A nice couple of hours on the mat tonight. Going in to things, it was good to see little Emmanual back on the mat after his injury last week (I think it was). If he sticks with it, he is really going to be something else. Of course, as my Dad once said when somebody said the same thing of me 25 years ago at one of those infamous high school football awards banquets, "he already is." Props to Pop.
Anyway, Rodrigo had us work out some half guard basics. These are the kinds of things I need to sear into my jiu jitsu brain if I'm going to make half guard my province, basics or not.
The first was his technique of cranking the outside leg and hipscaping out to get to your side when you get put flat on your back in half guard. This happens to me all the time and though I often get out of that situation fairly well, I don't have a good "go to" approach (like when I'm passing half guard). The point of that hipscaping and leg cranking is to both get on your side as well as create space so that you can shoot in your arm and get the underhook.
With your underhook, you want to shoot that arm high under the shoulder. The higher you shoot it, the more you are likely to move his body forward - making it easier to slip your head out and take the back.
I had a really hard time with this using my "bad" side (left leg as inside hook leg). My regular side wasn't perfect. But at least I was able to do the technique.
Rodrigo also showed us a sweep from this position. Say you try and get the underhook but the guy is just too tight. This would also probably work if the guy gets the underhook on you.
Reach over his back and grab his belt. Hipscape your hips back as far as you need to in order to insert a butterfly hook on the same side as your belt grab.
With your other hand, you want to control his outside arm, preferably at the elbow.
The sweep is a tackle type sweep. You want to pull on the arm, lift with the butterfly hook and - importantly - "stand up" on the inside leg as you look in the direction of the sweep.
Andrew, who I hadn't seen in a while and showed up about 45 minutes in, emphasized this last point. It was something I was doing a bit of - I think because I was reminded of that detail that Kesting talks about in his butterfly guard DVD, the idea that by pressing up on that one leg, you can get some nice elevation that makes the sweep that much harder to "balance" out of.
We worked those pretty much for the first half of class, then did some specifics out of the half guard, and then some general sparring. Tonight was kimura night for me. I managed to get one from the guard and one from side control. It's funny. I used to go for weeks without ever managing to submit anyone during sparring. But over the past few months I actually managed to get one or two a night.
I also got Stephen and Rodrigo to show me that one moth guard sweep that I was liking a few weeks ago. I couldn't remember where to put the inside leg. It actually hooks either under the leg (if the guy brings his knee up) or "backwards hooking" the side of the guy's body. Rodrigo emphasized the point that you can attack with this sweep in pretty much the same way whether the guy brings the knee up or not. Just attack and underhook that inside leg and use your inside leg as the lever to help get him up and over.
Stubbornly high 160.6 or so after training. I'm hoping to be under 159 after training on Thursday. But I'm not holding my breath. Then again, ideally, I'll gradually drift all the way down to 155 and not have to cut weight in November. So, I've got plenty of time to still do it the way I want.
Wow, I'm watching UFC 4. I've been watching the first few UFC events on DVD over the past few days and I'm almost as amazed now as I was 13-14 years ago when I first saw vale tudo fighting. I say vale tudo instead of mixed martial arts because the early UFC events really do show the difference between the two. In a perfect world, I actually prefer vale tudo. But that's another story for another day.
