Saturday December 26: 90 Minutes

This was a Saturday no-gi open mat session at ECU. To put it succinctly—I was not impressed with my performance. My no-gi game is just sloppy when I train it this infrequently. I definitely had an off-day as well. I felt like I had no open guard bottom game whatsoever without the gi grips. Like zero. I also need some choke options on the rare occasion I can get into a decent position.

Wednesday December 23: 105 Minutes

Some time has passed so I’m going to pop out a couple of posts in quick succession without much of a write-up for my own records. This class was roughly 30 minutes of technique with the rest sparring 6 or 7 minutes rounds with a few minutes rest. We worked the paper cutter choke, a counter, and a re-counter. I’ll write those up later because we worked them a few times over the next week. I think my expectations have gotten a little too high as I’m getting disappointed at times when I’m subbed by blues, although it is happening less and less. I’m still a pitiful white belt and while I’ve gotten a ton better, so have all of these guys. I've got a ton of holes in my game and a ton to learn.

Monday December 21: 60 Minutes

This was my last class at Balance for the next three weeks while I’m home on winter break. Never fear—I should get in plenty of mat time at ECU. I couldn’t stay for any sparring because I had a final the next morning but I am very glad I went because of the topic we covered: half guard passing. Specifically, what some call the shin half guard or semi-Z guard. It is where the bottom player keeps his top knee in his opponent’s hip to control the distance between you. It looks like this:



I feel like a lot of people play with either this or with the full z halfguard (shin all the way across the stomach) to control the distance, and then dive in to get to deep half guard (or x-guard) at the right moment, which gets annoying. As my halfguard passing game revolves around getting a tight crossface, the z and shin halfguards have been my kryptonite. Mike was just doing this to me on Friday night.

Technique

Shin halfguard pass by breaking the guard
-Assuming right leg is trapped
-With your left (outside) hand, get a grip on their bottom lapel
-With the right (inside) hand, grab the top of their bottom leg. You will have to thread the arm around the back of their legs to do this
-Post your head in their top armpit to keep them back as you come up on your left (free) leg
-Sharply drop and twist your hips towards your posted leg—in this case, a counterclockwise motion. This should break their halfguard open.
-Immediately “yoga” the foot of your bottom leg over their bottom leg shin so that they cannot close the halfguard again. You shouldn’t have to pick your right knee up off the ground to do this.
-Using your head as a fulcrum, begin to rotate around the front of their body to pass; keep you grip on the pants as you do so but switch the collar grip to whatever is convenient (probably a crossface)

Shin Halfguard Cut Pass
You often do this one after the first has been stopped
-Switch your grips; your right hand comes to their left (upper) collar and your left hand drops to cup their bottom knee
-Stand up on your trapped leg and immediately drive them to the right to momentarily flatten them out. You want to do this abruptly, pushing them flat with your right hand as you shift your hips to the right so that they are completely flat, even for one second
-While they are flat, drop your right knee to the ground to begin a cut pass as you push their right (formerly bottom) knee back to the left. You should have enough room to slide your leg through up to the foot, as it is very hard for them to hold your leg trapped when they are flat like that
-Take the underhook with your right arm if possible. At the very least keep that elbow tight on their body so they can’t underhook you.
-Settle into the cut pass and either slide your foot right through or bring your left foot back to kick their lower leg so you can slide the foot through

Shin Halfguard Cut Pass: Counter-Counter
-Assume that while you were doing the cut pass they beat you to the underhook. This is dangerous for you, as even though you’ve already slid your knee through they can take you back, sweep you, or get to their knees
-Post both hands on the ground on either side of your opponent’s head
-Push off and jump your free leg to the opponent’s other side as you switch your hips around
-You should naturally settle in with a crossface with your right hand; immediately post up on your left (free) foot a little bit to make it as tight as possible
-Push on their left (now top) knee with your left hand as you pull back the foot to complete the pass; you may have to either slide your hips up to their head to get the proper angle or kick their lower knee with your free leg

Positional Sparring

We started from—believe it or not—shin half guard. On the top I did alright. I magically managed to pass the halfguard of a purple belt. I could not tell you who was more surprised, him or me. I simply got a tight crossface and began to slide my right foot up to his butt and when he tried to bridge he unlocked his legs, so I stepped back into side control. I also passed one blue in a tough match, had a blue reclaim guard and a white stand up. Mixed results.

On bottom I managed to stand up against my first blue belt opponent which ended the drill after missing a loop choke. I experimented with keeping that collar grip free for loop chokes almost every time, with basically no success. A purple belt easily passed—once they switch so they are facing my leg, there is not much I know how to do but pray. I reclaimed guard against the smelliest white belt I’ve ever gone against. Seriously, if he had gotten a crossface I may have tapped. The drill didn’t stop at guard, and while I felt like he had zero chance of passing my guard, I had a lot of trouble against an opponent who keeps low and tight. Frustrating. He’d keep his head on my chest and tripod his legs, which didn’t help him pass but got annoying. I finally just kicked away and stood up which ended the matchup. I went against a purple belt who had passed me but I managed to get into a upside guard and spin back to regular guard when we ran out of time.

My bottom halfguard needs a lot of work. I’m not a big instructional person, but I’m thinking of buying a halfguard instructional to beef up my overall halfguard bottom game--positioning, sweeps, and submissions. I'd like to be able to create a complete game and have go to moves and strategies. Since, at best, I'll only get a halfguard technique maybe once a week in class, I think a DVD will provide a good framework for self-learning. The early frontrunner seems to be Stephan Kesting’s Dynamic Halfguard. A lot of people laud it for exactly that; a thorough examination of everything you need to know and do from the bottom.

Friday December 18: 120 minutes

Because of the coming snowstorm, I decided to hit the Friday class. This was only the second time I’ve been to a Friday class. Both have been question and answer formats, with Phil fielding questions for an hour or so. I’m sure they will be incredibly valuable as a higher belt, but at this point the material was a little over my head.

We covered a ton of material which I’m not going to bother writing about. One easy insight—when playing against an upside guard player, unless you really are sure you know what you are doing, don’t even mess with it. Just grab their feet (towards the toes, you are too close if you can grab the heels) and starting pulling them backwards. Unless they are really good at walking on their shoulders, they will eventually be forced to roll to their back, at which point you have their legs crossed.

Sparring

I started against Mike, the smaller blue belt. I was encouraged by the fact that he asked me to spar. I have a lot of trouble getting past his guard, but he is rarely able to sweep me and I recover well when he does. On the other hand, when I start on bottom I feel like it’s just a matter of time before I’m passed and I’m rarely threatening. It may help to force myself to constantly attack from guard—I’ll get passed, but that’s happening anyway, and I may as well be going for armbars/triangles/kimuras in the meantime. I had a hard time getting an effective crossface in halfguard as he has wised up to that strategy—he kept a long distance/shin half guard and was always ready to shoot a knee between us. I survived a turtle/armbar attack, but other than that neither of us was really in danger.

Next I rolled with Aldo, who was absolutely exhausted. I made it my goal to outwork he which didn’t quite work. At first I avoided getting swept or submitted too terribly but I wasn’t able to keep meaningful pressure on. I was finding it pretty hard to escape his loop chokes from halfguard, which is his go-to lazy attack.

I next rolled with a 13 year old for 10-15 minutes, which was fun. He’ll be a monster when he gets bigger. I attacked him with a large variety of submissions to check his defense and was really pleasantly surprised with how many defenses he kne.

I then rolled with Aldo again, which was more of the same.

My final roll was against Paul, the purple belt. He absolutely crushed me with a body lock which utterly took the fight out of me—I think he got bored of my defense and just decided to make me shit out my spleen. My insides hurt for hours after class. When I start on top, I do well against his traditional halfguard until he transitions into x-guard or butterfly guard where he has his way. He swept me twice from butterfly guard in the same way—he told me that the key is to defend by getting your elbows inside to create space, not just hugging his body and trying to force him down which led to the sweep. On bottom, he passed me laughably easily by just bulldozing through my legs to take knee on belly. That was the most frustrating part of the roll. He also armbar’ed me when I was doing m hands in armpits, stand up, knee through, combat base guard break. That was pretty annoying, as that is my go-to break right now—I need to figure out how to prevent that, probably by keeping my elbows wider.

Thursday December 17: 60 Minutes

This was my first ever judo class. Over the past few months, I’ve become much better on the top. However, I have virtually no stand up game. This poses a bit of a problem. Seeing as I’d like to compete in the very near future, I figured I should get in whatever formal stand up training I can, both for the immediate future and looking forward.

To put it politely, this class was ridiculously boring. There were only 5 other people (plus a very nice black belt instructor) and they were doing some fairly advanced throws, so I was sent to the corner to breakfall. That’s basically all I did—fall on the side, fall on my back, fall on the other side. Relax more. Relax! I worked a little footwork at the end as well. The instructor was pretty apologetic and said that if I showed up fairly regularly, I would be working the throws in no time. This was just my first class, so I am rightfully starting at square one.

Wednesday, December 16:105 minutes

I’ve fallen behind on my updates (surprise surprise!). I’m currently home on break and am taking in a lot of jiu jitsu material right now, more than I can really assimilate in one period. Because of this, I’ll probably skip the step by step breakdown of the techniques. This class focused on kneebars—interesting. I’m completely undecided if I want to make leg attacks a significant part of my game as I continue my jiu jitsu journey (obviously not as a white belt). I don’t think any of my current instructors focus on them, although obviously they all can do them, but a bunch of the top competitive students make them a big focus.

Technique

We started with the super basic kneebar from top halfguard. Just pop you trapped leg free a tiny bit—maybe just a couple inches—post your hands on the mat on the side of your free leg, then spin around and sit on the opponent’s chest. You can really stall here a bit, crushing him with your weight, as you wait for him to react. Simply scoop up their previously top leg and fall to the side, bridging your hips and pulling back your chest and legs for the tap. Do not go too high on their leg or you will never get the tap.

The next move was from a defended cut pass. You are attempting the standard cut pass from combat base and, as a defense, the opponent pushes on your cutting knee. Just like before, post your hands and spin to the other side. Ric talked about how he’ll often bait this move, never really intending to pass. If they defend your cut pass by turning into you hard, drive into them with your knee on their belly before spinning and sitting.

The final entrance was from when you are standing, they latch onto one of your legs, and you do the exact same move. Make sure to land heavy on their chest.

Finally, if they defend by figure fouring their legs, we learned a footlock you can do. You basically shuffle around till you are parallel to the opponent so that their legs cross before taking the footlock and you have both trapped. Cool move, but I’m not even going to pretend to work on it.

Sparring

We finished the class with 2x5 minutes of sparring. My second roll was against a brand new guy. It’s gratifying to see how far you’ve come when you spar someone in their second week. Especially when that someone is probably 5’3” and pathetically week.

I finished with 30 minutes of sparring with Aldo, the friendly purple belt. I got a bunch more tips.
-He let me get into the side control “chicken wing position” a few times. From there, I would trap his top arm with my hand around the bottom of his head. I know this is a great position but I didn’t really know what to do. Aldo’s go to option here is the arm triangle choke. He’ll first step over them with one leg to broaden his options. Then, get your non pinning arm around their head, flair your elbow up to create space, then shoot it through and behind their head. Lock the arms, just both legs to the original side for the choke.
-From that position, you can also take the obvious armbar and even the triangle choke.
-In the normal position (them on one side) when you are going for the single lapel choke, you need to be ready to grab their other collar so that when they roll away from you, you are ready to follow (potentially preempting them to the other side) with the bow and arrow choke. You can follow by first posting your head to the far side.
-In top halfguard, when playing the crossface game, you need to get a shitload tighter and really drive their head away from you. When Aldo demonstrated on me it was practically halfway to submitting me.

Saturday December 12: 120 Minutes

Another long Saturday post. I had some bad weeks of training because of finals/end of semester craziness.

Ric taught this class—apparently it was the day of the scissor sweep. I used to have some success with this sweep against newish white belts but haven’t come close ever against more experienced whites or blues. It seems like the sort of sweep that’s much more useful in open guard/scramble type situations, as the set up is just a bit obvious from guard. It also doesn’t take much energy for the opponent to kill the motion. I think the momentum/movement of your opponent plays a much larger role than it initially appears.

First, a video. Obviously this sweep can be effective at all levels. Please excuse the awfully overplayed music.



First we went over the basic scissor sweep. I’ll run over some key points instead of a step by step breakdown. First, the grips are quite important. You really do need to haul your opponent up onto your body. Your legs are clearly important for this, but don’t overlook the importance of having some deep strong grips. Your knee should be diagonal across the opponent’s chest to prevent the pass, but when you actually begin the sweep it should drop to move of a low horizontal position—this makes sense from a mechanical point of view. Also, you need to generate some momentum. I used to do that by rocking into the guy and then falling back, but this does give them more momentum to squash the technique. In that video above, Teixeira looks like he precedes the sweep with a really quick shrimping motion. Your reaping leg can either chop or push their knee out, depending on how widely they are based. While the chop is taught as the primary motion, it seems to me the push might be more useful.

Sometimes, your opponent will post up the leg you are not attacking and place their weight on it to prevent the sweep. Quickly circle your diagonal leg around and then in between their legs, hooking it under their knee. Fall back onto your side—this is key, to generate momentum—pull the arm you have gripped while simultaneously kicking up and across your body with the under the knee hook to flip them over (to your left, if you have the right knee across).This needs to be one fluid motion.

Next, after they have posted the one leg and you’ve gotten your hook, sometimes they will drive that knee to the ground to kill your hook. This is tricky, but now you need to switch that same hook under their other knee (the one they are generating the driving power). Just kick up with that hook to spill your opponent over to your right side. They will still be free to post with their left hand, so unless you manage to switch the grips this is mostly an entrance to either the x-guard or some leg lock positions. If you do make it into x-guard, they will be highly splayed out to one side making the stand up single leg technique easy.

Sparring

First, some sparring cliff note pointers:
-Be more active, never get lazy, especially on the bottom
-Reminder: need to eventually spend a lot of time working my open guard game
-I need to get better at sparring white belts and doing better against people I am better than
-Hidden arm in triangle—counter?
-Flower sweep—why are they able to post?
-Double under pass—stay a lot tighter, stack harder, more pressure on their legs
-Against Martin: chokes are not your best option

I first rolled with a quite technical female blue belt for 5 minutes. I haven’t trained with any girls in a while, and seeing how I outweighed her by 40 pounds I was really conscious of not using my strength—maybe a little too conscious of that, as I wasn’t really active enough. I played most of the time in guard and never really hit anything because of how relaxed I was being, but she could not pass, even when I’d open up to attack. I did get to mess around with some open guard stuff and played a little spider guard. This reminds me: at some point in the future, I’m going to have to really dedicate some time to working my open guard game. I often instinctively find myself with, for example, de la Riva hooks, without any idea of what to do with them. When on top, I got very close to passing a few times but had trouble with her flexibility.

I next rolled with a similarly sized white belt. I was clearly better than him and he never threatened me outside of an ear crushing guillotine from guard I got out of. Still, I should have done a shit ton better. I stupidly let myself get rolled from top halfguard because I wasn’t tight enough, when I’ve been at the very least giving blue belts trouble from that position. I nearly took his back 3 times from different positions but I just missed it. I had him in two triangles, but on the first he fell to his side and I couldn’t finish and the second he buried his arm and I couldn’t cinch it tight—I also seems to have forgotten the counters to that (omoplata, right?). I very nearly hit a flower sweep but must have let him get his arm back at the last second so he could post with it. Same with a hip bump sweep to failed kimura (get out to the side!). Finally, by the end of the 5 minutes I had passed and moved to mount, but ran out of time for any offense. While reading this over I realize I was very active, which makes me happy, and nearly hit a ton of things, I need to get better at beating white belts. I would like to compete very soon, but I’m not going to do well if I can’t play my game.

Next up was a blue belt. I don’t think I’ve rolled with him before, but I didn’t really have the highest opinion of his game before this roll. I managed to spend most of the time on his back or attacking turtle position, which was fun, albeit a little frustrating that I couldn’t submit, but it always seemed like I was just on the verge of being slid off. After 3-4 minutes he spun into my guard, where I nearly immediately had him with a loop choke. After another failed flower sweep—basically the same as before, I need to drill this move because I really like it—we ran out of time.

After a good rest, I rolled with a really nice brown belt for about 12 minutes. He defended my double under pass in some interesting ways by driving his knees into my chest to keep me back and then making his legs flat and heavy when I tried to get under. He tapped me with a loop choke from guard that left me seeing sparklies—he managed to cinch that one up inch by inch. He also submitted me with a triangle. I sometimes bait the triangle a little bit when I want to go for the double under pass. I know, maybe not the best strategy for a white belt, but I’m usually only do it when I’m confident I can beat his leg with my arm. Didn’t work so well against a brown belt with a strong grip who switches easily between the armbar and the triangle. I’m really learning the importance of posture against triangles though. I had trouble with him in my guard. He’d just keep so tight and compact with my elbows against my thighs that I’d have trouble going for anything.

I finished by rolling against Martin the squat purple belt for 10-15 minutes. Now that I’m actively trying to avoid his halfguard I realize just how crafty he is at getting people into it. Armdrags, baiting passes, submissions—anything to get me there. Nearly got to knee on belly once, but wound up in half. I managed to quickly switch to face his legs and get an arm in there which allowed me to pass (I’m sure he wasn’t trying too hard) and made it to mount. There, I discovered that because of his ridiculously thick upper body he is impossible to choke. I had his back for a while (I’m really sure he wasn’t trying too hard) but couldn’t choke him either. I got back to mount and went for the paper cutter choke by switching to side control but that didn’t work either. I jumped to knee on belly, he got me back into half guard, used his damn lockdown sweep that he does, passed, and north south choked me. I really defended this one well so I was really just tapping to a jaw crusher choke. That’s just one example of a sequence we went through a few times, although I think that was the only NS choke.