6.19.10 /Kyra Gracie Seminar Cont.

Hi ya. I’ve officially decided that the whole post with an email thing rocks, so here I am again hoping to get myself up to date. With this post I’m going to go over the techniques learned at the Kyra Gracie seminar to the best of my ability. I wrote some of it down, but unfortunately my memory is already starting to dwindle. In particular, there was a variation of a guillotine choke she went over that I sort of love, because I think I’m often get in the setup and then never know what to do. I actually tried doing again in class last night, but to no avail! So sad L. I plan on asking Jay about it next class, however. This isn’t till Monday though :/. So hopefully I don’t forget!

First up. Easy-peasy!

Hip Bump Defense

1. As soon as your opponent goes to attack you while you are in their guard, you sit up from normal base getting your hips up as high as possible.
1. Your butt should be completely off the ground! Don’t just kind of do this. Go all the way.
   
   
2. Your head should not be too far forward or backwards; doing either will put you off balance and you could be swept.
1. This can’t be stressed enough at any point while in someone’s guard! Just last class I was trying to pass this guy I was rolling with and I had one knee up and in between his legs. However, I was leaning too far forward and he pointed it out afterwards and told me how much easier it made it for him. It’s something that’s easy to forget, but think of your head attached to a string to the ceiling.
   
   
2. Always look directly forward, not down at your opponent, but not too high either.

Final Note: This is a great defense not only for specifically hip bump, but in general when you are in guard and your opponent is trying to sweep you. You also want to make sure not to leave a lot of space or have *too* wide of a base, because you want to be able to feel where your opponent is gonna move in their hips, before they do it! If you can feel them turning, you aren’t tight enough.

Guillotine Variation (Please excuse any bad spelling!)

1. Ok, let’s say you have Guillotine on your opponent on the ground. This variation Kyra showed because normally the way you would finish this your opponent still has a small amount of space to escape. With guys, this isn’t possibly a problem, but especially if you are a girl trying to submit a guy with this it can cause issues. Someone who is stronger, like a guy, might be able to hold out on you and then escape. They may be able to withstand the pain a bit, or have a stronger neck to resist.
   
   
2. Once you have the Guillotine, sprawl so that your weight is on your opponent’s back the left side (or that would be their right).
   
   
3. Switch from left to right side of your opponent.
1. Putting your knee down tight near their ear and
2. Your right leg steps out to your right with your knee bent like a squat almost.
   
   
4. You can finish the choke from here, which is much tighter and doesn’t leave that little space.

The last things I will go over is a take down and also defense while standing and your opponent is pushing or pulling you.

Pushing/Pulling Defense

1. First some notes: You want to make sure you are protecting your lapel up near your neck from your opponent gripping it. If you keep your hand loosely near it, and press your hand flat against it holding the lapel down on your chest when they go to grab it, then your opponent can not grab it (and you in turn could grip their sleeve and attack).  You also want to watch and try to control their right hand – most likely the dominate hand. They have more strength in this hand so by controlling it you make it easier for you to take them down or harder for them.
   
   
2. PULLING: You should have your right leg forward and left leg back, and have a normal hold on their label and sleeve.
1. When someone is pulling you, you want to turn your hip (we’ll say left hip, thus they are pulling your right arm) out and forward, while also turning your right hip back and to the left. The goal is to put more weight on your back left leg.
   
   
3. PUSHING: It’s sort of the opposite with pushing. You want all the weight on your front leg.
1. Lean forward, having your right leg (the front one), bent a bit and putting all your weight on it.

I felt while drilling this at the seminar that it was much much easier to do the defense against pushing than pulling. However, my partner seemed to be the opposite. She had a better time with the pulling defense, especially on her left side. This just goes to show how everyone is different!

Take Down

I gotta apologize first of for being shitty with the names of the techniques I post. So sorry! But it’s hard to remember them.

1)     Your opponent goes to grab your lapel; you are blocking them by holding it down with your left hand.

2)     With your right hand, push their hand down towards your left hand, then transfer to your left hand gripping their sleeve (remember thumb out!).

3)     You will then step forward with your left leg.

a)     You want a large step, so that you are ahead of them if they are stepping backwards.

b)     There shouldn’t be space between you.

c)     If your right leg is too far away, you can slide it forwards towards you left leg quickly.

4)     Right elbow should be tight against them and straight, with a tight grip on their lapel, cutting up and into their collarbone.

5)     You want to tilt them down towards your left as you step.

6)     Lastly, bring your right leg forward, keep it straight and swing it down onto their leg like a pendulum.

Remember, this is suppose to be smooth and not really in so many steps! As you move forward with your left leg, you should right away be doing the steps following it. We also practiced this in pairs walking across the mats. We’d take 3 steps forward, the third step being the one towards your opponent to at #3 above and about to do the take down. This is a good take down if they are trying to pull you toward them. Let them! Then use their momentum against them! It’s all about doing something using the least about of strength and work for you.

Phew. I believe that’s all I have to share from the seminar. We did more, but it’s hard to remember everything and also a lot of typing! I still have yesterday’s class to post, and some side notes then will be all caught up. Yay! You won’t hear a peep outta me until Monday after that! ^.^