One month on from the side control seminar the Leverage Fundamentals Open Guard + Passing seminar was running at Leicester Shootfighters. I was very interested in attending this but the lure of Terror playing in Nottingham that night was just too great.....
Anyhow, the following seminar came up pretty quickly and I decided that I couldn't afford to miss another (it's my aim to attend all six) booking in as soon as it was announced. This was the final session in the Fundamentals series and covered the half guard and "extras" on which more later...
The half guard portion of the seminar was split in to bottom and top sections, both covering the essentials of posture with bottom taking in transitioning to guard, taking the back and sweeps, whilst top position covered passing. As is his method, Nathan demonstrated and coached through each step of whatever he was showing before setting people to work in pairs, coaching and correcting around the room. It bears emphasising that a key part of Nathan's method of coaching/teaching is to break things down in to bite-sized chunks so that, for me at least, there's more chance of remembering the technique and being able to drill it. Coupled with a very articulate manner and an understanding of his subject that is clearly deep and expansive, this makes for quality and accessible coaching.
From the off, there was a lot of detail in this seminar. The basic 'safety' position when using half guard filled a page of my notebook with points on posture, basing the foot, the importance of blocking the crossface, getting the underhook, and on it goes........ What's more, looking back through my notebook as I write this I realise that I remember it without prompting.....mostly. Once we'd got the posture down we started to work on improving position - getting back to closed guard or open guard. Finally from bottom position we looked at two sweeps including the 'Old School' sweep before moving on to top position.
Again we started with posture and looked at the two main positions; Underhook & Crossface and Sit Through. I have to confess to never really using the sit-through position previously feeling a little vulnerable when presented with the opportunity to use it. However, the details taught by Nathan have given me more confidence in the position and in switching between that and the underhook-crossface. We worked three passes from these two positions, one I was familiar with (if not competent!) and two others that were new to me but easily learnt and practiced and again, given some more drilling I'd be happy to try them when rolling.
The Extras...
First up was learning some flow rolling drills. Flow rolling - and forgive me if this isn't the best explanation - is non-competitive, non-strength-based, rolling for position with the emphasis on smooth transition rather than speed, and compliance rather than competition. In order to do this Nathan showed us two drills:
- Passing guard - transitioning to mount - being reversed to guard - beginning again with opposite roles.
- From being mounted - regain guard - sweep top man - transition to mount position - begin again with opposite roles.
The final part of the day was spent looking at things that don't fit anywhere else in the Levergae system, for example, dealing with an unskilled opponent on the mat or off it in a situation that requires you to utilise some restraint rather than flatten your opponent, e.g. the friend of a friend down the pub who knows you 'do some of that UFC stuff' and wants to test you out... you get the idea. Within this we looked at breakfalls and getting up safely, releasing wrist grips, bodylock takedowns and escapes, guillotine defence and standing and ground headlock escapes. There's some interesting debate going on at the moment - in Jiu Jitsu Style magazine for example - about BJJ having lost some of the self-defence type elements due to the focus on sport BJJ. It'll be interesting to see how this develops and how the ideas shape schools and styles in the future.
By the end of the five hours I was saturated and really struggling to take any more in, though to be clear, that's about me not about the seminar itself. Once again an afternoon's top-class instruction in a friendly environment. I can't recommend the Leverage Seminars enough.
Next up:
Sunday 20th January 2013
Fundamentals 01: Theory, Basic Skills, Mount. (I'm already booked in for this).
10th February 2013
Leverage Submission Grappling Fundamentals Seminar 02: Side Control (Repeat)
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