In the space of a few weeks, Carcará himself Braulio Estima graced the boys (and lady) at Ministry of Martial Arts with his godly presence once more, for another seminar that allowed us mere mortals to walk away with a tighter jiu jitsu game.
When it comes to Braulio, at the expense of sounding starstruck and particularly nerdy, I can't say enough good things about the man. An exceptionally well-accomplished BJJ fighter with and without the gi, he is also a fantastic teacher and a seriously down to earth fella. I have assured 'Mrs Flaminginho' that as soon as we win the Euro Millions Lottery, we will be housing and employing Mr Estima full-time in our newly purchased castle. But until then, I'll stick to attending his seminars (and possibly even share a few snippets of his genius with you.)
Much like his last seminar with us, Braulio focused on one particular technique, in this case: the Americana. His intention was not only to show us a variant of this, but to cover details to tighten it up, and allow us to walk away from the class having digested particular concepts that we could incorporate into other similar techniques.
Calling forth our usual instructor Lee Catling to act as his grappling dummy, Braulio began in side control, high on the body and to Lee's left side, with his (Braulio's) left arm under Lee's (impressive) head and his other arm over Lee's body. You can of course reverse all these instructions if you're on the other side of your partner's body. But you knew this already, didn't you, clever clogs?
Now here's the clever part: when Lee (or your opponent) starts pushing away at your head to create space, you should hold said arm down tight to his body and in place with YOUR NECK. Yup, use your your chin/jaw to squeeze his forearm against your own neck and tight to his body. This is to free up (in this case) your right hand to pull your opponent's left lapel out from his belt. Then wrap this around his offending arm, passing it to the other hand which you should have fed under your opponent's head when taking side control. Then slide your right hand under his trapped arm (or 'chicken wing'), to reach the lapel that you are holding in your left hand. Tighten your grip on this by feeding your lapel from hand to hand, almost like climbing a rope. This will effectively disable that arm and give you a little breathing space to think, which will GREATLY improve your game.
The options you have from this point are numerous: you can go straight to the Americana; go for wrist locks; if he/she bridges, then go for the mount while they are in a vulnerable position, and many more besides. This description can't really do this justice, a video or series of diagrams would be ideal. Unfortunately, I'm far too incompetent to provide you with such luxuries, so all I can suggest is that you check out Braulio's fantastic instructional DVDs, or better yet, go to one of his seminars - you'll thank yourself. For more info, contact him here.
After Braulio had demonstrated the various techniques and we drilled them with our partners, we got a chance to practice them in a more realistic context through specific sparring. While we practised, Braulio got in the cage for a roll with our talented brown belts - not something one gets to do everyday, eh?
Anywho, consider this another morsel of my limited knowledge. I'm new to this blogging malarky, and I realise that I really need to invest more time in recording some video footage for you lovely people to really grasp the techniques I describe. I'll sort this out ASAP, so in the meantime, please tolerate my poor grammar, lengthy sentences and 'unique' humour. I assure you the quality of these posts can only improve. No, really. They can hardly get any worse...
In the meantime, até logo e muito obrigado
The Fat Flamingo
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