BJJ Black Belt Ben Powers teaches the ‘Wombat’ Choke at Tiger Muay Thai and MMA Phuket

Ben Power is a Brazilian Jiu Black Belt under 2nd degree professor Anthony Perosh.  Ben has competed professionally in MMA, fighting fellow Tiger Muay Thai alumni Justin Murray to a draw in 2007, Ben has notable wins over Brandon Bell, Chris Heilscher, and  Peter Davis. He is one of the Assistant instructors at the Sinosic Perosh Martial Arts Academy.

Training at the camp for the next week, Ben was kind enough to share a few techniques with Andrew Gardineer’s evening BJJ Class today.  I arrived a bit late–missing several cool techniques, but was fortunate enough to roll with Ben during the grappling portion of the class.

….Earlier this week…Elvis Sinosic (also a TMT alumni) told me Ben was going to be coming through the facility.  Elvis told me to ‘pick his brain’ about a few techniques he has been working on developing…several of which were ‘unorthodox’ according to ‘The King’.

…During our roll…Ben attempted this choke, and I thought it was a pretty cool technique.  Having never seen the submission, I was caught a bit off guard.

Defending the technique, I did my best to keep my trapped arm ‘jacked back’–while picking him off the mat and using my legs to tripod my lower body off the ground.  Shaking his body from this position I was able to create enough space to escape the choke and move my head back to the center of his body

…Needless to say..after discovering the ‘Wombat choke’…I now understand why Elvis Sinosic told me this guy was ‘creative, innovative, and unorthodox’.  The guys at Tiger Muay Thai seemed to enjoy his techniques and I’m looking forward to getting in a few more rolls with him before he leaves :)