Tonight we worked counters to the collar grab from standing, as well as an intensive on opening the closed guard. Perfect calls, IMO. The counter to the collar grab is a nice compliment to the stand-up work we just did with Marcio and Kyra at the seminar last week. While the opening of the closed guard speaks for itself--I need the work!
The counters to the collar grab were throws, three of them really. Koshi guruma, the "hip wheel" throw I always think of as the headlock hip throw, Ippon Seionage, one-arm shoulder throw (pronounced "soy-nage"), and a sacrifice version of ippon seionage that I think I've heard called the "drop seionage" where you drop to your knees just before executing the throw.
These throws--and ippon seionage was by far my favorite--work as counters to the collar grab. The guy grabs your collar in the standup, say his left hand on your right collar. Rather than stepping away, you step into the guy, grabbing his elbow and reaching for either the head (koshi guruma) or underneath his bicep (ippon seionage), reverse pivot and execute the throw.
We worked on that for mostly half the class, going back and forth. Very good stuff.
The second half of the class involved opening the closed guard. Rodrigo just had us get in closed guard. The bottom guy couldn't submit or sweep, just try and keep the guard closed. The top guy had to open the guard. Passing the guard, per se, wasn't so important. The goal was in "opening" the guard.
This was a great, great drill. I've said over and over again that if there is one thing that is a glaring weakness in my game, it is opening the closed guard. I'd say that even though my guard game isn't spectacular by any means, the style of jiu jitsu I play hasn't exposed my guard game (at least not in competition). But I've been exposed on numerous occasions as someone who has a very difficult time opening the closed guard if the guy on the bottom decides to keep it closed.
I didn't do as well as I would have liked. One major mistake I was making in the Saulo pass was forgetting to sit as I'm pressuring the legs. I was doing everything else fairly well: good base, good hand position, good step-out. The problem was that even though I was putting pressure on the knee of the leg that was in front of me, I wasn't putting equal pressure on the leg behind me because I forgot to sit into that leg as I was pressuring the other knee down. That little detail was enough to frustrated my ground guard opening attack.
At least I remembered to turn my body! Bit by bit it comes together. Hopefully, I'll get another crack at it tonight during Stephan's class.
Sparring wasn't bad. Again Rodrigo focused us on the closed guard. I almost got caught in an armlock from the guard by Bruce, a white belt who also managed to pass my guard and take mount at one point. Good for him. I seemed to do better as the sparring went on, catching one of my "classic" americana submissions from the guard in one match and doing a pretty good job of maintaining mount in another.
