Got to train with Leo Kirby this Thanksgiving weekend. Took the camera along and filmed 25 minutes of techniques between the two of us.
Here’s the first of them. It showcases Leo’s unhealthy obsession with the omoplata.
I’m sure Leo will be around to talk about it in more detail, but one thing he kept telling me was how much fun (and success he’s been having) treating the omoplata like it’s own position. You can see this in how he approaches the techniques he teaches.
One more video before I head down to Hollywood, FL to train with Leo Kirby. These are the main exercises I practice as part of my warm-ups to develop the ability to stand-up and get to my feet/knees with momentum.
I keep getting told I should check out Scott Sonnon’s Flowfit, since he apparently does these same movements.
In semi-related news, I’ll be down at Leo’s gym in Hollywood, FL this weekend. He’s asked me to teach class Saturday morning and I’m planning a lesson on butterfly guard.
Also related, I just got this email:
hey matt, i train with leo and he may have told you already but i got the reverse omaplata in competition this weekend. i was at the seminar you did in hollywood and just wanted to say thank you for adding that to my game. also, for feedback, everytime i get it i remember when you taught how do it slow and controled step by step. first pushing down the head, then reaching for the leg tucking your head under for the roll. in my match the guy tried to pull out or stop me mid roll and i kindof got stuck for a second, but i stayed tight and then forced him to roll then finished. so that teaching method definitely stuck for me. thanks again…i look forward to the next seminar.
Your dream has been realized: I’ve got a video camera.
And after fighting with cables and software, I now have the means and knowhow to edit and share movies.
One of the subscribers to my journal had emailed me some questions and I’d been offering advice. He asked if I could film any of it and I said I don’t have a camera. So he sent me one. Big thanks to Dale.
While I’ll get to shooting techniques soon, I wanted to shoot test footage first. I’d already been planning on keeping a video training log, filming myself sparring so I could review it later.
I like to put in a lot of isolation training of escapes and bad positions, working out of worst case scenarios. I figured that’d make a good test video.
Me and two training partners got together to run these drills on Sunday. We ran it with rotating partners like this:
Person A starts under rear mount. Person B starts on top. They go for 3 minutes. Then Person C switches in on top for another 3 minutes. Now Person B lays down and Person A starts on his back… And so on. This way, we each spent 6 minutes in the inferior position and the other two training partners spent 3 minutes in the superior position.
We ran through mount and rear mount this way. We filmed each round, for a total of 36 minutes of footage below. I wrote notes for what I did in each video, since I’m watching to see myself spar, which I’ve never done until now.
Round 1
John was the first person to spend a round in rear mount while Ray and I each got a chance on his back.