Good training today at midweek. We continue to work on attacks from rear mount, and added some guard recovery work from the turtle position for the guy on the bottom.
The turtle work in particular was helpful. From the front turtle position, you want to post on the knee and elbow on one side, then send the opposite leg out sideways to complete the base. Here was a key detail: you want to cross grip with your sideways leg and grab the opposite knee. If you grab the same side knee, then it is possible for the guy to escape your guard recovery by spinning around your grip, using your grip as a pivot, and end up re-taking your back.
From here, you want to send the bottom leg between the guy's legs to get the half guard hook in place. There is a full guard option, depending on spacing. but for me, the half guard option will almost always be the preferred one.
From the rear turtle, there was a detail that I had been missing before. When you are in turtle and the guy is attacking from the back, you reach back and grab the knee on one side, your turn side.
Here is the detail. The leg you are going to use to establish the half guard inside hook is not the first leg (not the same leg as the grip). That leg has to actually get out of the way so that as you turn, it is your second leg that slides in for the bottom hook. So the point is that it is the second leg, the trailing leg, that establishes the half guard.
Worked specific with Bryan and some sparring with Clay, who is one tough white belt and is fast becoming one of my new favorite sparring partners among the guys coming up. He has some very good instincts against my half guard, for example, and it has been a challenge to try and keep one step ahead of him.
More tempo training tomorrow and then back on the mat Friday. I bummed out of my aerobic capacity workout - the 10th of the series - yesterday. Maybe I'll see if I can make it up next Saturday. With 8 Weeks Out a few weeks away and competition training starting this week (Monday and Tuesday nights at 7, Friday at 12:30 and Saturday at noon), I'm not going to kick myself for postponing a final 45-minute stint on the treadmill.
161.0 on the scale post-train.
