Great work pulling half guard from standing. Between this work and Lindsey's class on the Rip Cord (ankle pick takedown), I'm feeling as if we are working our way through my BJJ Favorites list. It's a very nice opportunity to refresh both of these moves, moves that I've had some of my best successes in competition.
Key details included stepping to the side, toward the sleeve grip side, to create a better angle for attacking with the half guard. Another detail was in making sure that your head is as close to the guy's "free" leg. This makes it easy to get good control over the off-side with your underleg hook. A third key detail was in putting the sleeve in tight as you pull guard so as to better pass control of that sleeve to your other hand.
We did two sweeps from this position: the scissor sweep/collar drag, and the Marcelo. Although neither of these sweeps is a go-to sweep for me just yet, there's a lot to like about both.
A good amount of time spent in specific training to wrap things up before the Live Training session. We did half guard, working both sides, with three different partners. I wasn't able to implement the new sweeps, but I was able to do some good work with the tilt-a-whirl to relieve crossface pressure, as well as to set up new angles for attack.
163.4 on the scale post-train. One thing I need to adjust is to go back to the bicep control against the neck rather than the "shoulder of justice" approach that someone suggested to me a few weeks ago. The problem with the shoulder of justice approach when attacking the half guard with the Roger is that it creates pressure on the jaw rather than on the neck. That's fine for certain situations, but because the Roger requires a lot of upperbody pressure, the shoulder of justice is turning out to be too brutal of an option and far more than I need.
