A great way to end the week - though it is clearer than ever that a perfect training schedule would allow me to get some time on the mat on Saturday just to wash things down. Rodrigo had us work one move - a counter to the bump / underhook /back2belly escape from side control - at varying levels of intensity.
The counter has you switch your hips to watchdog and bring your headside elbow back across his underhooking arm. As you do this, you backstep with your south leg. You are working to take his back as he goes flat.
Do a reverse sitout, bringing your inside leg back behind you to get toward the back. The trick is to backstep your way around instead of crawling, which gives the guy a chance to take your leg and attack with a single.
This is a tricky move. It really tests your ability to move your body, a theme in Rodrigo's training. There was a lot of that in the handicapped drill that Rodrigo had us to Monday night: moving your shoulders and hips - the strongest parts of your body - instead of reaching and trying to control and move the guy with your arms.
Cindy led the no gi class. We worked the arm stuff triangle, and a front headlock snapdown to rear mount. The arm stuff triangle was a nice repeat - it's always nice to see people with shorter legs like mine teaching the triangle choke. The long-legged guys can just throw triangles like nothing. You've got to have the right technique to get away with it if you are built on the smaller side.
The front headlock snapdown to rear mount move was a nice jiu jitsu/wrestling hybrid. You "pet the cat" and pull the head down, immediately going for an overunder (like you were setting up an arm triangle or anaconda choke). Keep your elbow in (I'll explain why in a minute) but clasp the guy's tricep as part of the arm triangle.
You want to put all your weight on his shoulder, as you would for a clock choke. If you can flatten him out, so much the better.
You are going to spin into the guy, reaching under his body with your outside arm (the one not involved in the arm triangle) to get an underarm grip on his wrist (as you might if you had rear mount).
In the spin, your inside knee should rotate in against his hip. It's the inside knee that you pivot around as you spin.
Release the arm triangle and cross face to get new head control. Cindy calls it "brushing the teeth". Depending on the ferocity of your opponent, apply this concept at your discretion as literally as the situation requires.
From here, switch your knees and do the "fat man roll" back in towards you and work for the hooks.
I mentioned the elbow. Cindy warned us against going too deep with the elbow. It's something that Saulo warns about also. Cindy's point was that it was very easy to "elbow drag" the guy if his arm was too deep in attacking with the front headlock.
All you have to do is grab his elbow with the hand on your trapped arm and walk toward that side. So if your right arm is trapped and you are reaching across your body (your arm should already be driven against your body), grab the elbow on your left side and walk around to your left.
As you do this, pull on the elbow and you'll be surprised at how easy it is to "elbow drag" him and take his back - or even armlock him if you lean forward against his elbow.
Some good work from the half guard in no gi. I think I'm going to work both butterfly and half guard from now until after the Marcelo Garcia seminar in September. That's when I'll begin my seven-week "camp" in preparation for the November revolution tournament. This is the one I've been working up to, so I want to do this one right - which might even include competing in the no gi division, as well.
We'll see. As much as I'd love to be able to train on Saturdays, Thursday night no gi is a pretty fun way to finish of the training week.
One thing that I've been doing a much, much better job with is controlling the hands from my cobra guard. I still don't mount much of a credible offense and end up pulling half guard. But I'm surprised at how just being aggressive about controlling the guy's hands has stopped that "expressway to side control" that had been happening far too frequently as I've tried to learn this type of guard.
Now if only I could turn that wrist control into arm drags ...
