I felt compelled to write my first post in quite a while as
I met up with my old sparring partner Jadon, who was back from Worcester for a
few days visiting family and friends. I had intended to take Jadon to Yoshin
Ryu on Wednesday night for their newaza class but unfortunately he was only
staying for a few days and wouldn’t be able to attend. However he did tell me
that he was going to a BJJ club in Woking which is run by an Andy Roberts brown
belt, Dan Geoghegan, who Jadon had started training BJJ with many years
previously.
We arrived early and were made to feel very welcome by some
of the members who were waiting to go in. The club is located in a room in a
very large gymnasium in Woking, so not a permanently matted area. However the
jigsaw mats were very quick and easy to lay down unlike those heavy large mats
most Judo clubs seem to favour.
The warm up was made up of the typical shrimping, breakfalling,
commando crawling and sprawling type of exercises that seem to be quite normal
at most BJJ clubs. I think this type of warmup was the right amount of balance
between a warmup and a light workout that one needs, especially as the class
was only one and a half hours long.
Dan showed us first the flower sweep and then a flower sweep
set up to triangle. I’ve been having some success recently with the flower
sweep at Yoshin Ryu but the version Dan showed me was slightly different but
just as efficient. I think we drilled it enough so that I would remember it
again in the heat of battle, which is something that BJJ gets right in their
teaching. When you drill only 1 or 2 techniques in a class you normally
remember them forever. The flower sweep that Ricardo showed me almost 5 years
ago at Nova Forca is still something that I use today and a technique I will
never forget.
We finished off with about 30 minutes of rolling or sparring
and I was lucky in that I got to roll with Dan. He has a very relaxed and calm
way about him and most of his transitions and movements were very smooth and
deliberate. He didn’t embarrass me, although I’m sure he could have if he
wanted to, but he did just enough to make me work hard to survive. He spent a
while going for an ude gurami and as he was being nice he allowed me time and
space to defend against it several times until eventually he got the tap. It
was a nice roll and one that I could definitely learn from given more
opportunity. The standard of the students I rolled with was, in my opinion,
high. The only gripe I had was that I got arm barred by one of the guys who
slapped it on a bit too fast and hard for my liking. So hard in fact that I
felt my elbow pop. There was no malice intended though it was just one those
things that happens from time to time.
Overall I really enjoyed my time at Maven BJJ and will try
and get back there sometime, maybe when Jadon is next in town or when my elbow
has healed.
