January 20th 2016 - Gi All Levels

Theme & Techniques: Double Leg, Americana from Mount, Bread Cutter, Step Over Choke
Students: Jordan, Tom

Pretty small class today but we still got some good work in.  We went through the regular material pretty quickly with just the three of us so I added in a few things.  After practicing the basic setup, we did the bread cutter off of the single under pass.  Then I showed the step over choke that I've been playing around with lately.  Tom actually seemed to take to the choke quite well.

Here are some tips for this weeks techniques:

• Double leg: I suggested Tom look around his partners back when turning the corner.  This seemed to help line up his hips and be able to drive them to the ground easier
• Americana: The detail that I'm telling most people lately is to straighten their arms and then move their shoulders over their hands to compress their partner's wrist into their shoulder.  Don't attempt to push their wrist up just push it into them and you have a better chance of it eventually collapsing to the floor.
• Bread Cutter: Don't settle for less than a collar grip with the under hand when drilling this technique.  It may happen during rolling that you don't get it all the way but when drilling you should be able to position your shoulder to enable your hand to reach all the way to the collar and still keep good pressure down.  I find the shoulder position being too much in the center of my partners body was the problem for me previously, but once I started sliding down to the ribs a bit I could reach the collar much better.

Rolling: Side Mount (3 min rounds)
Rolled With: Jordan, Tom

We did round robin style to get each partner and the top and bottom of each position.  I was able to catch both of them in half guard as they stepped over to mount so we had a discussion and practical app on the transition.  We also talked about pressure in side mount and not leaning in so much.  Probably the coolest thing for me was when I was setting up a baseball bat and it was being defended I was able to transition into the step over choke.  Both Jordan and Tom tried it a couple times and Tom almost caught me with it.  I can see it becoming a technique that he would be good at.

After class I worked with Tom on my north/south->guillotine->to mount series that I do.  Followed by working on the single leg.  I think he picked up some new details.