A good training night tonight - in large part boosted by getting to roll with Cindy no gi before the gi class. As Rodrigo said, we sparred all of Tuesday's beginner class, so Thursday night would be all drills. And in Cindy's no gi class, we did technique and I got a roll with Bruce. So thanks to a visiting reporter doing a story on Cindy and her kid's class (and more as it turns out), I managed to get in two sparring sessions on a night where I might have only got one.
Rodrigo had us working half guard passes from the half guard. There were two, both variations on kind of knee-through pass. The first has you secure the underhook, then plan your head on the near side of the opponent's head and your pass-side arm posted wide. Pike up high, with your weight on your head, giving your hips room to move. Keeping shoulder pressure on, pivot and dip your hips in as you knee-through the half guard.
You can use the other foot to push off on the legs if you get stuck. You also want to control the guy's pass-side arm, pulling it up as you would in side control.
This is the pass I have the hardest time dealing with. So seeing how to do the pass correctly will hopefully help me defend it - as well as add it to my half guard passing game. I still like my current half guard pass better. I'm just more comfortable with it. But adding this one as an alternative is a good idea.
The variation comes about if your foot gets stuck and you just can't get it out. What you want to do here is to get double underhooks, releasing the arm control and snaking for the underhook, walking your fingers and hands forward to get maxiumum control of the upper body. Take your trapped knee and put it over on the far side, the non-pass side until that knee hits the mat.
As you are doing this, you bring up your other leg and slide that leg, knee-first, in between you. If you do the move as you rotate over with the trapped knee, there should be plenty of room to wedge the other knee in there.
Kick your trapped leg free and then shoot the trailing leg (the knee wedge leg) out as you sit into scarf hold.
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Cindy had us working the duck-under, which is increasingly my favorite move from the clinch/standup no gi. We also worked on the two alternatives after you get the takedown (remember to hang on the neck!): the take-the-back move with the knee block and the hand reach around to the thigh, and the side control move from controlling the elbow and the knee and essentially tackling the guy over.
I need to ask again about leg control, to be sure. But I'm pretty confident about the arm control.
She also had us work on another option, especially against someone who goes for a single leg. It has you move in a couple of different directions, which make it seem more complicated than it is. But it looks like a great way to put the attack back on someone who had just launched an attack.
What you want to do is drop to the knee of the attacked leg. Stuff the head with the arm on the opposite side. Reach around and grab the butt, thigh or ankle on the attacked side. Bring your opposite leg up, like you would in a tight kimura or armlock attack, tight against his side.
You are going to fall on your "opposite leg" as you drag the guy toward you by the butt, thigh or ankle. It's similar to the sort of sit Rodrigo had us to to fight off the butterfly guard.
As soon as you pull him into you, you come up a bit and switch your hips so that you wind up sitting down into a perfect crossbody on his other side.
It's definitely a move that improves on drilling. Cindy also had us work on another back control technique from the turtle where you get a backward harness with your north arm under the neck and the far armpit and your south arm closing in for a darce grip. You walk around to the side, tightening the grip as you move, until you are in front of him, almost lying on your back. From here you pull him in toward you as if you were hiking a football. Give it a good pull and he should wind up right in your back control.
I had a hard time doing this from the one side where the pull came from my bad shoulder. But switching to the other side pretty much fixed the problem. It's another nice little wrinkle from the turtle. If the person doesn't go, then you can always roll backward and work to take their back.
A good night, like I said. A lot of technique. A lot to remember. Hopefully, I got all - or most - of it down more or less like it happened.
