Collar Choke

DLR Tomoe Nage

2011-07-01T00:38:00.000-04:00

We are nearing the end of my current repertoire of DLR techniques that I actually hit (although there's about 100 more that I want to learn). The DLR tomoe-nage is a criminally underrated move. I also decided to learn this one after speaking with JT Torres, who said it's a critical component of his game. Obviously, no one is studying tape on me like they do with him, but being good at flipping your opponent cuts down on potential pass set-ups and even elevating them a little bit (but failing to complete the sweep) or dropping them off to the side but being unable to come on top will make them wary.

3 videos in this entry.

A. DLR tomoe-nage sweep
The steps for this one are fairly simple. Left DLR hook, double sleeve control is my standard
1. Get a deep hook on the right leg, crushing opponent's knee inwards, which limits their plane of movement
2. Push into opponent or initiate some move that gets opponent to push back into you
3. Continuing to crush the knee inwards, quickly pull the arms and use the DLR hook as a means of lifting to elevate opponent above you, pulling your legs into your chest to help
4. Guide opponent over your opposite shoulder from the hooked leg, pushing the arms forward to get them to turn; once their momentum takes over and they start to roll, extend your legs behind you and roll over that shoulder to come on top into mount (ideally) or side control, depending on your grips

As you'll see in the second video, you can work this with a number of grips, with a high collar grip being quite optimal for control/leverage (obviously double sleeve keeps them from basing to stop the move). My mistake when trying to work this move was trying to go for it in isolation. That's not going to work--it is best as a reaction move, taken after you've already tried to sweep the opponent. A typical chain of my "A-Game" DLR sweeps (that I try not to play) is first attempting the timber sweep, then the sit up sweep, then if they force me back down or try to stop that by driving into me, going right in a tomo-nage. Another example would be if someone stands to break my guard, I will instead secure a sleeve grip, drop quickly to get opponent thinking I'm going to try to sweep backwards, then quickly get the DLR hook, reach for a collar grip and go for the move. Tons of examples, but the key note (and something I've definitely failed on before) is that this move doesn't work in isolation. Now let's check out some videos.

Everybody loves video! Start at 1:15

This video has some good details about grips starting at 2:25. It's half English and half Japanese and moves at a slow pace so it's a bit annoying to review. He uses a deep collar grip and a tricep grip--I'm normally trying to set this up with double sleeve control, but it's really important to note that other options are available.

Finally, this is Cobrinha showing the sweep from the leg lasso position. I haven't covered my leg lasso sweeps yet (but I will) but this video is beautiful for the level of detail in the slow motion--watch how he pulls him in low before exploding with his legs. You also really don't see Cobrinha move much until the opponent is well over him and then his legs shoot back to come on top.

DLR Pass Defense: 3 sweep

2011-06-26T23:59:00.006-04:00

Storytime: I’m starting this new blog off with a series of de la Riva moves for one obvious reason—de la Riva is pretty much my entire guard game. JT Torres often trains up at my school in New York, especially during the winter. On one fateful day, there was a massive snowstorm and only 3 people showed up for daytime training—myself, a purple belt, and JT Torres. JT had us do 7-10 minute round for an entire training session, all starting from the feet, all high intensity. This proved to be a pretty pivotal moment in my jiu jitsu career, as I was 100% a top game player prior to that day. After having my pathetic guard sliced through and realizing that I didn’t know jack shit about stand-up, I resolved to become a guard player and asked JT to teach me one DLR sweep to get started. That became the timber sweep (although he didn’t have a name for it at the time) and my open guard game was born. I’ve spent the last ~7 months focusing on open guard, and while I technically feel like I know very little outside of DLR, my pass prevention/guard retention has skyrocketed and I feel totally comfortable there. I know my guard is hard to pass and my movement off my back is good, I just need to add moves to the repertoire.

That starts here with some defenses off of DLR passes that I've recently learned or am not comfortable with. I'm systematically building my guard game one piece at a time, linking moves and counters. Here, the Bruno Frazatto sweep feeds into reverse DLR guard and the stuff pass sweeps lead well into deep half or x-guard. All will be important additions to my game, as it is important to get offensive minded with your defense.

A. Bruno Frazatto reverse de la Riva sweep against cut pass
This sweep is, to put it succinctly, fucking dirty. I was told to check it out on http://blackbeltsweepsecrets.com/ where if you register you can watch the sweep explained by the man who made it up (I highly recommend doing so). If you don’t mind giving Lloyd Irvin your e-mail address, it looks like there are some really cool advanced sweeps up there, but this is the only one I’m going to work on for now. The situation—someone starts to cut pass your DLR guard and you slide the RDLR hook in, but they are still driving forward to pass.
1. establish the RDLR hook and with the free (left) leg, point your toes into opponent’s hip
2. with your right hand, get a grip on the far collar, not super high but probably near the collarbone
3. with your left hand, grab the opponent’s far (left) wrist; Bruno says you need to grab the wrist, JT and the brown belt who taught it to me said a secure sleeve grip is fine
4. Simultaneously pull the opponent’s upper body towards you with the collar grip, push his wrist between his legs with the wrist/sleeve grip, and extend his lower body slightly with the RDLR hook so that he is stretched out and essentially balanced on top of you
5. Execute a back roll and, once you are going, extend your legs to come up on top

Those are the main points, but this is a complicated sweep that will require some drilling. Note at the beginning of the Frazatto videos, he does some subtle adjusting before beginning the sweep—grabbing the ankle then pushing back with the hook, pulling Reis slightly to unbalance him etc. That will take some time and drilling repetitions to figure out as there is much more going on there than I can distill into 5 steps.

The BBSS video is a pain to navigate, so here you can check out JT hitting this sweep on Lucas Lepri this year starting at 9:05. Beautiful.

B. Defending Stuff Pass, Sweep 1
-opponent usually backsteps, drives your free leg down between his legs and then pressures into you before working a pass. First step—if he is grabbing at your free leg, that’s an opportunity to sit up and work the sit-up sweeps. If you are past that point, here are 2 options (hooking leg is the left)
1. Swing your body to the right and underhook opponent’s left leg with your right arm, ideally pulling him close and clamping down on his knee for extra control
2. When you swing to the right and underhook the leg, your free leg will slide right behind opponent’s right leg—get your shin right behind the knee
3. Grab opponent’s right ankle with your left hand
4A. Now you have some options. The most standard is to leave your legs unlocked, kick with the shin (maybe using the free leg for momentum) as you sit up with your upper body and pull on the ankle to sweep. If your body is aligned directly under your opponent’s, you will be sweeping in the direction your body is pointing i.e. right towards his right food. If you can lift the opponent off the ground a bit as you start the sweep you’ll have the most power
4B. As you slide underneath opponent, also thread your left shin behind opponents knee. This is harder to get the lower your opponent is to the ground, but is more powerful
4c. Transition into x-guard (not my game)
-It’s important to be fast and aggressive on this sweep. Set it up before he has really started his pass and hit it hard. Otherwise, best case scenario you are in deep half, worst case you are shrimping like mad after your sweep fails

Defending Stuff Pass, Sweep 2
1. You’ve swung underneath like in steps 1 and 2 above.
2. Slot your knee in right behind opponent’s knee. This was described to me as fitting the small groove below your kneecap directly onto the inner tendon on the back of the opponent’s knee for a perfect fit
3. Cross your legs with your right leg on top
4. Get up onto your side facing away from opponent
5. Extend your legs to split your opponent’s base out really wide
6. Pull opponent’s knee inwards like an x-guard set-up
7a. Sweep opponent onto his back by rolling onto your back; if you were on your side and his legs are wide apart, the amount of space you have to roll will force him over
7b. If he bases/falls forward to avoid the sweet, come out the back door with control of at least one leg
-this will feel like a cross between a deep halfguard sweep (with the rolling motion) and an x-guard sweep (with the leg positioning).

DLR: 3 sweeps against opponent in combat base

2011-06-22T22:24:00.003-04:00

Two of these sweeps are nearly identical, and one is very similar to option B here. I've been trying not to play DLR against an opponent in combat base (that's sort of a lie) but if they leave it open or drop down into it, their passing options are severely limited so you are free to try this out without too much fear of getting passed-they aren't going to be really able to drag your leg across your body or easily stuff pass, so they are effectively limiting themselves until they remove your hook and can work for double unders.

A. Sit-Up/Single leg style sweep
-This move works with a ton of different grips, especially if you catch them devoting too much energy to gripping your pants/jacket or sitting back on their heels, although you might have to tap an arm as you come into the "take-down." Usually I'll be trying to tomo-nage or set up the below sweeps and they will sit back to reduce my leverage when you really have to explode into this sweep.
1. Start with grips. Near sleeve and collar, double sleeve, ankle and far sleeve, far sleeve and cross grip and ankle
2. Release the hook and chop the leg down to help you sit up as you simultaneously kick their far knee hard to spread their base.
3. Scissor the far leg inwards to hook behind their near ankle behind your knee and continue this motion to suck their leg behind your. Depending on your grips, you may be able to just come up or you may have to release and post with your right/non-hook hand
4. Once their leg is straightened under you, drive forward into a take-down/sweep, generally tapping the far hip/leg with your right hand
5. Immediately begin to cut pass.

B. Threaded leg DLR Sweep towards front
1. You have double sleeve control, opponent sits to combat base
2. Drive the hook through his legs and hook against opponent's opposite hip, with your leg as straight as possible
3. Thread your free leg underneath your left leg and hook it behind the same side thigh, which is the rear leg/the leg your other foot is controlling.
4. Sweep opponent towards his front by pulling him to the right and extending your legs out
5. as you come up, extract your bottom leg first

C. Thread leg DLR sweep towards back
4. Opponent feels the sweep towards the front coming on so he sits back on his heels to kill your leverage
5. Slightly rock forward into opponent and then pull him back into you hard while contracting your legs, raising him up like a tomo-nage
6. Sweep opponent towards his back, coming into a cut pass by extracting the top leg first; keep sleeve control as you pass

DLR: Timber and Axe Sweep

2011-06-22T20:19:00.001-04:00

The "Timber" sweep, created, named, and taught to me by JT Torres (although nothing is actually new in jiu jitsu) is my best DLR sweep. Deceptively simple and easy to set up, I've actually tried to stop sweeping this way because I'm too successful with it against white-purple belts who let me get a DLR hook and double sleeve control and only sweeping one way is limiting my game. With that said, it's awesome and I just learned the axe sweep to compliment it. If you aren't experienced with DLR, I highly recommend starting with the first sweep.

A. Timber Sweep
(starting left leg hooked, double sleeve control)
1. A really tight hook helps a ton here. To repost:

to get a deep hook, bridge hips and look over left shoulder and drive the hook deep, then recenter and buckle his knee inwards as you square up with a deep hook. It was incredible what a difference this made

2. Slide your hips back and to the left, increasing the angle towards his back. I do this by straightening my legs which naturally changes the ankle towards their back.
3. Raise up on your left hip
4. Plant your right foot on the mat
5. Simultaneously push with your foot, kick with the hook, and pull with your hands to sweep them onto their back
6. Don't drop the hand-grips-use them to come up into a cut pass

B. Axe Sweep
-people can avoid the above sweep with proper posture/positioning, but once the sweep is actually in motion one of the few things an opponent can do is backstep with the back leg and use that to post. This is the counter.
1. Immediately after opponent backsteps, switch your orientation and slide onto your right hip
2. Slightly reposition the hook to be shallower, now pushing into the back of their thigh instead of hooking (looking like a reverse-DLR hook but on the other side)
3. Immediately kick with the hook and pull with the hands to sweep them towards their front
4. Once again come into a cut pass, this time cutting over the top of their thigh. Alternatively, go into more of a smash pass.

De la Riva Sit-Up Sweep Sequence

2011-06-21T01:15:00.004-04:00

Taken from a JT Torres seminar I attended a few days ago. All moves written with left foot hooking.

General DLR Notes:
-far leg on thigh is the most important part of DLR
-to get a deep hook, bridge hips and look over left shoulder and drive the hook deep, then recenter and buckle his knee inwards as you square up with a deep hook. It was incredible what a difference this made

A,. Sit-up sweep, double sleeve control

1. Start with double sleeve control and a deep hook (as detailed above)
2. To sit up, release the DLR hook entirely and swing the leg out and then chop forward to give you the momentum to sit up quickly; also works well when opponent pulls on sleeves
3. As you come up, punch the opponent's far sleeve deep between his legs and then transfer the grip to the other hand; this makes it much harder for him to break free
4.After getting the grip, release your right hand and base out behind you, then scoot your hips a few inches towards his back to increase the angle of the sweep. Next reach up and grab the collar with the now free hand.
5. To sweep, kick the far leg and then pull opponent down by twisting your body, driving the elbow of the hand gripping the collar towards your back. More of a twisting motion then a pull
**not a JT move, but if he posts with his hand to prevent the sweep, option to switch the hook in front of his shin and kick to spin towards the back. Rafa Mendes has a youtube video up about this.

B. Sit-up sweep, opponent frees grip
(Start after #3 above, except opponent rips far arm free)
1. Make sure you are gripping tightly around his leg with your left (hooking side) arm
2. Base your right (now empty) hand out behind you
3. Drop the right leg down and immediately pop into a stand and base motion, trapping his near leg with your right leg and sucking it far behind you as you come up
4. Continue to drag his leg back and drive forward into a takedown.
**Not a JT sweep, but if lose the far grip but can get the near sleeve gripped between his legs, you can also do some cool rolling sweeps between opponent's legs.

C. Sit-up sweep, opponent frees grip and doesn't fall
(Starting after B3)
1. As you drive his leg back hop onto your other (left) foot, keeping his front leg trapped with your right leg which should now be hooked behind your knee. Your head should also be towards the inside of his body. You are secure here as long as you can keep your balance
2. You will most likely now have to switch the gable grip so your right hand is on top
3. After switching grip, now you can step down with your right leg as you step out with your left leg
4. Switch your head to the outside of opponent's body as you slam your shoulder into his hip, rotating (not driving forward) for the take-down
5. Do NOT follow him to the ground, knock him over with the shoulder then move to pass.

Resurrecting an old blog...

2011-06-21T01:08:00.002-04:00

Throughout my jiu-jitsu journey, I've often wished I had kept some sort of moves log. Previously, I used this blog to document everything about my training sessions but did not find it particularly useful and quite frankly it took too much time. I resurrected the blog and wiped the slate clean and now this will mostly serve as a moves log and maybe some very brief training updates tracking how much I'm training. I'll have to play around with formatting and tagging and what exactly I want to put up here so if you manage to stumble to this page, things might come appear and disappear for a while.

For the few people who used to read this blog (and who might have it kicking around a reader or something), I received my blue belt over a year ago from Phil Migliarese. I now feel as an experienced blue that while I know very little technique, I am capable of doing everything. This is an exciting time.