Managed to get on the mat twice during the holiday shortened week, Monday and Tuesday nights. I had hoped to sneak back to the Academy on Friday during the day, but the market volatility has really made it hard to look away from the screens for even a few hours.
We've continued to work on open guard sweeps this past week. The "one" variation, with the hook behind the leg, the "two" variation with the balloon sweep if he sprawls to avoid your leg control, and the "three" variation with the de la Riva hook.
This week, I think it was Tuesday, we added a wrinkle for when the opponent remains on the ground, as well as when he puts one knee up.
The variation with the knee up led us toward open guard variation "three" with the de la Riva hook. We started with a transition to moth guard as a way of dealing with a guy trying to elbow your closed guard open. The detail here was to turn on your side and really push off with your foot (right in my case) to create some distance before swinging your leg knee in and up into the moth guard.
It's a reminder to go really slow and deep when doing hip escapes, to train your body to respond accurately.
Let's say he puts his right knee up. And I've got the moth guard on. I want to grab his right ankle with my left hand and hook my left leg in a DLR hook on his up leg.
To get space to do this, I push off again with my off leg (right), the same way you do in the "three" open guard DLR variation and lift my hips up and over to that I get a good angle on the up leg.
Here's another key detail. To sweep, you lift up with the ankle and the DLR hook, pull on the sleeve with your off hand (right) and push out the opponent's down knee.
In order to have the leverage to pull this off, though, you have to sit up. You can't be on your back trying to push out the leg and pull on the sleeve and lift up on the DLR hook unless you can just overpower the guy and lift his body. By sitting up and the falling back into the sweep, you get the momentum you need to help move him forward and into the sweep.
Keep turning into the sweep until your DLR hook foot is planted on the mat. That's how you'll know that you have the control.
