February 10th 2016 - Gi All Levels

Theme & Techniques: Seoi Nage, Double Ankle Grab Sweep, Butterfly Hook Sweep, Butterfly Guard Pass
Students: Mike A, Chris, Morgan, Ben, Tom, Cassey

Welcome back to Chris!  Good to see him back after some time off.  He was the first person that I competed against in my first tournament.  Also, he's still a beast and I hate him for it.

I didn't feel the best about my instruction today.  I said everything I needed to but I felt like it wasn't concise enough and I kept going back and remembering details.  I may need to review the techniques before class and go through in my head how I'm going to teach them so the lesson seems cogent.  I repeated the warm-up exercises from last week with combination throws, grip fighting and pummeling.  Some tips on this week's techniques:

• Seoi Nage: The biggest issue I saw was allowing too much space when starting to lean over for the throw.  I try to connect their shoulder to the back of my shoulder so when I lean over they come with me.
• Double Ankle Sweep: Mike made a very good point when he said it should be called double heel sweep instead, the lower you grab on their feet the better.  Also as you begin to pass sit on their leg and move your weight to that knee and allow as little space as possible.
• Hook Sweep: Posture is so important in this sweep.  Keeping yours and breaking theirs.  Keeping your head up and having your underhook elbow high really goes a long way.  I still keep in mind what Greg told me about hanging off of the opponent to break their posture.

I showed the butterfly guard pass Saolo Ribero shows in the Jiu-Jitsu University book.  I've had some success with it and I thought it would be a good addition to this class.  It's for when the guard player doesn't do the underhook well and you can put your hand on the floor then go for a guillotine grip.  Get to your feet and get over their knee to side control.

Rolling: Butterfly Up/Down/Out, Free Rolling (2 x 5 min)
Rolled With: Everyone

Had quite a battle with Chris and while I did a little better against him than I did before he left he doesn't seem to have lost much of a step.  He was even able to put me into x-guard and passed my guard once.  With Mike I've been ending up in reverse half guard a lot and he's able to control my pants enough to free his leg.  I'll have to figure this out.

I sat out while everyone else free rolled and coached where I could.  Probably the highlight was witnessing Ben get a deep half guard sweep.

Office Hours Partner: Mike, Tom

I showed the youtube video below that has a few tournament clips of Marcelo doing a farside armbar and kind of sitting to his side.  We played around with it a bit and thought it was pretty cool.  I may look into it more and ask Greg what he thinks about it.

Mike has been drilling a spider guard sweep that seems to be coming along very well for him.  I drilled some deep half and switched between waiter sweep and taking the back.  I've been feeling pretty good with the position and not getting as worn out trying to do techniques like I was before.  I do need to nail down the back take a little more.