July 16th 2014 - Gi

Theme & Techniques: Guard Pulling: Closed, Open, Butterfly

It's been a little while since I've worked some stand-up which made this a great class but I'm pretty exhausted.  I apologize in advance if there are more spelling and grammatical errors than usual, because I'm going to get done with this as quickly as possible.  I worked with Conan and felt a little sorry for him having to hold me when I jumped guard.  Personally I'm wherry of jumping guard, flying armbars, etc during training, I feel like I'm too heavy to be doing stuff like that and I don't want to hurt anyone.

The thing learned from pulling open guard is that we grab low on the sleeve near the wrist to prevent them from grabbing your leg after sitting.  We played around with the push-pull concept of open guard, something I need to get a grasp on.

Pulling butterfly guard was new information for me.  From the regular Judo stance we grabbed the collar and then used the other hand to either grab the belt or grab the pants by the knee.  This prevents them from jumping over your hooks into mount.  From there I felt the most comfortable going to one legged-x guard since they're usually still standing.

Rolling: Up/Down/Out Stand-Up with Takedowns/Guard Pulling, Free Rolling (4 x 5 min)

The idea of the UDO was to get to the ground in some way.  Even though you don't get points for pulling guard it was considered a stopping point once you secured the position.  My first couple rounds I used my cross guard guard pull.  It worked pretty well for me even though I haven't used it in a while.  I didn't always get the omoplata but the closed guard usually was right there.  Once with Greg I felt pretty confident with it and was moving to omoplata but he was able to control my other leg and eventually pass.  I had one of those moments where I thought "Oh my god, I'm doing something really good against Greg, I can't believe this!  Oh wait I'm losing it, and my guard is passed."

Henry kicked my butt pretty well in the first free roll round.  We started out with a pretty good scramble and I thought I was going to take his back but he used his magic and turned to face me.  He went to mount a few times, which I'm not used to him doing.  Wonder if he's working on that.  He set up a cross collar choke very well and was able to get me to tap.

I rolled with Greg next and didn't feel like I had anything for him.  I spent most of the time defending from bottom side mount.  I did have a little success with my armbar defense in staving off the armbar a little longer.

I tried to relax as much as I could with Adam.  I played some open guard and attempted to setup the 2 on 1.  He defended it well by swimming his arm and grabbing my hip.  From there he was able to pass my guard, I did attempt the stiff arm defense and we were stuck there while he pinned my legs we eventually ended up in side control.  From there he was working on some brabo grips and chokes.

I rolled with Gina last.  I felt like I may be too tired to control my weight against her so I attempted to pull guard, even though I know she likes to be in guard.  I set up a loop choke and thought it was really sunk in but her neck ended up being too small and I think I should have used my legs a little more.  I kind of turned on my side and used it as a sweep, but I wasn't able to choke her.  We had an interesting battle when she was going for kesa getamai and I was going for her back and we fought for my left arm for quite a bit.