a sparing class, keeping it really light and not wanting to have any injuries for Saturday. We were trying to think about using different combinations rather than getting sucked into a jab, cross, hook, single kick sort of mind set. We focused on varying our strategies, and not worrying about getting hit so much, or whether we were “winning”.

Best of luck to everyone competing this weekend!

Cam D

BJJ

We continued to work on learning to roll lightly instead of fighting. It’s been great to have repeated classes lately with this focus. Trying to relax and think instead of powering over, to let your opponent get stuff and then apply your own technique. I feel like I am getting better but have a ways to go. I find it hard to make sure my technique is effective rather than moving with power through a defence or positional control. It’s such a partner oriented thing too. If your partner speeds up, it’s really hard not to respond in kind. I think that my new goal is to not worry what my opponent is doing if they go fast, they go fast and I will just let them for that roll, letting it happen rather than getting sucked into trying to stop them. Ego is a tricky thing and it sneaks up on you from all directions. Checking your ego at the door is an eternal process it seems.

It was good to run through the blue belt syllabus in one go and I surprised myself with how much I remembered. I could feel that I spent time in some parts remembering, rather then executing technique perfectly, so more reps for me I guess.

Well done to everyone who was awarded new stripes. It’s always awesome recognising how far everyone has come and how well the guys ahead of you are doing.

MMA

Continuing to work with the Thai Clinch has been really interesting, seeing how effective it is as a control reinforced John Will’s discussion of leverage. It can feel like you aren’t doing that much but when you’re on the receiving end you feel like you can’t go any where.

Sparing was fun and we were all conscious of sparring and not fighting in the same way as we worked on rolling not fighting in BJJ. Again the challenge is keep your technique good while being relaxed and flowing.

It was a great class and I walked out of with a lot to reflect on and having had a lot of fun.

Cam D

BJJ

Tonight Mark was obviously bored and we started out with a very tough warm up where he challenged us to attempt hand stand pushups. He graduated them so everyone could work towards achieving them. Then 100 squats. Needless to say we were definitely warm.

We then worked on escapes from Headlock.

First, we did “Headlock Escape to Back” where we escape the elbow, hook the leg and then move up onto the opponents to back.

Then “Rolling Headlock Escape” for when you are unable to escape the elbow and you have an underhook with it. Clasping your wrists behind the opponent in a clinch. Then bridging up and over into side position, posting out quickly to avoid being rolled. From there, breaking the opponents hand control using your forearm and head movement.

Finally “Headlock Escape to the side”. We use this when we have escaped out elbow but are unable to get the leg hook, so instead, We switch out to our hands and knees and walk our legs around till we end up side position again breaking the grip.

Then we rolled for half an hour in 5 min rounds. The first three rounds were positional only then submissions.

At the end of class stripes were awarded by Mark and Warren. Congratulations to everyone that got a new stripe!

MMA

Warren started us off with 3×3 minute rounds with a 1 minute rest Shadow boxing our techniques, interspersed with Shooting, sprawling and going to back and recovering.

After that we refined our sprawl technique practicing landing on our elbows and flicking our legs well up and out of the way.

Then we worked in pairs with focus mitts developing our punching while circling to the weak side of our opponent.

1. jab
2. jab, double jab
3. jab, double jab, cross
4. jab, double jab, cross, hook, cross

We also broke down Hooks and drilled that slowly and refined our technique.

CamD

Congrats to all our guys that competed on Saturday at the BJJNZ No-Gi Competition.

Nick Ovens – First

Amanda Tuarau – First

Bevan Brooking – First

Serina Cole – Second

Cameron Dickson – Second

Scott Sherer – Second

Congrats to all others that Competed on the Day.

Will/Machado took out Second in the Team trophy!

With John Will back in town, Submission Porirua was once again able to crash the GSW Seminars. With the growth of Will / Machado BJJ in Wellington, Geoff Grant was hosting two seminars back to back. First one was catering for the white belts followed directly by the coloured belts seminar.

The white belt seminar finished on a high for the Submission crew with its first ever Blue Belt being awarded. Andrew Douglas joined us not long after we first opened the doors in March 2008. His dedication and passion is obvious in every class.

It was a well deserved promotion and I would be confident in saying that the rest of the 3 & 4 stripes will be breathing a big sigh of relief.

Well done to Andrew.

Wow what an awesome John Will Seminar! Our two trainers from Submission Takapuna were awarded their Purple belts! Warren Lambert and Mark Corkhill took over the ownership of Submission, Takapuna when Glen Tarrant moved to Porirua and set up a new school down there. Warren and Mark have been successful in creating a fun and enjoyable mat! A huge Congratulations to Mark and Warren what a year it has been and now you can finish the year off with an awesome new belt.

Mark and Warren had just received their Purple Belts from John Will

Congrats to John Lamb who received his Blue Belt from John Will.  John has been a loyal member of Submission and we are glad to have him back on the mat after having to take time off for a serious injury.  Sadly we are going to be saying goodbye to him again at the end of this week as he heads to South America for a year.  Good Luck with your travels John!  We look forward to seeing you on our mat again.

John Lamb with John Will after receiving his Blue Belt

Mark Corkhill, John Lamb and Warren Lambert with their shiny new belts.