tonight i went to check out a jiu jitsu school that started very close to where I live (I let Sensei Mariedke know before I went). It's a very modern school and the classes are taught with no gi. The focus is freestyle jiu jitsu.

The bad: the instructor teaches out of another school. Said school is a total McDojo. I walked in and the school sempai immediately walked up to me and gave me a price sheet and explained how i need to buy a school t-shirt and the school logo must be worn on at least one item of clothing. I was about ready to walk out the door at that point, but seeing as i had nothing else to do i stuck around.

I'm glad I did because the instructor was great. there were 5 students in total. Tonight was essentially request night and working some basic drills: passing the guard, escape from the mount, sweeping, and some knee bars for about 45 minutes and then 15 minutes of grappling at 30% power and speed.

I learned a LOT just from the one class and the ability to roll with someone was great.

Two techniques that really stuck with me are
1. escaping the guard and transitioning to an achilles lock, and
2. passing the guard into a knee bar

Summary:

1. uke has full mount. tori puts both hands on uke's right knee and shrimps. the shrimp is "outward" so tori's butt pushes uke's left knee out, forcing him to re-posture. from here, uke straightens his torso out so that it is ~90 degrees to uke while taking his right leg and bringing it up over the top of uke's left leg and bending his left knee under him. Tori ends up in a fetal-type position with uke's leg trapped. Tori can then apply a figure 4 lock with his arms to the achilles or heel hook.

2. Tori is in uke's guard. Tori postures up and braces his hands on uke's hips and pushes them into the ground to keep his hips in place. tori shifts a bit to the right and drives his elbow into uke's anterior femoral, forcing uke's leg to the mat. once the leg is down and the guard opened up, tori brings his left foot up so the knee is poking out over uke's center line to prevent uke from rolling. Tori hooks under uke's left leg with his right hand. While doing this, tori places his left knee across uke's left thigh and onto the mat. Tori then hops over uke whlie holding the leg so that uke is lying @ 90 degrees to uke with tori's back to uke;s head in the fetal position. Uke's leg is between tori's legs (left leg on mat, right leg over uke's leg). Tori then pulls back on uke's foot and pushes out with his hips to hyperextend uke's knee.

A different twist on class tonight.

I had that juniors for the majority of the class while Sensei Mariedke worked with Colby on his breakfalls.

I ran the juniors through breakfalls 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8. They absolutely love 4, 6, and 8. I then had them do a game of over-unders: one partner is on hands and knees, the other hops over their back and then crawls back on their stomachs under the partner on their hands and knees. 10 per person. They eat this up!

I then had them do some bridging exercises before we worked on a ground escape where a bully is sitting on their chest and hitting them. Sensei Mariedke and I swapped and she finished the juniors while i went to work with Colby on the same attack.

We did 2 hands on throat, sitting on chest. after the turnover, I showed Colby two "should know" techniques on how to pass your opponents guard when you are between their legs: scooping your arm under the knee and getting into side control and the other where you bring your knee over the anterior femoral and drive the shin into the nerve to pass and then bring the other leg over and into full mount. We did a drill where we started at one side of the mat. executed the attack, defense, and then when tori is in uke's guard instead of getting up and re-starting, tori would work on passing uke's guard to get into position to start the technique again, but with the roles reversed.

we also worked on 2 hands on throat, kneeling between the legs & did the usual escape: losen the grip around the throat, shrimp to the side, throw uke's right hand out while kicking uke's knee back and then swing your right leg over uke's left arm and under his chin to secure an arm bar.

Lastly, we worked on the outter wrist lock from a hammer/ice-pick type punch. step @ 45 degrees to your left while parrying uke's hand with your left hand in a circular motion, with your right hand, grab the wrist at the bottom of the arc and secure the outter wrist lock. From here we transitions to a gooseneck come-a-long and a twist-wrist come-a-long.

After class, Sensei Mariedke showed me a few variation of the outter wrist lock that she used to do at her old school, and I showed her some of the variations that I've picked up at other dojos.