Training Day 2 - new blue belts for the club!

With my body still on Rio time, I woke up on Sunday morning at 7am, but my body was on 3am time and boy was I tired; I was up and ready for a day of jiu jitsu instruction at Caged Steel as Combat Base UK held their regular Training Day session, which covered the A Game.



This consisted of four workshops, that covered takedowns, guard passing, side control and mount; Judo black belt and BJJ blue belt dane Mitchell started the coaching sessions off with a look at Judo for no gi competition and gave a masterclass on taking your man down to the ground, with some nice throws, all easily linked together.

From there, purple belt Casey Jones took the group through guard passing, starting with a pass known to all members, then broke the pass down into smaller sections, outlining points where most people make mistakes and tips on how to make the pass more successful.



My old mate and brown belt Spenna, gave an excellent section on side control, with tips on keeping your man pinned down, with a number of 'what if' scenarios and started to show entires into the mount position, which neatly made way for Danny Mitchell to end the day with a look at the mount position. Danny introduced the concept of 'guard is mount' and 'mount is guard' to the attendees and showed techniques from the guard can be utilised from the guard position and am sure many people will be playing around with this neat little concept for many months to come.



Over eighty people on the mats in total, these sessions are growing in popularity as more and more clubs are joining the Combat Base family; my old mate Russ Gates and his students from Runcorn have joined the fold, been a long time since we last met and am glad to be back on board with the guys, teaching jiu jitsu at their club in Runcorn.

At the end of the day, Helen handed out belt promotions, with a number of long over due promotions to the lads from Steve Muckle's club, big shout to Ste Paynter on his purple belt :) I'm very proud to announce two new blue belts at the club, as Shaun Killelea and Lee Whitehead got the nod from Helen, both guys have worked very hard with the rest of the lads and are well deserved promotions. An interclub is due on October 31st, so who knows there may be even more blue belts for the club, fingers crossed!



Photos - John Sherwood