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Fairburn ABC - Home Show

Friday night I get a few guys from work and head down to the Boleyn Working Mens Club. Fairburn ABC are having their home show and have 9 bouts lined up. I boxed for Fairburn as a kid and it was great bumping into Jumbo (head coach), and all lot of the kids I trained with a over a decade ago. They're not kids anymore. All of us hitting our 30's. I was surprised that apart from me, none of the others where competing in any combat sports.

As for the bouts, the last bout stood out for me. A master class on attacking the body by the Fairburn fighter. In the end the fight was stopped in the third round, with a visiting fighter with some very sore ribs.

The work guys I took along loved the evening out, £10 at the door with the proceeds going to the Fairburn Amateur Boxing Club. Awesome night out.

Coaching: Mr Quite now Mr Armbar

Had a really small group yesterday. Only four youngsters. So I asked them what they wanted to work on submissions or positions (yeah, they picked submissions). So I started showing the arm bar to omaplata to triangle to armbar drill. It didn't go down well at all. So decided we'll focus on armbar from guard, and that’s what we did, again and again. Machida didn't enjoy this and his long arms were really long levers for Mr Quite (now Mr Armbar) to clamp on some impressive (gruesome to view) armbars. Sparring also started right here. This allowed each of the young guns to field test what they'd drill against full on resistance.

Warm up: Rolling forward, backward, one Ginastica exercise

Technique: 1. Armbar from closed guard in detail. Drilled around 25 reps each, with tweaking every 5 reps.

Sparring: Starting position in closed guard, two on one grips, with legs locked over one shoulder (trapping arm and head). First to submit or a gain a Point scoring position wins. Every restart swap around.

Lesson I learned: Every lesson doesn't need to be high intensity or break neck speeds. Sometimes good old fashion drilling session followed by a very specific positional sparring session goes down very nicely indeed.

New rule instated: Those who came late and didn't put the mats out, they can put them away.

Register for a competition, then to prepare well’

'A truer test of my Brazilian Ju-Jitsu is to register for a competition, then to prepare well’.

On the day I’ll come in on weight, face my opponent across the mat, heart racing, nerves rattling, mind blank of any game plans or techniques and just scrap with every intention to submit them and none to cause them damage. When it's over, regardless of the results on the day I’ll walk away with a smile knowing I prepared well and left it all on the mat.

- Badshah (just a regular guy who enjoys BJJ)

Fitting short bouts of intense exercise into a busy lifestyle

Packed my sauna suit and skipping rope into my pannier bag this morning. Soon as I finished work, I got changed into my sauna suit and set up the interval timer on my android phone and had a 20min session in the work car park.

5 secound sprints followed by 30sec slow and steady. Rinse and repeat.

I was drenched in sweat by time I was half way through. Cycled home as my cool down. Next time I intend to add ankle weights to the mix.

Taking the back from half guard

In today's no-gi class I covered how to get to half guard from being in the opponents side control, then rapidly taking the back. Key points were the deep under hook, ear placed on the shoulder just were it meets the pec muscle and posting with the other arm then launching the opponent forward as the head slips under the armpit.

Then loads of sparring from here with submissions.

Best No-Gi Class I've taught to date.

Yesterday I was shattered, I walk out of Dalston Kingsland Station with idiosyncrasies similar to the Dustin Hoffman from Rain Man. I just couldn't focus. I down a mighty malt and two fresh figs. No lesson plan, no motivation, and mentally fatigued. But this ends up being the best session so far.

Warm up: Rolling forward, backward, tornado rolls

Drill: No-gi 101 drill (love this drill, and keep coming back to it)

Technique: 1. Kimora attack after peeling elbow during guard pass 2.Triangle attack from last set up

Sparring: x3 pairs on mats, winner stays on (positional, starting from closed guard) First to improve position which would score points in a comp gets you a win. I.e taking side, mount, back, sweep etc

submissions added 15 minutes in.

If I saw a key error, I'd cover very quickly what went wrong in a one to one then have them join back of que. This worked really well.

Quick Group Q&A (5min): How do I sweep from guard ? I demo the scissor sweep (adapted for no-gi)

Cool Down & Stretch (10-15min): Walking with focus on breath work to lower heart rate. Stretches focusing on groin, ham strings and calves.