Gracie Mag Mundial Edition

The new Gracie Mags with all of the news from the Mundials are expected to arrive within the next few days, unfortunately we will only be receiving 10 with this shipment. To guarantee yourself a copy please speak to Clinton or Bart

Beginner Class Recap

We had a packed beginners class today, everyone is back from their long weekend and ready to train! After warming up with some throws we went to the ground and focused on the Knee-on-Belly.


From the side control Jacare is looking to transition to the Knee-on-Belly position. He unlocks his hands and with his left grabs Daren's pants by the hip











Jacare raises his body up and slides his left knee across Daran's stomach
and stabilizes the position










With his right hand Jacare opens Daren's left lapel and slides his left hand in palm up.











Now Jacare crosses his right hand over his left and slides his thumb deep into the other side of Daren's collar










To finish, Jacare pulls Daren towards him, bringing his elbows to his hips and drives his weight forward.

*Note* Don't lean to far forward or your opponent can roll you over

Tuesday Lunch Class

Today we worked on basic self-defense focusing on the head-lock.

- Cobrinha puts Jacare in a basic headlock. Jacare makes sure to keep his left hand between himself and Cobrinha this allows him to form a frame later.






- At this point Jacare forms his frame keeping his arm/wrist bone on Cobrinha's neck. Jacare is moving his hips backwards in order to prepare for throwing his legs up.






- After getting his hips back Jacare throws his hips/legs up, drives up with his wrists, and and gets his leg around Cobrniha's head/face. Jacare drives his hips and legs down ending up on Cobrinha's side.






- At this point Jacare is on Cobrinha's side. Jacare bases out to maintain his position.







- At this point Jacare has shifted his hips towards Cobrinha's head. As Jacare did this he moved his right foot in to Cobrinha's stomach. Jacare pinches down with his right leg, frames Cobrinha's face and drives up on the arm straiting it out. This allows Jacare a easy arm-bar.

Welcome Back

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July weekend and is ready for the week ahead. We however are still in holiday mode and the class this evening reflected that :)
We actually had 2 different classes running side by side tonight. After the warm up Cobrinha decided to split up the white belts from the rest of the class and both sides worked on specific aspects of the game.













The white belts worked on Spider Guard, Cobrinha showed them the correct way to enter into the Spider Guard as well as the basic principles of controlling the position when your opponent moves from side to side

The upper belts worked from Side Control. Cobrinha emphasized the importance of not letting your opponent recompose their Guard, once you are on their side you should be looking to advance your position or submit your opponent

Beginner Class Recap

With Jacare out of town to day Daren stepped in and filled in as Instructor. Since Daren usually assists Jacare with the beginner class he had no problem picking up right where the Tuesday's class left off, focusing on the Guillotine.

Initially the class started working the Guillotine standing to get a feel for the position, Daren went into exact detail about arm placement as well as the proper position of the elbow when locking in this choke.
The Guillotine is a lot more affective from the Guard, the reason being you can use your legs to control your opponents body.






From the standing position Daren demonstrated the correct way/time to jump Guard and take the fight to the ground.
Note in the picture: Daren has his Guard closed and is controlling Alec, Daren is not flat on his back but rather on right hip, this will help create the right angle for the choke. His shoulder is behind Alec's head and he is applying pressure by tucking his elbow in and extending his hips









Continuing with the theme of this mornings class, today's warm ups were really acrobatic!

Thurs Lunch Class

Today's lunch class was focused on stretching exercises in order to have a more active, responsive, and flexible guard. No specific techniques where shown. After the flexibility drills the class did situational training consisting of passing and maintaining the open guard.

7:30 Class Recap

For tonight's post I decided to use last night technique because it keeps with the same Half Guard theme from the lunch time class. The technique focuses on countering your opponents defense to the knee through pass.




As Cobrinha forces half guard he tries to crossface Jacare to secure the position. To defend Jacare pushes off Cobrinha's bicep.









Unable to secure the position Cobrinha switches his hips.











With Half-Guard secured Cobrinha grabs Jacare's left pant leg just above the knee and scoots his hips back towards Jacare's head.










With his free leg Cobrinha pushes on Jacare's bottom knee to release his trapped leg











Once Jacare's guard is opened Cobrinha pulls his trapped leg out and turns into him to secure side control

Wed Lunch Class

- Today started with drilling takedowns. We covered the standard throws as well as the double leg.

- After that we covered passing the half guard, utilizing a hip rotation to open your opponents legs, as demonstrated above.

Beginner Class Recap

The Beginner's Class is were we focus on self defense. This is an awesome class for anyone getting started or some of the higher belts that want to get a refresher on the fundamentals and self defense.
Today's self defense technique was the Guillotine defense.
Note: Jacare is caught in Daren's Guillotine, he immediately brings his left hand up to defend his neck and turns his chin into Daren's stomach to relieve the pressure.
With his right arm Jacare reaches over Daren's shoulder and drives his weight forward. This forward pressure drives Jacare's shoulder into Daren's neck making him very uncomfortable and keeping Jacare's neck relativly safe. From here Jacare can wait out the attack or begining working on Daren's grip with his left arm and release his head

Parent Participation Week for Alliance Kids

Special thanks to Steve Foster and Brian O'Hara for getting involved in our kids classes, for more info on Parent Participation please visit the Alliance Kids Blog

Tuesday Lunch Class Recap

- Today started with Jacare's yoga-ish warm-ups. It was refreshing.

- Today we covered three different submissions from the closed guard, all of which can be chained together.

- The first submission covered was the straight armbar from the closed guard. To start the move you grab the wrist of the top man with your opposite hand, and grab his elbow with your other hand, shifting your hips out to the side.

- At this point you post your foot on your opponent's hips in order to create the proper angle. You continue to move your hips up towards the shoulder of the arm you are attacking, and your shoulders towards the top man's hips.

- To finish the move you take your trailing leg and place it over your opponent's head. You squeeze down with the calves, and press up with the heels.

- If your opponent pulls out his arm being submitted you can immediately spin for the Omaplata. You do this by driving your hips back over your opponent's shoulders. Should your opponent spin into the Omaplata you can immediately go to the triangle.

7:30pm Class Recap

Welcome back, hope everyone had a good weekend and is ready for a solid week of training!
Today's technique was based around side control and what you do when the guy on bottom tries to bridge and come on top.
From this picture you can see Ian has his left arm under Jamanta's right armpit. Ian's intention is to use this position to bridge Jamanta over and come on top.









Anticipating Ian's movement, Jamanta traps Ian's left arm at the elbow, switches his hips and baits Ian by giving him room to come on top (Key thing here is to bait them, not to give away your intentions by leaving to much space or pulling them on top of you). As Ian bridges to come on top Jamanta shifts his hips back and steps his right leg over as if mounting.







Once on top Jamanta places his right foot high on Ian's back and squeses his knee to put pressure on Ian's shoulder. *The higher he places his foot the more pressure will be applied on Ian's shoulder*









It is important to not that the pressure can be switched to the elbow joint by turning your hips behind the elbow turning it into a straight armlock

Saturday Class Recap

Saturday classes are always fun with a good mix of out of town guests, guys that usually train in the evening joining the regular morning crew. We started the class with some light takedowns, techniques on the ground, situational sparing and regular training.

Today's techniques were based around the Knee-Through pass. To try defend the pass Jacare brought his left shin across Cobrinha's stomach. To counter this dedence Cobrinha uses this pass:

Say you are passing with your right knee trapping his right leg (not on the floor in half) and his left shin is across your stomach.

1. Slide your right hand between his legs and grab the top of his right pant leg at the knee, when you do this make sure you don't trap your own leg in the process.

2. With your left hand grab his right lapel and pull his upper body towards you

3. At the same time slide your knee out (slide backwards over his shin) and put downward pressure with your right shoulder on his left leg to kill his hips

4. When you get your knee out and your hip to the floor, maintain the pressure with your hands and walk up towards his head

5.Once you clear his legs turn your hips to face him, put your head on his chest and lift his legs up with your right hand (Should still be holding the bottom leg)and walk you right knee under his legs so he can't recompose

6. Left hand goes around the head to complete the pass

Happy 4th Of July!

There will be no classes on Saturday the 4th of July to celebrate the US Inderpendence. We will still be following the regular schedule for the rest of the week so try come in an extra day to make up for the extra beer you will be consuming over the weekend

Friday Lunch Class

The noon class today was very productive. We covered the Anaconda choke from sprawling off of your opponent's double leg take-down.

To perform this technique to your left side. You drive your right arm to the left side of your opponent's neck. You grab his right armpit. You then place your left hand on the right side of the opponent's back. You then grab your left bicep with your right hand driving your left elbow into the opponent's right elbow. You then roll to your left applying pressure.

Noon Class Recap

Today's technique was an addition to what was shown last night.

Starting in side control, Clinton has a very defensive posture with his arms tucked in. Jacare is controlling the position by grabbing Clinton's shoulder and driving his right shoulder into Clinton's jaw






To begin the attack, Jacare drives his weight forward applying more pressure with his shoulder forcing Clinton to turn and expose his arm.
To trap Clinton's left arm, Jacare feeds his left arm under Clinton's and grabs his own collar. With his right hand Jacare grabs Clinton's left wrist, then releases his collar and graps his own wrist (Kimora Grip)


Jacare slides his left leg up against Clinton's back, releases his right arm from around Clinton's head and steps over with his right leg







As Jacare sits back he brings his left knee up into Clinton's armpit to trap his arm.
To finish the armbar Jacare sits back, squezes his knees and raises his hips

Jacare Interwiew in Gracie Mag

Jacare assesses our performance at this years Mundial in Long Beach, CA. Follow the link to check out his interview


Also check out our official website for the news from the camp and results from the Mundial:

7:30pm Class Recap

Today was the first day of our new GI and NO-GI schedule, well done to all the guys that remembered and the rest of you need to read the blog for all the info on the classes :)

Today's class focused on transitioning to the back from side control. From the traditional head and arm control Cobrin switches his hips and exposes Jacare's arm, with his right hand Cobrinha pushes Jacare's elbow across his body forcing him to give up his back. Cobrinha swiches to seatbelt grip and throws his top hook and pull Jacare to the otherside of his body to get the second hook. Cobrinha open Jacare's collar and begins to attack the neck, it would be difficult for Cobrinha to finish the choke at this angle with his left leg he puts pressure on Jacare's hip and pulls him to the other side.



Once on this side, Cobrinha releases the bottom hook, jumps his knee behind Jacare's head and pulls Jacare onto his lap. This new position increases the pressure of the choke and Jacare is forced to tap