Reviews: Roy Harris

Minnesota and Vermont BJJ Seminars DVD by Roy Harris

This DVD is condensed to 2 hours from over 6 hours of BJJ seminars Roy conducted in Minnesota and Vermont during 2005.

What is covered are the basics for which Roy Harris is known including but not limited to side mount escapes, posture, and positions, collar chokes and much more. There are question and answer sessions that most white to blue belts would find very informative such as take downs from the knees as well as when to open your guard and why. Did I mention escapes?

Want it? Get it at Budo Videos

Takedowns from the Knees DVD by Roy Harris

When I started my takedowns from the knees consisted of the head tuck and pushing over the opponent and as you can guess this got very predictable. I found this little gem and it was expanded my toolbox of takedowns greatly.

Roy covers 2 on 1, elbow and collar, butterfly type takedowns to name a few in gi and no gi variations. This DVD has a nice menu so you can skip to where you want and there are easily over 20 techniques. At the end there are some sparring so you can see him in action.

My only minor gripe is that the music was a bit 70’s porn style, but the quality of instruction is typical Roy Harris, top notch.

This is a quality instructional that is long on knowledge and short on filler.

Want it? Get it at Budo Videos

Soon I will be posting a review of Roy Harris' Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Over 40.

Scissor Guard Update

This is an update on my progress with Scissor Guard.

I talked to my instructor on this and showed him the Scissor Sweep variations from this guard and he thought it was ok, however there were more options from the traditional scissor sweep and proceeded to show me a new sweep. I have looked online and I do not see this one anywhere so I will try to describe it.

Essentially you do the traditional scissor sweep and the opponent bases up to the opposite side, so you pull them on you and use your knee to push them over to that side. It is a very nifty move that takes very little effort.

I have to agree with my instructor that attempting the traditional scissor sweep does seem to offer bit more options which include but not limited to:

• Replace guard if it goes wrong.
• New sweep which I will refer to as knee sweep.
• Cross reversal
• Entry to butterfly guard
• Sit up for hip bump reversal

That being said I did get an chance to execute the Scissor Guard sweeps with good results however I will probably will only use it when I cannot get the traditional scissor sweep position. What really does intrigue me though is the Scissors Guard: Switching Sides to Gi Choke since I can use the switch to set up the Hip Bump (shown in the last post) and set up one of my favorites, the Flower Sweep (we refer to this as the Breakdance reversal).

More homework for next week, so stay tuned...

Scissor Guard

I stumbled upon these videos of the Scissor Guard on Youtube. The reason it is of interest is because I am finding myself in the Scissor Guard position but didn't really have too many clues of what to do but meet my knees and elbows together and put my feet on the hips and push and roll then go to closed guard.

Scissors Guard: The Basics


Scissors Guard: Switching Sides to Gi Choke

We had learned this technique in class however the setup definitely shed some light of other ways I could use it.



Scissors Sweep

The Scissor sweep it is one of the most basic sweeps in BJJ however this variation sets up from the chest rather than the waist and hip which seems to break the posture to the side more than the traditional technique.



Scissors Sweep: Wide Base Variation



Scissors Guard: Double Sleeve to Hip Bump Sweep



So for the next few weeks I will be playing with these techniques and mixing it up.

The Newaza of Tsunetane Oda

The following videos feature Tsunetane Oda who is attributed to have created Sankaku-jime (Triangle choke).

Enjoy!

Follow up to Takedowns from the Knees

I want to share a very interesting post that appeared on Judo Forum by the poster, Happiness Is A Warm Gun on entries to newaza.

“One of the senseis I trained excessively with was a newaza specialist, who frequently would remind me that the best way to enter newaza was rarely with a sacrifice throw, which makes you start newaza on your back, but instead with sasae tsurikomi ashi, de ashi barai, and other attacks that frequently leave the opponent kneeling if they aren't successful. He would even just pull guys down onto their knees by both lapels, and because there are so many dangerous submissions available from sprawl, the threat of being pulled to one's knees made most people plant their feet and straighten up as soon as he would yank down on their lapels, which invariably rooted in place and left them vulnerable to a variety of different followup attacks.”

This is interesting since lately the throw type takedowns have not been too successful lately for me but getting the opponent on all fours and using Obi Tori Gaeshi and various turnovers has worked extremely as well as jumping into sweeps.

Nathan (my instructor) has suggested using the get to the feet position as one method to move quicker on my entries and I will try this and report the results in the future.

Below I would like to share some videos from newaza genius Katsuhiko Kashiwazaki

Another version of Obi Tori Gaeshi

Takedowns from the Knees

One of the things that comes up often in grappling message boards is the topic of takedowns from the knees. A lot of times training partners spend must of the time grunting, pulling and pushing or one just jumps to guard.

Starting from the knees is an opportune time to work on basic sweeps, throws, and exploring kuzushi.

A few weeks ago in class we worked on Tai otoshi, Push-pull, Scissor and Butterfly sweeps from the knees.

Tai otoshi from the knees

1. Get a sleeve grip and lapel grip.
2. Bring your knee up (lapel side) between theirs.
3. Kick your back leg strongly to the rear.
4. Step to the outside of their knee (from the middle knee up) and rotate keeping your arms in front of you.
5. Establish side control.

Push-pull

1. Get a sleeve and high lapel grip.
2. Strongly pull the sleeve while pushing the lapel side.
3. Establish side control.

In the video below (at 1:44) this techniqueis shown except it is demonstrated with a large step to the rear and fall into Kesa gatame. For me as funny as it may sound it require too much flexibility and just doing the above three steps worked well too.

Stephen Kesting does a beautiful job explaining the Scissor sweep (at 0:35) and Butterfly sweep (at 1:35) from the knees in the video below.

Obi Tori Gaeshi

This one I picked up from the book, Attacking Judo. The video below clearly shows in detail the mechanics.

You can modify it as a sweep by doing the following:

1. When in guard and your opponent is posturing up sit up and get an underhook.
2. Pull and then push and get a foot in.
3. Push hard again and the opponent will resist by straightening up or pushing back.
4. Fall backwards and kick to the rear and if done correctly they will fly.

I did this the other day in class and I bounced my training partner against the wall and landed on him in side control. The first time you pull this one off correctly it can be bewildering because it is very easy to throw someone with almost no effort.