The most memorable part of Thursday training was the lagoon of sweat the mats became with about an hour of training left.
I'd never seen anything like it. But you could hardly step anywhere without stepping in one pool of sweat or another. It was like a slip and slide you'd see in somebody's yard in the middle of July. While it didn't inhibit grappling per se, it was certainly dangerous for anybody who tried to do any standing. Pretty amazing scene.
Rodrigo showed us a guard pass that was one used by recent Pan Am standout Lucas Leite. It is similar to a pass that Marcelo Garcia showed us in his seminar, as well as one that Saulo points out in his book as a "popular new pass."
The idea is to palm the stomach as part of a penetration step into the open guard. You want to drive forward with your knee and really put the pressure on him directly in his abdomen/lower chest.
With your outside leg you want to step up so that your feet are roughly parallel. Your weight should be on his abdomen/lower chest, with your palm hand putting a lot of pressure and limiting his movement.
You have to push the guy's leg that you have between your legs UP AND IN. If you press that leg down, it will only make it easier for him to roll to his side and block your pass with his other leg/knee. Push his leg in at the knee.
As you do this, you want to kick your penetration leg back and out. There are two ways to do this. I had an easier time passing to my left (the guy's right, most guy's stronger side) when I switched to a knee on belly with my inside leg as I cleared the leg. But working on the move later and passing to my right (jab step and palm left, pass to guy's left, most guy's weaker side), I was actually doing a better job of the backstep that Rodrigo seemed to prefer.
I should drill that. I think that one of the huge keys to being a great guard passer, one of the easy things that anyone can adopt, is to be able to pass to both sides. Very few people are automatically able to defend a quality guard pass from both directions. Being able to pass to the left or right is like being able to dribble in basketball or soccer equally well to both sides. There are very few professionals who can do that, let alone amateurs.
So we'll see. Tatame was pretty good, nothing that stood out particularly. I was able to work the Tozi pass a bit better, though I still want to focus on standing solutions to getting out of guard. No gi is a bit of an exception, and may be a place where the Tozi pass can actually be the #1 or #2 passes.
Still not satisfied with my half guard passing. I do feel that I'm only about a month away from fixing my issues there, at least if I focus on it. I feel pretty confident in the mechanics of my half guard passes. I just to start linking them together in a coherent half guard passing attack.
Another half guard note. With the Old School/foot grab sweep, it really pays to attack the toes, not the instep. That extra four inches of reach you don't need, coupled with the control you get by grabbing the toes, should make the sweep that much more effective.
I also noted that if you get the grip low enough around the thigh, instead of the waist, you're already in pretty good position for a single leg takedown. Change the angle a little to get more behind them and drive your shoulder into their abdomen. Worst case scenario is that it turns into a standing single leg attempt.
Looking forward to training on Friday, at least for a little while. It will be nice to get my four days in. 156.0 on the scale.
