Lindsey led the class tonight. We worked a couple of different moves from the guard and mount. The first was a triangle from the guard. Lindsey's main emphasis on was on keeping everything tight and, like Cindy's triangle, grabbing the shin instead of trying hit the Instant Triangle.
Lindsey also likes to underhook the arm to help you pivot into the "rifle sight" of the triangle. I would imagine that if you combined that with the shin grab and pivoting with the overlocking leg, you would very effortlessly get perpendicular and perfectly into prime triangle position.
We also worked to Rap Star moves. The Rap Star triangle and the Rap Star butterfly sweep. I had success going both directions with the Rap Star butterfly sweep, but Lindsey's approach of sweeping away from the rap side seems to leave you in the most dominant position.
I go back and forth over whether I should stick with developing my half guard whenever possible or introduce butterfly guard and try to optimize them both at the same time. I still think the better approach is to bring on the butterfly guard work after I've started to feel some real comfort with my options in the half. But it is nice to work the butterfly a bit from time to time, just to alert my body to what will be coming with more frequency in 2009.
We last did a triangle choke from mount. I had been looking at this position in one of my books because I'm still looking for a "go to" attack from mount. I'm feeling more and more capable of maintaining mount, switching from the Squeeze to double grapevines to Saulo's "technical mount". But I'm not at a point where I have a proven gameplan for finishing from the top.
I'm sure I'll figure it out. Clearly that will be where I will be getting most of my submissions from: I'm doing too well at getting and keeping mount to look to finish fights elsewhere (i.e., from the guard, knee on belly, rear mount ...). I've just got to keep trying different things and see what surfaces.
