Ankle Locks Gone Nuclear

Friday July 22

Another glorious nogi class.  Tonight we had a seminar by Reilly Bodycombe, a practitioner of American Sambo.   He posted some footage of grappling matches he’d been in, and some of the stuff he was pulling off was seriously impressive.   Brown belt Andy  wanted us all to show up with wrestling shoes, gi tops and jorts, but since everyone chickened out, he did to.  I could tell he still wanted to do it. 

Any way, being a sambo guy, our Guest had a pretty serious take on leg attacks and leg control.  The only problem is the setup that he covered through out his seminar is illegal for any competitions I would do, so although the stuff he covered was cool, it won’t necessarily be too applicable to my game.  That said,  this seminar fixed a huge hole in my jiujistu,  as always, in an after class one-on-one post roll advice session.  Me and Vaughn were practicing straight ankle locks (totally legal), and Reilly showed us how to go nuclear.   Grab high up on your chest (guillotine grip), roll your shoulder up, and back., You shouldn’t be able to see your shoulder.  Keep your elbow tightly pinched to your side.   Ridiculous difference to my previous shitty attempts.

Anyway, when Reilly called for rolls, he said something about going for leg subs and me and Vaughn thought he meant  ONLY leg subs, so we went super light as neither of us felt confident in our abilities.  Vaughn set up a knee bar and a straight ankle lock, and walked me through a knee bar.

Next up was Reilly himself,  who guillotined me , ankle locked me, then took pity and let me work the stuff he showed in class.  Super nice guy, hope he ends up sticking around.

Next up was Dmitri (purple).  I was felt like he was going light with me, but couldn’t match his pace.  I guess the nogi class just gets me fired up.  Anyway I set up a bunch of subs that I can’t recall, but didn’t really insist on them, as he was playing so light with me. 

After class  I rolled with both Andy and Collin and moved much better, actually threatening to pass Andy’s guard at times, doing so once,, and setting up two attempts of an arm triangle.  Collin mostly brutalized me, but I passed his guard as well..

 Afterwards, Andy reviewed some passing theory.  First pass is a knee slice pass where one hand goes to the knee that s on the ground and the other hard against the guys far hip, pressing down hard to keep him from turning in.  slide the knee through, bringing the other one with it.  Lift hard on the guys knee and keep pressing, to secure the pass.  If he resists this, switch to second pass: grab far side of each knee, pull apart, when he resists the pressure, smash the far knee down and throw your shoulder down for the pass.  Keep your hips low and turn in.  I need to get him to go over this with me again...