I had a pretty good training session on Monday. My work from on top is getting more consistent. There are still a couple of specific things I want to tighten up, though.
Passing the guard: A little better here. There are really two steps: opening the guard and then actually passing the guard. I haven’t been working the Saulo pass like I should. But I have done better with the Knee drop pass. In fact I managed to open Joe’s guard using it—though it took a little bit of extending my knee and pushing back to finally pop the latch. The Knee drop is a big no-gi pass, so I’m liking the fact that I was able to get it to work with the gi. Tonight I should put more emphasis on the Gracie Barra and Cesar Gracie standing passes.
In terms of passing the knees, shortly after working the Knee drop on Joe I managed to hit Bravo’s Staple Gun pass to get to side control. That was pretty amazing insofar as I’d never practiced that one, or even looked at it much in the book. It also involves that backstep that Rodrigo loves, but that I don’t see a lot of guys using. Bravo talks about alternating between the Staple Gun and the Underpass—the Underpass being that one pass I remember Leo Viera working against someone (Rob Di Censo?) with a very good butterfly type guard with sick hip flexibility.
Tommy showed us a few other passes, some of them with definite Cindy influences (“the Cindy Hop”), and some of them reminiscent of what Mamazinho taught us recently in terms of stepping between the knees and underhooking the far arm, and some that reminded me of the pass that Rodrigo showed us awhile back where you step to the outside of the leg near the hip and sort of backstep to the north, winding up in south-facing/Twister side control type position.
Tommy’s were all standing passes, compared to Bravo’s Underpass and Staple Gun. Ideally, I’ll get all of these down. For now, I want to focus on the Underpass and the Staple Gun.
From the bottom: Two main issues here: escaping rear mount and sweeping from the half guard.
As much as I like the Saulo escape from rear mount, I want to work the more standard, Mamazinho version for the next few sessions. Let’s remember the basics:
Escaping rear mount
1. Defend the neck and follow the fingers: Use the choke side arm to defend the neck
2. Put your head on the mat: Shift your body and put your head (and shoulders if possible) on the mat AWAY from the choke.
3. Block the far leg and elbow escape back in: Use the far hand to block or grab the guys’ far leg so he won’t roll over and take the mount. Take the inside arm—the one that was defending the neck—and drop that elbow to the mat as you turn into the guy, rolling him over into side control.
The other thing I want to work on is sweeping from the half guard. In addition to the two that Mamazinho showed us a little while back, one where you replace the full guard and one where you take the back, I’ve got three from Bravo: Old School, Plan B and Twist Back. What is most important right now is that I get my half guard set up properly. The trick is to have your inside leg straight down the middle between the guy’s legs. The outside leg wraps over the guy’s outside leg.
To actually close the half guard, you hook the foot of the outside leg under the calf of the inside leg.
There are other things I should work on tonight, of course. My work from the guard has gotten a little weaker, and I haven’t hit the Shaka sweep in several classes. I also haven’t been working Tommy’s Spider Triangle/Omoplata like I should. I should probably start more sparring sessions by pulling guard, trying to get the sweep or submission, and then working my top game if I don’t get the sub from the bottom. Last class, I took down all three guys with throws from the knees. That doesn’t replicate anything that’s likely to happen in a tournament, so I shouldn’t get accustomed to doing this too often.
