Mixed Class 7/27/2010

Today's noon class covered the hip-bump sweep and a kimura setup based on the most likely counter. The hip-bump begins with your partner basing with both hands on your stomach. You lift your hips without uncrossing your feet and as you drop your hips, sweep both of their hands off your chest by circling your hands under from the outside. An important note is to always maintain contact with your wrists; if you don't, there is a much smaller guarantee that their hands will end up on the mat. Will recommended the paw as a way to check their hands and also to make the circle as small as possible. Next, pick a side and control that wrist with your same-side hand. Sit up without uncrossing your ankles and cup their elbow with your other arm while coming up on the elbow of the hand that is controlling their wrist. Once you've cupped their elbow, post on your wrist controlling hand and uncross your ankles. The next step was new to me: in order to break their balance, push into them before starting to move sideways. This was tremendously useful because it makes their knees light and thus easier to sweep backward.

The kimura setup was predicated on your partner pushing into you to stop the sweep. Using their momentum, snag the kimura grip and move your hip out as described in the last post. It was good to review the kimura from last week, and I noticed a few details that I should remember to work on:

-really clamp with my elbows

-create as great a bend as possibly in their elbow

-really roll the wrists

-work especially hard on getting onto my side with my whole body and not just my hips; shoulders matter too

Sparring started with a three stripe blue. I started by trying to play some spider guard with one shin across the belly. I was hoping to bait the pass so that I could hit my sweep, but he did not go for it and I had to rethink. Eventually I ended up in butterfly with a deep underhook. I went for the standard sweep but did not manage to control his posting arm well enough initially so he fought me for it. Eventually I snagged it and managed to hit the sweep. It was kind of clunky, but he was considerably larger than me and I didn't feel myself muscling to get it. I spent some time in sidemount, working to set up far-side armbars and whatnot and transitioning to knee on belly, but to no avail. At one point I was in reverse scarfhold and I went to my favorite mount, but he snagged my leg as I was stepping over and pulled it into quarter guard. I tried to baseball slide out and set up a gi brabo, but his underhook was too deep and he had my belt, so I had to bail. Eventually he rolled me because I was getting experimental and he trapped one of my feet. We spent some time dicking around with him squishing one of my butterfly hooks and me trying to free it. We reset, and I wrapped an arm from spiderguard to go for the hilariously awesome omoplata I learned last summer, but I did not succeed. The round ended with some sort of halfway between open guard and side mount.

My next session was a real challenge. I rolled with a dude named brian. He pulled guard and I worked to pass, but I noticed him trying to set up a triangle, so I was very wary of getting to close and trying to ball him up. I managed to stave off his triangle, however, at one point he got up to his feet and started working a loop choke. I had his leg and was trying to scoop it with my foot to get into half-guard top, however, he unbalanced me and I ended up in his guard again. Eventually, he worked a scissor sweep and I was swept into guard, which he almost passed right away, but I managed to hang on to his calf with the tips of my toes and I ended up getting my top knee between us and securing z-guard. I went for an underhook to start trying to get some ball and chain action going, but my underhook must not have been tight enough because I blundered right into a kimura. Fortunately I was controlling his legs with my feet and an underhook by my head, so he was unable to position himself properly. We stalemated for a good while because my control of his legs prevented him from finishing the sub, and his grip on my arm prevented me from working a sweep. Eventually he freed his leg, took mount where I fought him with quarter guard, and then finished the kimura. We started again and he pulled guard again. This time I was very adamant about stapling his hips to the mat, so I began by nailing one of his knees down and posting on his pant leg. I sat on it and tried to work one of the passes that will taught in times past, and he put his knee across my chest to frame away. I put some good pressure and tied his legs together, but forgot to control his upper body. Fortunately, I was still able to underhook his framing leg and hit a double under pass as he tried to collar choke me. The round expired as played some extremely lazy sidemount.

Finally, I rolled with Adam, a newly minted blue belt. He came at me pretty hard so I pulled guard. I worked some feet on hips and spider guard nonsense, but he almost passed a number of times. Eventually I rolled into upside down guard and locked my ankles around his waist as he lost his balance. I walked up into reverse mount and went for a kneebar, which he countered by rolling and I was put in something that resembled 50/50. I went for a few sweeps as he bore down on me. At one point I was somewhat concerned about my knee, but I scooted my hips and managed to set up an ankle lock which I finished. (Side note: because I've been so manic about control and position of late, this is one of the few subs I've finished this summer. Go me.) We restarted in more or less the same fashion. At some point I ended up in his guard in a manner I don't entirely recall. He played spiderguard and I worked on just getting a knee up and stripping his hooks without setting myself up for a triangle. Eventually I underhooked both of his legs and got solid grips on his pants. From there I flipped him over his head to turtle. He rolled and I surfed to sidemount, where we spent the remainder of the round as I worked poorly to set up some armbars or whatever.