Class 08/31/2010

Today, Will covered a triangle set up from open guard with both feet on the hips and sleeve control. I liked it because it'll tie in with the open guard I've been working on recently as both rely on stretching people out with feet on the hips and both hands on a sleeve. He also covered the armbar counter to a posturing opponent. Tony pointed out that it's good to focus more on the leg that's higher on their head (both legs are on the head/neck for this armbar) than the lower one. I picture it as trying to bend the neck and put that heel on the ground.

My first roll was with Tony. I worked to pass his guard and was eventually successful. I spent some time in side mount, and Tony kept working to trap my bottom arm with his legs. I opened his lapels and tried using them to keep him turned away from me, but at some point I was reversed, as I recall it was because I leaned forward in KOB. He started to set up an armbar, which i countered by slipping under his leg and forcing him to go belly down. At that point, my arm was entangled in som mystifying way that wasn't an armbar but put a lot of pressure on my shoulder, so I tapped. After that, I passed guard again and then time ran out.

My second round was with Adam. He pulled guard and I started working to pass. He started playing spiderguard, and I am disappointed in how not proactive I was about passing. I had solid posture and base, so he was not able to sweep me or set up any submissions, although I noticed that he was trying to work the triangle we had just learned. What frustrated me was that I noticed a severe deficiency in my ability to strip his spider hooks. What's even more frustrating is that I know how to do it, I just didn't. I have some great fear of standing up against an opponent who's playing guard, and I need to overcome that in case someone tries to play spider guard since getting both of their legs extended is much easier if you're standing. Eventually, he gave up the spider hooks, though, and I was able to leg rope and pass without too much trouble. What I did notice, though, is that he has become much more prone to stiff arming my hips and that gave me fits. This means that I must become more adept at breaking his frame with my legs. I also need to address my lack of head control recently. I've become to accustomed to reverse scarfhold and have this let the shoulder of justice fall by the wayside. It's time to bring it back.

I was sitting the last round out because there was an odd number of people until Adam rolled his ankle and I jumped in with Jay, a high level purple. I worked to pass his guard with my usual trickery. I noticed that there was one point at which he had stretched me out almost completely and I was doing nothing to get my arm back. Derp. I did get my arm back, though, and started working on my leg rope pass. I passed to my usual side mount, but he grabbed my head and started pulling me over backwards. Fortunately, I was able to trap his legs and prevent him from coming on top until I freed my head and came back into his guard. Since we started rolling with 1:40 left in the round, time ran out about now.

Today yielded a few important points:

1) On top, press down at an angle, not straight down. From sidemount, push into your partner by driving forward and down. Think a 45 degree angle instead of a 90.

2) Jay pointed out that I was looking down by bending my neck. In the future, I'll have to make sure I keep my view on the point where the wall and ceiling meet each other to ensure that my posture is good.

3) Head control. Nuff said.

Class 08/26/2010

Jeremy showed some kimura setups, and most importantly he reopened my eyes to the royler gracie kimura, or "roylermura." I had completely forgotten about it for the longest time, so I was very happy to be reintroduced to it.

My first round of sparring was with a blue named Jen. If I had to guess, I would say that I probably weigh twice as much as her. That being said, I tried my hardest not to put undue force behind anything and doing my best to only move from my core, rather than flailing my limbs about. I started by sitting out to butterfly hooks, but I soon gathered that she would rather play guard than pass, so I came forward. I was able to make good use of my sprawl pass to sidemount where I worked on controlling the hips and setting up my kimura/armbar setup as she came up on her side. I got in position a few times, but she generally closed up and it seemed inappropriate to muscle for it. At one point she reguarded and I passed again. The round went by with my staying in sidemount and switching sides for the arm as she turned to her side.

Next, I rolled with George, and I continued to work on my back control after armdragging to the back. Once again I had zero luck trying to find a hole in his defense, and spent most of the time working on moving with him and staying tight on the hips. I also focused on shifting my grips and hook retension.

Finally, I had a very dynamic and athletic roll with Big Tony. He started with butterfly guard and I worked on pressurepassing it. I was somewhat stymied because he secured an overhook on the side I was trying to pass to and he is also excellent at keeping his hooks after I am mostly passed. I figure the solution to that is to escrima my legs out of the hooks. From sidemount I worked to set up a collar choke, but it was very loose and he turned into it and we scrambled like mad. I felt him setting up an armbar, so I started defending immediately and escaped it without too much trouble. We continued from the same position and he scrambled to mount where he hit some bizarre choke that I mostly tapped to because I was afraid of it. We reset and I passed his guard again, still struggling with his hooks. The time expired with me in sidemount.

Class 8/24/2010

I showed up very late for lunch class today and really only partook in the sparring.

First round was with Robin. Started off by pulling guard and setting up the dariush guard. Managed to set up an omoplata almost immediately. He rolled out and I went to side mount. From there I spent some time surfing and trying to move as best as possible. He reguarded me a few times, but I was able to pass without too much trouble. I find myself being super lazy when it comes to hunting for subs with Robin. Most of the time I just lay and ride his momentum where ever it takes me. I hope it's not engendering any bad habits.

Second, far more eventful roll, was with Kevin. I started pulling guard and tried to play butterfly. Eventually I knocked him onto his ass (that might have been what he wanted since he seemed to want to play guard himself) where he set up a triangle. Fortunately my insert knee instinct was on its game, so I got a knee and a hand inside. I grabbed his belt and started turning the corner to break the triangle, but he switched to an omoplata. Once again, I was prepared for it, so I started putting my knee on his belly, controlling his hip and posturing until I was able to step over completely and free my arm. Upon this, he postured and ended up in my omoplata, but he countered and was put in my guard. I went back to trying to play dariush, but he wouldn't let me stretch his arm. At one point he was passing, but I was doing a good job of stuffing his head and hipping to kill the guard pass. He congratulated me on it and said that he only passed because of pure athleticism and muscle, and that my defense was technically sound. Good to know. He did complete that pass, however, and I struggled under sidemount for a while, managing to make good space a few times before he stepped over my head and crushed my face. Literally. It wasn't a choke or a crank. It was a straight up face crush. One step on the path toward looking like Dan Henderson. I didn't see the point in fighting that, so I tapped. We started again and I played some open guard, trying to set up some de la riva action, but to no avail.

My final round was with George. I pulled closed guard and worked for a while to set up the flower sweep. I did cross the arm, but he resisted, so I went with the hook sweep instead. Swept to triple attack, took the back and started looking for the collar. A long ass time went by without anything of note happening until he started slipping his shoulders down on the side opposite my penn state. I shot for an armbar but was foiled by the punching bag we had ended up under. We reset and I swept again, this time only to lay in sidemount for a while before the time expired.

Class 8/20/2010

This post will cover two day's worth of sparring since I was lazy on Wednesday and didn't do it then.

On wednesday afternoon I went for some sparring with Tony and Robin. My first roll was with Tony, and the first thing of note is that he has gotten a ton better at stopping my flower sweep. I switched between the flower, taking the back, and the hook sweep, but none of them worked! It's awesome to see that I have a training partner against whom I can really sharpen my flowersweep series. The better Tony gets, the better I will have to get. As our roll continued, I worked some butterfly and managed to set up a bunch of sweeps that I didn't quite manage to finish. He also did a good job of stuffing my hooks and working the wallid ismael pass; it was only by virtue of a lot of head stuffing that I was able to hip escape out and retain my guard. Eventually I hit an over/under sweep and took mount. From there, I scooted for triple attack and worked the penn state grip to the back. For a long time I only had one hook, but I managed to prevent ending up in halfguard top or bottom. The round finished right as I pulled off a nice bow and arrow choke.

Next, I had a roll with Robin. I spent most of this session lazily working half-assed open guard. I managed to secure a few almost-sweeps in the sense that he was sitting on his ass, but I did not put in the effort to come up on top. Oddly enough, most of the roll consisted of Robin shooting for footlocks and me countering them. To this date my record for defending footlocks remains perfect with one exception. I wonder how long I can keep that up? At times he almost passed, but I retained guard decently well. He did pass completely on one occasion, but I managed to maintain my composure and work for a belly down escape to sitting through to guard. He did attempt a 10 finger guillotine, but I had my butterfly hooks and double unders, so I shucked it off without too much trouble. I swept and time ran out.

Next I rolled with Tony again, and this time I managed to take his back using my standard method, where we spent most of the round. Same ending as last time.

I had one final roll with Robin again, this time being far more aggressive than the one before. I was much more proactive with my open guard and rode the momentum to the top instead of just sweeping and sitting.

------------

Today, I went to class as well.

My first round was with Big Tony; he's an enormous purple belt who lets me use him like a jungle jim. He lets me run around like a little monkey, and every now and again will catch me in a bicep slicer...always bicep slicers, never anything else. Despite his sandbagging for my benefit, I felt pretty good about the roll. I made a point of using my pressure pass against his butterfly, and although that was not successful in and of itself, it did allow me to leg rope and smash pass. Once in side mount I made a big production of trying to take the back. I figure trying to hit subs is just pointless, and so is just laying there, so I might as well work on positioning. I managed to secure my penn state grip three times, but the crux seems to be sinking my hooks. I found that I can typically find myself on his back in the most literal sense possible, however, the hooks are generally what's lacking. After some hemming and hawing on my part, Tony would roll, but thanks to my grips I would generally be able to follow back to sidemount with a kimura grip rather than getting reversed. At one point, I had him turtled and decided that, why the hell not, I would shoot for the triangle from the back a la ryan hall. What comes next should surprise no one: it didn't work and he started to stack pass. Thankfully, Jeremy was watching and I felt extra motivated, so I hit a, in my eyes at least, slick sweep that Kevin showed me. I ended up in his half guard which I passed to side mount where the round ended.

Next, I rolled with George, another purple. I pulled guard and immediately started working for my flower sweep series. I pulled the flower sweep, although it was not as smooth as I would have liked. I scooted for triple attack and set up my penn state to take the back, once again. I managed to sink my hooks this time, but George has the "defend and wait until they get impatient -->submit them" strategy down to an art. There isn't a damn thing I can do to get at his collars or his arms without being a huge dick. He's 68. There's no way I could ever justify trying to out-athlete him and feel good about it. As such, the roll was slow as molasses from that point on. Eventually, true to my earlier statement, I went for an armbar from the back. It was promptly countered and I was thereby collarchoked. Fortunately, I was able to identify the sticking point this time: I did not have sufficient head control with my leg. Good to know.

My final roll was with Robin. I decided to give my dariush guard a try (thanks, youtube!) and put one foot on his hip, the other foot on his bicep/shoulder, gripped cuff and elbow on the hip side and streeetched. Much to my surprise, this worked exactly as I was told it would and I hit a triangle almost right off the bat. More than that, it was the first triangle I've finished all summer. Go Dariush! Next, I stood up to pass his guard, and he did something so stupid I didn't commit it to memory, but I do remember that it led me straight to mount. After some general dicking around in mount and sidemount, I set up a far side armbar and was working to finish it as time ran out.

Private 08/13/2010

Today I had a private lesson with Jeremy. He answered a few specific questions that have been on my mind recently. First, we covered a good guard option against a standing opponent. I had expressed my reticence to make use of De La Riva because of my knees, so we covered situp guard instead.

It was nice to have a thorough introduction to this guard as it's not something I've worked with extensively before. We started with the standard version, which means that both of your feet and hands are on the inside, and your head is on the front of your opponent's leg. Having achieved the "default" (I'm going to have to learn the Capital language) it's important to control the far sleeve, and now you have the opportunity to hit one of the two sweeps we covered.

The first sweep involves taking your opponent forward by underhooking their far leg and taking them forward. Unfortunately that is all of the detail that I can remember for now, so this will only be a brief run through of the different options. Consider it the basic "if X then Y" part of the game since I have never played sit up guard before.

The second sweep we covered allows you to take your opponent backward. In this case, you tap the outside of the knee and flare your knees while keeping a foot behind their ankle, such that when you lift your hips forward and into their shin, it's as though you're ankle picking.

The situp guard also provides ample opportunity for transitioning to x-guard, single leg x-guard, de la riva, and more.

The most common ways of passing include cutting the knee across, in which case you employ the first sweep. The same applies if they put a knee in your chest to try and flatten you out.

If they try stepping backward, you use the appropriate hook on their stepping leg, as the other one ought to be trapped, and sweep them backwards.



Next, I asked about defeating the z-guard and opponents who are hipping out during the knee-slide pass. The former is laughably simple to defeat: as soon as they press the knee in, stand up and knee slide across their top leg. BAM.

The latter is also relatively uncomplicated: rather than being beholden to the underhook, stiffarm either their shoulder or their hip to kill the hip escape. BAM.

My final question was regarding killing the single-leg stack pass. This was a very useful portion of the session because I unearthed another basic principle of guard retention: don't let them turn your hips away from them. In this particular case, this can be achieved by planting your non-stacked foot on the mat, posting on their shoulder and hip and turning your hip in until your stacked leg can be reinserted.

That's it for now; I'm going to look into some sit-up guard techniques for now.

Class 08/11/2010

Evening class today. Jeremy covered a self defense technique that I'm having trouble remembering. He also taught some sidemount escapes. I was drilling with Charles and he gave me some good pointers.
-the importance of hooking something with your top leg as soon as you drive a knee into the empty space; this prevents your opponent from moving clearing the knee

My first roll was with Charles, and I generally felt pretty good about it. I fell into a brabo choke from half-guard bottom because I did not make space when I noticed that he was underhooking. Beyond that, I pulled off a pretty slick escape from under north-south by framing his hips up above my head and rolling back to get my hooks. I did not manage to take the back, but I did escape a bad position. In particular, I did a poor job of retaining my guard. Specifically, I did not do a good job of maintaining an appropriate distance, keeping my hooks, and breaking posture.

I spent most of my second roll trying to pass, which I also managed to do poorly. My hips were not heavy, my pressure was bad, my posture was bad, and I did not do a good job of controlling his hips. I was trying to use my regular passing strategy, but he continually shrimped away, which tells me that I was not doing a very good job of controlling his hips. Moreover, he played a lot of z-guard, and I did not do a very good job of smashing his legs together; for whatever reason, I did not use the leg rope as I usually do, and I paid the price. The solution to that observation is simple: don't be a dumbass and use the leg rope before you try to smash and pass. I also felt off balance throughout most of the roll. Not a good day.
f
My final roll also went rather poorly. First, I was trying to play some open guard, but I failed in two critical regards. First, I did a miserable job of keeping him from hipping into me. I really need to start working on controlling the sleeves from open guard before I focus on anything else. Second, I did not create angles very well. The roll thereafter was an odd scramble that I have a hard time analyzing. I did discover one positive, though: I am rather good at defending straight ankle locks.

I think that the main reason that today's sparring was shit is because I've been feeling too good about myself; too good in the sense that I have lost my edge and drive to do well. I've been so focused on not using strength that I've also lost my drive to put effort into my rolls period. I must not let that continue happening. Keep advancing without forcing.

Boss Triangle

Seat Belt!

Class: August 5, 2010

Today Jeremy reviewed the sweeps from yesterday as well as the monson choke from sidemount. I picked up some details on the monson choke:

-use your chest to create space and get under the chin

-when you walk, turn their head away from you using your body

-drop your head to the mat

-walk backwards to increase pressure and get deeper

During sparring I sat the first round as there was an odd number of people and I didn't partner up fast enough.

Second round I partnered with a really large noob who loves to smash people. I started playing some butterfly guard and eventually armdragged to the back where I worked my penn state grip, which I've been slaying people with of late, until he suggested that we reset. We reset and he tried to pull guard. I passed to mount and worked my usual head control and post way out with grapevine game until he tried to bench me off. Straightening his arms gave me the opportunity to hit an arm triangle. We reset and I armdragged to the back again, this time setting up and finishing a rear naked choke.

My final roll was with our resident old and gnarled badass. I started off playing some butterfly guard again, looking for the loop choke. He stuffed my right hook, so I popped my left foot onto his bicep and got sleeve control while underhooking his leading leg in the hope of sweeping from spiderguard. He sank back and I almost managed to sweep straight over the top, but a brief scramble ensued and I was back in guard. We continued with him killing my hooks and me head manipulating and hip escaping back to guard. Eventually we were in a position that resembled what Kevin taught on Tuesday, except one of my legs was closer to his hip. I tried to use this as a hook for taking the back, and I was very nearly successful. He had my other leg, though, and did a great job of keeping it pinned to the mat which prevented me from getting my hips around.

After class, Jeremy showed me a great detail on the running man escape, which is to use the hand that normally protects your collar to windshield wipe under you as you roll such that you can use it as a lever and keep their legs off.

Class August 4, 2010

Today Jeremy covered a way to finish a double leg: if your opponent steps their leg back, you underhook hard on the same side, tap the knee and take them in the direction of your head; the opposite direction you would go if you were turning the corner.

Next, he taught a counter to the almost inevitable guillotine. You control their near shoulder and plant your forehead on the ground and move in the direction of north/south. If you need, you control the hip with the hand that was underhooking. Eventually, your head pops out. Jeremy pointed out that this escape is a secondary option to going to sidemount with your head trapped.

Next, Jeremy covered the same takedown from the knees. He covered several variants, and the ones I found the most interesting were ones that started from butterfly guard. The best place to start from is already having a deep underhook and reacting depending on how your opponent responds. If they are trying to posture up and away, you come up and hit the sweep. If they're trying to push into you, you must have double underhooks whereupon you lift them and push them away. You use the momentum to come up and tap the knee.

Next Jeremy covered three ways to defeat any eventual attempts to post with their arm (apart from snatching the post out from under them). First, he covered the option of moving around them to sidemount, which assumes that they collapse their post. This option requires you to smash their legs together and that you place your weight on their hips as you move around to sidemount. The next option involves using your knees to put your knee on their leg/hips as you move around. When you've gotten far enough, you switch your knees so that you're essentially in a basic KOB position. The next option is if they don't collapse their post, in which case you take their back. The final option supposes that they sit back and try to pull butterfly guard. It is essential to keep the underhook and pin the leg with the other hand. You proceed as with the jumping guard pass from shogunhq.

My first roll was with Tony, and arguably one of the most fun rolls I've had all summer. We moved around a lot and I really felt like I was on. I can't think of any real questions.

My next roll was with a bit of a spaz. I focused on moving slowly and methodically. My biggest question is: how di I defeat the chin tuck when trying set up a goat slayer without simply brutalizing their face.

Finally, I rolled with a blue belt who looked to be about my weight. I started under sidemount. I escaped using Roy Dean's underhook the body and spin method. After that, we played guard and I was left with a few questions:

1) How can I improve my deep butterfly sweep? I often get their knee to the ground but can't get on top. Throw the other leg and use momentum to come up?

2) Again, how do finish goat slayer?