No gi tonight. A smallish class with two new brand new big guys, and a couple of guys who are just starting out also. Angela, Jason (Garcia), Steven, Lance ... Andrew showed up a little later ...
A good rough warm-up, though not as tough as last Thursdays. My conditioning is slowly coming back. But I definitely need to get back to it on Saturday and Sunday I'm thinking The 39 on Saturday and a LSD on Sunday.
We worked hip throws and then arm drag takedowns. For the hip throw, in addition to making the right inside pivot, Rodrigo emphasized bringing both hands together--almost like a wedge--and sliding your outstretched arms around the neck and over the arm to grip the tricep.
Another way of doing the move is to underhook the arm instead of wrapping the head. I didn't practice a lot of those--in part I think because I was working with a taller guy and I just didn't feel like I had much control. We drilled this standing and walking.
The arm drag was standard. The emphasis here was not letting go of the arm after you've dragged it. It will be part of the takedown eventually. Another detail was how Rodrigo had us to a short of inside leg chuck or sweep on the leg that is on the same side as the arm you are dragging. I actually remember a takedown drill where one person had to takedown everyone in class one after the other in a line. Tommy did just this armdrag takedown on everybody. I've also seen Marcelo Garcia hit it in highlight videos.
Getting a little ahead of myself ... Rodrigo showed us what the next move would be, which was to drop down and hook the drag-side leg with your leg. The move was very similar to the one Rodrigo had us do a few days ago. It's a great, great move and one that I really have to perfect since the arm drag is something I'm trying to make a big part of my game.
Sparring was pretty good. I think I rolled five or six times. In some ways it was pretty crazy; the mat seemed like a water slide and it was impossible sometimes to get a base. I did manage to get my first ever rear naked choke submission. I actually had the neck perfectly for a few seconds before I realized all I had to do was the "good to go" move and slide my other hand behind the neck. Squeeze the elbows and ta-da.
I'm not going to say that I want to pattern my game after Marcelo Garcia's. But maybe a combination of Garcia's and Rodrigo's wouldn't be so bad (with a little Leo Viera thrown in for good measure). I like Rodrigo's guard a lot: excellent use of hooks and very little inverted guard type stuff. With Garcia, the armdrag and the RNC are just gold as far as I'm concerned.
Interestingly, the afterschool special was Rodrigo showing a bunch of us how Marcelo sets up his x-guard or cross guard. Rodrigo doesn't use a whole lot of cross guard himself. But the philosophy of the hooks is very, very similar. The more I looked at it, even though I don't think Rodrigo's game and Marcelo's game are all that simiiar, both have a similar appreciation of the well-placed hook behind the knee.
The afterschool special was similar to the move from spider guard that Rodrigo showed us the other day. From Cobra guard with one knee up and one knee down, you shoot your down leg through and underhook the guy's leg. The knee up leg hooks under the guy's knee.
The underhook needs to be deep. Get that guy's leg up on your shoulder not just on your arm. Saulo makes this point about the guard pass: use your shoulder, which is stronger than just your arm.
Push out with the knee hook and straighten your body to extend the leg-on-shoulder. Take the shoot-through leg and hook it higher up on the leg compared to the knee hook. You are now in cross guard.
You can shoulder the guy over. You can stand. And if the guy tries to lower his weight on you by sitting, you roll in the direction of your leg-on-shoulder, pulling with the inside hook to take him backwards.
Rodrigo also showed a great counter. When the guy rocks back into the cross guard, Rodrigo just walked forward and then did a sort of sit out with the leg that was being double hooked. Straight into side control.
It was pretty funny having Rodrigo go over and over and over on all the variations of the cross guard, everybody's eyes like saucers, then he goes, "Okay, and here is how I would counter that."
Good stuff. During sparring, Jason (Garcia) caught me in a crazy scissor neck crank armbar for my last tap of the week. I remember Cindy catching me in a similar scissor neck crank twice in a row. So when Jason hit it, I thought I knew what was going on. But then he caught my arm. I tried to slide my arm back. But he had me perfectly, right at the elbow.
