The Flog!

Being grapevined may seem that you’re doomed to being choked, but we were shown a great little escape and defense against this technique. This defense/escape against the rear naked choke while being grapevined works.

First, grab your opponent’s arm with both hands. Since he’s in a superior position right now, you probably won’t be able to move him, but you can move yourself: Using your legs to post a bit, pulling on his arm, move yourself higher up on him. You’ll only move a little, but that’s all you need to get your chin under his arm and protect yourself from the choke.

Now that he doesn’t have the choke, you can attempt the escape. The arm which he has around your throat is the crucial arm. Whichever side that is on, that’s the side you need to fall to. (If, by chance, you happen to fall to the wrong side, straighten up in the grapevine and fall to the other side. You can take a little time because the choke is no longer on.) Once his arm is on the floor, put as much of your weight on it as you can. Now he can’t choke you at all. The rear naked choke requires a certain amount of torque to apply. Since you are holding his arm down, he can’t torque the arm.

Next, manoeuvre your body to escape the grapevine: grab his upper foot by the toes, pulling up toward you and out of the way, to remove it. If he has his feet crossed, of course, you can loop your leg over them and do some torquing of your own. When his leg is gone, you can complete your turnover and get a ground hold of your own.

We practised this escape last night and found it relatively easy once we thought about the physics of the rear naked choke and grapevine.  

Click here to go to the video for the escape from rear naked choke while in grapevine

ayjay

May 2, 2009

Last Friday, we split up our class: Mike and I were working with two white belts on their yellow belt throws, while Dave took Francisco aside to work on judo throws specifically for his tournament. In Part 1 of this series, I mentioned that Francisco will be entering the NAGA world championships in early April. He needed to work on judo throws to take his opponent down and be in his control when the judo throw was complete. This series covers judo throws for the non-judo practitioner – throws which can be learned relatively quickly and are specific to certain body positions which the opponents have when they begin.  Since I didn’t work with Francisco during this class, Dave will write about their working on tani otoshi - valley drop, both a defensive version and an aggressive version. 

Dave Here:

We chose Tani Otoshi for a number of reasons.  It’s a great throw if set up correctly (I guess all of them are! ), can be used either as a counter or as an attack, and it ends with either tate shiho gatame (full mount) or kesa gatame (scarf hold).

The key to Tani Otoshi, particularly when used as a counter to a forward throw such as koshi guruma (or most any other forward throw), is a very strong and pre-emptive hip thrust coupled with a forward step with the left leg (assuming countering a right-handed throw), breaking uke’s balance to the rear quarter. 

Once you’ve done that, the left hand reaches up and grasps the back of the collar, the left leg stretches across and behind uke’s legs, blocking both of them, and you drop your weight to the ground, dragging uke with you and throwing him to the rear.  While in mid-fall, either turn, straddle, and come up to tate shiho gatame, or sit through into kesa gatame.

An attacking form of Tani Otoshi is similar except you’ll be initiating the movement.  Duck under uke’s right arm or attack at his right wrist to force his arm across his body, step strongly to his side while breaking his balance with a hip thrust and rearward pull of your right arm, grasp the back of his collar with your left hand and drop and throw to the rear.

Te Guruma could also be used in either of the above cases, but we felt that Tani Otoshi would be easier to pick up for a person new to throwing and be successful within a short time frame.

Back to Angi:

Other throws which are relatively straightforward and easily learned are Ko Uchi Gari – minor inner reaping, and Ko Soto Gari – minor outer reaping. In both cases, though, the opponent cannot be leaning forward dramatically as they tend to do at the beginning of the BJJ matches. These throws are better suited to situations in which the opponent is standing upright.

In the first case, you would be pushing him to his right back corner, hand high on the collar or lapel. If he is difficult to move backward, jolt him forward for a fraction of a second. As he straightens up to avoid a forward throw, pull him backward at the same time as you move between his legs with your right foot. Bring your left foot up behind your right to balance yourself. Take your right foot and reap his right ankle, while pulling him back. As he falls to the ground, follow him. You will be in an ideal position for a partial mount.

In the second case, ko soto gari, you will be positioning yourself to the outside of your opponent’s body, to his right side. Once again, jolt him forward slightly. As he compensates for this by straightening up, move to his outside, first with your left foot and then with your right to balance. Use your left foot to reap out his right ankle while, at the same time, pull his right sleeve back with your left hand and push with your right hand as you grip the lapel. He will fall to his right back corner. Follow him to the ground. Retain your grip on his right arm, and quickly move your right arm around his shoulders while you sit out into kesa gatame.

This completes our preliminary series on judo throws for the non-judo practitioner. I hope you found it useful. For detailed videos of judo throws, go to the Traditional Judo section of this website; videos of no-gi throws are in the Judo for MMA section of this site. 

Click here to go to Judo Throws for the Non-Judo Practitioner – Pt 1

ayjay

March 18, 2009

At class last night, we had two new men attend, one who has been with the jiu jitsu club for several months and to our class a few times, and the other who had been with the jiu jitsu club only two weeks.  The second young man had had no previous martial arts experience other than those two weeks, during which he learned o goshi (major hip).

Since Jackie had worked on o goshi, Dave demonstrated three judo hip techniques: o goshi, tsurikomi goshi and koshi guruma. In all three cases, the hips jut out past uke’s hips, but the arms are in different positions.

O goshi seems straightforward until you have to get your hip well past uke’s. This is not a natural position, but if done well, a much smaller tori can easily lift uke and hold uke on his or her back without throwing. (I managed to do this with a man who outweighed me by about 100 lbs. to prove to my son’s girlfriend that you didn’t have to be big in order to throw a much bigger person.)  Mike and I were working with Jackie. Stepping in to o goshi and then not doing the throw is difficult, since your arm is around uke’s back and your body gets twisted, but once the movement continues and the throw happens, providing your hip is past uke’s sufficiently, it’s a very powerful throw. We spent most of the time trying to get the hips out far enough. The rest of the time we worked on the finer points of kuzushi, holding uke during the throw, turning one’s own head, and thereby the torso, to the left, and controlling uke during the breakfall.

In order to make tsurikomi goshi easier to do, instead of the straight arm, we did a version in which we hold the lapel with the right hand and move the right forearm under uke’s left armpit. The kuzushi (breaking the balance) and foot placement, etc., are all the same as in o goshi. When grasping the lapel and then moving the forearm under the armpit, we emphasized keeping a strong wrist, such that the wrist is not bent in any way. The wrist and forearm are all on one plane, acting as a lever, and become much stronger than if the wrist were bent. You are also less inclined to get the types of injuries we see in judo, such as hyper-extending joints. (We found this technique is crucial in tai otoshi – tori uses the entire forearm in the throw versus merely the hand.)

For koshi guruma, we did a kneeling version, with the hip out even farther than the other two throws. It looks like a wrestler’s hip throw, with tori’s hips ending up almost 90 degrees to the side of uke’s. Tori wraps his right arm around uke’s shoulders, and when stepping in, steps with his right foot normally, and with the left, very deeply between uke’s feet. Tori then twists his hips well past uke’s, drops down on the right knee, while turning his head to the left. Uke goes flying over the hips and back of tori.

When I did this, I naturally ended in a kesa gatame (scarf hold) position afterward. Others stayed on their right knees and brought the other knees down, while maintaining control with the hands. Since this throw is low to the ground and you have uke wrapped up so tightly from the beginning, this throw lends itself very well to MMA. There are so many positions you can be in afterward. Once you have your arm wrapped around your opponent’s shoulders and are controlling his left arm, even if he stuffs the hip throw, you are in control of his upper body. You can change to a number of other throws in which you can get him to the ground.

We worked on three similar, yet different, judo hip throws. The arms were in different positions, as were our bodies: during o goshi we had our arms around our opponents’ waists; tsurikomi goshi involved  having our right elbows under uke’s left armpit; koshi guruma had us on our right knees with our right arms tightly wrapped around uke’s shoulders. All of the hip throws were very powerful and effective.

ayjay

February 7, 2009

The Ultimate Fighter Season 11 TUF11 Episode 10 brought us Rich Franklin and pals Forrest Griffin, Grey Maynard and Tyson Griffin to work with Kris McCray in his semi-final bout. The coaches analyzed McCray’s techniques and tapered his training before the match.

In the first match-up, we had Court McGee versus Brad Tavares. Tavares stated that he expected Court to try to take him down. Instead, he planned to stop the take down attempt and win by standing  with a straight right knock-out. Joe Henle said that McGee had better wrestling and better jiu jitsu than Tavares.

Their fight went to three rounds with round three being the most interesting: McGee tagged Tavares, who almost went down. Tavares then threw a knee to McGee’s face. Tavares was successful with his kicks but got tagged again and again. McGee used te guruma(which he’d used previously) to do a big take down. He was then on Tavares’s back with an instant body lock. He used a  rear naked choke and choked Tavares out.

Dana White went up to Tavares afterward and was very complimentary, saying this match was worthy of a final fight in The Ultimate Fighter.

The second match-up of this episode was between Kris McCray and Josh Bryant. The semi-finals are three rounds, so this went the distance, but had it been a two round fight, there would have been no third round. Josh Bryant was quite hesitant in the first two rounds. He was taken down and at the receiving end of many strikes. He attempted single leg take downs, but was unsuccessful. He seemed also not to be able to find his reach. McCray, on the other hand, followed the direction of his coaches to the letter.

Round three, though, had Bryant rocking McCray with a counter and then an uppercut. He then countered with leg kicks and strikes. After a  failed Superman punch by Bryant, McCray tried a take down. McCray spent most of this round with rubber arms and was actually wobbly. 

The decision went to McCray.

The final will be between Court McGee and Kris McCray.

The Ultimate Fighter is on Spike on Wednesdays at 10:00 p.m. EST.

ayjay

June 16, 2010

The Ultimate Fighter Season 11 TUF11 Episode 9 showed Jamie Yager’s fight against Josh Bryant. Wrestler Bryant went into the fight undefeated. He stated that he likes to get inside and throw punches from there. His game plan was to hit Yager first and take him down.

Yager’s background is jiu jitsu, and at 6′2″  he had a substantial height advantage. Kyacey Uscola commented that Yager had good punches, good kicks and talent and speed.

Despite the height advantage which Yager had, both men had the same reach.

Round 1 had Yager coming in fast, but Bryant tagged him. Yager then attempted a head kick and succeeded with his other kicks. Bryant caught Yager’s leg and tried a take down and then clipped Yager again. Yager hit the ground and Bryant was in his guard.

Round 2 began with Yager’s kicks again. As with round 1, Bryant caught a leg and Yager went down with Bryant to his side. After some elbows by Bryant, Yager fence-climbed; then Bryant attempted a front guillotine. Yager’s hands were extremely low as Bryant threw strikes. They then leaned against each other, both exhausted. When, later on,  they were on the ground, Bryant in side control, Bryant applied ground and pound and then attempted ude garami.

The fight was to go to a third round, but Yager refused to answer the bell for the round despite Ortiz’s saying many times,”Don’t quit! Don’t quit!”. Yager had sustained some muscle damage to his neck.

Ortiz walked out after the match and was subsequently fired from the coaching position by Dana White. Since Ortiz couldn’t/wouldn’t fight Liddell due to his back injury, White wanted a coach who would fight. Rich Franklin was then introduced to the team as their new coach.

ayjay

The Ultimate Fighter Season 11 TUF11 is on Spike Wednesdays at 10 p.m. EST.

June 8, 2010

Episode 8 of The Ultimate Fighter Season 11 TUF11 had friends Kyle Noke and Kris McCray fighting.

Ortizsaid that Noke was the better fighter, McCray being just a young guy, presumably lacking experience.

In fact, we felt McCray dominated the entire match. It went to three rounds, but could easily have ended in two. McCray had many take downs,  including a huge one in round two and tried a guillotine in round 1. Noke attempted a Kimura in rounds 1 and 3 and a rear guillotine in round 2, none successful. After the take downs, McCray did some ground and pound, but mainly showed his control over Noke. Decision to McCray.

Dana White said afterward that Noke needed to work on his wrestling “big time”.

The next match was between Seth Baczynski and Brad Tavares. Round one began with Baczynski rushing for a single leg take down attempt and then succeeding with a ko soto gari. He then had Tavares in a body lock from the back. They rolled a bit and applied strikes. Baczynski tried but lost a rear guillotine and the body triangle.

Baczynski then attempted a juji gatame from the ground. Tavares picked Baczynski up twice and dropped him. While striking, Tavares slipped and, his knees still on the ground, Baczynski kicked a soccer-like kick to Tavares’s head. Disqualification.

Ortiz was determined that the kick was to the chest, but on instant replay, Tavares was kicked to the head.

In addition to the fights, we had Ortiz backing out of the fight with Liddell due to spinal injuries which require surgery.

ayjay

June 2, 2010

The Ultimate Fighter Season 11 TUF11 is on Spike at 10 p.m. E.S.T. Wednesdays.

The Ultimate Fighter Season 11 TUF11 had its last preliminary fight. Joe Henle fought against Seth Baczynski. Henle is relatively new to MMA, having only been professional for six months, with not much experience striking . Liddell said that he had the right attitude and that Henle wanted to show people what he could do. Henle has trained in MMA for seven years and won all his previous fights by submission.

Baczynski has been given a second chance in this season having been brought back due to McKinley’s shoulder injury. Court McGee said that Baczynski has good hands.

Although Henle was the shorter of the two, he had a four inch reach advantage over Baczynski.

Round one began with Henle rushing Baczynski to take him down, ending in Baczynski’s open guard. He accomplished a second take down after which Seth attempted a front guillotine (hadaka jime). Henle stayed in the submission attempt for a long time, fighting it, and then passed to north/south. Henle then tried the anaconda on Seth and was very close to achieving it, causing Seth to turn purple for  a while. Henle then grapevined Baczynski and rolled, losing the grapevine and ending on the bottom with Seth in his guard. Baczynski then applied ground and pound.

Round two began with Baczynski trying a flying knee, but Henle connected with his own knee. Baczynski got his own take down. After some manoeuvring, Henle grapevined Baczynski, but he was too high up on the body and Seth rolled  out of it. Later on in the round, Baczynski tried a rear naked choke (hadaka jime), but it was far too loose to be effective.

Round three was the deciding round. Henle was exhausted and completely dominated by Baczynski. He spent most of the round on the bottom and could not accomplish anything from there. When he was on top, he was competent and had more skills than Baczynski.

The decision went to Baczynski. Dana White said that he was surprised at Henle’s abilities and thought that Baczynski was a far better fighter in his previous match. Liddell stated that for Henle’s limited professional experience, he did very well.

The Wild Card Announcement followed the fight. Kyacey Uscola is to fight Kris McCray. The winner of their fight gets back in to the mix. In addition, since Rich Attonito is unable to fight with his broken hand, Court McGee can continue to the next round.

This season of The Ultimate Fighter has far more injuries than previous seasons: we have a broken jaw, resulting in the fighter’s elimination, a broken hand, a shoulder injury requiring surgery and, in this episode, a knee with ligaments requiring surgery – Nick Ring’s. During training, Ring’s knee gave out, a not uncommon occurrence for him. Ortiz manoeuvred Ring’s knee and the whole thing wiggled. The next episode promised someone else’s injury would cause another elimination. Is Ring out as well?

The Ultimate Fighter Season 11 TUF11 is on Wednesdays at 10:00 p.m. EST on Spike.

ayjay

May 16, 2010

In the training room of The Ultimate Fighter, above a doorway, is a huge quote stating, “Never Leave It in the Hands of the Judges”. The fight this episode proved why White always says this, that is, win by submission or TKO or knock out, do not leave it to judges’ decisions.

Court McGee fought Nick Ring to decision, going two rounds. In our household, two of three of us, thought the fight should have gone to a third round, whereas the third member thought that the judges made the right decision.

McGee is a wrestler with ground skills and Ring is a stand up guy with ground skills. McGee said he loves hitting and getting hit. Liddell said that Ring was a good kicker and wanted his guy, McGee, to stay either all the way out or all the way in to avoid the kicks. One of Liddell’s coaches said that McGee could be matched with anyone. Ring was Ortiz’s first choice.

Although Ring is 3″ taller than McGee, McGee had a 4″ reach advantage.

During Ortiz’s training session, Hammortree injured his back and was taken to hospital. He had injured a disk and had swelling rather than a major back problem, which they had initially worried about.

Round one began with McGee striking, kicking and taking Ring down, ending in Ring’s half guard.  Ring scored with kicks and, in the clinch, with knees.

McGee tried a take down by shooting for a leg, but was stuffed, eventually ending on the bottom in Ring’s half guard. Some ground and pound followed, but most was ineffectual, until he used elbows.

Round two started with Ring connecting with a leg kick and then a head kick. McGee went after Ring with a flurry of strikes including uppercuts. While in the clinch, McGee used knees. McGee then had a flurry of strikes again with most uppercuts connecting as well as kicks of his own.

Ring’s jabs made contact, but his hands were very low, perhaps due to fatigue. When separated after the clinch, McGee attacked with multiple strikes again.

So, two of the three of us gave round 1 to Ring and 2 to McGee. The judges, though, gave the fight to Ring by majority decision. Liddell went a bit nuts at the loss and looked as though he were going to go after White. White thought that the fight should have gone to a third round as well.

What the judges see may not be what you see.

The Ultimate Fighter Season 11 TUF11 is on Spike on Wednesdays at 10:00 p.m.

ayjay

May 12, 2010

Ippon Seoi Nage is the one arm shoulder throw, which when performed well, looks spectacular, and will give tori the ippon, meaning the full point to win a match.

There are ways in which to prevent the throw, though, and we practiced several exercises to stop the throw.

The first manoeuvre involves blocking tori’s (the giver of the throw) body as he turns in to do the throw. Extend your hand to block his torso. To ensure that your own arm doesn’t get jammed, move to the side as you block.

Second manoeuver: As tori presents his back to do the throw, literally jump out of the throw, moving over his back toward the side he has grasped your arm. He needs to be directly in front of you to accomplish the throw with his back to you, so you are moving out of the way, even though he has your arm.

The third manoeuvre:  As tori presents his back, move out of the way of the throw in the opposite direction, to the side he is not holding your arm. He will still have your other arm, but cannot throw you with ippon seoi nage as, again, he needs to be directly in front of you, with his back to you.

The fourth manoeuvre: As tori begins turning in to you, step strongly forward with your left leg, drop your weight a few inches and simultaneously thrust your left hip out to impact tori’s hip and stop his rotation.  This effectively blocks him from completing his rotation and will put him off balance to his rear, creating an excellent opportunity for follow-up counter throws.

These simple exercises may not always work to stuff the throw, but may give you an out to try something of your own.

ayjay,

May 3, 2010

Our classes are unusual: we begin by grappling for about an hour. A match could be five minutes or forty-five, if the pair want to keep at it. After we are finished grappling, Dave asks if anything came up during the fights which was interesting, difficult to get out of, or just fun which we can all practice.

This approach works well for us: we had structured classes for many years and found them stifling. The senior members of the club spent virtually all their time teaching the same techniques over and over and spent far too little time working on their own skills.

We assume that you know a certain amount when you come to our class. If we know that you are a novice, someone will monitor you during your workouts, but we will not cater exclusively to beginners. You can work with any of the senior people, all of whom have their own idiosyncrasies and styles, all worth working out with.

Mike looks like the average southern European guy until you’re doing groundwork with him. He’s wiry, agile, smiles throughout most of his matches and has his eyes closed most of the time. He’s not intimidated by fighting a much larger person, mostly because lots of the others are bigger. He takes his time to get to the stage where he can win. He’s a great person to grapple with.

Chris is much heavier and stronger than Mike and, on the ground or standing, doesn’t like to lose. If you get a submission on the ground from him or a point when standing, you’ve really earned it.

Dave is bigger than Mike and smaller than Chris. He’s extremely difficult to choke (his favourite phrase is, “It’s only pain.”) and can weasel his way out of almost everything. I heard that the jiu jitsu people have begun calling him “The Cyborg”, which he is anything but. When he’s grappling with people, and he realizes they are trying a particular technique, he’ll let them go for it as long as necessary. They have to have the opportunity to try techniques. If they don’t quite work, he’ll stop the matches, show them the correct hand, arm, leg placements, etc., and then proceed. He’s a very good teacher.

Now for the Simple Takedown from the Ground: Dave and Chris were demonstrating this last Friday. You and your partner are on your knees facing each other. You want the upper position, controlling your partner’s body. Grip his lapel (if wearing judogi) or arm, if no gi, with one hand. With the other hand/arm grasping his arm, pull yourself into him at an angle of close to 90 degrees: you want to finish shoulder to shoulder with him. Using the second hand, pull down on uke, placing your shoulder on top of his. You now have the superior position.

Points to note: The lapel grip usually isn’t easy to get. Grab it anywhere with one hand and work your way up with both hands until you have a good grip.

You really have to pull yourself in to him, not him to you. This is done at the same time as your moving 90 degrees to him.

Once you have the superior position, your shoulder on top of his and both hands gripping him tightly,  you can take uke down at will.

ayjay

May 3, 2010