I’ve been training a lot lately and have gotten a lot of videos for posting and review. Here is what I have ready to go soon:
Be back soon!
So Oz’s third fight was this weekend in Plymouth Massachusetts. The early
scouting report on his opponent, Tim Gillotti, made it seem like it was
going to be a walk in the park for our friend, but it turns out Oz had
another war on his hands. What his opponent lacked in skill and speed, he
made up for in toughness. This kid’s head is so solid it should be half
buried somewhere on Easter Island (look it up on Wikipedia, that joke is
fucking funny!). He kept taking was Oz was dishing out and coming back for
more, albeit a little slower than before!
The other night we worked some breakdowns from an opponent posturing in guard. I found this drill from a series of techniques on grapplersguide.com which has just become one of my favorite new websites.
When you are in top guard position, basically your main goal (in a grappling scenario) is to pass the guard. There are very few submissions from the top guard position. Most of them are leg locks, heel hooks, or kneebars. Though all of those are great techniques and can be used, they should be used at a higher level. After you are first able to pass the guard.
Control the hips - when you want to posture up in guard, you want to control the person’s hips. Hip movement is key to the person in bottom guard. The ability to rise, maneuver, and switch hips is vital in the bottom guard position. So the person on top wants to take away this ability and pin the opponents hips to the mat. We accomplish this by placing our hands on the person’s belt or pelvic area and drive back
Head up high - while you drive back with your hands, you want to keep your head up high and your shoulders back. This creates space for you to start passing, but also limits the options a person has to break down your posture and negates some submission attempts such as the triangle, guillotine, etc.
Note: I am going to bring camera to class again soon and will demonstrate some of these positions.
The Ura Nage is another one of my favorite throws. It is a great takedown when you have your opponents back. It works both in gi and no-gi situations. It is also meant for people of all sizes. The judo versions I have seen a different. They seem to actually take a suplex approach to this technique. They we execute is different, and I think more effective. Demonstrated in the video I show one of the entrances to the ura nage, while Ryan shows another. It just depends on what you are more comfortable with and where you are fast.
If you are unable to see the difference in the steps, I forgot to explain it. I started to, but my stutter got in the way… When I do this technique (attacking left side) I take a step with my left leg, bring my legs together, then step with my left leg again to get his back. Ryan steps with his right leg first and does a drop step. He then pivots and comes up to take the opponents back.
Once your have the person’s back. You eliminate all space and get a tight grip on their waist. From there you can walk forward a couple of steps to off-balance then, and then sit on your right heel while sticking your left foot out right behind their left foot. Hold on to them and sit down. They should fall over your left leg which allows you to come up on top.
If you would like another video clarification and breakdown let me know.
The Osoto Gari is one of the more popular judo and ju-jitsu throws, but also one of the hardest to actually execute during an actual fight or randori session. I think the biggest problem people have with executing this throw is actually setting it up. In this video I, yes the bearded dude with a little extra weight 
is me, quickly demonstrate one of my favorite ways to execute this throw. My uke is one of our top guys Ryan.
I wrote another post here about Osoto Gari along with some videos I found related to the throw here: Ju-Jitsu Training - Mount Drills, Scissor Sweep, Kneeing People and Osoto Gari
I use a same side sleeve and collar grip. I take a big step with my lead leg to off-balance my opponent, then execute my osoto gari sweep.
Last night we had an interesting training session. We ran around the dojo for a good 15 minutes doing various rolls and basis throws during the run. I heard someone call it the “Central Park Run”. It was a great warmup and actually a lot of fun. After that the class broke up into pairs and did live drilling on escaping from mount. This drill was actually a lot of fun, and a great one to work on for both people. The person on the top needed to work on keeping mount, while the guy on the bottom has to get out. I think for some people they realized its harder to keep mount then excepted, and for others they realized its a pain in the ass getting out of mount…. especially when you have someone who out weighs you a great deal. While thinking about getting out of mount, it reminded of a video I saw. It’s a simple mount escape like most of us do by bringing your elbows to your opponents knees and shrimping. But instead of trying shrimp back a great distance, you use your far leg to trap your opponents leg and transition to half guard. I think Ryan was trying a variation of this technique last night.
Training class was just Oz, Ryan and I. Oz is a professional MMA fighter and amazing grappling, Ryan is a brown belt in Kobukai Ju-Jitsu and is one of the smartest and technical grapplers I know. These two are constant training partners. Last night we decided to focus on arm drags from standing and in guard. We drilled a few arm drag techniques from standing. I found this video showing a good drill which actually sparked a memory from my old days of wrestling. We used to arm drag to take the back or attack a single leg, then we also used it to setup a body lock.
I also liked Marcelo Garcia’s arm drag wrestling series as well.
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My name is Matt Bryers, I run this thing along with a few other sites, most notably www.fightauthority.com. I'm 30, gotta hot wife, 2 dogs, the house, the job... all that stuff. I can't really complain. I'm also a dedicated martial artist, weight lifter, and complete internet geek. It's a GREAT combination!