Okay, it was neither, really. But on the one hand I got more submissions tonight in specific and general sparring than I think I've gotten all year.
On the other hand I had an impossible time with the white belt wrestler Joe and his cranks and rear mount.
Mamazinho showed us a couple of moves from half-guard. Good, solid basic stuff. The kind of thing I've really got to put in the Book. The first was a half-guard reversal to the back, and the second was a half guard, full guard replacement. Very simple. Very straightforward. Very effective.
But I've got to make sure I practice them. The fact of the matter is that there are a lot of times you can be in half-guard, even against guys that are much better. If you have a solid threat to take the back from that position, or to get back to full guard, that's an advantage worth having.
The take-the-back move is similar to the "duck under" that I've been reading in the Martell Greco-Roman Wrestling book. Here, you want to take advantage of when the top guy moves to south-facing side control with the elbow on the far side of the bottom guy's head. You'd never do such a move from a dominant position if you were standing in Greco. You'd be giving the guy the duck under to take your back. And that's as good a position in Greco as it is in Brazilian jiu jitsu (or should be in my case.)
The move is basically the same as the going to knees from elbow escape. But you do it with the outer leg trapping the top guy's leg and a deep underhook on that side. You could probably come up to your elbow on the other side in a worst case scenario, and then work to either take the back or pummel him over. The main idea is to free your ass, and not remained pinned beneath his center of gravity.
The full guard replacement has you pin the guy's leg with your inside leg and use your outside leg to hook under that same leg higher up. You need to elbow escape out a bit to the outside (I should think of elbow escape and side control together) to get the room, depending on your flexibility. But even I was able to get my outside leg hooked fairly high up. With an underhook on the escape side, grab the pants near the knee on the other side.
Lift up, and simultaneously slide your inside leg to the outside and then up to regain full guard.
Some good stuff tonight in sparring like I said. It's been months since I got a single "top" submission like a kimura or a keylock, and I managed to get two or three tonight in five separate sparring sessions (a long Monday night!). The then-and-now, I think, was just relentlessness. If you've got a good position, then you've got to throw submissions (or new positions) at the guy constantly. Not sloppily and not "fakes"--real submission attacks.
As long as you've got the position, you've got the option to throw effective submission attacks and/or move to other more-or-less equal positions. At the same time, you don't want to be so focused on submission attacks that you forget gauging whether you are still in the optimal position. And, especially in my case, you don't want to be so focused on maintaining position--especially a single position--that you never make the guy worry about getting submitted (the BJJ equivalent of a cardinal sin).
So good for me on that score. I'd like to put the armlock by way of Bravo's Spider Web to use, the north hook crawl and south hook step armlocks ... There were a couple of times when I started after the south hook step, but I got confused and scared at making the move over the head to the other side of the guy (again, not wanting to lose the position from the side). I'm blown away at how many opportunities you have to make that attack, especially if the guy is busy fending off kimuras and keylocks (and chokes when you include the gi). I've got to work on that. I was watching Marcelinho finish Chris Brennan in the first round of the 2005 ADCC competition the other night. He uses the south hook step, and no gi at that. Good stuff.
