A lot of work on the pendulum sweep in today's class. Professor Carlos showed us two versions, as well as a version that sets up an armlock.
Critical in the details were a few things: breaking posture and waiting for the guard passer to move before using your legs to off-balance him forward. Also key were some of the different ways to control the inside arm or hand (or elbow) to keep the guy from posting as he pitches forward and begins to turn. I have a habit of doing the sweep without opening my guard, using my legs to squeeze and then sort of throw the guy over by extending my legs. Not ideal form, and not the way to go if you want the armbar option. So I'll try to keep working on this one a little bit.
Some good work in Live Training. I still haven't really done any deep half work in the past several weeks. But I have been able to spend a LOT of time working on the Effing Pass, which is just great. This pass didn't even exist for me until this year and it's already giving me a lot of confidence when it come to dealing with really tricky guards. Some of the reactions to this passing attack - silent or almost silent reactions - are suggesting that folks haven't figured out what to do against the Effing Pass, which gives me an edge in terms of starting to build on the pass.
I'm also liking my Double Unders pass or, more accurately, the counter to the defense of the Double Unders pass. It really exploits the physics involved: just as the guy is working to fight off the squeeze of the Double Under, you switch your grip with a simple wrist rotation to palm the thigh (instead of hooking it), force the leg to the mat, and then bring your shin over on top quickly to pin the leg in place. From there, any number of passing options are available.
No post-train weight since the scale is low on batteries. Hopefully that will be taken care of by Wednesday.
