Seminar

Royce Gracie seminar

Starstruck with Royce
Starstruck with Royce
Last night’s Royce Gracie Seminar was marvelous.  Over the course of several hours we built up a flow of techniques from take down, to mount, to transition between chokes, arm bars, more chokes and more arm bars.  In contrast to seminars by some elite martial artists that I have attended (inside and outside of BJJ), the evening’s work concentrated on bread-and-butter work; less about flash, more about smash.  While the whole range of skill levels that attended the seminar could handle the drills, there was a lot of technical finesse that more advanced attendees could benefit from.  This was seriously refreshing and impressive to me.  There was no attempt to ‘sell’ the art, we worked very much in the way we do in regular training at Dartford BJJ, both in terms of working through a logical sequence of techniques and building up a drill from standing to ground and where we failed to grasp a technical aspect of the drill, we were corrected by the giants that are Royce Gracie and Marc Walder.  A big thanks to Marc, too, for putting together such a superb evening.  His humility, skill and love for the game are an inspiration.

Technical treats

Dartford BJJ team
Dartford BJJ team
We started with the body-fold take down to land in mount, moving to an arm triangle.  If the choke wasn’t happening we switched to control the wrist as from a side-mount, collapsed the opponent’s arms, used the body to roll them to their belly to end with an RNC.  Where the opponent resisted having the arms collapsed to allow us to take the back, we moved to a figure-four grip in order to transition to an arm bar.  Where the opponent defended the arm bar, we switched to a two-onto-one grip on the opponent’s wrist/forearm, used the body to roll the opponent forward and then back, slipping the hooks to move to an RNC.  If the opponent then leant forward to frustrate the RNC, we moved to the opponent’s side in order to drop to our shoulder, swing the leg around to move to a seated position in preparation for an arm bar.  As the opponent defended the arm bar, we used the free hand to place our shin on the ‘X’ made by the opponent’s defending wrists, triangled the legs to pop the arms open and finish with the arm bar.  During the evening we would work a new section of the drill in isolation and then put it all together from standing.

Q & A with Royce

Charlotte and Royce
Charlotte and Royce
Before the conclusion of the evening we had the opportunity for a Q and A session.  Again, Royce’s practicality came through.  In response to a question regarding multiple opponents, he playfully responded ‘That’s why I have a big family’, but went on to candidly state that no one can fight multiple attackers and diplomacy or ‘knowing how to talk’ were what was important in such a situation: isolate one individual, de-escalate the situation and make a call for help.  How cool is that?!  This is why I love my Gracie Barra world so much, there’s no pretending and fantasising about super hero abilities.  It is practical, it is technical and it is candid.  In response to a question on the importance of the self-defence aspect of BJJ, Royce noted the impact of competition on arts such as Karate, where competition requires participants to ‘touch’ each other.  What does this teach? ‘How not to punch’.  Royce reinforced that BJJ is about the full fight, from standing to clinch to finish and thinking of drills in terms of fighting rather than competing was essential.  Finally, I took the opportunity to ask if Royce had any strategies for encouraging women into BJJ (of the 50 or so participants, 4 were women).  He admitted that this was a ‘tough nut to crack’ and that retention from women’s classes is disappointing and in the final analysis many women – inside and outside martial arts – find the contact-levels of grappling uncomfortable/intimidating.  I entirely agree with this assessment, but, surely, there’s a way to pitch this beautiful thing for a feminine audience…

Roll on!

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Marc Walder seminar: it’s all in the hips

Oh, boy!  Where do I start?  Last night’s BJJ seminar at Dartford BJJ with Gracie Barra black belt Marc Walder was supreme and absolutely jam-packed with technical know-how.  Our club is privileged to be associated with Marc and we benefit immensely from his quarterly seminars.

Marc demonstrated core principles through a progression of techniques, unified by key themes:
1) balance, posture and grips are integral to successful positioning
2) hip movement and pressure is fundamental to moving between positions
3) positioning should allow for 50% offence and 50% defence
We worked through these concepts using variations of the standing guard pass (passing closed and spider guards) to end at side control or taking the back.

Dartford BJJ team
Dartford BJJ team
What was most pronounced for me was the fundamental importance of the hips.  I have always been surprised by the importance of hip movement for both stand-up and ground work, and while hip movement and pressure may be generated differently in either context, it has always interested me that these two areas of work, on the surface polar opposites, share a great deal in common.  I digress.  Back to hips.  In each progression of the pass, it was clear that keeping hips down and ‘glued’ to the opponent was a major component of successful technique.  This will be a fairly obvious point to readers with BJJ/grappling experience, equally these readers will appreciate how difficult it is to achieve this ‘glue’ effect in practice.  Not only was hip pressure emphasised, but also the use of hip movement for leverage rather than reliance strength in the limbs or back.  As readers with takedown/throw experience will be aware, hip positioning and movement (coupled with appropriate posture, balance and grips) can allow the smaller person to lift much larger opponents with little discomfort.  This principle of body mechanics can be applied to guard passing and, for instance, to clear a leg one can rely on forward hip movement and pressure rather than seeking to crudely control and clear the legs with hands.

Not only did we enjoy a seminar of intermediate level guard-tastic delights, we were also lucky enough to enjoy Marc’s tuition during our regular Wednesday night self-defence.  I, personally, was proud to see Marc practicing one-on-one with the juniors with whom we share the self-defence class; that is exactly the attitude and sense of inclusion and love that keeps me coming back for more at Dartford BJJ and has me so chuffed to be part of the Marc Walder BJJ Team.  A bit gushing, yes, but the cooperative nature of BJJ is a big part of its attraction for me, and I like that this component is emphasised in our club.

The seminar ended with a few exciting promotions and I am very pleased for the Academy’s new blue belts, well deserved as they are, and for the whites, blues, purples and browns who received fresh stripes.  Well done people!

Check out Marc’s book!

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Opposing forces: Penny Thomas BJJ seminar

Penny Thomas
Penny Thomas demonstrates spider guard

Last night I had the great pleasure of attending a BJJ seminar with Gracie black belt, Penny Thomas, at the Warrior School of Combat, Kensington. The seminar was co-ed with a slight majority of female players and a good range of white to purple belts. It was absolutely packed. Just goes to show how many folk are willing to make last minute plans for a BJJ treat, with one plucky lass coming down from Birmingham.

The primary theme of the evening’s training, on reflection, seemed to be the use of opposing forces both to feint and to control and the use of opposing forces was apparent in the evening’s takedown drills and ground work. Emphasis was also placed on the use of one’s full body weight to gain position and control.

We warmed up with a selection of takedown drills, including double and single legs, what we call ‘Drop Seoi Nage’ at my club (a sacrifice version of Ippon Seoi Nage) and sweep to mount/side mount from the back and front. Here, Penny highlighted the importance of encouraging the opponent to fall into the trap of the takedown. So, if the goal is to get the opponent’s weight moving forward, push the opponent back, so their reaction to move forward initiates the takedown you’ve in mind, hence the use of opposing forces. Personally, I was interested to note the similarity in Penny’s approach to these techniques and how we train them at Dartford BJJ; Penny even calls her arm position ‘T-Rex arms’, just like Coach! For me, the synergies between Penny’s approach and what I train normally was comforting and made me feel part of something bigger. The ‘story’ of Gracie Jiu Jitsu is told around the world, and while there may be minor regional variations in how that story is interpreted, the core is preserved and shared by the entire Gracie community. This sort of outside reinforcement also boosts my already deep trust and confidence in the Marc Walder/Mauricio Gomez technique that is part of what we do at Dartford BJJ.

The ground-work portion of the seminar focused on mount and open guard. We looked at some of the fundamentals of the mount position, specifically grape-vining the opponent’s legs while driving weight through hips into solar plexis – I’m on the receiving end of this whenever I spar with Coach, not comfy – and working to get knees under opponent’s armpits while tucking the feet onto the ‘shelf’ of the opponent’s hips. Penny reinforced the importance of dropping the body’s full weight through the opponent and ensuring the position prevented weight being supported by knees rather than the opponent. From the mount we drilled Americana, Ezekiel and arm triangle. Again, the use of opposing forces and the body’s full weight was clear, and, for example, in drilling the Americana we feinted 3 attacks against alternate arms, on the third driving full weight against the arm to drop the elbow by the opponent’s head and take the submission. I especially enjoyed the open guard drills, as this is a new facet I’ve just started working and we looked at one of the three basic sweeps I’ve been looking at. The importance of pushing and pulling to control from open guard gave further evidence of the theme of opposing forces to both control a position and to feint; as a standing opponent lost base due to the push-pull of the open guard and came to one knee, an opportunity was made for the sweep.

Finally, a big thanks to Penny for making time to train with us during her whirlwind trip to the UK. Penny’s a tremendous athlete and an inspirational sportswoman. Thanks to Pippa Granger and Warrior School of Combat for opening their doors to all of us, and thanks to all the great folk I got to meet and train with; such a rare treat to meet and train with men and women from a range of clubs.

Photo reproduced by kind permission of Meerkatsu (who’s review of the seminar you might also be interested in).

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Marc Walder BJJ seminar at Dartford BJJ, Kent

Marc Walder
Marc Walder
Attended the second of this year’s quarterly BJJ seminars with Marc Walder at Dartford BJJ. Great atmosphere, as ever, with a mat-full of people buzzing and ready to train. In deference to the warm weather, Marc taught a no gi seminar – not a strong area for me (I don’t know what to do with myself if I can’t grab a collar or a sleeve or a cuff). We rep’d hard and concentrated on flow beginning with a rear take down from T-clinch, then taking the back as the opponent counters the take down, ending with an arm triangle where the opponent counters the RNC.

A big high point of the evening was the promotion of one of the blues to purple. An amazing achievement which gave us the opportunity to hear some experienced words from Marc; getting a taste of Marc’s very centred perspective on training is a big draw for me. Coach and Marc both praised our new purple’s dedication and work ethic. In stressing the importance of consistency and committed training Marc emphasised the importance of finding a balance between training with sincerity and dedication while handling business off the mats. This is a theme I’ve often heard from more experienced martial artists such as Coach, Terry Barnett and Marc and it can be tremendously difficult to get it right. I suppose many people who train spend a lot of their free time away from their loved ones, which can be hard on home life, but equally they can struggle to know when to step back and have a rest or when it is time to push past current endurance. It is a fluid balance that shifts with life’s ever-changing context and the martial artist must continually evaluate her training regime (inside and outside of the dojo) to seek to maintain a homoeostasis between work, family, fitness and class time. In turn, striving for this balance represents one of the many bigger picture life lessons that I take away from training. Balance in all things, baby, balance in all things.

Check out Marc’s book!

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