Cut Down on the Salt

In the rush of tying up loose ends and packing my stuff to move this weekend, I've fallen behind in my blogging.  I didn't blog on yesterday's class, which focused on another cool sweep from the de la riva guard on the arm.  I have probably forgotten some of the steps, but here's what I definitely recall:

Step 1:  Start with opp in your closed guard
Step 2:  When opp stands up, cross grip his gi sleeve (let's say your right hand is gripping his right gi sleeve)
Step 3:  Once he's standing, your free hand (left hand) will capture his right ankle
Step 4:  Keeping your hips up (very important), open your guard and swing your hips and right foot up into your opp's armpit (from the front not from behind his arm)
Step 5:  Straighten your right leg
Step 6:  Move your left leg into an (almost) x-guard like position and push spread your opp out (pushing his left leg with your left foot)
Step 7:  Take your left foot from in front of his leg to behind his leg and kick the back of his ankle/heel
Step 8:  Come up

Today's 11 AM class at Weston focused on the brabo choke from the half guard.  Here are the steps:
The steps for this technique are on an earlier blog post:  crush-you-like-ladybug.html.

At the 11 AM class, I trained with two white belts and really saw this as an opportunity to work some of the new techniques I have been doing.  I tried to do the sweep from last night (the one above) but didn't do a good job of posting my right foot into his armpit...so I then scrambled to get half guard and then transition to full guard.  The next time he stood up, he was blocking my right foot from posting into his armpit, so instead worked the omapalata sweep (the last technique we drilled yesterday: omapalata city!.  This worked, so I was pretty happy with that. I also kept trying to get a brabo choke from the closed guard.

Also went to open mat tonight.  For the first half hour, I drilled the omapalata sweep, the back roll set-up for the omapalata, and the foot in the armpit sweep (don't know it's name).  My friend Eric also showed me a very cool counter to the half guard knee-pass because I play half guard a lot.  Essentially, this counter entails using my bottom arm to grab my opp's trapped foot and reposition it toward me (thereby also repositioning his knee and making some space between his knee and me).  Then using my top arm to trap his leg just above the knee and scoot out as if I was going for his back.

Then I trained with a number of folks for the next 45 minutes or so.  Overall, here were my strengths/weaknesses:  I kept trying to put folks in guard to work some of the guard-based sweeps, omapalata setups, brabo choke, etc.  At one point while training tonight, I started to get crazy charlie horses and though, "Wow!  I really need to cut down on the salt".

Strengths:
1.  Maintaining the half guard (and switching the half guard from side to side when my opp was trying to pass)
2.  Getting myself smaller so that once I had the half guard to work for the back or a sweep
3.  Setting up the brabo choke from my closed guard
4.  I worked the half guard knee-pass counter Eric showed me and hit it a couple of times with a white belt. Need to keep working it so that I can get it on higher belts.

Weaknesses:
1.  Need to do a better job of going from half guard to the back - - - perhaps by scrambling to get there
2.  Need heavier hips when in someone's half guard

Finally, want to give a shout out to my teammate Frank Garret who has a Tournament Review Tuesday on the Fightworkspodcast.com:  Tournament Review Tuesday: NAGA North American Grappling Championship.

Omopalata City !

Today we worked a few omopalata set ups:  two from the high butterfly guard and the other from the standing closed guard.

The first one was from the high butterfly guard (assume you're capturing opp's right arm):
Step 1:  Start with opp in your butterfly guard
Step 2:  Shrimp out to your left - posting your right foot on opp's hip and bringing your left leg up
Step 3:  Thread your left leg under, around and back inside opp's right arm so that your foot is on the bicep (you will essentially have the arm in a de la riva with your leg
Step 4:  Continue to grip opp's right gi sleeve with your left hand and straighten your hips so you're facing your opp again
Step 5:  Shoot the de la riva leg (your left) up behind opp's tricep; swivel on your hips counter clockwise, figure four your legs and you've got the omopalata locked in.

Here's a video that most closely illustrates this technique (though the "free" foot is placed on the opp's bicep instead of his hip.  As in my prior post, this video is NOT from my school but I thought it would be helpful.



Next we drilled a different omopalata set up from the high butterfly guard:

Repeat steps 1 through 4 above and then:
Step 5:  Shoot your free (right) leg to 9:00 position (assuming your opp is 12:00)
Step 6:  begin to roll clockwise, capturing your opp in the omopalata as you swing around
The trick to this technique is to continue gripping the sleeve of the de la riva'd arm while you do the roll

Last we drilled an omopalata sweep from standing guard (assume you're capturing opp's right arm again):
Step 1:  Opp stands up in your guard and you're right hand is gripping his right gi sleeve
Step 2:  Pivot your body to your left and capture opp's right leg
Step 3:  Feed the gi sleeve you're gripping to your right hand (forcing the arm to be straight)
Step 4:  KEEPING YOUR HIPS UP, release your guard, pivot your hips counter clockwise, and figure four opp's right arm
Step 5:  Pull opp's arm (and upper body down)
Step 6:  Straighten legs while rolling yourself and opp to the right
Step 7:  You'll end up on top

Got to train with 5 or 6 folks tonight.  It's late (about 12:45 AM) and I have to get up at 7 AM tomorrow, so I'm not going to go into detail on each one.  I will talk about what I did well and what I did poorly.  I'll start with the poorly (so that I get to finish with the "did well" section):

Poorly:
1.  Two people tapped me out to armbars.  When am I going to learn to protect my darn arms?
2.  I had started to pass some folks' open half guards, but their game has evolved to defeat my pass attempts. I need to evolve my game as well
3.  I was too easily swept from my feet

Did well:
1.  My mardio was good
2.  I've been finding myself trying more of the things I've been learning in class.  In a couple cases tonight, I got smashed when trying them - - - but I came close to hitting it both times.
3.  I popped back up or re-swept several of the folks who swept me - yay!

Crush You Like Ladybug

Today was a small class because there was a tournament over in Jersey.  Following the warm up, we drilled a half guard pass, brabo choke from half guard, and brabo choke from closed guard.

The half guard pass we worked was also the set-up for the brabo half guard choke:

Step 1:  Start in your opp's half guard
Step 2:  With head control, walk your knees toward your opp to flatten him out
Step 3:  Pinch your knees so your outside knee is at the thigh of his lower leg
Step 4:  Lower yourself to your outside hip and keep your base low
Step 5:  Walk your captured foot up toward your opp's butt
Step 6:  Push opp's leg off your knee to free your knee and simultaneously do a hip escape and place your lower knee against opp's hips
Step 7:  Open opp's far gi lapel
Step 8:  Thread opp's gi lapel under his far arm and around the back of his neck
Step 9:  Feed this lapel grip to the hand that has head control and hold it tight
Step 10:  Get an underhook with your now free hand, tripod up, and place your formerly captured knee on the mat between you and your opp
Step 11:  Shift your hips down while pointing your knee 180 degrees away from opp's head

We then worked a brabo choke from there.  To demonstrate this, I'm going to insert the following you-tube video (NOT made by my school) and then list the additional things we learned about this:



Some of the refinements included:
1.  This choke is ideal when you try the pass above but your foot gets stuck
2.  Brace your near knee against your opp's rip cage and post your other foot back behind you (far from opp's grip)
3.  When going for the choke itself, place the choking hand over the initial gi lapel grip (as opposed to beside it) to get a tighter choke
4.  Before going for the choke, lift your opp's head off the mat using your gi lapel grip. This will keep him from trying to escape and give you better leverage for the choke
5.  You aren't likely to get your thumb in for the second grip, so go for the back of the gi or a section of gi lapel crossing behind your opp
6.  Use your bicep instead of your chest to do the final arm triangle part of the choke

Then we drilled a brabo choke from the closed guard:

1.  Start with opp in your closed guard
2.  Pull one of your opp's gi lapels out from his belt
3.  Thread the lapel under his armpit and back around his neck; feed the lapel to your other hand (palm up)
4.  Hold the gi lapel there while your original hand swims back around and in front of opp
5.  Throw your arm waaay off to the side and bring your cross hand to the gi lapel near the neck.  Have your elbow come in for the approach and brush your elbow and forearm off opp's head to keep him from defending
6.  Get the cross grip
7.  Start to set up an arm bar (grab the free arm on the side of the choke and put a foot on the hip)
8.  If/when he starts to defend, pick up this arm and cross it over your belly
9.  Pivot your choking wrist while pulling your elbow down

Since this was my last Saturday class, I told John D. that I definitely wanted to take on the Big Blue Ox (bjj blues: smurf-vs-big-blue-ox.html) when we sparred - explaining that he was trash talking before class about crushing me like a lady bug this afternoon (and of course John knew this wasn't true).

I got paired up with the Big Blue Ox, who was bringing his "A Game".  Now I weighed myself this morning and was only 115 pounds, and he hovers at about 300.  It was a great roll - very fast paced for a big guy and I wasn't even on the bottom the entire time (though I did seem to be there most of the time).  Using my new half guard transition techniques from the private earlier this week, I even got out a couple of bad situations!  Got armbarred twice, though.

Since this will be my last Saturday class at Maxercise, John let me be the first to pick who to roll with. This was kind of cool because I decided to roll with each one of the most formidable folks.  So next up was a woman who's mighty close to my size with better cardio and technique than me (she's also a purple, btw).  I feel like I've been starting to catch up with her a bit lately, which is definitely a good sign.  Kept trying to work my half guard stuff but not with much success.

Next was a big purple belt (like 210 - 220 pounds) who just plays a "lay on you" game.  So the trick is to not let him get cross side or mount because he'll just lay there like a rock (ever tried to move a 220 pound rock off your belly when you're laying down?)  Anyway, I didn't do great with him because he kept stalling out.  By stalling, he'd maintain a good position but didn't do much with it.

Then I went with a larger blue belt.  Spent a lot of time trying to work the brabo choke from the guard and finally had my set up complete and was about to execute when the buzzer rang.  I thought, "dang!"

By my last train, I had run out of the more formidable competitors and paired up with a blue belt that has had difficulty keeping up with me cardio-wise.  He's about ten years older than me and still in reasonably good shape.  But I don't think his cardio is what it used to be.

Great class.  I walked home in such a great mood that I was singing out loud to the tunes on my mp3 player.

My Jiu Jitsu Day

This was definitely a Jiu Jitsu day for me.  I started with a 10 AM private lesson with John D; followed by the 11 AM class at Weston; and ending with open mat at 6 PM.

The private was great.  Unlike the other privates I've taken, I didn't go in wanting to work on a specific technique.  Since I'm concluding a six-year stint at Maxercise, I wanted a "capstone" private.  I asked John to talk to me about and show me how I an improve my general game - - - with a specific focus on areas that need to be improved.

As you would imagine with any such private, he started off with a brief summary of the good stuff:  he feels my game is relatively technical; he thinks I've got a good guard and decent half guard game.

He then outlined some of the weaknesses that I won't be able to change:  because of my size (my bathroom scale registered me at 118.5 pounds / 53.5 kg this morning), I will almost always be smaller and weaker than folks I train with in class; armbars and chokes from the guard will be difficult for me because of this.

After analyzing weaknesses I can't change, he pointed out that I should really develop a game that focuses on taking the back.  He noted that I'm pretty "safe" on someone's back because they can't muscle me as much and I will have more leverage for a choke.

We then spent some time analyzing how I take the back and do the choke.  We started with a half guard transition to the back.  He had me demonstrate my technique a few times and then offered his advice:
1.  In getting my underhook, I should tuck my bottom arm under my side
2.  In getting my underhook, I should grip my opp's waist with my underhooking hand
3.  Once I get my under hook, I should tuck myself in very tight to the other person (almost in a fetal position) and glue my ear (not my head) to their torso.  Additionally, I should look up - and not down - so that my opp can't stuff my head.  If I can see my opp's head, then I'm not tucked in enough.
4.  When I come up with one hook in, I should immediately get my hands in an under/over hook position (with my choking hand covered by my non-choking hand)
5.  When I come up with one hook in, I should also simultaneously get my head in "portrait position".    Essentially, this means my chin should be on their opposite shoulder, and my head should be pressed against theirs.  Being in the portrait position will keep me from getting swept with an arm drag as easily.
6.  I should use my covered hand to get the choke grip without exposing this hand

7.  Slide my free foot to my opp's other side and slide it into the hook position (instead of stepping over)

8.  Remember to "cast" with your choking grip

We also worked an additional choke from the back. I've seen this choke before but have never been that good at it, which is why I will detail each of the movements here:
1.  Start on your opp's back with both hooks in and hands in a choking position
2.  Your opp removes one hook (say your right hook)
3.  Take your left hook, bend your knee, and brace your leg aginst opp's front waist
4.  Swing your right foot clockwise and bring your hips with it
5.  Bring your left leg up opp's torso
6.  As your opp falls back, sit up on your elbow and swing your right leg over your opp's right shoulder

We also trained an interesting choke from the technical mount. I've tried to choke someone from the technical mount before but always failed because I couldn't reach around the back of their neck and get a good grip on the opposite gi collar.   Once again, I'm going to detail each step because I'm weaker with this technique:

1.  Start with opp in your mount
2.  Opp bridges to his side (say his left side) and you transition to technical mount
3.  Using both hands, push the top gi lapel down (this push down has the added benefit of holding your opp down)
4.  Release the grip closest to the chin while maintaining the other grip w/ a locked arm
5.  Use your free arm to thread around the back of the neck/head and establish the choke grip on the now lowered gi collar
6.  Finishing Option I:
      A.  Sit on your butt
      B.  Pull your left leg out and force it over opp's shoulder
      C.  Pull collar for the choke
7.  Finishing Option II:
      A.  Sit up a bit
      B.  Place your knee between you and your opp's shoulder
      C.  Sit back
      D.  Pull collar for the choke

Following the private, I went to the gi class where we drilled some of these techhniques.  I trained with two folks:  first is the blue belt at Weston who's guard I've been trying to pass and next a fairly new white belt.  With both of them, I tried to jump into half guard position as soon as we clapped hands.  I wasn't able to execute any of these techniques with the blue belt, but I was able to make it much more difficult for him to pass my guard.

With the white belt, I was able to execute the techniques relatively well.


A few hours later, I showed up at open mat to drill the technique.  I drilled them for a few minutes and then trained with three folks.  Not my best evening or training.  I got choked out waaaay too much, but my half guard defense and offense was getting somewhat better.

Working on the choke

Today's class focused on a couple chokes. The first was the one from the guard that we drilled yesterday and Monday.  I won't repeat the steps here, but I will say that I forgot at times to finish the choke by bending my wrist as if I was casting a fishing line.

The next choke was from top position in half guard.  Here are the steps (starting with your opp flat on his back and you having head control; assuming your escaping to your left)

Step 1:  Drive your shoulder into opp's chin to keep him from turning into you
Step 2:  Pinch your knees together and come down to your hip
Step 3:  Brace your lower (left) against opp's hip while pushing opp's top leg below your right knee knee
Step 4:  Open opp's far gi lapel (his left) and thread it underneath opp's armpit and shoulder;  Feed it to your lower (left) hand
Step 5:  Tighten the gi grip and get an underhook with your top (right) arm
Step 6:  Since your right knee is still free, tripod up and place your newly freed knee on the mat
Step 7:  Post out with your left  leg, while keeping hip weight on opp and keeping your head low
Step 8:  Bring your right hand to left (your left) side of opp's head and feed the gi lapel back to your right hand
Step 9:  With your left hand, reach accross opp's neck, grip the gi lapel/shoulder/back of gi, and execute the choke

Trained with three folks. The first was a somewhat spazzy blue belt.  I spent most of my time trying to pass half guard and trying to maintain side control.  Overall, I did a good job with passing but a poor job with maintaining side control.

Next was a purple belt who's technique is frankly better than mine.  I could tell that he was going pretty light, but I found myself getting swept almost as soon as I'd get top position.  One of my buddies was sitting that one out and said that I needed to my myself much heavier from the top position.

Last was a purple belt about my size.  Once again, I spent most of my time trying to pass her half guard and open half guard.  Got swept a couple times and swept her a couple of times.  I definitely feel like my top game is getting better, but it still needs significant improvement.

I've got a private with John D. tomorrow.  This will likely be my last private at Maxercise, and I asked to focus on whatever area of my game he felt was weakest - as well as what I need to do to strengthen that part of my game.   This will be the first time I don't walk into a private without a plan to work on a specific technique.

In preparation for the private, I've reviewed my 7 tips for getting the most out of a private and plan to do all of  them except the first (knowing what specific position or technique I plan to work on).  My private is at 10 AM tomorrow, and I'll go to the 6 PM open mat to drill what I learned.

Spazzy Big White Belts

The 11 AM class at Westin was relatively large (for this location) with 8 or 9 folks today.  We worked the same choke / armbar combination from yesterday so I won't review the steps again.  I did work on improving my "handshake" grip technique and my "casting the fishing rod" choke technique.

Rolled with two spazzy and big white belts today.  One guy started off trying unsuccessfully to do a snap down and used a ton of force.  Felt the need to protect myself so I jumped guard and worked for a sweep.  He was incredibly tense, and I finally said something to him like, "relax, no one is going to die today".  In retrospect, I don't think this helped much.

Next up was another big spazzy white belt.  Since he wasn't using as much muscle, I played more of an open guard game, again looking for sweeps and chokes.

Shaking Hands and Casting a Line

Today's class covered a cross choke from the guard.  The steps to it are pretty simple, but I learned a couple of refinements that will definitely help me execute the choke better in the future:

Step 1:  Opp is in your guard

Step 2:  Use your left hand to open the gi lapel

Step 3:  Place your right hand inside the open lapel collar as if you are reaching in to shake a hand (thumb up, wrist NOT bent around the back of your opp's neck)

Step 4:  Take your left hand and go over your first arm to grip a good bit of material from the shoulder/upper back off the left side of your opp's gi

Step 5:  Use your left hand to brace side of opp's neck; rotate right wrist into opp's neck; pull down while crunching up

You can also do this from an aborted armbar attempt

Step 1:  Opp is in your guard

Step 2:  Use your left hand to open the gi lapel

Step 3:  Place your right hand inside the open lapel collars

Step 4:  Take left hand and grip opp's right gi sleeve w/ a cats paw grip

Step 5:  Brace left leg/knee against opp's right arm to further trap it

Step 6:  Raise hips and swing left leg around for the armbar

Step 7:  Opp stacks you up

Step 8:  Swing left leg back around opp's head and trap opp's shoulder (still keeping your right hand in the collar)

Step 9:  Shift your hips a little to the right.

Step 10:  Use your left hand to grip opp's right gi shoulder/upper back near his neck

Step 11:  Your right hand (original grip still in place) will cast out as if you were casting a fishing rod while pulling down on your elbows

Trained with three folks tonight.  The first was a blue belt who's got 30 pounds on me and is a good bit better than me.  I could tell he was conserving his energy with me, and I spent the 5 or 6 minutes with him in my guard and me trying to execute this choke.  Didn't get it, but after mentally going over it, I realize that I could have crossed my left hand over my right arm and it would have been fine (I kept trying to thread my left hand under my right arm).

Next was a white belt with a few stripes who I can maintain position on pretty well.  I decided to work on heavy hips and really getting my hip to weight ratio pretty low.  Seemed like a productive use of my time, and I felt like I did a good job of being very heavy for a small guy.

Last was a brown belt about my size.  Not really sure why, but he and I were really going at it - I took my governor off, that's for sure.  I was doing a very good job of getting an underhook from half guard and improving my position.  He was doing a very good job of sweeping me whenever I'd get back on top.  Got choked out twice (once from the back and once from the half guard).  So I've still got lots to work on.

Good class.  Then I came home to start some packing (I move in less than two weeks).