Focus of the Week: Half Guard
Theme & Techniques
Beginner/All Levels: Seio-Nagi, Double Ankle Grab Sweep, Butterfly Hook Sweep
Partnered and Rolled With: Josh, Ross, Mike (Lawyer), Austin, Zack, Bhuvana, Robert
On Tuesday, Bhuvana and Zack let me drill some half guard stuff before and after class that I picked up from the Ryan Hall
DVD. Using the knee shield I grab the sleeve and use it to create an
arm drag. I really liked how much control it allowed for and the other possibilities I saw and can't wait until I can try
it in free rolling.
For the throw I focused on doing
the uppercut motion and keeping a fist instead of grabbing the tricep.
For the double ankle sweep we went over grip breaks quite a bit. Greg
showed us both a palm strike and the circular thumb wedge thing.
Bhuvana
was pretty happy with her progress on the hook sweep. It is very
technical with everything having to fall into place. For me I had
trouble with my head control and falling to the side. Her biggest
problem was rolling to her elbow and stopping herself instead of rolling to the shoulder.
On Friday morning I worked with new guy Josh again. Didn't have to correct too much stuff
on the throw. Just had to mention to keep his hip out and feet closer
together. He seems to be very serious and expect a lot of himself. I
would think maybe his expectations are a little too high at this point.
I felt pretty good about teaching the hook sweep. I'm able
to relay this info pretty well recently. My butterfly guard also felt better during the rolling portion of these classes. I'm starting to understand the head position in relation to the underhook.
Open Mat
Rolled With: Andrew, Jerad, Ross, Adam (NP),
Andrew: He and his brother drove in from North Platte for open
mat. I was hoping to
warm-up a bit with some drilling but he wanted to go right into rolling instead. I treated it more like a flow roll which lead to
him passing my guard a couple times, but I did a good job of
recovering. I caught him with cross guard
omoplata a couple times but each time his arm disappeared into his
sleeve. This was a new problem that I may have to discover alternatives for. I fell into the good part of a half ass crucifix position with him, but was unable to finish. I attempted a collar choke but couldn't get it under his chin.
He asked me to work on
somethings for when a person is standing and I'm sitting. I told him
it's not my strong suit but I showed him the entry to single leg-x and
sweeping and switching to full-x. Greg came over and gave a key piece
of info that I was missing. I was coming at it from straight on with
pulling their leg and kicking into the position, but Greg says he does
it more like a butterfly guard sweep and falls to the side. Makes a
huge difference!
Jerad: I was able to actually
use what Greg just showed me on Jerad. Where I couldn't even move him
before I made it to single leg-x and then to full-x and swept. That was
the highlight of my day. After that there was a point where I was
trying to pass his open guard and he grabbed my sleeve with 2 hands on
one side. I felt in a little danger for a triangle. I grabbed his belt
and did the Tinguinha belt grab pass controlling his foot and trying to
get to north/south. It worked pretty well. Something that didn't
quite go my way was when I had him in deep half and was able to sweep,
but apparently he slipped on some sweat and put him a little farther
away from me than I had anticipated, which gave him enough space to come
up into a knee tap. He was able to submit me a couple times with an
armbar and a wristlock. I told him he could do a wristlock there so he
was a little hesitant to count it. There was a great exchange when I
was in bottom half guard and had a great underhook. Many sweeps were
attempted and came close to completing but eventually I got lazy and he
pulled his foot out.
Ross: I gave him some
pointers on defending the kimura when he's in top half guard. Dwight
had caught him with one. I showed him how to posture and break free.
We rolled a couple times. I caught him with a north/south choke after
he defended one. I'm finding that to happen often lately. That I'll go
for a NS choke and they'll defend and I'll regroup and start to go to
another position but then attack the NS choke right away and be able to
finish it.
Adam:
I started
out passing and playing some side control. He was able to recover guard
and I passed again. He escaped side control by going to turtle I tried
my best to stay with him but eventually ended up on the side of him in a
half ass back mount. I clung on for dear life but it was the wrong
thing to do. I ended up in half guard and by pressuring my underhook side
down he worked his way to mount. From there I defended a lot and while
I almost escaped a few times it never happened and eventually he
grinded me out to get an americana to armbar. So the couple of takeaways are I have
to figure out contingencies when I have the half back mount in turtle
and what to do when my underhook is pinned in half guard.
Bauer:
We didn't roll but he worked with me on a side control escape that he's
been experimenting with. I also showed him the elbow push and how I
deal with the crossface from the bottom. He seemed to appreciate it.
We talked about our games and he really wants to focus on drilling the
techniques for the blue belt test.
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