Bromley Self Defence

Bromley Self Defence Learn Self Defence using Boxing and Jiu Jitsu at The Pavilion, Parkfield Recreation Ground, Whitebeam Avenue, Bromley BR2 8DD.

Multi style martial arts club run by 7th Dan Black Belt with 45 years martial arts and combatives experience.

25/06/2025

Closing.

Bromley Combat Jiu Jitsu is now closing. We are deactivating this account.

13/06/2025

On the bottom

Whether you are in guard or mounted, you have someone on top and you need to do something about it. The trap and roll is one way to get someone off, but this does not always work. So you can go for the elbow escape, but the opponent can use the wrist scoop for a hand on the knee, an elbow scoop with a modified mount if an elbow is used, or a choke scoop if both hands are used to move the leg.
If the person goes into a modified mount with your elbow scoop, then you can revert to a counter defence of holding the ankle and driving the knee to the ground, with an inside knee drive across the thigh and into the side mount. If the person starts punching you, you can use a top arm through technique to throw the person forwards and take the back.
If the person is an immoveable object, then you can use a hip thrust to push the person back and fall to your side, which unbalances the opponent and raises a leg allowing you to get butterfly hooks from where you can either push them back to flatten them or go for a sweep and mount to reverse position. If they defend the first way, then you can do a switch thrust and do the same technique in the opposite direction. If all fails then revert back to a trap and roll and recycle until success.
Against a determined, strong and/or skilful opponent you need to move from one technique to the other using multiple variations until you eventually find a gap and escape or go to a more dominant position. If your first technique fails, you need to know how to mix and match techniques to overwhelm and opponent.
Another typical dominant attack is when you have your opponent in the guard, and they put their forearm across your throat and put all their weight on you and off their knees. You can take the weight off you by pushing the guard back, then cradle their neck as if going for a neck triangle, and push their elbow to one side and get a monkey grip on the neck. You then go for the angle so that you can commence taking the back from the guard. This is very effective and there is a lot of control against a very dominant attacker throughout the technique.
A very good night training where we are upping the pressure and emulating a tough fight opponent each time. This shows that you can't just rely on one technique but need to know how to move between multiple techniques. Good practice.
The interim grading was tonight and green belts were awarded. Congratulations to Peter and Pat. They have religiously attended twice a week for nearly 3 years, and it shows in the great progress that is being made. They will start the blue belt next year, and before they know it, they will be on the brown belt.
Once they have the brown belt, they will then revise and demonstrate the syllabus over the next few years until they can effectively teach the techniques prior to the award of the black belt. Great progress.

06/06/2025

Drop in's

We had a couple of local residents drop by tonight, and had a personalised session for new starters.
We started with distance management, to stay safe from aggressive intentions. This was followed by haymaker defence into a clinch, followed by a leg hook take down into the mount.
If you are pushed to the floor and mounted and then strangled, we give newcomers the opportunity to escape, but it is difficult and most people don't know what to do. So we teach the trap and roll technique to get back on top and to safety.
We then got up and did some headlock defences standing, and then on the ground again. To finish off, we practiced a rear over arm hug defence, with a pistol drop to the ground.
A nice introduction to jiu jitsu which I hoped they enjoyed and hopefully see them again?

03/06/2025

Yellow belt

Having completed the yellow belt in 2024, we started the green belt in 2025. As much of the year has been spent on this part of the syllabus, we made great progress and practiced the whole syllabus. Now we are reviewing the yellow belt syllabus and ensuring that we can access all the techniques as part of our fighting arsenal.

There is little point in learning lots of techniques if you can't access them under pressure. So, if you know the trap and roll, then you also need to know the elbow escape, how to defend an elbow escape and how to defend a trap and roll. A trap and roll may not work in isolation, particularly against a heavy or a skilful opponent, so you need to know how to change techniques, how to move from attacking from one side to the other and putting combinations together until you can get in the guard.

Once in the guard, you now need to stay safe, survive and start to attack. You have to keep all the control elements of a technique as you move through the stages so that the attacker cannot attack or get away, so that you can finish and submit. You also have to recognise the best technique to use in any given circumstance and try to use as little energy as possible so you don't wear yourself out.

So, there is a lot going on with jiu jitsu training. It is not just learning techniques, but having effective fighting practice. However, you need to stay safe and not get injured, and the partners need to flow well with each other to ensure each student gets the chance to recognise the correct technique to use. It is not just about winning the fight in the training room; it is about helping each other get better and not always winning.

On some evenings, we have full on grapples, with maximum effort and against mismatched attackers; one may be experiened and older but the other much heavier and younger. It is said in jiu jitsu that for every 10 years, that is a belt. So a blue belt aged 20, and purple belt aged 30, a brown belt aged 40, and a black belt aged 50 may be evenly matched. Once you get in your 60's it is in the lap of the gods and all to do with how well you have aged, fitness, skill etc depends on how you can match opponents.

A good night training with the first part on yellow belt revision and the second part training combatives with a recent student.

27/05/2025

More chokes.

Carrying on from the last session, we revised some more chokes.
If you are mounted and the person turtles, you can go for the twisting arm control and into a straight armlock from the figure 4. However, sometimes you can't move the attacker as they are too strong or defending too well. In this case, you can go for the chokes and work on the lapels.
1. Nut cracker; fists in the neck.
2. Sleeve choke. From the mount, whilst the person is, for example, doing an elbow escape, you can hug the neck and quickly grab a sleeve and get a v-shape across the neck using a sleeve on one side and your hand on the other.
3. Bow and arrow. 1. Pull on lapels. 2. Chicken wing. 3. Bow and arrow by falling back and pulling at the knee to stop turtling.
4. Arm wrap cross choke. Isolate an arm, pull on far lapel and choke out.
D'Arce. We started from basics tonight, to try and get a good triangle against the neck, with varying success. The standard variation is from the side mount, with a deep arm in, pull head back, get on your side for deeper access then switch sides to lay down and crush the head and hook the leg.
If the attacker turtles, then you vary the attack by either cranking the neck so the roll forward, or you lay back and they roll over you. You can also access the shape with a north south attack or starting from a reverse cross chest position.
A good night revising and practicing chokes and when you access them.

19/05/2025

Revision
Tonight started off as a request night. The first technique was punch/block 7. We practiced 1-6 and then revised 7. This is used when you want to extricate yourself from the guard and stand up against an aggressive opponent who is trying to dominate you.
The next request was an elevator sweep. Useful revision was the positioning of the legs on the back and the thigh, and the angle of attack to get a hook under the knee (swing low down by the ankle, not over the thigh or by the knee). You need to get an angle and be on your side with a good underhook to get the smoothest sweep and quick mount with a strong connection throughout the movement.
We then did a headlock counter to a scissor lock, followed by a tight headlock where you hook a leg and roll the opponent into modified mount and frame escape. If this doesn't work then you pull them backwards and sit up. If you can't pull them back then you jump over the other side and finish as usual.
We then moved on to turtle no gi chokes. If the opponent tries a double leg and you sprawl and the opponent turtles you then you underhook the neck and do an Anaconda choke. If you can't break their arm down to swing under then you swap hands so palm up and 'run the rope through' under the neck and start the D'Arce with a direct choke, or crank the neck and force a forward roll, or you scissor leg and take them over your stomach or you kneel up and roll them over to the other side.
You can get a D'Arce from many positions and we explored how to get it from a side mount if the opponent turns into you. Both the Anaconda and D'Arce can have quite involved movements, or they can be done very quickly if you have a solid understanding of how to get them on tightly. We explored these options, and also demonstrated a shallow D'Arce if you have short arms and can't get a rear naked choke style arm on bicep hold but can only grab hold of your wrist. This felt even stronger when demonstrated.
A really good evening exploring a wide variety of ways to both choke and how to get out of headlocks. A good and enjoyable night training.

16/05/2025

Connection

An important skill in jiu jitsu is to have a good connection to enable you to move well when doing a technique. With the straight armlock from the guard, you have to turn 90 degrees to get a good angle in order to complete the move.
To do this, you need to twist below the attacker whilst keeping your knees connected to their body, with one leg hooking under the near armpit whilst the other leg holds the attacker close, maintaining control and good leg positioning to finish the straight armlock. This can take quite a bit of practice.
A similar issue arises with the elbow escape, where the shrimp is used to give you space in order to get your leg out to get into the guard. You need to stay connected to the attacker, so that you move around them and they are unaware of what you are doing until it is too late. This is another technique where you have to adjust your angles regularly to succeed.
We then did the punch block 1-4 exercise, and again you have to move around to get out of the way of punches and keep your distance. You can't be static doing any of these techniques and need to flow and maintain a good connection with the attacker to be able to move around them and prevent them from escaping.
We then brought out the crash mat, and practiced what can happen if you get a person smashing you after the punch block 4 and is right on top of you with the double ankle sweep. This is a very effective method of taking both legs away from the attacker and flooring them. As the crash mat was out, we practiced a standard and advanced double leg takedown, and then a single leg takedown both head inside and head outside.
To finish off, we did three types of headlock escape; punching, high and low together with a guillotine practice. By the end of the evening, we had worked our way through ten techniques, which shows the benefit of small classes that last 2 hours, with a combination of new and experienced students training together; the perfect learning environment.

13/05/2025

Street ready

New students start on the Combatives syllabus, which is 36 of the most used street techniques in Jiu Jitsu, and also the syllabus originally constructed for the US Military and police forces. Tonight we revised the initial techniques that replicate a common strand with a fight. We start standing up, the attacker punches with a haymaker, you duck, protect the head and go for the clinch and into a leg hook take down. Then it is a trap and roll from one of many different attacks, and mount to Americana Armlock.

We then practice a high and low swim into neck hug, until the attacker turtles and we take the back. From here we fall into a back take and rear naked choke. Once we have practiced this, we go for the arm lock from the mount and into a triangle. Finally, we did four versions of a headlock; 1. Low headlock with punches; 2. High headlock into guillotine; 3. Headlock side control; 4. Headlock side control tight hold ear to ear. These are very common street attacks and very useful to learn how to deal with them.

Another very enjoyable evening training.

09/05/2025

New students

We have had three excellent new students over the last month. The first student has about 25 years experience in martial arts training, and a background in BJJ. The second student has little martial arts experience and the latest student has many years of fighting experience. As they are all learning new techniques equally well, it shows that it is a willingness to learn and an open mind that is needed.

Therefore, we have 3 excellent new students who are very welcome and training very well. So, for this evening we started the combatives training with the first 6 techniques. This went very well and was very enjoyable. As we also have students who have been with us for some years, we pair up the new students with the experienced club students, so it is not the 'blind leading the blind', and they learn more quickly.

We also did a bit of Omoplata revision, showing the connections between the triangle technique and the omoplata sweep, and how to access both techniques from various positions, including punch block 1.5 and 2, and also straight armlock failure from the guard. This led to a demonstration of the snake bite triangle, showing how you can get an immediate triangle control from one quick movement and omitting many of the control elements of the previously taught standard triangle.

A very enjoyable night training and a welcome to the new students who did very well.

02/05/2025

New student

We had a new student start tonight who has done only an introduction to martial arts elsewhere, so very little previous experience. This means that he had no preconceived ideas about how to do techniques, and picked up the moves very quickly. He did a lot of the moves better than most people we have taught and will progress very quickly at this rate.

He had an ideal first lesson, with 3 teachers assisting him and everyone enjoyed the class so much that we all contributed to an excellent first lesson concentrating on him for his first class. This is also useful for the more experienced students as they can teach the moves whilst training with him, and give immediate feedback where to put pressure, hands and good movement.

Having a good experienced partner is really useful as a beginner, so it is not the blind leading the blind and you get taught every technique correctly from the beginning. Many thanks go to the experienced students who are very welcoming and helpful to new students and devote their time to making such a great contribution to the beginners initial martial arts experience.

We covered the first five combatives techniques and a few headlocks to give a good taste of jiu jitsu both standing up and on the ground. A very good night training.

16/04/2025

Grabs and holds

The orange belt syllabus has around 80 different types of grabs and holds, involving neck grabs, chest grabs, shoulder grabs, ponytail grabs, pushes, head locks, wall holds and escapes, front and rear holds, punches and kicks, aggressive hand shake defences, neck holds from the front and rear, rear naked choke defences, kick defences and many other variations. It is a quite comprehensive system for dealing with a wide variety of attacks.

We practiced the first of these techniques tonight with a student new to the techniques, and made lots of progress. For the more experienced students, this serves as a good reminder so the techniques remain firmly embedded in the memory, as you have to be able to respond very quickly in real life, otherwise they are of little value. Obviously, you could just use ballistic strikes, but this system allows you to respond in a non ballistic manner and deescalate a situation and adds to your options to respond to an aggressor. They are worth learning so you can see options for dealing with close quarter situations.

A good attendance and a good night of training

07/04/2025

Take downs

A fight starts standing up, and if we can stay on top of a fight then it makes life easier. We started with a basic double leg takedown in a straight line, and moved on to a knee down and lifting one leg and pushing at 45 degrees to off balance the attacker.

We then worked on knee down head inside and head outside singles and the advantages and disadvantages of each one. Done correctly, it reduces the chance of a counter guillotine or a sprawl defence. However, we worked on the defences which often involve reversing the position of the attacker so they are on the floor and you can then attack with a variety of submissions which we explored, from triangle to kimura to reverse kimura.

You can move between techniques, and if a double leg fails with an effective sprawl, if you have a snake wrap hand then you can impede the sprawl and change to a single leg, and vice versa.

We then worked on some more combatives techniques, including four types of headlocks so that you are well equipped to deal with a wide variety of attacks and methods attackers use to try to stop you getting out of the headlocks.

A double underhook guard pass is a useful technique to get out of the guard and move into side mount. If you are in the guard, and the attacker puts all their weight on you to crush you, you can use the guard to take off the pressure and move their choking arm across and find an arm triangle. If this is not successful then you can move on to take the back from the guard and into a rear naked choke.

So, we covered a wide variety of techniques tonight, and have nearly covered all the techniques in the combatives over this month with a student new to the club but not new to this type of martial arts training. It just goes to show how quickly you can pick up these techniques if you have a bit of training.

A good night training with a good group of people who train really well.

Address

The Pavilion, Parkfield Recreation Ground, Whitebeam Avenue, BR2 8DD
Bromley
BR28DD

Opening Hours

Monday 7pm - 8:30pm
Thursday 7pm - 8:30pm

Telephone

+447554913607

Website

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