Learning Fun, More Learning Fun, Ouch

Saturday, I attended a Jiu Jitsu seminar at the training center.

Visiting was Chet, a 4th Degree Back Belt who is an incredibly skilled practitioner, an engaging and wonderful teacher, and an all-around nice guy.  

To say he really knows his stuff and can make a technique understandable and effective is an understatement.  Always an amazing time when he visits, even if it feels like you're drinking from a fire hose.  You always get more than your money's worth from any seminar he instructs.

We started with something that seems simple, but with a few little tweaks becomes a lot more effective - the initial clinch.

Basically in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu the philosophy when your being attacked is you're either in or out.  Out meaning far enough away you can't get punched or kicked, or In - you're close enough that the attacker's punches or kicks lose effectiveness as you're already too close for them to generate power in their punches. You typically don't want to hang out at arms-length absorbing your attacker's punches.

Clinching is being very In. Basically, you're attached to them smothering their attacks and in close enough to then do a takedown or other technique to stop the attack or get away.

The two tweaks sound really simple and then made a huge difference.  They were: Look up and leg pressure.

Simply by looking up while you're cinching changes your body posture and helps break the opponent's posture.  Putting pressure on their leg further reduces their stability and further breaks their posture.  Not very comfortable for them and it absolutely makes the position more effective with these two very tiny modifications.

I was teamed up with Jesse, a 4-stripe white belt.  Jesse is quite a bit bigger and stronger than I am, which is great practice. After all, it's most likely that in real life you're going to be attacked by someone who is bigger and stronger than you rather than the other way around. This can get uncomfortable with all his weight on you during ground techniques, but it helps to learn to be comfortable while being uncomfortable, and knowing you can still handle yourself with a big heavy guy trying to smother you.

The only downside, is that while practicing dynamic clinching, all his bigness and strong-ness accidentally came down on the 2nd little toe from the end of my left foot and it came down just right (or just wrong) that there was a snapping sound and some rather instant pain. 

Weird accidents happen.

So, with one broken toe later, with it immediately turning black and blue, I taped it to the next toe and carried on, albeit being careful with that foot.

The rest of the seminar dealt with some really neat ground techniques.  These included a sneaky arm triangle choke you can do when the attacker on top of you decides to put his forearm over your throat and press down trying to choke you. Instead, they get choked out and get to reevaluate their life choices and regret their choice of being so rude as to try to shove their forearm through your throat.

After the teaching portion of the seminar ended, we had some free rolling time, and along with rolling with my friends, I got an opportunity to roll with Chet. This was pretty incredible as he can see what you're trying to do about 20 moves ahead of you actually doing it. He moves so well and smoothly it is just fantastic to experience. This was a fun time and it was very neat to again experience how good someone at that level can be at this. Learned a lot rolling with him. 

In short should you decide to try and attack a 4th degree BJJ Black Belt, my best advice is instead to run in the opposite direction as fast as you possibly can. This advice also applies to BJJ Black belts of all levels; also Brown Belts; Purple Belts; and any Blue Belt who is better than me -- which is just about all of them, just saying).

A lot of fun and learning occurred.  Toe is still rather sore today, and I've iced it and re-taped it to the next toe. 

After the rolls, a bunch of us headed out for tacos and camaraderie with Chet and it was an end to a great seminar.  It was a darn good time, even with the ouchie.  Worth it.