Mamazinho had us working from spider guard. First he showed us a way of dealing with the legs. He had us grab the legs just under the knee and, stepping back like a snap down, bring both feet to the ground.
The pass has you drop down and put your shoulder into the guy's face, while maintaining pressure on the legs. You'll be somewhat more "pushing out" rather than "pushing down", but by that time it shouldn't matter a lot. Control of the legs in general is what you want as you are lowering the shoulder.
From here, move into side control. Get control of the head and the inside leg under the thigh. Mamazinho pointed out that I need to make sure I follow through and get the control to get into the good habit of following through. It's the same point that Tommy used to make about drilling armbars from the mount: you'll do in competition only what you do in practice.
After that, Mamazinho was all about the bottom guy. He showed us a sweep and a choke from this position. I didn't exactly realize it, but this bottom position--the same, Marcelinho-esque, one that Rodrigo had us working no gi on last Thursday with the arm drag--is a big one for me if I'm going to start out from that Marcelinho position.
The sweep. If the top guy tries the "lower the shoulder" pass of your guard, then you want to reach down with your INSIDE hand (the hand between you and him) and control the wrist that is pinning your leg. With the outside hand you want to reach over and grab the belt (preferably) or the pants.
Here is a tricky part. Mamazinho made a big point about how you want to walk your body around to get leverage for the sweep. If I'm remembering it correctly, then you want to walk "backwards"--the same way you would if you were in south-facing side control and looking to make a big step to take mount--and then roll "backwards" over your mat shoulder and into side control.
The choke. One key is that you want to go cross collar to your open side. In other words, if you are left knee down (open to the left side), then you want to grab the opposite collar with your right hand. This is a good rule of thumb for me when starting out free sparring, when I adopt the "Marcelinho guard" (I'd say cross collar and sleeve with the Shaka sweep being one of the first attacks).
The choke works if the guy ducks his head and uses his head to push you back in his guard pass rather than his shoulder. It looks a lot like the loop choke in my Jean Jacques Machado book. What you want to do is push the guy's head down with your outside hand into a guillotine-style choke, then use that same hand to snake under the near arm and back behind the head.
Use the same sort of backward roll on the mat shoulder to get top position and tighten the choke as you turn.
One tip is that the grip on the collar doesn't have to be especially tight. In fact, a looser, "lower down the collar" grip will actually make it easier for your wrist to turn as you go into the roll.
I wouldn't mind doing this a time or two on Wednesday to make sure I've got the steps down. It makes sense, motion-wise, in terms of not blocking your own body. But I few more "throws" wouldn't hurt, at all.
