Saturday 4th August 2007, the second John Will seminar of the year! This was a day that should have been in your diary, a day not to be missed. Blown away by another combination of techniques that will surely be driving GroundControl through the next few months and beyond!

Anticipation is generally the feeling that greets you when you enter the Howick Dojo as anther seminar is about to commence, this time was no different. Eager to get started we indulged in a quick warm up to which John made a very good point about sloppy warm ups and it ’s relationship to sloppy training. To put it finely, bungling black belts! This, I know is a point that some of us have spoken about before and are very mindful of. In order to get the most out of your training, and life for that matter, TAKE NOTE!

he morning session consisted of techniques to counter the guard pass. Heavy Leg, Crossover, Compass drill and Sea saw. One of the important factors in this was being able to identify at what stage during the guard pass each of these techniques apply. Heavy leg under 90 degrees of leg bend, crossover greater than 90 degrees in leg bend and Sea saw being forced all the way over. For those that are interesting in the MMA, we did two sweeps while defending attacks/punches from the mount and guard. A good application to have for MMA or in the street! A quick fire round of open guard drill capped off the morning session. It was good to glance around the mat to see everyone in open guard action, impressive! A sign of things to come!

The majority of people that were here for the morning session continued on for the afternoon session, with maybe one exception (must have been a family emergency). The afternoon session began with ways to get into the X-Guard, Hooking the leg, Step Over, Flagpole and Hook sweep. This was building on the Hour Glass Theory of many different ways to get into X-Guard, then many different sweeps to get out. The sweeps to get out were the Rigan sweep, noted as a pre-emptive sweep before actually entering into the x-guard. This term was brought about by Rigan Machado and his vision to see techniques opportunities in the first instance, not the second or third where the rest of us operate.

Hmm, or are you one of the few? Anyway, fantastic sweep none the less. Also not forgetting the reverse sweep from the back/behind to which Warren had firsthand experience of from John for most of the afternoon. And while I’m here, well done Warren for the absolute domination you had over John on your light grappling session. Ok, so I’m kidding but maybe one day!

We had an introduction to foot locks, and notably the differences in the way there are put on. Backward pressure vs the turning of the foot/heel. This was well emphasized when your partner had control over your back and crossed his legs (something that you should never do). When you put alternate legs over for the foot crank, you could visualize the different movements for the submission.

The day was finished off by the usual question & answer session. This was a time to fix any issue you’re having with your grappling outside of what we did in the seminar, to which some of you took full advantage of. The rest of us were just mentally drained and held each other up! Kidding of course, but well done to all for the 6 hours plus of solid effort you put in.

On a final note, well done Howard Fergusson for achieving your Blue Belt, awesome to see another Blue Belt amongst the ranks! Well deserved my friend!

Brilliant seminar, looking forward to the next!

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