A smallish class tonight, which probably spared us from the usual blasting we get on Wednesday evenings. Elbow escapes to warm up (three trips). Then straight into drills. I trained with Mario.
The first few drills were spider guard related. Rodrigo first had us practice pivoting in the spider guard from side to side. You want your body/butt to be close to the side where the guard is close, the "pull" side of the spider guard. That is compared to the "push" side, where you are pushing on the guy's bicep with your foot.
Second, Rodrigo had the top guy work a spider guard pass technique that involved dropping a knee on the the thigh of the extended leg in the spider guard. This drop simultaneously removes the cuff grip on that side, as well.
Third, Rodrigo had the top guy work a hand technique to beat the grip in the spider guard. All the top guy had to do was rotate his forearm/hand out and under the leg (generally, the extended leg) and grab the pants inside the knee. This is almost guaranteed to remove the grip.
Lasly, Rodrigo gave the bottom guy something else to do. It was a counter to that third technique. Just as the top guy rotates his hand out and under the leg to break the grip and grab the pants by the inside knee, the bottom guy wants to flicker the lower leg on that side up and out ...
then (and here's the tricky part that I'm not sure I got right) circles the lower leg over the top guy's forearm and then back under the arm higher up. If I'm remembering correctly you'll end up with your foot in the guy's armpit.
We've done a leg-grapevine move likes this from spider guard before. Working with Mario, doing it one way made the move almost impossible to complete, but doing it the other way made the move perfectly easy to do. Like I said, I want to remember how that one worked ...
We finished up with a pair of drills. The first was a repeat of the side control to mount drill we did on Monday. You start in solid side control, then reach over the head, elbow to the mat, with the northmost arm, while simultaneously switching your hips to open them up to the south. That paves the way for the attempt to take mount. You can go completely over the top of the guy's knees, stick your knee in between his knees and belly or, if you are flexible enough, stick your foot between his knees and belly.
The last drill of the night was a sort of takedown from the ground. It involves that "sidecar" hip switch from the JJ Machado book, a switch I've been practicing as a warm-up exercise before classes. Essentially, you start on your back knees up. The guy is in front of you on his knees. The guy takes a step (one knee up, one knee down) toward you, with his leg between your knees. You want to sit up quickly in the sidecar position, with the front leg hooked around his ankle ...
Here's the cool part. You bring that front leg back toward you, sweeping the guy's step-up leg out from under him. Your knee should end up pointing outside (to your right if you are using your right leg) as you take him over. That sweep should do most of teh work of putting him off balance--not the shoulder that you drive into him to "help" put him on his back.
