I’ve spoken before about my Dutch connection that I began
cultivating a while back, and how I met Michel Verhoeven at the Rickson Seminar last year.
Michel has been training since 1999 under Harold Harder – as
far as I know, Rickson’s first European Black Belt. In April this year, Michel was awarded his
Black Belt by Rickson and Harold.
Having had such a great time in Holland last year, enjoyed
the mini-seminar that Michel did it had become my intention to go and train
with some of the Rickson guys, and the opportunity presented itself in
Jul/August of this year.
At various points in the year, the collection of 11 Rickson
Gracie schools in Holland get together for “Central Training” – a chance to
come together, to align, maintain bonds and share ideas. I decided to plan a trip around one such
session. With Michel running his usual
classes on a Thursday and Friday and the central training on a Sunday, the agenda
was set for a great long weekend in ‘S Hertogenbosch (Den Bosch).
Training trip and
Central Training – Den Bosch and Gouda, Holland, 25 – 28 July 2013
My companion for this trip was Simon. We set sail from Dover early Thursday morning
and had a very pleasant 2 hour trip to Dunkirk.
The drive from Dunkirk to Den Bosch (which is pretty much slap-bang in
the middle of the Netherlands) took around 2.5 hours. Thank goodness for Si’s air-con as, with much
the rest of Europe, Belgium and Holland were experiencing a heatwave with
temperatures up to 37°c.
We arrived at our hotel, situated just outside Den Bosch,
near a small town called Rosmalen.
After check-in, we pretty much went straight back out and
into Den Bosch to check out the area and grab some food. More about Den Bosch later – certainly worthy
of note in its own right. After grabbing
our kit, we mad the short trip to Michel’s gym and were greeted warmly by
Michel and a number of people I knew by name and Facebook, and we quickly felt
at home.
Training, Thursday
25th
Then the training began.
And bear in mind what I’ve said about the temperatures! We did a
thorough warm up mainly based around core Jiu Jitsu movements and drills and
then into some techniques. The class was
given in Dutch (which is fair enough!) so I was grateful for the translation
given by the people I trained with, but even without that, it was clear from
Michel’s demonstration, intonations and emphases, what he wanted.
The main things covered in that session were the cross
collar choke from guard (bottom) also incorporating a nice combo involving the
leg coming up onto the shoulder which gives lots of options, but also reminded
me of something that Dean showed a while back that really creates a lot of
leverage for chokes, armbars and triangles.
And then there was sparring…
Oh my god. It must have been around
an hour of full-on sparring. And
remember again – the heat! Oh the heat!
A succession of tough guys put me through my paces. I was pleased to hang with most Blue Belts; the white belts were really good too – hungry
and frenetic. The only higher belt I
trained with was Michel. He destroyed
me. That is all I have to say about that
J.
However, such was the intensity of the
rolling and the heat, I actually started feeling pretty ill – I was overheating,
could not catch my breath and felt like I would puke. I didn’t want to pussy out, so just kept
going and to be honest, my Jiu Jitsu may have actually improved. Through lack of energy, I had no option to
relax and defend and this created lots of openings. I guess it also gave me some confidence that
even when I have pretty much nothing left, I can still defend myself.
I was so grateful when Michel eventually called time... I
could barely stand. My gi was saturated
and I felt wasted.
We drove back to the hotel, which was next to a Drive
through McDonalds. I drank my way
through two large drinks in an attempt to rehydrate and then it was back to the
sanctuary of my air-conditioned room.
Training &
Private Lesson 1, Friday 26th
On Friday, we spent most of the day in Den Bosch so a few
words about the place. Den Bosch is
beautiful. A really well preserved
Medieval city with some of the oldest buildings in Holland, it’s built largely
over a network of Canals. Most people I
know have never heard of it and this is reflected by the lack of foreign
tourists. It’s something of a hidden gem
as this means it retains all of its Dutch charm – no tacky souvenir shops, no
seedy district and none of the usual sub-standard restaurants you normally get
with tourist-traps. Every time we ate
out, we experienced a friendly and relaxed social climate, great service and
some great food.
We visited St. John’s Cathedral – an awesome Gothic place
that it’s hard not to be inspired by. We
also took a boat trip around the canals which gave a relaxing and unique
perspective on the city and also sampled the local delicacy – the Bosch Bollen
(think a giant profiterole covered in chocolate).
Den Bosch is a great place to walk around – lots of shopping
(if that’s your thing), great places to eat and some great things to see and
do. For anyone looking for a relaxed
weekend break, I’d really recommend a visit.
Right, tourist info over and back onto training…
Friday’s session was shorter and a little less intense than Thursday’s. After a similar warm-up we drilled the Upa and the elbow escape.
Rather than sparring, we did positional training – mount…top
maintain and submit, bottom escape.
Michel had invited over a guy from another nearby Rickson school – a
white belt, but a huge guy, specifically to train with me. It’s not often I get
to experience what others experience when I’m holding top and not often I’m mounted and my knees don’t
touch the floor.
It was a sobering experience. On top, I managed to hold mount but had no
finish. On the bottom, I really
struggled two out of three times and he submitted me once with a sort of
Ezekiel/knuckle in the mandibular pressure point. It was really hard and I just could not
fashion any kind of effect on his sheer size.
I did escape once, on the third attempt, but it was really just a burst
of anger fuelled by frustration rather than any kind of technique.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Michel watching
closely, taking notes. It was this
analysis that was to become the basis of the private that I took with Michel
after the class.
Private lesson 1
We first worked on the escape from mount – a variation on
the elbow escape which Rickson had shown at his seminar. The key is the foot-hip-shoulder-frame
connection and really made a big difference to me – I’ve been focussing on it
since and it really has helped massively.
We then moved on to holding mount and playing a more
dominant, assertive and submission-focussed game from that position. The main features here were attacking the
collar from the get-go, reacting to the escape attempt by moving to technical
mount and then working combinations from there.
My timing and sensitivity need some work, but the concept is there for
me.
I’ve never taken a private lesson before so I didn’t really
know what to expect. Fortunately for me,
over the previous two sessions, Michel had been watching closely, feeding me
opponents in a very deliberate way, and taking notes. He knew exactly
what to work on in the private both technically but also, and importantly, the mind-set. It’s this that for me, makes Michel a great
teacher. I can see from watching him,
experiencing his teaching but also seeing how he watches and guides his
students that he has a complete grip on every student, his/her strengths and
development areas and where they are on their journey. His commitment to their development is
absolute.
Time and money well spent…
Private Lesson 2,
Saturday 27th
So we spent another 2 hours with Michel on Saturday
morning. We started off by recapping the
learning from the night before which was a great way to cement the
learning. We then worked on
knee-on-stomach, holding posture in, and breaking guard, guard passing.
Again, it was a really useful session and both Simon and I
came away with specific action points to work on.
That afternoon, we went into Rosmalen, which is a nice
little town where we had lunch (the Dutch do great Satay!) then we drove about
an hour to Arnhem to visit the Airborne Museum and then pay our respects at the
nearby War Cemetery. If you’re in that
area, both are well worthwhile and I think the cemetery is an essential, moving
and humbling experience.
On our return, we went once more into Den Bosch for dinner
and experienced the city in full social-swing.
The atmosphere was great and reinforced what a great city it is to just
wander and eat out.
Central Training,
Sunday 28th
We set off early for the hour’s drive to Gouda. Here I met Mano, a Brown Belt who I’ve spoken
with a number of times, so always good to meet people in person. I was also hoping to meet Raoul, another
Black Belt who runs the school in Amsterdam, but I guess he couldn’t make it –
maybe next time!
After the usual warm up we did a bit of drilling. I think at this point, the previous days’
training were catching up with me and I was finding it hard to keep up and
immediately sweating profusely.
The focus for the session was competition, so we started
from standing – firstly maintaining base, then moving on to defending against
the guard pull. We then moved on to
working out of the under-arm bear-hug, using the frame-away. Michel then took us all through the 50/50
guard. This was not from the viewpoint
of using it, but mainly recognising it and dealing with it, which, for
competition purposes is potentially useful.
It was the first time that I’ve really looked at the 50/50
guard. I can honestly say that it is not
a position I would ever pursue, nor can I really see that without a sort of
consensus between opponents, how you could end up in that position. It felt completely counterintuitive. I’m not a fan, but glad we covered it.
We rounded the session off with some stand up sparring –
going for the take down…winner stays on.
I had limited success and what was really interesting here was the vast
difference with Judo. Much of the
defensive posturing in BJJ would simply not be allowed in Judo – you’d be
penalised for stalling and leg grabs. It
was good fun and done in great humour, but really exposed how the rule set in Olympic
Judo is really oriented to a sport which, like boxing, fashions how the
governing body wants athletes to fight rather than how people actually fight.
After the session, we said our goodbyes and headed off for
Dunkirk for our Ferry home and all of a sudden our four days of BJJ were over.
It really was a great trip – both culturally and in terms of
Jiu Jitsu. A big thanks to Si for his
company and of course to Michel for his time and guidance. Also thanks to all the other great people we
met and trained with – you really made us feel welcome! Ooss!
Michel Verhoeven
Seminar, Sidcup, Saturday 24th August 2013
This visit from Michel was organised by Paul Finn, on the
back of Michel’s visit in April.
It was great to see Michel again so soon after our trip, and
also to see his right-hand man Joost again.
A number of Paul’s students along with a sprinkling of
others were in attendance. One of those
in attendance was prolific blogger and writer Can Sonmez – aka Slideyfoot. It was great to meet Can – we’ve exchanged
messages and views before and I’ve been reading his excellent blog for about as
long as I’ve been writing mine, so it was good to finally meet. Before the session we’d set up an interview
between Michel and Can – watch this space to find out where the interview ends
up, but it was good for me to sit in and listen to Michel’s story and thoughts
on Jiu Jitsu.
Slideyfoot has done a pretty good job of summarising the
seminar content here, so he’s saved me the job of doing that, but I will pick
up on some of the details I personally took out/remembered.
When practicing the Seoi Nagi throw, it was good to be
reminded of the sort of sit-back-and-down hip action that Rickson had shown to
affect your opponent’s balance and posture.
With the Osoto Gari, I was also reminded of the back of the
knee/hamstring brace instead of the foot sweep that I was shown by Royce.
A nice detail on performing the bent arm-lock was the focus
on driving your own elbow to the mat next to your opponent’s ear, rather than
focussing on the opponent’s wrist made performing that submission almost
effortless.
Covering the cross-collar choke is always good…it’s such a
hard thing to do well and the main small detail I picked up here was the
straightening THEN the turn of the wrists.
Really does make a huge difference and the variation we were shown was
also pretty neat.
Recapping the escapes from mount were another really good
reminder of the Private I’d had with Michel and generally, covering all of the
fundamentals, like the Upa were a great reminder of things that can get
sloppy/lose their edge over time without such reminders. Effective Jiu Jitsu is fundamentally simple –
you can never do enough of this stuff in my opinion.
Michel Verhoeven,
Private lesson, Sidcup, Sunday 25th August 2013
So, on Sunday, I took myself back to Sidcup Dojo, for a
couple of hours with Michel. In my last
private in Holland, we’d just started to look at holding posture in guard and
guard pass so I wanted to pick up where we’d left off. We spent almost an hour perfecting the posture
in guard and breaking guard. Fine detail
and feedback really helped me develop this.
With most people it’s not a problem area, but one of those things I want
to be undeniable in my game – it’s so important as a foundation for the guard
pass and subsequent domination. The main
things here were hand placement, the pressure form the hips and the taking of
slack in the back of the neck. Done
well, breaking the guard is effortless.
We then looked at the pass itself and this was really a case
of tightening up what I already knew.
Michel really helped me create much more control and pressure in this
move.
We spent some time looking at cross side – Given my size and
some of the “pinning” elements of Judo, this is an important part of my game so
Michel asked me to take cross side and bring pressure. A few minor corrections of my chest position
and hand positions had Michel groaning for mercy under the pressure – some
great adjustments and feedback!
Finally, we finished up with a little positional training –
me starting from top cross-side. Michel
wanted to see me dominating and really putting together a bit of a strategy to
go for the submission. With his
guidance, I gradually became a bit more fluid and started opening up
options. For, me, I think, this is the
major area I need to develop. My
knowledge of positions and techniques is pretty good, but I really need to work
them into a coherent game plan and be able to execute them in combinations when
rolling.
Doin’ it for the kids
Michel spent the last part of my private session with my
Kids who had come along. I’ve been
teaching my kids Jiu Jitsu in my newly matted out garage for about a month and
a half now. It’s only recently that
they’ve shown enough interest and I felt that they were open to learning
properly. I’m using the old Rickson
Association Blue Stripe syllabus as a guide for what to teach them and I wanted
them to get some feedback and pointers from Michel.
Michel watched as they performed the basic movements from
the syllabus:
-
Forward rolling breakfall
- Rear breakfall
- Shrimp
- Upa
- Teeter-totter
- Standing up in base
With each, they did well but improved rapidly as Michel
corrected minor faults. He also then
covered the four-point base with them.
At the end of the session, he presented them with their first stipe on
their white belts. Both were delighted
and I was really proud of them. They
were pretty keen beforehand, but now they are both even more motivated to learn
Jiu Jitsu.
I’m so pleased on a number of levels. That we have something else to share is
great, but I also believe that Jiu Jitsu is a great lifestyle, builds great
character and is also a highly effective form of self-defence. It also means that they are active. They’re already pretty active with various
other things, but I believe firmly that kids are at huge physical and mental
risk from inactivity these days. This is
something of a personal life-mission on which I’ll write more in future, but
much of my attention and effort is currently aimed at children’s activity and Jiu
Jitsu is an area where one day, I hope to be able to open up the opportunity to
other children in addition to my own.
Anyway, thanks once again to Michel for his time and
attention and also for the time spent with my kids – we all got a great buzz
from it. Thanks also to Paul for setting
up the weekend.
And finally…
So, as seems the way with this more sporadic way of posting,
a rather long post, but with the prevailing theme of my Dutch connection.
I’ll be back in Holland again in October for the Rickson
Seminar and I’m hoping I may be able to squeeze in some additional training
with Michel that weekend…we’ll see.
I really enjoy the focussed teaching that Michel gives and
the sense that he genuinely wants to see you develop. Whilst in Holland, I really enjoyed being
with Team Babytank and feeling part of a club and part of a larger network of
people all committed to getting better together.
I spoke in my last post about being something of a Ronin
since the demise of Lake House. Now I
feel as if I’ve found a new home, albeit in another country! Time will tell where this relationship will
go, but for now, I hope to be able to visit Holland a few times a year and just
enjoy some great training with my new friends.
Dank u en tot ziens!
Michel also spent some time with them both teaching the
elbow escape, rolling with them and watching them roll together – something I’m
really grateful for as it cements their learning and enthusiasm – hopefully a
real investment in the next generation. 
